6.87 per cent below those of November, 1913. These figures back up the statement made by German industrial leaders that the industries of Germany are practically doing the business which formerly was done by foreign exporters.

The industry which suffered the least from the war was the textile industry. In many ways it made notable increases over the preceding year. According to the labor figures of this industry, 28.2 per cent of the textile workers in Germany were on the unemployed lists at the end of August. At the end of September this percentage had fallen to 17.1, by the end of October to 9.1, and by the end of November to 4.9.

Mining Industry Revives.

In the coal mining industry production is gradually resuming a normal tonnage. The potash production is about one-half of that preceding the war. In the iron and steel industry the production has suffered

heavily through the paralysis of the export business and the available figures show an activity ranging from 45 to 55 per cent of that which preceded the war-although in the lines particularly affected by the demand for war supplies there has been a notable increase.

The war also depressed the machinery industry and many plants are on short time, without immediate prospects of betterment. Some of the automobile factories, under the pressure of war business, report increases; others, however, have lost considerably.

Falling Off in Luxuries.

In lines devoted to luxury the losses, of course, have been heaviest. This includes the manufacture of musical instruments, particularly pianos.

The depression which the war brought to the export phases of the electrical industries has been largely offset by the ability with which these

companies have been able to devote their plants to the manufacture of other lines, particularly of war material. The result has done much to ease the labor markets in cities which otherwise would have suffered heavily under the war.

I have taken these statistics and opinions largely from the summary which is soon to be issued by the Disconto Gesellschaft, one of Germany's most important banks. It adds this comment:

"From these items it may be plainly seen that the social economy of Germany has not only evidenced its health and its strength in the last few months, but, thanks to the scientific and thorough foundation of its general output and to the high efficiency and tireless diligence of German technical achievement, it has been able to meet revolutionary circumstances with wonderful elasticity and at least to a great degree avert the damage of war."

GERMANY'S DECLARATION.

Illinois Staats-Zeitung, Chicago.

Editorial, Horace L. Brand.

Germany declares that it is battling to preserve Western culture and civilization from conquest by the Slav. Let us analyze, as far as is in our limited power and knowledge, this declaration.

Germany showed most remarkable progress in art, literature, science and commerce-in fact, in practically every branch of human thought and energy-which we, citizens of the United States, define as civilization. Fairly judged we cannot and candidly confessed we do not deny that Germany represents the brightest type of western culture and civilization. By admitting this we do not detract nor subtract anything from the claims of England or France that these two nations also represent the highest type of western culture and civilization.

Why, then, this war among similar nations?

The only plausible answer, in the last analysis, is fear of Russia. This giant Slav power, which already controls more people and more land than any other nation in the world, is the ever alert menace to peace, because it is ever eager to enlarge the sphere of influence of the Slav. Thus, England and France should be allies of Germany against the common enemy-Russia.

That this is not the case is due to causes-although important by themselves, still minor to the main underlying cause of the giant struggle of Slav against Teuton, of oriental civilization against occidental culture.

Thus, Germany is fighting in a righteous cause, if it is right to stop the westward march of Russia and all that Russia stands for, righteous if it is right to advance the sphere

of influence of art, literature, science and commerce, such as Germany has developed and given to the world with which to alleviate human suffering, to lessen human toil and increase human enjoyment.

WHAT THE TEUTON DEFENDS.

The Milwaukee Free Press. Herbert Sanborn, Professor of Philosophy in Vanderbilt University.

The recent letter of Dr. Charles Eliot, as well as the vehement pro

tests of several well-meaning clergymen against the German Emperor, show plainly enough how little thought the majority actually gives to the real problems of civilization. Since the outbreak of the war, I have not yet read a single protest that has not laid bare, even in the case of clergymen, the purely materialistic philosophy of the individual making it. Underlying all such protests there is the dread of some form of physical pain or physical loss of various kinds, together with the false assumption that the idealistic Schiller repudiated once for all when he

said: "Das Leben ist der Gueter Hoechstes nicht"-the claim of the martyr throughout the ages. Of course, not all materialists nor only materialists would like to see universal peace, but it is safe to say that only they see nothing worth fighting for and that only they are in favor of peace and at cost.

The unintelligent and almost criminally dangerous agitation for universal arbitration proceeds upon the monster fallacy of assuming that international justice is, at the present stage of barbarism and Philistinism of the world as a whole, a possibility. It cannot be realized because of the fact that the vast majority of the nations of the earth, like the vast majority of individuals in most nations, does not clearly apprehend the highest aims of civilization, nor the fact that Christianity must advance beyond materialism and Philistinism before it can become a safe guardian of culture. It would be extremely dangerous to the real aims of life to allow the majority of the nations (who demands of civilization merely panem et circenses) to determine the justice of the most important claims, and for that reason all nations that do apprehend those aims and who are, furthermore, well aware that most nations do not, will always refuse to permit certain ques tions to be settled by the mob. Truth and justice cannot yet be determined by majority vote.

Most individuals, even in enlightened America, believe that the real purpose of civilization is the acquisition of material wealth. If asked answer

some

what this is for, they can only in terms of luxury or at the best in terms of this or that improvement of the physical well-being of the community. Others will think of material wealth as a foundation for "education," but they think nevertheless of "education" as something strictly vocational, as thing merely instrumental to "getting on in the world" and the like. The individual, as Ruskin says of his compatriots, desires that education shall enable him to "ring with confidence the bell at the doublebelled doors and then after awhile to have a double-belled door for himself."

Of course this is all quite necessary as a mere preliminary to selfdevelopment, and dangerous only when it comes to be, in the individual or in society, the only aim conceived, then civilization degenerates into mere luxury or into the mad scramble for ever-increasing wealth.

Now when we study the various movements of history, we find, in addition to the superficial causes that he who runs may easily discern, certain antitheses of real principles involved. Our own Revolutionary war, for example, appears to those who merely contemplate the surface of events as a revolt against the taxation imposed by England on her colonies, but in reality this revolution was merely one phase of an opposition between the principles of autocracy and democracy, which was at work then and much later in England herself. In laying a tax on the

American colonies, the crown was merely trying out a policy destined chiefly to be carried out in the home country.

From one point of view the war of the Revolution had for its aim the defeat of England and the freeing of the colonies, but from another point of view the struggle meant and resulted in the union of what had previously been separate units. The colonies were not fighting for union consciously, but that is what they were really fighting for without being aware of it. The union against

a common enemy revealed to them how much they really had in common. This real struggle for a more perfect union is seen again clearly in the transition from the government under the articles of confederation to the constitution and again in the struggle of the civil war; in fact, our whole history may be summed up as a continuous struggle toward a more nearly perfect union -a struggle toward self-consciousness. So it is with many other movements of history; their inner meaning is not fully realized by most people at the time of their occurrence.

That which will go down in histtory in the present struggle is the unquenchable patriotism of Germans throughout the world; I doubt if there has ever been a war waged where there has been such a united people, and it seems as though this fact alone should give those who go on prattling about the "despotic kaiser" and the "struggle between autocracy and democracy" some food for reflection, particularly when we stop to consider what people this is. This is not the war of one man or a clique of men, but the war of the whole, peace-loving, home-loving German people, naturally the most phlegmatic, deliberative, and reflective race of the world. If we tell them. as England's representative Mr. Wells does, that much learning hath made them mad, I am sure that they can with perfect right make the answer that Paul did to Festus. They are not mad and the kaiser in whom they trust is not mad; these descendants of Luther, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, etc., know far better than their horror-stricken critics that they are waging war for that which is dearer to them than life itself and something no peace conference of all the nations would be willing or competent to adjudicate fairly.

In an article in the last number of the "Fatherland" I have endeavored to point out that the contest for material values which has precipitated this war between Germany and the rest of the world can only be judged fairly when we consider what claims the various nations involved can put forward to justify their possession of material values.

Germany has beaten England fairly and peacefully in the commercial contest for the markets of the world, and hence England has sought to ensnare and deliver her over to those who are her enemies for this and similar reasons. It is not unneutral to say this, for England herself has admitted it time and

again, both before and since the war began. A recent article in Boston and New York papers entitled "Why England Fights," makes it clearer than ever that England is bent on the commercial ruin of Germany.

Apparently England's claim to the exclusive possession of this commerce, which she has acquired by means of a chain of fortunate accidents of history, can have before the parliament of man no more justification than the right of Germany to secure it if she can; but when we inquire, from a higher point of view, what this wealth in the two cases is to be used for England's claims vanish into trivial significance, as compared with those of this teacher of the nations. We then see plainly that it is a struggle ultimately of the highest aims known to the human races against the sordid aims of races merely veneered by culture.

England and all the other nations of Europe desire material wealth for luxury and a purely materialistic life. England, France and Italy, as is well known, have degenerated from Shakespeare to Shaw, from Descartes and Molière to Zola, and from Dante to d'Annunzio; whereas in Germany Shakespeare, Dante and Molière still live, so that in Munich for example, more plays of Shakespeare are given in a year, according to statistics than in all England and America taken together? The German university is still incomparable, and in the midst of her great material prosperity, and in spite of occasional inroads of French and English materialism, Germany has never as a people forgotten the reason for which alone material values exist. Germany is consecrated to the development of the highest spiritual values; in Germany material values are consciously and unremittingly transmitted into culture.

It is because she is as a people conscious of the fact that the other nations of the world either have had or have ceased to have this aim that she will never submit to the decision of the majority concerning its value. For her it is the supreme aim of life, that for which material wealth is merely the means. For this reason she has armed to defend herself from the barbarian and the no less dangerous Philistine, and she perceives more clearly than the latter that even on the material plane the horrors of peace may well outweigh the horrors of war.

war.

Those who corner wheat and meat on the stock exchange, who carry on Erie and New Haven and Hartford deals, refuse sufficient protection against fire in crowded inflammable factory buildings, are among those who are apt to protest most loudly against the horrors of They seldom see their own mute and inglorious victims-the tuberculosis patients from the crowded tenements, the infanticides, suicides, murders, robberies, and other horrors of peace that follow in their train-horrors of peace that far outweigh those of war because they destroy not merely the body but the soul.

LETTER OF EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH TO THE CHILDREN OF AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

The Crucible.

(Translated by Clare Benedict.) To the Dear Children of Our Empire: If, on the threshold of the grave and in such a serious hour, I turn to you, beloved children, it is for more than one reason. Once you were the joy, the consolation-yes,

mains to me after a life rich in calamity. It was my wish when I ascended the throne of my fathersso young and full of hope-it will be the wish which perhaps will soon be on my dying lips as the last word of love and care for my realm and for my people.

May God direct all things as He wills, we human beings can do nothing without Him. As you, dear children, stand nearest to God, your Emperor-King begs you to pray that He

ceeded in checking the outbreak of epidemic diseases over a wide area.

often in the darkest moments of my long life the only consolation and the only joy-of your Emperor-King. When I saw you a sunbeam fell once again across the shadow of my existence. It is you, children, who are nearest to the heart of your EmperorKing, the flowers of my kingdom, the ornament of my people, the blessing of the future.

But it is not only to your EmperorKing that you are nearest, but to One before Whom the mightiest of this world are helpless creatures, God our Lord; in your eyes the light of the creation morn still shines, about you is still Paradise-is still Heaven. God is all powerful, in His hand lies the fate of all peoples. Everything bows to His will, by Him the stars and mankind are directed. That this almighty hand of God may guard and keep Austria-Hungary, giving her the victory over her many enemies and strengthening her in victory to the honor and glory of God -this is the only wish which re

If the children of the realm pray for their Fatherland, I know that all will be well with our star. Then you will have a part in the day of victory and honor of the Empire. You have called down the blessing upon our colors, upon our army.

Dear children, do not forget the empire to which-on earth-you belong, or its old Emperor.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY.

The Austro-Hungarian Red Cross. The Austro-Hungarian Red Cross Society has organized two field hospitals for 300 men each, equipped with up-to-date instruments, etc. In connection with these field hospitals four

The institutions, managed by the Red Cross at home, chiefly consist of Reserve Hospitals, Convalescent's Homes, Stations for soldiers who have become ill, etc. Under the agreement with the War Office the Red Cross was supposed to provide beds for 518 officers and 16,000 men, but the total number of beds available at present amounts to 85,000, five times as many as were asked for. These institutions are supported, of course, not by the Red Cross Society alone, but also by corporations, societies, committees, etc., of any description, as also by individual contributions.

The Society has been anxious to increase the number of nurses for the wounded by voluntary helpers, women and girls who had to go through a few weeks' training. This arrangement is found to work satisfactorily in general. The transport of wounded soldiers in the different towns and cities has also been taken over by the Red Cross So

Their Interests and Rights

THE POSITION OF HOLLAND IN THE EUROPEAN WAR.

In the Open Court.

By Albert Oosterheerdt.

The position of Holland in the great European war is both a difficult and a delicate one. In the center almost of the conflict, related to the principal warring nations by ties of blood, commerce and trade, herself an exponent of international law, which it is charged from many sides has been rudely broken, suffering greatly from the effects of the war in her trade, industry and general condition, compelled in addition to relieve a multitude of refugees, Holland has, though neutral, a most unenviable position, incurring nearly all the evil results of war without experiencing at the same time that national exaltation which is often a complement of it. Officially, of course, the Netherlands are neutral, and, as far as the government is concerned, this neutrality has been admirably kept, nor have the people at large been committing overt acts of hostility toward any of the powers involved; but it would be idle to assume that the Dutch are wholly without sympathies in this war, or that they alone have attained that state of philosophic calm which seems an absolute requirement for a complete neutrality.

The ties of blood and racial origin alone make the position of the Dutch peculiarly difficult. One of the purest Germanic nations, although not without a strong admixture of Roman blood, speaking an almost entirely Teutonic language, which is perhaps a better development of the ancient German than the modern German with its artificial constructions and ponderous word-formations, the Dutch have at all times been an outpost of das Deutschtum, of equal rank with the other nations of Teutonic extraction. Part and parcel of Germanic civilization, their relations with Belgium, and especially Brabant

and Flanders, populated by the Flemish people, practically of the same stock and using the same language, have been particularly close. Formerly, when the seventeen Netherland provinces were united under the scepter of Charles V, only to be driven apart during the reign of his son Philip II, there existed the most intimate relationship between Belgium and Holland, two parts indeed of one country. From the southern Netherlands the northern provinces derived much, in fact, nearly all of that which afterwards made the Dutch Republic famous in art, industry, trade and commerce. When the southern Netherlands were subdued by Don Juan of Spain and Alexander of Parma, the trade and commerce of the great Flemish cities were moved almost bodily to Amsterdam and the other cities of Holland and Zealand, which owe their growth and industry in great part to the Flemish artisans, weavers, merchants and bankers who came fleeing from Antwerp and Flanders after the Spanish fury of 1585 had done its fearful work in that city. Henceforth the connection between the two Netherlands is broken, and Holland profits at the expense of Belgium. The political separation is accentuated by the religious and commercial antagonism; the northern Netherlands wax great and mighty, the southern Netherlands lead a miserable existence under foreign domination.

This condition lasts for two centuries, and is ended by the effects of the great French revolution. France wrests Belgium from Austria, while, soon after, the Dutch republic comes to an inglorious end in 1795, the Prince of Orange taking refuge in England, and Holland as well as Belgium falling under French domination. The fall of Napoleon sees both countries once more united; to Holland, already independent in 1813, Belgium is added in 1815, at the command of the Vienna Congress. The union, although quite promising at first, comes to naught in 1830, when the cleri

cal and liberal parties of Belgium form an alliance, set up a revolutionary government and defy the northern provinces and the king. An attempt by the Dutch government to suppress the revolt culminated in the famous "Ten days' Campaign," at the end of which all Belgium lay at the feet of the victorious Dutch army. At this juncture, however, foreign powers intervened; both England and France assumed a threatening attitude, and by means of a French army compelled Holland to relinquish her hold upon Belgium. A long period of suspense followed, to be concluded finally by the neutrality treaty of 1839, signed by Great Britain, France, Russia, the Germanic Confederation, and Belgium and Holland themselves.

The first period of Belgian independence was necessarily very French in spirit and culture, thereby suppressing the old national character of Flanders and Brabant. A natural reaction followed, in which the ancient Flemish verse and prose regained their former pre-eminence a new period of youthful vigor and noble expression in the old language of the people. The connection with Holland, never entirely lost, became more intimate as the literatures of both countries became the common property of each. Many strands of different kinds continued to form an almost indissoluble link between the two peoples, not the least of which was the General Dutch Alliance (Algemeen Nederlandsch Verbond). Little wonder then that Dutch sympathy for Belgium in this war is ardent and sincere, and that the manifestations of charity and esteem have been universal and full throughout the whole of Holland. As indicative of Dutch feeling toward unhappy Belgium the following quotations from "Neerlandia," the official organ of the General Dutch Alliance, which has its members in every civilized country in the world, will be found illuminating. Editorially, "Neerlandia" says: "Being published in a neutral country.