Edinburgh, June 16.
It the horrors of the war ex ceeded all the fancies of the pro: phets, still more have the disastrous consequences of it exceeded the imaginations of pre-war publicists. We question if any human brain could have drawn picture so tragically fantastic, so} weirdly depressing as that which unfolds itself daily under the category of "foreign intelligence." Take the picture at the moment—before a fresh, unimagined horror is added. Germany has elected a Parliament, the composition of which presents the alternative of perilous deadlock or a dangerous! reaction. Cabinet Government. is in abeyance in Italy. The Amer-ivan Republican nomination foreshadows " policy of practical isolation, The Polish withdrawal).from Kieft. and the Bolshevik pressure C a the south are likely to harden Lenin and Trotrky. The condition of the Middle and the Near East is becoming chaotic, And irresponsible mischief-makers are doing their best to weaken the alliance between Britain and France, the first and essential link in the chain world peace, Tas Picrorn axp Tuar.
Ynis picture does not give the whole truth, but it outlines that side of it which is most prominent) in the public eve. It is curious turn from it to that part of our daily news which alone rivals it in prominence—the accounts of cricket and tennis matches, of voeing and rowing and_ boxing, and, above all here in Scotland, golf, The effect is not merely one contrast, for contrast presupposes certain elements in common. Moscow and Muirfield~do not seem to be even in the same elanet. Probably there is nothing on earth for which Lenin and Trotaky have such a supreme contempt as for the sporting pursuits of the average Britisher.
Of course in so far as it militates against progress in other matters, and impoverishes the general in: terests of life, sport is a bad thing. But obsession by sport is infinitely less harmful than obsession by the insane chimeras that are drawing the civilization of astern Europe to the edge of an abyss of savagery. It was recounts of football and cricket, matches that our soldiers found vesurance of cheerful reality amid the nightmare of the trenches, It is in sport that the nation is, with a sure instinct, seeking 2 cure for! the social "shell shock" produced by the war. What is most to be wished is that the spirit of sport should extend to other peoples, 30 that the dreadful rivalry of shell and bayonet shall give way to the or the golf course. It was in the friendly rivalry of the football field teel of Tullochgorum that thei
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.