An object-lesson in the difficulty of legislating in Anglo-Saxon fashion for foreign countries and comprehending their psychology was furnished by two political trials which, taking place in Paris during the Conference, enabled the delegates to estimate the distance that separates the Anglo-Saxon from the Continental mode of thought and action in such a fundamental problem as the administration of justice. Raoul Villain, the murderer of Jean Jaurès—France's most eminent statesman—was kept in prison for nearly five years without a trial. He had assassinated his victim in cold blood. He had confessed and justified the act. The eye-witnesses all agreed as to the facts. Before the court, however, a long procession of ministers of state, politicians, historians, and professors defiled, narrating in detail the life-story, opinions, and strivings of the victim, who, in the eyes of a stranger, unacquainted with its methods, might have seemed to be the real culprit. The jury acquitted the prisoner.
The other accused man was a flighty youth who had fired on the French Premier and wounded him. He, however, had not long to wait for his trial. He was taken before the tribunal within three weeks of his arrest and was promptly condemned to die.[38] Thus the assassin was justified by the jury and the would-be assassin condemned to be shot. "Suppose these trials had taken place in my country," remarked a delegate of an Eastern state, "and that of the two condemned men one had been a member of the privileged minority, what an uproar the incident would have created in the United States and England! As it happened in western Europe, it passed muster."
How far removed some continental nations are from the Anglo-Saxons in their mode of contemplating and treating another momentous category of social problems may be seen from the circumstance that the Great Council in Basel adopted a bill brought in by the Socialist Welti, authorizing the practice of abortion down to the third month, provided that the husband and wife are agreed, and in cases where there is no marriage provided it is the desire of the woman and that the operation is performed by a regular physician.[39]
Another striking instance of the difference of conceptions between the Anglo-Saxon and continental peoples is contained in the following unsavory document, which the historian, whose business it is to flash the light of criticism upon the dark nooks of civilization, can neither ignore nor render into English. It embodies a significant decision taken by the General Staff of the 256th Brigade of the Army of Occupation[40] and was issued on June 21, 1919.[41]
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
EXPLOITATION ET POLICE DE LA MAISON PUBLIQUE DE MÜNCHEN-GLADBACH
(1.) Les deux femmes composant l'unique personnel de la maison publique de Gladbach (2, Gasthausstrasse), sont venues en délégation déclarer qu'elles ne pouvaient suffire à la nombreuse clientèle, qui envahit leur maison, devant laquelle stationneraient en permanence de nombreux groupes de clients affamés.
Elles déclarent que défalcation faite du service qu'elles doivent assurer à leurs abonnés belges et allemands, elles ne peuvent fournir à la division qu'un total de vingt entrées par jour (10 pour chacune d'elle).
L'établissement d'ailleurs ne travaille pas la nuit et observe strictement le repos dominical. D'autre part les ressources de la ville ne permettent pas, paraît-il, d'augmenter le personnel. Dans ces conditions, en vue d'éviter tout désordre et de ne pas demander à ces femmes un travail audessus de leurs forces, les mesures suivantes seront prises:
(2.) JOURS DE TRAVAIL: Tous les jours de la semaine, sauf le dimanche.
RENDEMENT MAXIMUM: Chaque jour chaque femme reçoit 10 hommes, soit 20 pour les deux personnes, 120 par semaine.
HEURES D'OUVERTURE: 17 heures à 21 heures. Aucune réception n'aura lieu en dehors de ces heures.
TARIF: Pour un séjour d'un quart heure (entrée et sortie de l'établissement comprises) ... 5 marks.
CONSOMMATIONS: La maison ne vend aucune boisson. Il n'y a pas de salle d'attente. Les clients doivent donc se présenter par deux.
(3.) RÉPARTITION: Les 6 jours de la semaine sont donnés:
Le lundi—1er bat. du 164 et C.H.R.
Le mardi—1er bat. du 169 et C.H.R.
Le mercredi—2e bat. du 164 et C.H.R.
Le jeudi—2e bat. du 169 et C.H.R.
Le vendredi—3e bat. du 164.
Le samedi—3e bat. du 169.(4.) Dans chaque bataillon il sera établi le jour qui leur est fixé, 20 tickets déposés aux bureaux des sergents-majeur à raison de 5 par compagnie. Les hommes désireux de rendre visite à l'établissement réclamerout au bureau de leur sergent-majeur, 1 ticket qui leur donnera driot de priorité.
The value of that document derives from its having been issued as an ordinary regulation, from its having been reproduced in a widely circulated journal of the capital without evolving comment, and from the strong light which it projects upon one of the darkest corners of the civilization which has been so often and so eloquently eulogized.
Manifestly the currents of the new moral life which the Conference was to have set flowing are as yet somewhat weak, the new ideals are still remote and the foreshadowings of a nobler future are faint. Another token of the change which is going forward in the world was reported from the Far East, but passed almost unnoticed in Europe. The Chinese Ministry of Public Instruction, by an edict of November 3, 1919, officially introduced in all secondary schools a phonetic system of writing in place of the ideograms theretofore employed. This is undoubtedly an event of the highest importance in the history of culture, little though it may interest the Western world to-day. At the same time, as a philologist by profession, I agree with a continental authority[42] who holds that, owing to the monosyllabic character of the Chinese language and to the further disadvantage that it lacks wholly or partly several consonants,[43] it will be practically impossible, as the Japanese have already found, to apply the new alphabet to the traditional literary idiom. Neither can it be employed for the needs of education, journalism, of the administration, or for telegraphing. It will, however, be of great value for elementary instruction and for postal correspondence. It is also certain to develop and extend. But its main significance is twofold: as a sign of China's awakening and as an innovation, the certain effect of which will be to weaken national unity and extend regionalism at its expense. From this point of view the reform is portentous.
Another of the signs of the new times which calls for mention is the spread and militancy of the labor movement, to which the war and its concomitants gave a potent impulse. It is differentiated from all previous ferments by this, that it constitutes merely an episode in the universal insurgency of the masses, who are fast breaking through the thin social crust formed by the upper classes and are emerging rapidly above the surface. One of the most impressive illustrations of this general phenomenon is the rise of wages, which in Paris has set the municipal street-sweepers above university professors, the former receiving from 7,600 to 8,000 francs a year, whereas the salary of the latter is some 500 francs less.[44]
This general disturbance is the outcome of many causes, among which are the over-population of the world, the spread of education and of equal opportunity, the anonymity of industrial enterprises, scientific and unscientific theories, the specialization of labor and its depressing influence.[45] These factors produced a labor organization which the railways, newspapers, and telegraph contributed to perfect and transform into a proletarian league, and now all progressive humanity is tending steadily and painfully to become one vast collectivity for producing and sharing on more equitable lines the means of living decently. This consummation is coming about with the fatality of a natural law, and the utmost the wisest of governments can do is to direct it through pacific channels and dislodge artificial obstacles in its course.
One of the first reforms toward which labor is tending with more or less conscious effort is the abolition of the hereditary principle in the possession of wealth and influence and of the means of obtaining them. The division of labor in the past caused the dissociation of the so-called nobler avocations from manual work, and gradually those who followed higher pursuits grew into a sort of hereditary caste which bestowed relative immunity from the worst hardships of life's struggle and formed a ruling class. To-day the masses have their hands on the principal levers for shattering this top crust of the social sphere and seem resolved to press them.