new party with its Socialist platform when there is already organized a Socialist party? In the first place the Socialist party has a bad name because of its nation-wide treason during the war. Second, it is a well-known fact that the powerful Catholic Church is bitterly opposed to Socialism, so a method must be found to establish the socialist revolution with a sugar coated pill. The third reason given is the influence of the British Labor party and the dream that this organization will rule the British Isles within five years. The recent elections in Great Britain would seem to prove that the Labor party has not over 25 per cent of the vote of the nation. Moreover, there is the British AntiSocialist Union ready to enter the fight, as it did in 1902, with success against the creed of socialism and public ownership. During the thirty years preceding the war, the British cities increased their real estate valuation by 30 per cent, but during that same period the municipal taxes increased by over 300 per cent, due to their plunge into municipal socialism. municipal socialism. The Anti-Socialist Union arrested the growth of municipal and state socialism in England because they met theories and fiction with history and facts. THE LAND QUESTION. It is doubtful if the city workers who drafted the platform for this new party knew what they were talking about when they came to the land question. Demanding public ownership of all unused lands means that nearly one-half of all the land in this nation is to be socialized, if this demand should carry. But how will the Non-Partisan League leaders like this sort of thing? Uncle Sam as a farmer would be the greatest economic joke in all the world. If Uncle Sam could make a success at raising corn and cotton, wheat and potatoes, what would become of the 4,000,000 farm owners? REDUCTION OF THE HIGH COST OF LIVING. This new party calls for the reduction in the cost of living but wants higher wages and shorter hours! It calls for the elimination of all profits in production and distribution of industry. If this is not pretty clear cut socialism what is it? And the party then proposes the conduct of industry by the government, which every intelligent man knows would enormously increase the cost of living. In the Australian states where a like Labor party has control very largely, of government, the cost of or any industry transportation which the government conducts, the cost is from two to three times as high as in this country under private ownership. The example afforded by our government in its attempt to operate the railways should convince any sane man of the utter foolishness of government ownership of anything. Our transportation bill for 1918, under government opera tion is nearly $1,500,000,000 more than it was in 1917, under private ownership and operation. DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF INDUSTRY. This new party, like the socialists, demand democratic control of industry. This means waste, extravagance and inefficiency in the conduct of the business of the nation and would enormously increase the cost of living. A democratic control of industry would mean the employment of two men and two dollars to secure the same results that private management and private ownership give us for one. The history of democratic control and ownership of railways in both Europe and Australia is a history of high freight rates, low wages, poor service and large annual deficits. Democratic control of any industry means its politicalization. And it also means a tremendous increase in the cost of conducting industry. COMMITTED TO CONFISCATION. A new radical labor party naturally is committed to the policy of confiscation. And this American Labor party is no exception to this rule of socialistic organizations. The new party is committed to a tax confiscation of 100 per cent on all individual incomes above $100,000, and in addition to this, they demand an increased tax on all profits. But if their other demand for the elimination of all profits goes, then how are they going to tax profits when there are none? Agreeing with the socialists they demand the abolition of military training by compulsion and for a referendum for war. Mr. Gompers has no faith in the success of this new party. He says that the history of labor parties in this nation is a history of failure. And it is true that those of the past have either failed to gain any considerable number of followers or have merged with some other party, as is the case of the old Populist party joining with the Democrats. Nevertheless, this new party with the aid of Mr. Hearst and the NonPartisan League and its encouragement by the socialist press may yet be the means of some kind of an affiliation of the radical forces of the nation into a great and dangerous political party like the Labor party of the Australian states, or the Social Democrats of Germany. The new party will probably live until the national election of 1920 and then perhaps, divide between the Democrats, Socialists and the NonPartisan League elements. On the other hand it may be the starting point for the organization and development of an American Bolshevism for the destruction of American institutions and the building of a socialist republic. Though the Dove of Peace still hovers round With hope within her breast, No quiet spot has yet been found Wherein to build her nest. -The Transcript. Ex-Senator Bailey of Texas declares that President Wilson is a socialist. Strange that it took a man of Bailey's perspicacity six years to find it out. MEANS REMOVAL OF ECONOMIC BARRIERS. That the League of Nations Covenant as proposed by President Wilson would subject the United States to the same danger of forfeiture of its domestic rights that it suffered in the case of the controversy over free tolls through the Panama Canal, is asserted by Representative Nicholas J. Sinnott, of Oregon. Mr. Sinnott has raised a new and rather startling point in the discussion of the proposed League of Nations. He points He points out the amazing similarity between the language of the British-American treaty under which we lost our preference rights in the use of the Panama Canal and the language of the League of Nations Covenant on the subject of free transit and equitable treatment for commerce, and draws an inevitable conclusion that since President Wilson surrendered American rights in the use of the canal he would necessarily consent to a similar interpretation of the League of Nations Covenant. The British-American treaty concerning the Panama Canal contains the following language: "the canal shall be free and open to the vessels of commerce and of war, of all nations observing these rules, on terms of entire equality, so that there shall be no discrimination against any such nation, or its citizens, or subjects, in respect of the conditions or charges of traffic, or otherwise. Such conditions and charges of traffic shall be just and equitable." Article 21 of the League of Nations Covenant reads as follows: "The high contracting parties agree that provision shall be made through the instrumentality of the League to secure and maintain freedom of transit and equitable treatment for the commerce of all states members of the League, having in mind, among other things, special arrangements with regard to the necessities of the regions devastated during the war of 19141918." Commenting upon this similarity of language in the two documents, Mr. Sinnott says: No doubt we would contend if we signed the covenant of the League that we could grant to our own citizens special privileges and preference rights in our own commerce; but in this case we would be confronted with the precedent of the interpretation and construction which we acceded to at the behest of the President in the matter of the Panama Canal Treaty, namely, that the citizens of all other nations had a right to use the Canal on the same terms and conditions as our own citizens. Citing this interpretation as a pre cedent, it would be contended and with even greater force and logic, that the "Equitable treatment for the commerce of all state members of the League," provided for in Section Twenty-one of the covenant, is not complied with unless the citizens of all other nations have the same privileges in our own commerce as are accorded to our own citizens. Is this the removal of the economic barriers referred to by President Wilson in his fourteen points? It is generally conceded and I think the President admitted it, although I am not sure that the British plan of the League of Nations was adopted after the rejection of the American, French and Italian plans. Whether this is true or not, the merest glance at or a comparison of these provisions from the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Panama Canal Treaty discloses that the same sagacious and far-sighted English diplomacy has overreached our negotiators in drafting the covenant of the League as it did in formulating the Panama Canal Surely our experience in the matter of the Panama Canal Treaty should teach us the greatest caution and make us wary and cause us to scrutinize every word of the covenant lest we surrender American rights as we did in the Canal Treaty rights that never were intended to be surrendered. Constructive criticism is said to be welcome; then, let us remove all ambiguous language from the covenant, so that we may not have a repetition of the Panama. Canal fiasco. THE NEW NECESSITIES FOR PROTECTION. We have had, since 1867, a consid- needed for cultural necessities or of any margin to provide for future incapacity or old age. America, by which we mean the United States, was at the time in a reasonably good position to accept the protective theory. First of all, we were breaking into manufacturing outside the older and simpler lines which had occupied the industrial mind before that time. We were opening up the Great West, and the demand for all manner of products at home was so great that high prices prevailed. We were in position to accept great quantities of foreign manufactured product in competition with our own, and the foreigner was able to compete with us. To keep an adequate number of our citizens in a frame of mind where they would continue. to be attracted by industry, rather than by agriculture or merchandis ing, was an economic problem which was only to be solved by interposing obstacles to the competition of the foreigner. The Morrill tariff was about the first practical piece of legislation that sought to accomplish that thing. From the point of its passage our American political public began to divide itself along lines of adherence or non-adherence to this doctrine, one party insisting upon extremes of tariff barriers, while the other was out and out for free trade. We have had some recent lines of information respecting the thoroughness of German propaganda in this country for commercial and industrial purposes favorable to the up-building of the German system of business. It is not going too far to say that, while a bit more polite and within the law, the English propaganda against the protection of American industry was not a whit less thorough or insidious than that of the Germans. As a matter of fact it was distinctly more purposeful, while deliberately less rough-shod. Every Boche who was planted in this country in recent years to develop the commercial theories of his country to her benefit can be matched by an Englishman spreading the gospel of free trade. Proportionately to the time and the numbers of populations involved there were quite as many alien-enemy Englishmen, taking the term in the commercial sense, implanted in the United States as we have found alien-enemy Germans in our recent militaristic round-up. It was notorious then, and it continued to be notorious, even through our re cent draft experiences, that thousands of British subjects had become denizens of our country without evidencing any desire to become citizens. These were the clacquers of free trade. The Cobden Club maintained a propaganda of literature quite as disquieting as that maintained by the Wilhelmstrasse bureau in later years, for exactly the same purpose-the penetration of our nation by a foreign commercialism. Fine-appearing Englishmen with smooth tongues and great reputations were, whether under hire or not, constantly making public observations against our protective system. Other fine Englishmen, some becoming American citizens and some not, were constantly at hand to mildly or loudly agree with these gentry, as the delicacies or the necessities of the situation from time to time required. There was a clacque organized for them, to make their doctrines receive attention, if no more, that was quite as complete and just as evil, as any ever organized by von Bernstorff, Capt. von Papen or Dr. Dumba. This may seem strange to the average reader until it is brought home to him. We had as complete a British propaganda for free trade in Michigan, for example, as ever there was against intervention in the world war. Seems strange, doesn't it? But does the average Michigander of sufficient years to be informed recall that the greatest campaign ever put up for free trade in Michigan, extending over years of time, fortified by the introduction of eminent Englishmen into our communities to talk for it, |