LYMAN ABBOTT, Editor-in-Chief

The Montenegrin Victory

Last week Skutari fell. Thus Turkey retreats further and further "into the corner." as is graphically depicted in the first of the two cartoons from "Punch" reproduced on the next two pages. Centuries ago the Turks built fortified works about Skutari upon high hills. These fortifications have since been strengthened and thus the force of ten thousand troops or more under the efficient Essad Pasha was able for six months and a half to resist the onslaught of the Montenegrin army. A week before Bulgaria, Servia, and Greece declared war against Turkey, Montenegro, acting entirely by herself, declared war. It was certainly a striking event, that of a State smaller than Connecticut and with a population of less than three hundred thousand attacking an enemy whose area extended over a million and a half square miles and whose population exceeded thirtyfive millions. The war between Montenegro and Turkey opened on October 8. It took a week for the Montenegrins to fight through the strongly fortified frontier and reach Skutari. From that time on they hammered away in a heroic effort to capture the city; indeed, though they lacked many of the resources of contemporary warfare, their attacks resembled those of the Japanese before Port Arthur. According to the Turkish commander, the final surrender was due to the fact that his provisions had entirely given out. Aside from the garrison, the town of Skutari is supposed to comprise about thirty-five thousand people, eight thousand of whom are Christians and twenty-seven thousand Mohammedans. It is a picturesque place on the lake of that name.

Its capture realizes a long-cherished ambition. Although Montenegro itself has never been conquered by Turkey, the Turks four centuries ago did take this outlying town which once belonged to Montenegro; hence the Monte

negrins now feel as if they were regain ing some of their own territory. It is quite impossible for the ordinary European or American to estimate the strength of the anti-Turk and pro-Slav sentiment in Montenegro. As with no other people, the persistence of revenge has burned deep in the Montenegrin soul. The kapa, or cap, which distinguishes all Montenegrins is emblematic of Balkan tragedies, the crimson center typifying the sea of blood in which the peninsula has been washed by Turkey, the broad band of black silk which encircles it being a sign of mourning for the repression of the Slavs; while around the cipher of the Montenegrin king are golden bands, one for each century of strife. It is thus a notable event in Montenegrin history to have captured Skutari, and King Nicholas announced, on hearing of the victory, Skutari will remain Montenegrin."

The Montenegrin Situation

But will it? Not if the Powers, following Austria's lead, have their way. Having lost prestige by the outcome of the Balkan war, Austria determined to secure some compensation. She apparently did so in obtaining the assent of the European Powers to her desire to name the capital of the independent State of Albania, recently erected by them. Austria's reason for this was that her influence over the new State would be greater in proportion as the capital of that State was nearer her own boundaries. So determined was Austria, indeed, that she declared her willingness to obtain her wish by armed force, and was only deterred by the more or less unwilling consent of the Powers to ask Montenegro to abandon the siege, the Powers having already obtained, as some offset, Austria's consent to the transference to Servia and Montenegro of a large territory formerly regarded as Albanian. When the Powers announced this

view of the old proverb with regard to invading forces which reflects the barren character of the country: "In Montenegro a large army starves to death, a small army is defeated." It is also the more notable in view of the fact that, no matter what governments may do, peoples will not always follow. On the very day when the Russian Government redeclared its adherence to the programme of the Powers, there was a great popular demonstration at St. Petersburg in celebration of the Montenegrin victory, including a Te Deum service at the Kazan Cathedral, which drew an immense crowd. Many offi cers were present. Several thousand persons afterwards formed a procession and

marched through the streets singing patriotic songs, and as the processions passed by the officers at the barracks saluted. Even more significant demonstrations occurred in Austria itself wherever the population was Slav. At Prague, the capital of Bohemia; at Cracow, formerly the capital of Poland; at Agram, the capital of Croatia; at Ragusa, the Dalmatian city, and at numerous other Slav centers, the demonstrators were brought into conflicts with the Poles, as the demonstrations often took the form of fierce antagonism to the Vienna Government's policies. Let Austria have a care, therefore. A Government which almost created a general European conflagration by mobilizing its army to uphold Teuton as against Slav interests, which threatened Servia in a series of flimsy pretexts, and which later actually "held up" the Powers by an arrogant ultimatum, may feel "forward," but cannot defy too much the sentiment of the whole Slav race. Slav admiration for Montenegro, their plucky protagonist, whose declaration of war began the Balkan crusade of liberation, remains unbounded. The Montenegrin spirit also commands the sympathy of liberty-loving people everywhere.

"Even if forsaken by every one," says King Nicholas, "Montenegro, conscious of her glorious past and her ideals, will continue the struggle. She may possibly yield to superior force, but never in the dishonorable way proposed by European diplomacy. Montenegro has not lived five hundred years in darkness by the will of Europe, but by the blood of her best sons. She will only yield now by the shedding of blood. She can die but once and die gloriously." Who with a drop of red blood in his body will refuse a tribute of admiration to this declaration?

The Belgian Strike

The Belgian strike has excited interest everywhere. It has been the largest attempt ever made, in proportion to population, to influence political action. Out of a population of about eight million, no less than four hundred thousand men relinquished work a fortnight ago as long as might be necessary to secure universal suffrage. Ten days later the Government capitulated and the Socialists voted to end the strike. The Government's capitulation was, of course, definite enough to lead the Socialists to feel that they could demobilize their forces and await the

course of events. The events should be favorable to the strikers, if we may judge from the Belgian Prime Minister's statement in Parliament of the Government's intentions, a statement promptly placed on record by a vote of the Chamber of Deputies. Thus the Belgian Constitution is to be finally readjusted so that actual conditions will be in greater harmony with its text. Article 6 of that Constitution reads: " All Belgians are equal before the law." This seems to have been interpreted to mean, not that all Belgians are to be equal in the exercise of the franchise, but that they must equally submit themselves to the law's requirements, and that they have the same right to claim the law's protection. Now, however, equality of suffrage is, we hope, to be assured. This is a sufficiently impressive result of the strike. But there is another result, in our estimation equally impressive, namely, the evidence of the strength, solidarity, and discipline of the Belgian strikers. Never, so far as we know, has a strike been more admirably managed. purpose was quickly attained because expressed with an absence of disorder and violence. Thus the strikers showed their fitness for unrestricted suffrage. What a contrast to suffragette methods in England!

The Marconi Muddle in England

Two members of the British Cabinet and the chief Whip of the Liberal party are under fire for certain investments which they have made in the American Marconi Company. The criticism is that they have violated the sound rule of conduct that members of a Government shall not be investors in any concern with which the Government is involved in contractual relations. The facts, which are, we believe, admitted, are these: Sir Rufus Isaacs is the Attorney-General, Mr. Lloyd George the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Master of Elibank the chief Government Whip. All three, therefore, are important members of the Administration. Last year the Government entered into a contract with the English Marconi Company for the use of the Marconi system of wireless telegraphy at stations in different parts of the British Empire. A brother of the Attorney-General, Mr. Godfrey Isaacs, was a director in both the English and the American Marconi companies. At a time subsequent to the signing of the contract, Sir Rufus Isaacs, through another

Sir

brother, Mr. Harry Isaacs, invested in shares of the American company. His colleagues, Mr. Lloyd George and the Master of Elibank, did the same. In October a question was raised in the House of Commons as to the action of the Attorney-General in sending a public telegram to be read at a banquet in New York, held apparently to further the promotion of the American company. Rufus defended himself against any charge of impropriety in sending the telegram, but did not reveal the fact that he was in any way interested in the American company. His investment and those of his colleagues became known later, we believe, through an action for libel brought by them against the Paris Matin." Subsequently the whole matter was taken under investigation by a Parliamentary committee. The acts of the

three members of the Administration have been the subject of severe criticism and heated controversy. The London "Spectator" is apparently the chief spokesman for the critics. That journal explicitly and repeatedly disclaims any suggestion of corruption on the part of the Ministers involved. It does, however, take them severely to task for what it describes as their lack of "the discretion, the delicacy, and the carefulness of public interests with which they ought to have acted." This seems to be the gravamen of the charge against them. It raises an interesting question in regard to the acts of members of an administration in relation to their private financial affairs.

The Responsibilities of lieve, would be agreed One principle, we beOfficial Position to by every one. No member of an administration should be pecuniarily interested in any undertaking in which the value of his interest may be affected by an act done by him in his official capacity. Obviously, if Sir Rufus Isaacs had been a stockholder in the English Marconi Company at the time that the contract with the company was under consideration, he should have either disposed of his holdings or dissociated himself so definitely from the negotiations (if that were possible) as to make it crystal clear that he was not involved in a dual relationship to the company of owner and of negotiator on the public's behalf. Such, of course, was not the actual situation. His relationship to the company began after the contract was executed, and it was the American company, not the British, in which he

invested. A second principle would, we presume, meet general acceptance. It was well set forth by one of the Law Lords, Lord Robson: "Nobody, indeed, can put himself above suspicion, but you can avoid putting yourself in circumstances to which suspicion. would naturally attach." This is surely a sound principle of action for the individual, even if it is not admitted that it is a principle to which, under all circumstances, others have a right to demand that the individual adhere. Cæsar's wife ought, of course, to do everything she can to keep herself above suspicion; but the only way she can do it is by keeping out of situations in which suspicion would naturally attach to her. We believe that every member of the British Cabinet would agree to these two rules of conduct. There is not the slightest evidence that the two members and their associate outside the Cabinet have swerved from the first rule. Whether they have departed from the second is somewhat more open to debate. In view of the looseness of the connection between the two companies and the inherent improbability that anything the members of the Administration might do in their official capacities would have any influence on the value of their holdings, we do not believe that they have put themselves in circumstances to which, under the normal conditions of ordinary life, suspicion would naturally attach. But the conditions of political rivalry in England, or for that matter in any country, are very different from the conditions of ordinary life. Under circumstances involving a continued and heated contest it was well-nigh inevitable that suspicion should be directed at such acts as those of Sir Rufus Isaacs and Mr. Lloyd George, however far removed they might really be from any actual impropriety. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Attorney-General made a serious mistake in not recognizing this fact.