But that is necessary because the people have learned during the war how to kill and to steal. If there is no order, the credit of the state will suffer."

These are the most important features of the program of the Minister of Finance of Hungary. One cannot deny that his aims are large and that he possesses the broad outlook of a statesman.

VII. THE PROBLEM OF THE KING IN HUNGARY

The trip of Charles of Hapsburg at Eastertime has not roused the question of a king for Hungary from its slumbers. On the contrary, it has only shelved it more definitely. Even before that trip it was the intention to leave this question for the time when the internal and external political conditions should have become stabilized. Now the objection which the theatrical coup of the former king aroused among the neighbors of Hungary has made it plain to everybody that it would be utter folly to restore this Hapsburger at this moment. Hungary needs, as has been pointed out, the economic aid, or at least the coöperation of the neighboring states, and her statesmen are too wise to offend them through an act which is entirely un

necessary.

It would be an unnecessary act, for one cannot say that anybody in the country misses the king at all, or any king for that matter. It is not difficult, however, to understand the reasons which led to the attempted re-establishment of the monarchy in Hungary. The republic of Count Karolyi had made itself hated because Bolshevism sprang from it; a new experiment with the modern form of state seems to threaten a similar upheaval. Furthermore, the king symbolized above all, the link with the old history of the Magyars. The crown of Stephen represented to the Hungarians, not so much the rule of the Magyars in Hungary, as the existence of the former great Hungarian state-of the Hungary as it existed before the war. The thought lives in the sub-conscious mind that if Hungary in its internal affairs clings to its traditions, it may also in

its external relations demand the restoration of the old hallowed borders.

Thus the king is for the Hungarian above all a symbol, and in saying that it is also pointed out that it is not at all necessary that a real person be invested with this office. To this it must be added that there existed at no time less than just now the need for a leader who is a half stranger to the country. The magnates who direct the course of the government may place their own class interest all too much in the foreground, just like other politicians. But nobody will deny that they possess political experience which is at least equal to that of the young predestined monarch. A king can only interfere with their government, but not assist it.

The popularity of the dictator Horthy rests to no small extent upon the fact that he seems to be expressly created for this merely symbolical rôle. He has a sympathetic personality, an upright character, and knows how to say the right word and does not make himself conspicuous. He carries out the representative functions of a head of a state before foreign guests to perfection, but he avoids every vestige of princely appearance and does not even live in the royal apartments in the castle at Ofen, which is now entirely empty. He is in his behavior and, very likely also in his ways of thinking, above all a soldier, and it is said of him that he is insufficiently informed about many, even important, details of the administration of the state. It is known that he must not be expected to do a dishonorable or dishonest thing. But, then, it is not necessary that the head of the state should have knowledge of everything. If the time for restoring the king should ever come, it is safe to say that Horthy will not offer the least resistance, but will, as a soldier, retire just as loyally from his post as he has occupied it.

Thus, nothing has been settled as yet. It may be said that not even the question has been definitely solved whether Charles or somebody else is to be the future king.

JAPAN'S NEW ISLAND
NEW ISLAND POSSESSIONS IN THE
PACIFIC: HISTORY AND PRESENT STATUS

By George H. Blakeslee, Ph.D., Professor of History and International Relations, Clark University

The coming conference on the limitation of armaments has focussed the world's attention upon the Pacific Ocean and the Far East. Among the many issues in this great region which may very possibly engage the thought of the conference is that of the former German islands in the Pacific. Those lying north of the equator, Japan now holds as a mandatory under the League of Nations, but the United States has officially protested the validity of the title. The still unsettled dispute in regard to Yap has served to call attention to certain American interests in these tiny dots in the Pacific, but it is not generally realized that, historically, Americans for seventy years have played an important part in these island groups, and have given to many of them the degree of civilization which they now possess.

These newly acquired Japanese Islands, the Carolines, Marshalls and Marianas, are situated east of the Philippines, and slightly south of the direct route from the Philippines to Hawaii. Comprising many hundreds of islands, most of them tiny islets, they extend nearly 2000 miles from east to west through the Pacific. While a few are of volcanic formation, with rocky peaks in the center, the greater number are low-lying, coral islands, rising but a few feet above the ocean, but crowned with hundreds of picturesque coconut palms. The inhabitants, some 50,000, are in general Micronesians.

Of the three archipelagoes, the Marianas were discovered first, in 1521, and were shortly after that brought under the control and the civilization of Spain, which retained them until 1898-9. But the Carolines and Mar

shalls, although discovered soon after the Marianas, were subsequently neglected. It was not until the nineteenth century that a few whites began to visit and settle in these islands, and to give to them a most unfortunate introduction to civilization. Lawless sandalwood traders, the worst elements of whaling crews, and the shiftless beach-comber taught the natives during the first half of the nineteenth century only the power and the unscrupulousness of the white man.

In contrast to these undesirable representatives of European and American civilization were the missionaries, who for a hundred years have worked in many of the Pacific islands for the religious and social development of the native peoples. Among the most striking results are those obtained by the Americans, under the American Board for Foreign Missions, in Hawaii, the Eastern Carolines and the Marshalls.

After the native church in Hawaii had reached the height of its success, it wished to send missionaries to other groups in the Pacific. In 1852 therefore the American Board, in coöperation with the Hawaiian Church, sent a mission party to the Eastern Carolines, which established permanent stations at Kusaie and Ponape, the two principal islands. A few years later, in 1857, the work was extended to the Marshalls and to the neighboring Gilberts. All of these groups were entirely independent; they had no other government than that of the various chieftains. The natives were lower in the scale of development than the Polynesians of Hawaii and Samoa; were largely, and in many islands entirely, naked; lived on the danger line of famine; wasted their strength in frequent wars; and although naturally inclined to be friendly many of them, from their contact with the traders, looked upon every white man as an enemy whom they tried to kill. One of the missionaries, in describing his landing upon a new island, with hundreds of natives on the shore, wrote, "Perhaps not more than five natives could be found that day with anything in the line of clothing on their bodies." He could not understand their language, nor they his.

The missionaries had to learn the local language, reduce it to writing, compose primers so that the natives could read it, translate the Bible and other useful books into the newly written vernacular, and finally import handpresses so that these works could be put into printed form. The natives became eager to learn, and when after some years the printed books and pamphlets were ready, would bring yams, bananas and coconuts, with which to buy them. But the missionaries did not limit themselves to teaching, reading and giving instruction in religion; they improved economic conditions by showing how better houses, roads and wharves could be built, and by introducing new articles of food, such as melons and sweet potatoes, and new domestic animals, such as cattle, sheep, hens, geese and ducks; and they safeguarded so far as possible the health of their native community. After years of this work a number of the islands of the Eastern Carolines, such as Kusaie, were almost wholly Christianized; and the same was true in the Marshalls, where the American Mission had 86 preaching stations on 20 different islands, and where on Nauru for example 1100 of the 1500 inhabitants were members of the mission church, and Sunday congregations of from 800 to 1000 were not unusual. In some of these islands, due to the great influence which the missionaries had secured over the natives, they were the actual rulers of the land. In the islands where only part of the population could be regarded as Christianized, the missionaries nevertheless brought the elements of civilization to the whole group. By the middle '80's, the American missionaries had come to be the strongest influence in the Eastern Carolines, the Marshalls, and probably in the neighboring Gilberts as well. One of the best tributes to their work is given by Dr. Georg Irmer, at one time German administrator of the Marshalls. He wrote in 1915:

It is especially due to their sacrificing energy that in the island territories the wild cannibals and bloodthirsty reef pirates have been made peaceful men. The Americans did not limit themselves to prayers, singing and tea drinking. In the Marshall Islands, in my time, there were no young people who had not