THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1909. HOW THE WORLD STILL MOVES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9653, 18 November 1909, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1909. HOW THE WORLD STILL MOVES.

I Dr. E. J. Dillon contributes to the I "Contemporary Review." a particularly brilliant survey of world politics. With rapid glance he looks at Europe and Asia, and focusses what he sees with much acumen. Looking i scrutinisingly at the political situation in Europe and the world to-day, he writes, we find tnat its leading features are manifestations of one or other of two master movements—the pressing onwards of the democracy or the subordination of national to racial interests. Tsansm was shaken I to its foundations in Russia after the reverses of the Japanese cam« paign, and for a short time had to make way for a regime which would have been developed into parliamentarism to-day if there had been one real leader of men, or even a commoneense politician, among the many spokesmen of the popular movement. But they were either political fanatics or drawingroom statesmen. And in 1909, as in 1905, internal Russian politics hinge on the question what State functions shall be allotted to the Duma, and what prerogatives shall be left to the Tsar. In China the mighty ruler who was deemed to belong to a race higher than that of mortals has received a i gentle notice to quit the palace of absolutism in the space of a few years, and to share his power with a properly elected Parliament. That China should be thus found moving in the van of the forces of democracy is a marvel which three years ago the most sagaciou? politician would not have thought possible. ' In Turkey, j too, Abdul Ham id, the "tyrant of tyrants," has gone under completely. Himself deposed, slandered, robbed and imprisoned, many of his partisans hanged in the public thoroughfares, others ransomed for large i sums of money, and a wreck of a man set on his throne, the affairs of the Ottoman State are carried on in the name of the people by a limited liability company with unlimited powers. In Morocco Sultans are seemingly destined to come and go like the waves of the restless sea. Abdul Aziz has been but a short time deposed, and the "strong man," Muliii Hafid, put in his place to regenerate the nation and bring !t into line with the progressive peoples of

the earth. And to-day we learn that the strong man is already enfeebled, and the hopea reposed in his administration will not be fulfilled. Very soon the Shereefi3n throne mav jitf i i ie vaoa t. In Persia the kinvr ot kiiigs has ikillei] >gnO!i.inio-sly,

ami is now the subject of his sub" jects, shortly to be an exile. Coward- j ice was the last trait displayed by I this Imperial swashbuckler, before I quitting the political scene for tvtr, , and it was to sheer cowardice— i moral if not physical—that lie uwes ; the loss of his crown. The German Kaiser himself, who had been much i more of an autocrat thnn any of the rulers hitherto enumerated, has also had the straight-jack't of Constitutionalism slipoed over him by the suavest and adroitest Chancellor of the Empire, "my Bernbard." Ti is unpleasant piocednre took plac. lasc November, ani "my Bernha-d" was paid out with dismissal in July. Whether, as many believe, Dr. von Bethmann Hollweg will help the Kaiser t) recover his absolutism is doublful, although it cannot he gain • said that certain symptoms are aiready recorded which render Ihe hypothesis probable. In Spain the King, who has shown several rare qualities of a ruler of nun, takes his in his hands whithersoever he goes; and from Portugal any day may bring us tidings of the fall of the monarchic regime. The whole East, which we cannot imagine other than absolutist, is thus already converted to constitutionalism by Europe. Even in countries where the monarch was worshipped as an emanation from the divine essence, constitutionalism is becoming the daily broad of the community. To add that religion there is undergoing a corresponding change is almost superfluous. Religious dogmas, like the political tenets with which they were welded, are dwindling away. The Oriental atheist is as thorough a Nihilist as his Catalonian comrade. When the century began millions would have gladly diad for, their monarch. Hesitation would have been inconceivable to them. Today they are ready to risk their lives in order to take his if he decline to comply with their demands. "Seemingly correlate with the decay >f monarchism," continues Dr. Dillon, "is the spread of Socialism, collectivism, or, say, of that regime whicn transfers to the community continuous power over the individual, subordinating his interests to its own. And this new social force must be reckoned with in any forecast of the future, social or political. It is impossible, tor instance, to blink the fact that in England we have already accepted the principle of State Socialism, which it will be the duty of every succeeding Government to maintain and develop. In Russia the some principle flourished even when autocracy was at its height, for the two things, though apparently con • flicting, go together quite harmoniously. In Germany we have for years had an opportunity of witnessing the same phenomenon, and France, the most conservative nation in Europe, is governed to-day by a Cabinet presided over by the Socialist, Aristide Briand, and composed of Radicals and Socialists."