During the last days of the Conference the weather was wonderful and in an azure sky a dazzling sun brightened all Nature. The rays of this sun seemed to have driven away some of the most distressing shadows. Lloyd George, pointing to the radiant orb, exclaimed: "There is the Alliance, it shines in all its glory again." Yes, but it must keep shining and it will not unless all the Allies understand that this additional pact made among the orange groves at San Remo will have to be kept more faithfully and more strictly than the treaty signed beneath the venerable trees at Versailles. The hour is solemn-it needs neither cunning nor egoism. It needs rather energy and mutual confidence. No concession made in flagrant violation of the Peace Treaty has appeased or satisfied Germany. No concession will ever appease or satisfy her.

Whatever may happen, France can make no further concessions. France asks only what is due her. She is not rich enough to make presents to those who have despoiled and robbed her. She is not strong enough to expose herself to a new martyrdom and new robberies. It is possible that vanquished Germany has a right to pity. But it is much more certain that victorious France has a right to life.

Paris, May 1920.

STEPHANE LAUZANNE.

THE IMPENDING COLLAPSE

BY MAJOR CHARLES LACEY HALL, U. S. A.

THE impending collapse of capitalism in Europe is the most tremendous ogre that Western peoples have had to face since the Battle of Tours, that is to say for about twelve hundred years; and, if it is cataclysmic and not evolutionary in its nature, will be the greatest wrench to the existing order of society that has occurred since the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, ushered in the Middle Ages. The spectre of this wrench everywhere, the hackneyed expression, "World Unrest," is merely symbolic of the ubiquitous terror. But the methods hitherto proposed for meeting the problem have depended more on exorcism than on pure realism. Brave men do not scorn to analyze and appreciate, as well as to attack, their enemy. Only fools tilt at windmills. This article is an attempt to arrive, by historical analysis, at the reasons for the impending collapse, as well as to discuss what steps, if any, are possible to meet the crisis.

Capitalism has existed, to some extent, ever since man became a tool-using animal; and, in that sense, will doubtless continue to exist as long as man continues to use tools. But in the narrower sense the term is used to cover the era of the economic mastery of society by the owners of personal property. Personal property is nowadays largely intangible, as far as the individual owners are concerned; but, in economic fact, the property is, by and large, either industrial machinery now in existence, or supplies hitherto consumed or absorbed in the machinery. Prior to the economic control of the personal property holders, control was vested in the owners of real property.

The feudal organization was accepted because it furnished the only means by which the existing population could be kept alive. In the vast majority of cases the peas

ant preferred life and subjugation to death and liberty. As the adoption of a feudal status tended to increase the population, feudal communities grew in strength and overthrew non-feudal communities, being impelled to the struggle by their need of an outlet for their own expanding population.

Feudalism having succeeded, it immediately obtained control of the sources of public opinion, and, of these, the greatest was the church; because it added, to the ordinary forms which go to make up an average individual's beliefs, the sanction of supernatural manifestations, and also fear of punishment after death, that curious terror of the unthinking. Hence such ideas as "devoir," "loyalty," "divine right of kings," and similar catchwords, were provided to give moral basis to a status triumphant through force, a phenomenon destined to be repeated.

Between the fall of the Bastille (1789) and the repeal of the Anti-Corn Laws in Great Britain (1846), three great events occurred.

1. The French Revolution destroyed the remnants of feudalism, except in Eastern Europe, and thereby set up an independent class of agrarian proprietors, who were themselves small capitalists.

2. The Industrial Revolution caused by the exploitation of modern scientific discoveries enormously increased the wealth of the bourgeoisie and the ability of the earth to support population; but at the same time destroyed the independence and reduced the happiness of the urban proletariat.

3. The consolidation of the Indian Empire created an entirely new type of capitalist, whose performances were almost wholly uninfluenced by public opinion.

Hitherto feudalism and capitalism, as contending forces, had been more or less checked by the fear that one of them would call in the lower classes to redress the balance of power, with dire results, to both. In fact this is just what the French bourgeoisie did do in 1793. From now on, however, the capitalists, reinforced (except in England) by the new race of agrarian proprietors, were entirely in control; and could, and did, exploit the urban proletariat to the uttermost limit of human endurance.

The urban proletariat responded promptly, and in 1848 tried an ill-led demonstration in almost every state in Europe, which had the disastrous effect of destroying the

last of the differences between the capitalists and feudalists, and consolidating the ruling classes of the world into powerful national corporations, which had no difficulty in getting control not only of the existing agencies of church, courts, and education, but also of the sources of public opinion, and especially of those catchwords by which most men live. The capitalists even donned pseudo-virtues, of the type which flourished when feudalism was in full bloom. Charity was substituted for Chivalry, totally useless freedom of religion for asceticism, and aggressive patriotism (Jingoism) for fidelity to the King. Toleration was the motto of the day; but it had the unreality of thirteenth century toleration. As soon as assaults were made on the existing order of society, a new inquisition was destined to suppress those apostles of free speech whose career indicated any probability of success.

The coalition of capitalists with the feudal remnants, which took place in 1848, had different results in different states. In Great Britain and the Latin States (except Roumania), the feudal powers were entirely destroyed. This tended to create a capitalist bloc, alive in all States to the necessity of exploiting their own inhabitants, and controlling public opinion. These states maintained themselves, in the last analysis, by intelligent exploitation of their overseas territories; and conflicts between national blocs in these undeveloped regions were the principal source of their discord. That is to say, they were competitors in the same line of trade, and using the same general system.

In the Central Powers the feudal proprietors and the new capitalists combined. The agrarian interests, which were the economic source of the surviving feudal power, were well looked after; and the feudalists personally continued to render that devoted service to the state for which they had always been noted. At the same time all proper capitalistic enterprises were encouraged; proper being used in its German sense: to expand the power and population of the State. The mottoes of the new combination took on a coalition tinge, expressions like "Deutschthum" and "Kultur" being themselves capitalistic developments of feudal roots.

In Russia and Roumania, feudalism was preserved. Local capitalism was in the hands of the Jews, and the old warfare between capitalism and feudalism continued. In

order to keep the lower classes on the side of those in power, racial and religious prejudices against the Jews were excited. Even at that, however, the warfare was a losing one, because of the rather patent fact that, whatever the evils of capitalism, it produces a more tolerable community than does feudalism. In order to support themselves, the Russian overlords formed an alliance with the French capitalists, later joined by the British capitalists. This alliance was made perfectly patent to the world by the loans floated in London and Paris in 1906, after the dissolution of the first Duma, in spite of the frantic protests of the Russian bourgeoisie (Octobrist manifesto). The Czar was then kept in office by the identical means employed for so many years in the British Indian States, that is, he was subsidized as a tyrant over his subjects, provided that he remained docile as to all external affairs.

The coalition between capitalism and feudalism came rather late into the world; and, at first, had great difficulties in establishing overseas markets. These very difficulties compelled the development of greater efficiency, and as a result of this efficiency, the Central Empires began to drive the Western States to the wall. This drive was due to two radically dissimilar devices.

Ever since 1848 the preservation of capitalism has depended on its progressive amelioration of the condition of the lower classes. In order to accomplish this amelioration the excess profits of capital can no longer be taken from the home state, but must be obtained from subject or backward countries. Hence a strong colonial policy was an absolute necessity to the proletariat, as well as to the bourgeoisie; a fact rather well appreciated by the former. One instance of this, which will serve as well as any other, is the calmness of the Belgian population at the time of the revelation of the Congo atrocities.

In this particular game (the modern slave trade), the Central Empires were novices; and moreover their own lower classes were interested to such a slight extent that they refused to be parties to the necessary exactions, as witness the fuss made by the Social Democrats at the time of the Herrero revelations. Also it became evident to the financial interests involved, that the British could keep their barbarous colonies reasonably happy and make money out of them, when Germany was able to do neither; except pos