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Vol. 37 s : EDITORIALS AND SHORT COMMENTS ON THINGS IN GENERAL THOS. E. WATSON. WHY THE DELAY OF PEACE? King Canute, President Wilson—House, Bernard Baruch, and the Mutual Insurance League of Despoilers. Of course you remember what was done by King Canute: he took a seat on his royal chair, on the ocean-beach, and he ordered the Atlantic Ocean to halt its in-coming tide. , With brutal disregard of His Majesty’s com¬ mand, the Atlantic waves came pouring in upon the beach, higher and higher, until Canute had to get up and scoot. President Wilson-House rose in his Mighty Power, and crossed the Mighty Deep, telling the 9 United States to stop moving until he got hack. Then, having gallivfhted and junketed all over Europe, and talked himself into a state of tem¬ porary exhaustion, he left the Old World, to cross back to this Land of the Brave, telling Europe to stop moving until his return. Well, the world did not stGp moving on either iide of the Pond. • On the contrary, the tide kept on rising so fast, both here and in Europe, that our Presidential hvphen finds himself doing what Canute did— making tracks to the rear. In this somewhat hurried and disorderly retreat from his position on the. League —which admitted of no amendments —he is secretly assisted by that worthy brother, Bernard Baruch; and he is open¬ ly, uproariously aided by that other worthy patriot, William Howard Taft. Oh yes, the League which Wilson said should not be amended, is being amended by Taft, at the earnest request of Wilson. How fine it is to see a Republican, of the Gug¬ genheim -Bal li nge r-Wicker si i a m-,T ohn Hayes Ham¬ mond stripe vociferously helping a Democrat, of the Morgan - House-Burleson - Hoover - Creel - Baruch stripe! Thus mutualities of noble aspirations festoon do with vines and blossoms the dividing wall of party politics. But what delays the Peace? Why is it that month after month rolls by, without bringing tne worici nearer ro a real armis¬ tice? A While President Wilson-House-Baruch has been reeling off rhetorical rhapsodies about the English League of Nations, peace has had to wait. England enjoys a monoply of our cotton-buy ing, while the embargo stays on: and England en courages the delay, in order that her factories shall malrt! the most of the monopoly. * The High Contracting Powers are allowing American foodstuffs to go to Germany, but no cotton, , Give the hungry Huns all the bread and meat they Avant, but don’t let them start to Avork in the cotton mills! Why not ? -Because England, France and the American Cotton-mill Trust are afraid the Germans will jump into the world-markets and yet ahead of them. Monopoly prices exist in those world-markets, and the Big Business which coined so many billions of profit out of the blood of soldiers, does not want German goods to invade (.hose monopolized mar¬ kets. An influx of German products would mean a drop in .-monopoly prices. Hence, keep the embargo and let peace wait. That’s all there is to it: the greed of cotton manufacturers of America, England and France inspires Wilson to consume time on his League, procrastinate on the Treaty of Peace, and thus prolong the embargo which is paralyzing the Southern States. Who can explain the mystery of “Colonel” House ? Who and what is he? When did these United States make him Am bassador-in-Chief? Who pays hipi, and how much? Nobody can answer. What is the explanation of the predominant in¬ fluence of Bernard Baruch—the gentleman from Jerusalem who made so many millions on that famous “peace leak,” which whispered its way from the White House in the winter of 1915? Why are the Morgan banking interests repre¬ sented at .the Peace Conference, by Lamont, a mem¬ ber of the firm? There is a Morgan bank in Paris, one in Lon¬ don, one in New York: like the Rothschilds, the Steel Trust, the Oil Tyust, and the Munitions Trust, this Morgan financial interest is inter¬ national. To what extent are these representatives of Big Business promoting the League and delaying the Peace? In the meantime, the tides of racial feeling con tinue to advance: the organization of the producing ( CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO.) ®ll Columbia l ♦ : tr biso , % Price $2.00 Per Year LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING ABOUT EGYPT. It is a land of one river, created by the river, kept alive by the river, never out of sight of the river, enriched by the river—such is Egypt, Far away in darkest Africa, the Nile comes down from mountain and lake, to find its way through* marsh and over cataract toward the Mediterranean Sea. On the East, a vast desert of Arabian sands; upon the West, a vast desert of Lybian sands; be¬ tween, is Egypt, the narrow strip of valley which the swift river won from the deserts, at the be¬ ginning of Time, and holds, by reason of the year¬ ly floods that deluge the mountains of Negroland, overflow the Albert and Nyanza Lakes, and come pouring down the Nile to overflow and enrich the Valley of Osiris. The rains fall in far off Africa, not in Egypt; and the yearly deposit of fresh mud is Dome thousands of miles by the river, before it is spread abroad over the Egyptian fields. For many reasons, Egypt is a land of en¬ chantment to those who travel and to those who read books: its appeal to the imagination is con stant and irresistible. x You cannot think of sacred history, without thinking of Egypt. You cannot move a step in profane history, without finding yourself in Egypt—where Herodo¬ tus travelled, where Moses studied, where Cambyses conquered, where Ethiopians ruled, where As¬ syrians where Alexander triumphed, where Pharaohs’temples stood; the Great lay dead in his coffin of gold; where Caesar was almost defeated, where Pompey was slain, where Cleopatra made love t'o Marc Antony, and Antony threw a world away for a woman; where fanatical Christian monks mur dered Hypatia, and burnt the collected literature of the Ancient world. After it'was the Grecian conquest. came too Rowwn > and upon the wheat, grown in this Valley of the Nile, that the Roman populace depended for its daily dole of bread. After the Roman, came the Mohammedan; and the Egyptian wheat, for ages, fed Constantino¬ ple, as it had formerly fed imperial Rome.. (A. D. 640 et seq.) And now, at last,, the English have ousted the Sultans of Turkey, and it i§ the devoutly Chris¬ tian British who will, henceforth and forever, “spoil the Egyptians.” How did this change take place? How did Egypt happen to fall into the mercilessly rapacious clutch of England? It is a story of modem High Finance; a story of the reckless debtor and the usurious creditor; a story of unscrupulous European Shylocks dealing with helplessly weak Oriental borrowers; a story of the unwary signers of bonds, remorselessly op¬ pressed by the bondholders; a story of European soldiers, ruthlessly used by European governments, to accomplish the purposes of the ravenous bank¬ ers of Paris and London. The story is so recent,, so tragic, so illustrative of the methods by which Money uses Governments that the facts , are worthy of your attention. After the Mohammedans conquered Egypt, it. remained under the rule of the Caliphs, or Sul¬ tans, until Napoleon Bonaparte invaded the cou li¬ try and temporarily set up the French government there. (1798). Later—Napoleon having returned to France—the English landed an army in Egypt, for the purpose of expelling the French. This, they could not quite do; but finally the French agreed to leave, if the English would carry them home. The English agreed; and so the French troops made their return trip, just in the nick of time, to save Napoleon, in Italy, at the battle of Marengo. Having rid Egypt of the French, the English felt unable to hold it against the Turks: conse quently, the rule of the Sultan was re-established along the Nile. The Khedive—Viceroy—paid annual tribute to the Turkish government at Constantinople, and furnished Egyptian troops to the Sultan’s army, whenever occasion required. The greatest of the Viceroys, was Mohammed A7 Avho governed Egypt from 1806 to his death in 1849. He introduced European discipline into the army, and he made life and property safe from marauders. He also gave the utmost, encourage ment to agriculture and commerce, promoting edu cation, and establishing law, order, and tranquility throughout the "Wiley. " Ambitious to found an independent empire, he defied the Sultan of Turev, defeated his army, con quered Syria, and seemed certain of taking'Con¬ stantinople fareat itself, when the Quadruple Alliance, led by Britain, stepped in and saved the Turk. Mohammed Ali was succeeded by his grand- Harlem, Ga., Friday, April 4, 1919. son, Abbas; and, after Abbas, came Said Pasha, in 1854—who in turn was succeeded by his nephew, Ismail. (1863) It was Ismail who built the huge irrigation dam, at C airo; built railroads, built extensive sys¬ tems of irrigation, built palaces, built mosques, built telegraph lines, built bridges of iron, built or bought steamboats—and built up debts that were the ruin of himself and Ms country. It came about quite natuarlly; at least, it ap¬ pears natural to those of us who are familiar with the methods of European finance. Said Pasha had granted to Ferdinand de Lesseps—the plausible, polished, unscrupulous French scoundrel—a franchise to cut a canal be¬ tween the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. This franchise Avas expressly subject to the approval of the Sultan, and Avas, in any event, not to cost Egypt anything. De Lesseps immediately went to selling Canal stock in Paris. London, and wherever else he could find purchasers. He also commenced work on the canal, without waiting for the Sultan’s approval. But De Lesseps could not dispose of all the stock: he had sold 222,358 shares: there was no market for the remaining 177,642 shares: England had no desire for them, then. In this emergency, De Lesseps persuaded the Khedive to buy the unsold stock for the Egyptian government, at very noarlv it face value, or $17, “64,000. Thus was Egypt harpooned. Along with the concession to build the Suez Canal, between the salt-water seas, the Khedive had granted to Do Lesseps the right to open a fresh¬ water canal, tapping the Nile at Cairo and convey¬ ing a portion of it to the Suez Canal, for drinking ^fposon, ol wntso.' .^M^f*** yy . But it came to pass that De Lesseps stfw too many difficulties that might arise in connection with his fresh-water ditch; therefore, he voluntar¬ ily surrendered to the Egyptian government that port of its concession. In this surrendered concession, there had been clauses Avhich bound the Khedive to furnish forced labor , at a nominal price; to donate to De Lesseps’ company the desert land along the canal; and to enjoy the privilege of selling water to the natives for irrigation purposes. Having securely hooked his big fish by the sale of the minority stock in the* salt-water,I com mercial Suez Canal, De Lesseps norv proceeded to put forward enormous claims for damages inflicted upno his Company, by his own failurt to ad upo i the concession to dig the fresh-water ditch. It is an amazing chapter in High Finance and Lofty Rascality. De Lesseps -proposed that his preposterous claims for damages be referred to the pinchbeck French Emperor, Napoleon III., as sole arbitrator. The helpless Khedive, not knowing what else to do, submitted. Napoleon III. promptly signed the award Avhich bad been prepared by the lawyer of the Suez •Canal Company! This award gave the Company 84,000,000 francs—about $16,800,000—damages for the cheap labor, the sand desert, and the Avater-sale priviliges, for a canal which De Lesseps had had a concession to dig, hut which he did not dig, and which he, on the contrary, ased the. Khedive to dig. Refreshed and encouraged by this Napoleonic award, De Lesseps rose and came again: he demand¬ ed a large sum for the mud-huts he had built, in anticipation of his digging the fresh-water ditch; and he also demanded pay for the fish that might have come into the fresh-water canal —had he digged it—and Avhich his Company might have caught and sold—had the fish arrived in the ex¬ pected jibnndance. The Khedive Avas so frightened at the idea of having Napoleon HI. pass upon these additional claims, that he hastily compromised with De Les¬ seps, agreeing to pay 30,000,000 francs—about $6, 000,000 —for the unused huts and the uncaught fish. By such base impositions as this, Egypt, came to be put under the yoke of an unpayable debt, of seventy-five dollars upon every cultivated acre of land! | ’ s on lY country on earth, so far as I cnow - where every fruit-tree (the date-palm) pays k-poll-taai. j Thus the French Empire of Napoleon III. <ts P°i'cd the Egyptians;" “watchful but the English Avere on the alert,.with waiting:” Egypt, was too *1 tiling f°r England not to be jealous and covetous, So it came to pass, (1875) that Disraeli, the British Premier, objected to France’s proposed pur¬ chase of Egypt’s shares in the Suez Canal; but the (continued on page two.) Issued Weekly J What’s Become of Those (14 Points ? At the beginning of last year—or to be exact, on Jan. 8, 1918—President Wilson-House made his glorious declaration of the terms upon which he consent to stop the Great War and recreate the modern world. Those 14 Points were as follows: !•—End of secret diplomacy. 2. —Freedom of the seas. 3. —Removal of trade barriers, 4. —Reduction of armaments. A—Settlement of colonial claims in accordance with the interests of the population. 9- Evacuation of and freedom of Russia. 7.—Restoration of Belgium. Evacuation of France and return of Alsace and Lorraine. 9.—Return of Italia Irredenta. 10. —Self-rule for nations held subject by Aus¬ tria-Hungary. (This has been followed by the American recognition of Czecho-Slova kia as an independent state.) 11. —Restoration of the Balkan states. 12. —Self-rule for subject states of Turkey. 13. —Polish independence. iE—h- league of nations to prevent future ag¬ gression. A year and three months have passed since these Fourteen meteoric splendors 'flamed in the heavens, while sapient mankind fell down, in rap¬ turous adoration. England rejoiced to hear the Fourteen oracles; so did France: so did Italy; so did Germany. In fact, Germany wa -• even mpve enthusiastic than England: the Old Crowd, controlling things at Berlin, swallowed all fourteen of the Points with¬ out the bat of an eye. mmm Now let us consider these 14 Rev jpuns—m-' spired^ glorified, . ty “morel:" transcendental, iPvr.hhtpHJEjitfajfVu Altruistic, and su , if not intensely moral.) 1 “1-—The end of secret diplomacy.” Has it ended? Not yet. Secret diplomacy, of the d—dest, secretest sort, has been juggling bphi locked doors for the last free months, and it is just beginning to get its hand in. Secret diplomacy will doubtless end whea Gabriel blows his what-you-call-it, but not, before. Consequently, Point 1. goes to the scrap bean. “2.—Freedom of the seas.” I seem to remember the* we Avont into the War upon this question. England blockaded Germany, and Germany blockaded England; but wo particularly abhorred the German blockade, and so we. went into the War, to vindicate the neutrals' rights to free sdas. Is it not so? The record shows that it is. so.' But what has become of this Cause of War— this casus belli? It has gone to the ‘scrap pile. The League of Nations contains no such pro¬ vision. Queer, isn’t it? “3.—Removal of trade barriers.” Protective tariffs are the most viciously ef¬ fective trade barriers that human greed for monopoly ever devised: does the League of Nations abolish prohibitive tariff's? Not at all—so here goes another Point to the Avasto heap. “4.—Reduction d¥ armaments.” Almost before this Point had ceased to excite the admiration of approving humanity, President Wilson-House cabled, from Paris to Washington, demanding an increase of $700,000,000, for en¬ larged naval armament, and the Prussian General Staff, at Washington, were clamoring for a standing nr my of a million men. Knglaml followed suit, increased her navy, and forcibly held 900,000 of her conscripts for further military service. France is moving along the same lines, and so aro Japan and Italy. Armaments have not been reduced, and are not going to bp. Nobody but the visionaries noAV ex pect it. x -‘Settlement of colonial claims in nceor-' dance'with the interests of the population.” I Ins Point was deceptive on the face of it: the word -interests deprived the “population” of its nghts, while ostensibly safe-guarding them. Colonial claims are not being settled according to the wishes and the rights of the colonial popula tmn else Egypt would escape the awful yoke of - they were. as once G^ Good 7 ? Lord Vfl 7 ! ! at Right, i 0 \ and now, freedom an American of k™.” occupying Russia and slaughtering army J is Right now, French troops Russians. wage war Russia. occupy J ‘ R, lgsia s a> an $ Enslwh upon forces ( ] oinB tlle „ . V'to (Continued to evaroate R nda Jf ^ on Page —■— /Vo. 28.