Dec. 5.
Like s0 many other issues before the World to-day the problem of the War Debts has been stated with a wealth of Persuasion and argument. The leaders of Democracy on both sides of the Atlantic have been told. what course should be pursued. They have been power-Jess to act without the. consent of the unwieldy animal their charge. "The remarkable efficiency of democratic systems of collecting wisdom has been countered by an equally remarkable inability to secure action. In Great Britain this has been Mustrated by the long-drawn out failures to deal adequately with the decay of the cotton and coal industries. In world-affairs it {8 vividly present in the minds of all who have followed the course of discussions at Geneva on disarmament. Democracy is at fault because the old tag "Vox populi vox Dei" has been given the status of ¢ maxim. Its principles have been transformed into dogmas and, in the pro-ess, natural laws' have Deen ignored, Faith in democracy is not unjustified; it is indeed the only hope for' world advancement. The trouble lies in its an. unreasoning—superstition. The people have created and then proceed to stone their own prophets. This gives, perhaps, the best reading of the situation now perplexing the world in the revelation that the road for ind from chaos to re-Jeonstruction is barred by the homely figure of the Congressman. So, while the well-mar-shalied arguments of the British note receive the expert commendation of those whom Democracy, in theory, sets up as its guides and mentors, the chane of appropriate action bei taken seem dim. The mere fact that failure to endorse the ap-Proval given to the British Note will—so far as expert judgment goes—be disastrous to American hopes of recovery is insufficient, Congressman would, perhaps, be glad if the decision could be taken on his behalf without word from him. But he is caught by his own safeguards airist undemocratic action. The hand which presses the button must be his and no-one else's and he fails to. summon up the requisite imagination to give the hand its office.
"Tu his own private affairs the Congressman would probably act with unfaltering judgment. It is a commonplace of business practice that where eircumstances governing the operation of a Joan have greatly changed and put the debtor in an impossible Position, the creditor is ready to vary the contract with the Practical object of keeping the debtor on his feet and, therefore, a position to' continue TMinistering to the flow of trade. But the decision now required can work in no such direct fashion, The pressing of the button will not produce immediate results which can be definitely connected with the act performed. So the homely figure, who has just been bathing himself in the enervating pool of rhetoric and emotion, is uncertain. He feels that, if he clings to the elementary mathematics of plus and minus and refuses to dabble in the empirical logarithims of the higher science, he is playing for safety. Older democracies may cite their own. experience in vain. The burnt child may fear the fire; it is not always able to mnvey the fear to the unscorch-'The tragedy just now is that, "on that decision "in
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.