Our London Letter by W. T. Bartlett

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Mar 18, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 11.

Our London Letter

By W. T. Bartlett

The Concert of the Powers

The hope that London might have proved a city of peace where the Turks and the Balkan allies could come together and compose their differences has been disappointed, temporarily at least. The combatants have decided to go back to the ring and fight a few more rounds in order to settle the question whose views shall prevail in the final adjustment of terms. The collapse of the peace negotiations has vindicated the political strategy of the Greek premier, M. Venizelos, who, foreseeing the outcome, refused to participate in the armistice. This Cretan statesman is likely to make a name for himself in history if his future policy is as shrewd and farsighted as his plans have been demonstrated to be hitherto. The reports at hand from the districts where fighting is going on do not offer much prospect that the Turks will better their position by the continuance of hostilities.

How much has been accomplished by the meeting of the ambassadors in London simultaneously with the gathering of the peace delegates, does not yet appear. It is likely, however, that the joint note of the powers counseling Turkey to submit to the demands of the allies would not have been concerted but for this assembly of ambassadors. Europe feels considerable relief at finding that it is able to face a crisis of such magnitude as the virtual disappearance of the Turk from Europe without being plunged into war on a terrific scale. The rise of the Balkan States and their victory over Turkey has apparently simplified the Eastern question and made it possible to solve the Macedonian problem without the armed intervention of any one of the powers. An ineffective occupation of Constantinople by Turkey, and its exclusion otherwise from European soil, offers a plausible hope of peace for some time to come.

Asiatic Turkey

D. Lloyd-George, M.P., Chancellor of the Exchequer

Indeed, so easily has this crisis been passed that European statesmanship is already allowing itself to ponder on what might be safely attempted in Turkey’s Asiatic dominions . The joint note of the powers intimated that submission to their proposals at the present time would constitute a claim on their kind offices in the future, but now that Turkey has decided to continue the war rather than give up Adrianople, SHE MAY EXPECT INTERFERENCE RATHER THAN PROTECTION IN ASIA. One of our leading journals, “The Nation,” gives expression to the general sentiment thus: “If Turkey insists on being yet more decisively crushed, and antagonizes the powers which have given her good and friendly advice, she will discover that while a process of amputation has relieved her of her European problems, the question of Asia has suddenly become acute. Since first the war began, the more conservative currents in diplomacy have striven to avoid that complication. But it presses with increasing urgency.

“The German ambassador, tho he used the language of friendship for Turkey, has very emphatically staked out a claim in Anatolia and uttered the Noli me tangere, which warns the rest of the world that Asia Minor is for Germany a ‘place in the sun.’ In France, the financial group which ‘studies’ colonial problems with a rather naive attempt to imitate the procedure of a learned society, has revived the traditional French claim to Syria. Russia long ago claimed the Armenian provinces as in some sense her political sphere of interests, and she has been able to reserve them hitherto by frustrating every proposal to build railways in them or through them.

“We suppose that if any formal partition of Asiatic Turkey in zones of interest or influence were to take place, Mesopotamia and Arabia would fall to this country.”

Of course there is an element of speculation in any such forecast as this, but its appearance indicates a noticeable advance in current ideas on the future of Asiatic Turkey. And it is also worthy of notice that according to this extract, if the European powers find themselves under the necessity of taking measures to appropriate Turkey’s Asiatic possessions, it will not be their fault; Turkey alone will be to blame. The weak have always been to blame!

Whatever may be the outcome of the struggle, we have without doubt entered upon a new chapter of international developments which will not be concluded until some of the Great Powers find themselves seated in the Asiatic dominions of the Sultan, the very region where, according to the prophecies, the last struggles will be fought.

England and Germany — Relative Navies

It has been a source of satisfaction to the peace-lovers of England to see her working hand in hand with Germany for the preservation of European harmony, apparently wielding a strong influence to that end. The speech made last week by Admiral Von Tirpitz is hailed by such as a pledge of good feeling on Germany’s part and evidence from an unexpected source of a genuine desire for friendship between the two nations. The Admiral has always figured in the English mind as the zealous and determined advocate of a strong navy for Germany, and that he should express willingness to see England supreme on the water by a sixty per cent margin of superiority is as welcome as it was unlooked for.

There is, however, in this country a strong sentiment in favor of the policy called “two keels for one,” which demands in season and out of season that England should build two ships for every vessel laid down by our Teutonic rivals; and the principal spokesmen of this party are protesting against any agreement with Germany short of a superiority of one hundred per cent. They point out that since Mr. Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, spoke some months ago of a minimum margin of sixty per cent, the situation in the Mediterranean has been disturbed, so that we are obliged to maintain a stronger fleet in that sea; also that the gifts of warships now coming in from our over-sea dominions require of us that we maintain an imperial fleet in their waters, so that a mere sixty per cent margin would make but slender provision for the demands of the Empire and leave us facing Germany in the North Sea with little or no margin of superiority.

In Germany also the advocates of a vigorous policy of naval enlargement are asking how the sixty per cent is to be calculated. Will it be figured on the number of ships alone, or will it take into account speed, weight of broadside, and other details that determine the comparative efficiency of a battleship; also, will the sixty per cent include the colonial contributions to England’s navy or not?

The problem is a complicated one at the best, and there is very little prospect indeed that the two countries will ever agree to restrict their naval preparations. The militarist party in Germany hopes that England will at some time or other fall into difficulties far afield that will leave her inferior in home waters and so nullify her old supremacy; and the corresponding party in England entertains the hope that Germany will sooner or later find it unendurable to meet the cost of a vast navy in addition to the burden of keeping up her enormous army. Neither will trust the other sufficiently to place itself in the slightest degree at the mercy of the other; altho without doubt, neither of the countries has any plan except to protect itself from the hostile intentions of which it suspects the other. Both are victims of the militarist madness which reduces to impotence so many good plans adopted by the nations in their saner moments.

Prospect of Home Rule for Ireland

The Irish Home Rule Bill got safely through the Commons and was promptly thrown out by the House of Lords. But since the passing of the Parliament Act the Upper House has ceased to present a serious obstacle to the passage of radical legislation. All that the Liberal Government needs to do is to pass the bill expeditiously once more through the House of Commons and send it up again to the Lords. They may reject it once again, and that represents their limit. After the bill has been sent up twice to the House of Lords, and been rejected by them, it automatically becomes the law of the land without their consent. Therefore, if the Coalition of Liberal, Irish, and labor members can hold together for another year, and a little more, the Home Rule Bill will come into operation, and we shall see how self-government works in Ireland. The resistance of the Unionists of Ulster to the bill was somewhat discounted at the last by the circumstance that Londonderry, the most famous city in the North of Ireland, returned a Nationalist Home Ruler at a by-election, and this Nationalist victory made the Home Rule members from Ulster outnumber the Unionists from that province by a majority of one. Thus Ulster is divided equally against itself, and this fact, of course, makes it difficult for the Orangemen to carry out their threat of resorting to civil war rather than submit to a Parliament in Dublin.

Disestablishment in Wales

Another bill which will come into effect through the operation of the Parliament Act rather than by the good-will of the Lords, is a measure disestablishing the church in Wales. As originally framed, the measure was also one of disendowment, but so many financial concessions have been made during the passage of the bill that the church loses very little of its income by the step. It has been calculated that if its members will each give a penny extra per month they will put the church in as good a position from a pecuniary point of view as it was before the bill was introduced.

Miss Pankhurst, Daughter of the Famous London Militant Suffragette

Remedial Legislation for the Labour

Thus two considerable measures have been carried by the present government which they regard as urgently demanded reforms. They do not intend to cease their efforts, however. Mr. Lloyd-George has already begun an agitation in favor of Land Reform. Official particulars have not been given, but it is announced on good authority that the reform will consist partly in securing to every farm laborer a minimum wage of five dollars per week. At present the average falls far below this figure, but it is supplemented by the landlord providing a cottage at a very low rent and granting certain favors to the laborer which enable him to exist and bring up a family, as long as he keeps on good terms with his employer. If, however, he is dismissed, he has to leave his employer’s cottage, and since there is always a shortage of these dwellings, there is usually nothing for him but to leave the neighborhood and go to some city where he becomes an unskilled worker.

It is thus that the population of the cities has increased at the expense of the countryside, and by this process the physical standard of the population is steadily lowered. The promised reform is to pay the laborer a higher wage, so that he can rent a state-provided cottage for himself, independent of his employer, and so that he may be able to stay in this cottage as long as he likes, whether employed in the immediate vicinity or not. There is to be connected with it a piece of ground sufficient to provide food for his family. To enable the farmers to pay their laborers a higher wage, they must be assisted to work their land more scientifically, and be secured in turn from oppressive landlords, so that one part of the scheme will be the creation of rent courts.

The Militant Suffragettes

Another reform which the government had in hand, in the shape of an Adult Suffrage Bill, it has been compelled to drop owing to a pledge given that, in connection with this measure, they would allow the advocates of women’s suffrage to take the decision of the House of Commons. The Speaker, however, ruled that any such addition would make the bill a radically new one and necessitate its re-submission to the House. So the whole question was deferred until the next session. This delay has enraged the militant suffragettes who have become more violent than ever in their attacks on property. They now put envelopes containing phosphorus into the post, and large numbers of letters have been consumed. Windows are being freely smashed again, and this week the orchid house in the famous Kew Gardens was wrecked. Such proceedings do not advance the militant suffragettes in popular favor, and indeed have made their cause hateful to many who otherwise would have been inclined to approve it.

Losses from Strikes

The labor statistics for 1912 have been published and constitute a record in the item of time lost by strikes. It is estimated that over 60,000,000 days were lost in connection with the coal strike, and that this dislocation of business inflicted a total loss of $250,000,000 on the community. Another 9,000,000 days were lost by other strikes during the year.

Falling Off in Church-Membership

The churches that publish figures of their membership again show a serious falling off. The Congregationalists and Baptists record a loss between them of about 4,500 members, and their Sunday-school attendance drops by over 8,000. The Wesleyan Methodists continue, as for several years past, to show a further decrease. A few years ago the “Daily News” organized a census of church attendance, and was proposing to repeat the enumeration this year; but a number of Free Church leaders have protested

so vigorously against the census as an unfriendly act, that the “Daily News” has abandoned its intention. The argument of the ministers was that it would be misleading to place an undue emphasis on mere figures at the present time, but the public makes a shrewd guess that the ministers were afraid of the figures they knew would be brought to light.

It is only in comparatively few churches that the Sunday morning congregation now consists of more than a handful of people, while prayer-meetings have almost gone out of existence. All the devices adopted of late years by the churches for making religion more popular with the masses seem only to have had the effect of indisposing their own members for serious worship. At the same time, churches that have adhered faithfully to the gospel feel the need of no more powerful attraction; they continue to be centers of Christian life and activity.

W. T. BARTLETT.