War and World Affairs by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Dec 16, 1913

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 40, No. 48.

War and World Affairs

By Editor

QUITE a part of the jingo press of the country has been seeking to force President Wilson and his cabinet into declaring war upon Mexico, but the administration has steadily adhered to its policy of keeping hands off and allowing Mexico to settle her own troubles. It would seem that there is much evidence to show that the financiers of this country and England are quite largely responsible for the continuation of the war, and many of those who have large money interests appear to think that it would be a very light matter to hurl thousands of our strongest and best young men into Mexico to be killed, if only their property interests can be protected. It will certainly be a fine thing if our administration can save the horrible necessity of war by patiently holding out against any of these jingo influences. Recent despatches are to the effect that Huerta is about at the end of his rope, and the very best people in Mexico are beginning to assert themselves for a settlement of the matter, and would be pleased if the United States should intervene to allow this element of society to establish a proper constitutional government there.

THE English press has been inclined to look upon the conditions in Portugal as very unstable. There are some who think that the only solution of the situation is to have Portugal return to a monarchy. But regardless of internal conditions, the Portuguese are proposing to spend $80,000,000 in reorganizing their army and navy. In the great epidemic of war that was to sweep over the world in the last days, the prophet Joel announced, among other things, "Let the weak say, I am strong." And it would seem in these times that there is no nation so weak but that it is coming forward with the greatest military plans.

A WOMAN in Germany is said to have invented a "suffocation powder" that the war experts are investigating. It is claimed for her invention that this powder can be hurled in a bomb to be exploded in the camp of the enemy. A single bomb has thrown several hundred men into a deep sleep lasting seven or eight hours.

A FURTHER advance step has been taken in the work of the Panama Canal by the largest dredger in the service being raised through the locks to the Pacific entrance of the channel of the Culebra cut. It will assist in removing the earth on the south side of the Cucaracha slide.

TWO hundred persons were killed and a large number were rendered homeless in Peru by the earthquake of November 11. It is reported that ten small towns in the province of Aymaraes, in Apurimac Department, were destroyed.

THE report of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that food prices have increased 66% in the last fourteen years.