rupture not only international good fellowship but also international economics.

When information of the three foregoing groups of conditions shall have been ascertained the author suggests the following international economic program:

1. A central international office for the public debt of the allied States.

2. A federation of all loan banks. 3. An association formed among all the great banks of deposit and savings.

4. The establishment of an international standard of discount and exchange.

5. Commercial treaties, with reciprocal tariffs.

6. Navigation treaties, with reciprocal privileges.

7. Improvement in fiscal, postal, telegraphic, and telephonic communication.

8. A confederation of railways, &c. After such an economic system shall have been examined in the light of European conditions the author would then apply it abroad. Here he takes for an illustration the example evolved by the growth of the British Empire, which, with a few alterations, would be the ideal sought. In this way he deals with the European colonies in Africa, America, Asia, and the Pacific, and then with the independent countries in these regions, showing the enormous waste among the colonies, the obstacles to their development, and their lack of enterprise—all due to the fact that an understanding was lacking among the mother countries in Europe. He shows by statistics and deductions made from tables of exports and imports how both the producer and the consumer could have been measurably benefited if even a knowledge of needs and productive ability had been exchanged between the European colonizing nations in the past.

His treatment of the emigration question is entirely new, although based upon long-recognized political and economical principles. Too much in the past has been left to chance. Emigration has brought forward questions which have been dealt with as they came up, whereas they should have all been settled before emigration began. Formerly emigrants fleeing from religious or political persecution sought new lands where freedom of conscience and action had

been guaranteed or where they thought they could establish it for themselves. These were followed by emigrants moved by economic reasons. The latter did not go where they were most needed, but where conditions were most easy and the monetary rewards the largest, so that very often their appearance changed the conditions which had obtained before their arrival. Much capital has been wasted in attempting to apply it to these new conditions when it should have been applied elsewhere in order to invite emigration. Emigration is not a matter in which only two countries are concerned the country of departure and the country of arrival-it concerns all countries which have financial or commercial dealings with the two directly interested. Emigration, if unguided, will continue to flow along the lines of least resistance to where life is easiest and labor lightest and the rewards theoretically higher. In the meantime:

It is difficult to conceive how the States of South America-Argentina, Brazil, Chile, or Peru-can prosper as they have in the past without the aid of regulated capital, navigation, trade, and emigration from England, France, Italy, &c. An economic crisis would injure them severely.

Hitherto each European country has exploited South America according to its own immediate benefit, real or imagined. Many things have been withdrawn because it was believed they were useless; others have been put forward only to find that they were useless. A better understanding among the suppliers of capital, commodities, and emigrants would have obviated all that.

The author then declares that the United States will play a still more important rôle than she has hitherto played. He outlines the past history of this country and shows how in enterprise, morality, and restraint it has given lessons to the world. All these things contribute to make the United States an example for all.

What a spectacle, says the author, has been offered by Germany's violations of all international precedent and law, which finally found expression in the sinking of the Lusitania, and the moderate, restrained method pursued by the

United States in dealing with this catastrophe, while at the same time emphasizing the fact that international obligations, at least in so far as they concerned humanity and the lives and property of neutrals, must be made to prevail!

The author does not look for the armed intervention of the United States, but he believes already its moral intervention on the grounds of humanity has had a salutary effect.

The Economic League of the Allies would offer to the United States an easy but most powerful means to develop a decisive and rapid action in the vast European conflict and toward its happy conclusion. The spontaneous participation of the United States in the league on the side of the Allies would gather into the league itself such a colossal complex of economical forces which would crush any and all resistance. Thus the United States could, without armed intervention, vindicate and consecrate in Europe and in the world those principles of liberty, humanity, and justice which form the origin of the United States themselves, and which no brutal or barbaric force, no militarism, no matter how well organized, could ever obliterate from the history of nations.

GERMAN AND ITALIAN
CULTURE.

With a full consciousness of how Germany and Austria have tried financially, commercially, and politically to exploit Italy for their own benefit, while injuring not only Italian industry but taste and feelings, Guido Manacorda contributes an article on "German and Italian Culture." On this theme the readers of CURRENT HISTORY are already pretty well informed. Many side lights are thrown on the long struggle between Latin and Teutonic culture which began in Caesar's time and has now been resumed with the same ideals in conflict.

PROVISIONS FOR WAR.

Ezio Bottini writes on "The Methods of Communication Employed by the Various Armies in the Present Conflict," dealing with everything from the aeroplane to the automobile. An important article on "The Problem of Meat During the War" is presented by Massimo Torelli. At the begining of the war, he

tells us, only two nations were using preserved meats-Germany and England. After the battle of the Marne, when the French found that they would not immediately need the immense herds of cattle that had been collected in case of a possible siege of Paris, cold storage was first cautiously introduced and has been gradually developed. This is most curious, as it was a Frenchman who invented cold storage.

As to Italy, although it had been again and again affirmed that Italians did not use preserved meats, either of the chilled or the frozen variety, yet when the war came it was found that the Government had built no fewer than 1,400 coldstorage warehouses, principally in the north of Italy, and that great orders for preserved meats had been placed in Argentina, Australia, and the United States. For the first time in its history the Italian Army is now being fed on preserved meat.

ITALY "REDEEMED."

The popular magazines continue to keep their readers informed of what their army is doing. Taking the most recent War Office reports as a theme, but never anticipating them, they present well-illustrated articles on the Italy that has already been "redeemed," with historical articles giving narratives of former attempts for redemption. For example, we have in Il Secolo XX. "Views from the Front," by Vittorio Podrecca, and "Grado Redeemed," by Giovanni Franceschini, to contrast with "A Century of Conspiracy at Trieste," by Angelo Scocchi, and "Garibaldi in the Trentino," by Isa Pini. The pictures which accompany the articles on current subjects give a splendid idea of the beauties of the territory invaded by the Italians, its natural as well as its historic elements, and also of the gigantic obstructions to the advance.

THE ALPINE SOLDIERS.

La Lettura opens with an article on "Our Alpine Soldiers," by G. Perrucchetti, describing in pictures and text the history of the remarkable corps and its achievements in the wars against

Austria of 1859 and 1866. There is also an article, of historical as well as current interest, on the "Gulf of Trieste," by Paolo Revelli. The Foreign Minister, Baron Sidney Sonnino, who conducted the protracted negotiations with AustriaHungary before Italy entered the war, forms the subject of a picturesque and informing paper by Guido Biagi. While not dealing with the Baron's most famous exploit in diplomacy, the author

presents a careful survey of those political influences and that natural ability which caused Sonnino first to rival Giolitti and then to defy him with a new and regenerated Italy eager for war at his back. What the Banca Roma scandal could not achieve in regard to the man who for thirteen years had held Italian internal politics in the hollow of his hand was performed over night by Sonnino with a popular foreign program.

W

HAT remains of my bread card of a few weeks ago will show you how liberal an allowance of bread the Government grants to each individual. These cards, issued every Monday morning, have small coupons calling for 25, 50, and 100 grams of bread, making a total of 1,950 grams, or nearly two kilos-about 41⁄2 pounds of English weight-per week per individual.

Now, I have the normal appetite of a full-grown man, and, as you will see from the inclosed card, I used only 550 grams of my allowance without stinting myself in the least. Even the most hard-working laborer could not consume more bread than the Government permits him to obtain.

At first, when the new regulation for the distribution of bread and flour came into effect, on Feb. 15, there was a general grumbling of dissatisfaction in Berlin. The war has not quelled in us Berliners the atavistic inclination to kick about anything at any time. It is a condition of our mental and physical comfort. But the kicking did not last long. We soon realized the superior wisdom of the Government in regulating Germany's bread supply and preventing a number of scare-headed women from hoarding up enormous stores, to the detriment of the rest of the community. We also found that the new system runs smoothly and is not at all vexatious to the individual.

If you keep house, each member of the

household has his or her bread card, and upon supplying bread, rolls, and flour the baker clips corresponding coupons from these cards.

If you are a bachelor, like myself, and take your meals at restaurants, you tell the waiter what sort and how much bread you wish, and he does the clipping. The cards are not transferable. Thus, when you are a guest at the table of some friend, either you bring your bread with you, or, if you arrive early enough, you deliver your card into the hands of your friend's servant, who takes it to the baker and returns with the bread. It is all very simple, and no one thinks any more about it, now that thirteen weeks of quiet working have accustomed us to the little formality.

When you call for your new card, the old one has to be returned, with the unused coupons, to the authorities. I am really risking six months' imprisonment, or 1,500 marks' fine, by sending you this

one, for all infringements of the regulations of Jan. 25, 1915, are punishable to that extent, as the letterpress on the back of the card will tell you.

What would you pay in New York at a decent restaurant for a meal consisting of soup, fish, or entrée, roast with vegetables and potatoes, and dessert? Now, as before the war, I pay 80 pfennigs (or 20 cents) for such a meal at my usual restaurant! Nor have the portions been reduced in size. With 10 pfennigs' worth of beer in addition, and a 10-pfennig tip for my old waiter, I consider myself most comfortably cared for.

England may try her best to starve In us out; she is failing completely. fact, it will soon become known officially that the Government's husbanding of foodstuffs has been so efficient that Germany has now a surplus of supplies and will not need to begin using the new harvest until the end of September.