AMERICA'S FAR EASTERN POLICY-A JAPANESE VIEW "All for the sake of peace, and everything in the interest of China," says America, just to get into the good grace of the Celestials. From Tokyo Puck (Japan) OF CRISIS BY W. T. STEAD A YEAR or two ago I was asked by the editor of one of the most widely circulated of all American magazines to write an article explaining to the democracy of the New World why monarchies still existed in Europe. I replied by writing an article in which I tried to explain what seemed to Europe the still greater mystery why no monarchy had yet been established in the New World. The editor rejoined that it was absolutely impossible for him to administer such a shock to the republican sensibilities of his readers as to publish an article which set forth that monarchy was normal and the republic abnormal in political society. Yet since history began nine human beings out of every ten, probably nine hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand, have lived and died as subjects of sovereigns, whether called dictators, emperors, kings, or Pharaohs. The republican may be the choicest flower of the most advanced form of evolution, but he is, as this world goes, a scarce breed. There are no republics in Asia, which has always been the greatest banked-up deposit of multitudinous humanity of all the continents. In Europe the French and the Swiss alone prefer the republican form of government to the monarchical. Only in America does republicanism live and thrive. Even on that continent, however, the nominal LatinAmerican republics are, in most cases, virtual dictatorships, with democratic institutions having no existence outside of their written constitutions. THE RENAISSANCE OF MONARCHY The simple fact is that there has been a great renascence of the monarchical idea in Europe in the last half-century. The glowing enthusiasm of 1848 has perished so completely that it is unknown to the new generation. Social Democrats have found nothing to conjure with in the word republic. New states like Norway and Bulgaria prefer to be ruled by kings rather than by presidents. Spain has tried a republic, only to revert to monarchy. France is republican. But it is a drab republic which excites no enthusiasm, and commands only the respect due to a hum drum system which keeps the machine going. The triumphs of the German monarchical system in 1871 profoundly impressed Europe. The experience of Austria-Hungary has convinced everybody that a Francis Joseph is indispensable if the Empire-Kingdom is not to go to pieces. It is the same all over the continent. But it is in England that the revival of the monarchical principle (limited) has been most remarkable. The modern constitutional sovereign, whose power is rigidly circumscribed by usage and by statute, is invested by his position with such opportunities for influence as to make him, at such crises as the present, far and away the most important person in the state. THE " SOVEREIGN LORD" OF THE BRITISH Our Sovereign Lord the King" is a good sounding phrase. Austere republicans sneer at it, and lords and courtiers roll it under their tongues as a sweet morsel; but whether we like it or not we have all got to recognize the fact that when any constitutional crisis comes to a head Edward VII. is the master of the situation. He is our Sovereign Lord the King, master of all the parties and all the politicians. The supreme. power has come to him. It is probably a great bore to him. It is a great burden and a great responsibility; but although he rigidly confines himself within the straight and narrow limits laid down for the conduct of a constitutional king, he dominates the situation. It is a curious outcome of a series of successive reform bills, each of which was declared in its turn to have surrendered everything to the revolution and to have. sacrificed our ancient monarchy to radical democracy, that eighty years after the introduction of the first Reform Act the sovereign is more influential in a moment of crisis than any of his predecessors. There are many ardent radicals who will resent this frank recognition of the power of the King; but it is well to face the facts and to recognize things as they are. And, however deplorable it may appear to be, the plain brutal fact is that in any time of constitutional crisis we are all in the hollow of the King's hand, and he can do with us pretty much as he pleases. Our Sovereign Lord the King is indeed no mere courtier's phrase; it is the solidest reality in the politics of the day. THE POPULARITY OF EDWARD VII. the constitutional advisers. The King's scepter is then in the Prime Minister's pocket. But on extraordinary occasions when the Prime Minister advises an exercise of the royal prerogative which in the King's judgment may endanger the throne and imperil the constitution of the realm, it may be the King's duty to accept the resignation of his ministers rather than to act upon their advice. It is in these rare but supreme moments that the King must act on his own judgment under the sense of his own responsibility. The supreme authority of the King at a crisis like the present is inherent in his office, but it has been greatly enhanced by his personal popularity. There was a curious para- It may be well to try to look at the situgraph in the papers some time ago reporting ation from the King's standpoint. the proceedings of a small revolutionary above all parties and trusted by all. That meeting in London. One of the speakers is a national and an imperial asset of the first promised his cronies that the Social Republic importance. No one suspects him of doing would soon be proclaimed in England, and anything unsportsmanlike; no one imputes when that day comes, he added, we shall elect to him any personal or class bias; he will hold Albert Edward as our first President. A the balance even and see fair. His duty is monarch who commands such universal re- to see that the government of the country is spect as to have the nomination at the hands carried on without interruption. of the Reds for the presidency of the British Social Revolutionary Republic is more than "His most gracious." He is a man who has the confidence of his fellow-men. I am no flatterer of kings, least of all of Edward VII. I am under no delusions as to his limitations and his defects. I am afraid that I have often offended him by the plainness of my speech and the freedom of my criticism. But I have always endeavored to do justice to his character and to make allowance for the difficulties and the temptations of his position. The present crisis is no mere matter of a difference of opinion between Lords and Commons upon the details of any particular measure. It has arisen from a deliberate aggression by the Lords upon the privileges of the Commons, who refused supplies to the Crown in order to usurp the royal prerogative of dissolving Parliament. Due appeal having been made to Cæsar, Cæsar has given judgment against the Peers. The anti-peer coalition majority in the Commons is 124. The election, considered as a plebiscite, gave 400,000 majority against the Peers. THE KING'S RESPONSIBILITY But if the majority had been 324 in the House and 4,000,000 in the country, nothing could be done to punish the Peers for their aggression and usurpation or to secure the privileges of the Commons and the Crown from a renewal of such attacks, save by or through the action of the King. In ordinary occasions the monarch acts on the advice of At present the differences arising between Lords and Commons threaten to bring the government of the realm to a standstill. The Commons may refuse to vote supplies to the Crown unless the Crown uses its prerogative to compel the Lords to pass the veto bill. That means in plain English that the Commons will stop supplies unless the King will create as many Peers as are needed to overbear the resistance of the House of Lords to the sacrifice of their absolute veto. WHAT IS THE KING TO DO? The general belief among advanced Liberals and Nationalists is that the King has no responsibility in the matter. He has just to do as he is told. Vox populi; vox Dei. A majority of 124, with a plurality of 400,000 votes behind it, is sufficient warrant to any king to make any number of peers. The assumption underlying the foregoing argument that the King is a mere automaton, who has no other duty than to do as he is told by his ministers, even if they tell him to effect a revolution in the constitution, is not accepted by Eing Edward any more than it was by Queen Victoria. It is the theory of the sovereign that, while in ordinary times and for ordinary purposes the cabinet has the Great Seal in its pocket, whenever a collision occurs between the two houses of Parliament it is the duty of the Crown to take a leading part in composing differences and averting a deadlock. So far from the monarch being denied all right to act on his own judgment and to take independent initiative of his own, it is precisely at such a juncture that such independent action is imposed upon him by his position as peacemaker in ordinary to the state and balance-wheel of the constitution. THE KING NOT AN AUTOMATON When two authorities are up, neither supreme, how soon confusion enters at the breach, unless it is possible to introduce some third factor which can heal the strife. The King, rightly or wrongly, does not consider that he would be obeying either the letter or the spirit of the constitution if he were to abdicate his right of personal intervention between the warring houses. He is bound to act on his own judgment whenever his ministers advise him to act in a manner contrary to usage to effect a revolutionary change in the constitution. He may decide to act on their counsels or to reject their advice. But the responsibility of acceptance or rejection in that case rests upon him, with force undiminished by the use and wont which has destroyed his responsibility for assenting to acts of Parliament, a function which has become purely automatic. IS THERE A MAJORITY? "What security have I," the King may well ask of the Liberal Premier, "whether this coalition may not dissolve on my hands, just after I have acceded to their request? They may guarantee to carry on the government if I concede their terms. But will they be able to deliver the goods?" That must of necessity be the first objection which the King would raise to the proposal that he should use his prerogative in order to swamp the House of Lords by four or five hundred newly created Peers of the Realm. It is a reasonable objection. No one can say, in view of the menacing speeches of the Nationalist leaders, that Mr. Asquith could guarantee the King the delivery of the goods; that is to say, could assure him that he could command the voting of supplies and the regular functioning of the administration. The King will rightly think twice, and even thrice, before committing himself to the destruction of the hereditary house when in the elective house the majority is in a state of flux, of unstable equilibrium. But suppose the King waives that objection, and accepts a coalition majority of 124 as if it were equivalent to a Liberal majority of the same strength, what will be the next difficulty? Mr. Asquith has declared tha the subordination of the Lords to the Commons must be effected by statute. That is to say, there must be a bill. The bill must be drafted, it must be passed through the Commons, and it must then be presented for acceptance to the House of Lords. Until matters have arrived at the final stage it is premature to ask the King what he will do. It is obvious that either in the drafting of the bill or in its passage through the House of Commons difficulties might arise which would render it unnecessary to consider its future fate. The King might fairly say, "I cannot give you a blank check. You cannot ask me in advance to promise to force any bill that you may hereafter choose to draft down the throats of the Lords. Make up your own minds as to what you want before you ask me for assurances as to what I shall do." The King, like all men in his position, hesitates a long time when asked to take any step for which he can find no precedent in the records of the monarchy. This is natural and right. It may be that Queen Victoria was too nervous in this respect. If she had but insisted upon exercising her royal prerogative to make life Peers in the Wensleydale case she might have cleared the way for a tolerable solution of the present crisis. But a small Tory majority of thirty-five blocked the way with their protest that life peerages were unprecedented, and the Crown gave way. The King might naturally shrink from taking a revolutionary new departure. such as would be involved in the wholesale creation of Peers for swamping purposes. The same forces of obstruction that foiled the Crown in the life peerage question might be invoked against the admission of this enormous influx of Peers created for the purpose of swamping the hereditary chamber. The King will loyally abide by constitutional usage. He will dutifully act upon the advice of his ministers until they tender such advice as in his judgment shakes his confidence in their judgment. In that case he will seek new advisers. But he will naturally strain every point in order to avoid such a breach with the only statesmen who have any chance of getting supplies through the House. of Commons. He will avoid meeting trouble half-way. He will give no blank checks. He will wait till the crisis reaches a point necessitating his intervention before he will interfere or even say how he will interfere. EMPLOYING A BRASS BAND TO RALLY AUDIENCES FOR THE NEW YORK STATE TUBERCULOSIS CAMPAIGN NO TUBERCULOSIS IN NEW STATE IN 1920! BY JOHN A. KINGSBURY YORK (Assistant Secretary of the New York State Charities Aid Association, New York City) "NO Uncared-for Tuberculosis in New York State in 1915!" This is the watchword in the campaign for the prevention of tuberculosis in the State of New York. "No tuberculosis in 1920" is the hope. How the people of the Empire State have rallied for the fight against this disease in almost every city, village, and hamlet in that commonwealth in the short space of two years is a story that will doubtless be of interest to the citizens of every other State in the Union, for the crusade against consumption is not confined to the limits of any State or of any nation. In the words of Prof. William H. Welch, of Johns Hopkins University, the leader of scientific medicine in America, "The people have recognized their true foe in tuberculosis and are stirring to the combat throughout the civilized world." This is because enlightened men and women throughout the civilized world are beginning to appreciate the full significance of Pasteur's words, "It is within the power of man to cause all germ diseases to disappear from the earth.' The striking thing about tuberculosis is that while scientists have known for a quarter of a century how to cope with it, and indeed a few of our larger cities have been successfully coping with it for the past twenty years, nevertheless the "civilized world" has only just begun to stir itself to a systematic combat. Already, however, in the way of education great strides have been made. He would be held an ignorant person who should learn now for the first time that tuberculosis is a communicable, and therefore a preventable, disease, and that in most cases, if properly treated in the early stages, it is curable. At least, it is reasonably certain that there are comparatively few people in New York State to-day who could not "back the book" and recite for you these essential facts about tuberculosis: Tuberculosis (or consumption) causes more deaths than any other single disease. In the civilized world there are not less than a million deaths each year, or two a minute. which are due to this disease; in the United States this scourge claims no less than 200,000 of our citizens annually, and in the Empire |