Chapter X: Section 42: of act (1)

(4) Money bills to be founded only on Vice-regal message.

(5) Privileges, qualifications, &c., of members of Irish Parliament
to be limited as in act.

(6) Rights of existing Irish officers to be safeguarded.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. Section 9 (4) of the act of 1914 to apply
to the House of Commons with the substitution of "ten years" for
"three years." The constitution of the Senate to be subject to
alteration after ten years, provided the bill is agreed to by
two-thirds of the total number of members of both houses sitting
together. (46 to 15.)

EXECUTIVE AUTHORITY. The executive power in Ireland to continue
vested in the King, but exercisable through the Lord Lieutenant on
the advice of an Irish Executive Committee in the manner set out in
act. (45 to 15.)

DISSOLUTION OF IRISH PARLIAMENT. The Irish Parliament to be
summoned, prorogued, and dissolved as set out in act. (45 to 15.)

ASSENT TO BILLS. Royal assent to be given or withheld as set out in
act with the substitution of "reservation" for "postponement." (45
to 15.)

CONSTITUTION OF THE SENATE. (48 votes to 19.) Lord Chancellor, 1;
four Archbishops or Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church, 4; two
Archbishops or Bishops of the Church of Ireland, 2; a representative
of the General Assembly, 1; the Lord Mayors of Dublin, Belfast, and
Cork, 3; peers resident in Ireland, elected by peers resident in
Ireland, 15; nominated by Lord Lieutenant--Irish Privy Councilors of
at least two years' standing 4, representatives of learned
institutions 3, other persons 4; representatives of commerce and
industry, 15; representatives of labor, one for each province, 4;
representatives of County Councils, two for each province, 8--64.

On the disappearance of any nominated element in the House of
Commons an addition shall be made to the numbers of the Senate.

CONSTITUTION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. (45 to 20.)

(1) The ordinary elected members of the House of Commons shall
number 160.

(2) The University of Dublin, the University of Belfast, and the
National University shall each return two members. The graduates of
each university shall form the constituency.

(3) Special representation shall be given to urban and industrial
areas by grouping the smaller towns and applying to them a lower
electoral quota than that applicable to the rest of the country.

(4) The principle of proportional representation, with the single
transferable vote, shall be observed wherever a constituency returns
three or more members. (47 to 22.)

(5) The convention accept the principle that 40 per cent. of the
membership of the House of Commons shall be guaranteed to Unionists.
In pursuance of this, they suggest that, for a period, there shall
be summoned to the Irish House of Commons twenty members nominated
by the Lord Lieutenant, with a view to the due representation of
interests not otherwise adequately represented in the provinces of
Leinster, Munster, and Connaught, and that twenty additional members
shall be elected by Ulster constituencies, to represent commercial,
industrial, and agricultural interests.

(6) The Lord Lieutenant's power of nomination shall be exercised
subject to any instructions that may be given by his Majesty the
King.

(7) The nominated members shall disappear in whole or in part after
fifteen years, and not earlier, notwithstanding anything contained
in Clause 5.

(8) The extra representation in Ulster not to cease except on an
adverse decision by a three-fourths majority of both houses sitting
together. (27 to 20.)

(9) The House of Commons shall continue for five years unless
previously dissolved.

(10) Nominated members shall vacate their seats on a dissolution but
shall be eligible for renomination. Any vacancy among the nominated
members shall be filled by nomination.

MONEY BILLS. (45 to 22.)

(1) Money bills to originate only in the House of Commons, and not
to be amended by the Senate. (Act, Section 10.)

(2) The Senate is, however, to have power to bring about a joint
sitting over money bills in the same session of Parliament.

(3) The Senate to have power to suggest amendments, which the House
of Commons may accept or reject as it pleases.

DISAGREEMENT BETWEEN HOUSES. Disagreements between the two houses to
be solved by joint sittings as set out in act, with the proviso that
if the Senate fail to pass a money bill such joint sitting shall be
held in the same session of Parliament. (45 to 22.)

REPRESENTATION AT WESTMINSTER.

(1) Representation in Parliament of the United Kingdom to continue.
Irish representatives to have the right of deliberating and voting
on all matters.

(2) Forty-two Irish representatives shall be elected to the Commons
House of the Parliament of the United Kingdom in the following
manner:

A panel shall be formed in each of the four provinces of Ireland,
consisting of the members for that province in the Irish House of
Commons, and one other panel shall be formed consisting of members
nominated to the Irish House of Commons. The number of
representatives to be elected to the Commons House of the Imperial
Parliament shall be proportionate to the numbers of each panel and
the election shall be on the principle of proportional
representation. (42 to 24.)

(3) The Irish representation in the House of Lords shall continue as
at present unless and until that chamber be remodeled, when the
matter shall be reconsidered by the Imperial and Irish Parliaments.
(44 to 22.)

FINANCE. (51 to 18.)

(1) An Irish Exchequer and Consolidated Fund to be established and
an Irish Controller and Auditor General to be appointed as set out
in act.

(2) If necessary, it should be declared that all taxes at present
leviable in Ireland should continue to be levied and collected until
the Irish Parliament otherwise decides.

(3) The necessary adjustments of revenue as between Great Britain
and Ireland during the transition period should be made.

FINANCIAL POWERS OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT.

(1) The control of customs and excise by an Irish Parliament is to
be postponed for further consideration until after the war, provided
that the question of such control shall be considered and decided by
the Parliament of the United Kingdom within seven years after the
conclusion of peace. For the purpose of deciding in the Parliament
of the United Kingdom the question of the future control of Irish
customs and excise, a number of Irish representatives proportioned
to the population of Ireland shall be called to the Parliament of
the United Kingdom. (38 to 34.)

(2) On the creation of an Irish Parliament, and until the question
of the ultimate control of the Irish customs and excise services
shall have been decided, the Board of Customs and Excise of the
United Kingdom shall include a person or persons nominated by the
Irish Treasury. (39 to 33.)

(3) A Joint Exchequer Board, consisting of two members nominated by
the Imperial Treasury, and two members nominated by the Irish
Treasury, with a Chairman appointed by the King, shall be set up to
secure the determination of the true income of Ireland. (39 to 33.)

(4) Until the question of the ultimate control of the Irish customs
and excise services shall have been decided, the revenue due to
Ireland from customs and excise, as determined by the Joint
Exchequer Board, shall be paid into the Irish Exchequer. (38 to 30.)

(5) All branches of taxation, other than customs and excise, shall
be under the control of the Irish Parliament. (38 to 30.)

IMPERIAL CONTRIBUTION. The principle of such a contribution is
approved. (Unanimously.)

LAND PURCHASE. The convention accept the recommendations of the
Sub-Committee on Land Purchase. (Unanimously.)

JUDICIAL POWER. (43 to 17.) The following provisions of the
Government of Ireland act to be adopted:

(_a_) Safeguarding position of existing Irish Judges.

(_b_) Leaving appointment of future Judges to the Irish Government
and their removal to the Crown on address from both houses of
Parliament.

(_c_) Transferring appeals from the House of Lords to the Judicial
Committee, strengthened by Irish Judges.

(_d_) Extending right of appeal to this court.

(_e_) Provision as to reference of questions of validity to Judicial
Committee.

The Lord Chancellor is not to be a political officer.

LORD LIEUTENANT. The Lord Lieutenant is not to be a political
officer. He shall hold office for six years, and neither he nor the
Lords Justices shall be subject to any religious disqualification.
His salary shall be sufficient to throw the post open to men of
moderate means. (43 to 17.)

CIVIL SERVICE. (42 to 18.)

(1) There shall be a Civil Service Commission consisting of
representatives of Irish universities which shall formulate a scheme
of competitive examinations for admission to the public service,
including statutory administrative bodies, and no person shall be
admitted to such service unless he holds the certificate of the
Civil Service Commission.

(2) A scheme of appointments in the public service, with
recommendations as to scales of salary for the same, shall be
prepared by a commission consisting of an independent Chairman of
outstanding position in Irish public life, and two colleagues, one
of whom shall represent Unionist interests.

(3) No appointments to positions shall be made before the scheme of
this commission has been approved.

DEFERRING TAKING OVER CERTAIN IRISH SERVICES.

Arrangements to be made to permit the Irish Government, if they so
desire, to defer taking over the services relating to Old-Age
Pensions, National Insurance, Labor Exchanges, Post Office Trustee
Savings Banks, and Friendly Societies. (43 to 18.)

The final division on the question of the adoption of the report as a whole was as follows:

FOR (44)

E. H. Andrews M. K. Barry J. Bolger W. Broderick J. Butler J. J. Clancy J. J. Coen D. Condren P. Dempsey Earl of Desart J. Dooly Captain Doran Archbishop of Dublin Lord Mayor of Dublin T. Fallon J. Fitzgibbon Sir W. Goulding M. Governey Earl of Granard Captain Gwynn T. Halligan A. Jameson W. Kavanagh Alderman McCarron M. McDonogh J. McDonnell C. McKay A. R. MacMullen Viscount Midleton J. Murphy J. O'Dowd C. P. O'Neill Lord Oranmore and Browne Dr. O'Sullivan J. B. Powell T. Power Provost of Trinity College Sir S. B. Quin D. Reilly M. Slattery G. F. Stewart R. Waugh H. T. Whitley Sir B. Windle

AGAINST (29)

Duke of Abercorn Sir R. N. Anderson H. B. Armstrong H. T. Barrie Lord Mayor of Belfast Archbishop of Cashel Sir G. Clark Colonel J. J. Clark Lord Mayor of Cork Colonel Sharman-Crawford Bishop of Down and Connor T. Duggan H. Garahan J. Hanna M. E. Knight Marquis of Londonderry J. S. McCance Sir C. McCullagh J. McGarry H. G. MacGeagh J. McHugh Moderator General Assembly W. M. Murphy P. O'H. Peters H. M. Pollock Bishop of Raphoe T. Toal Colonel Wallace Sir W. Whitla

ULSTER UNIONISTS' REPORT

Nineteen Ulster Unionists signed a dissenting report in which they declared that it had soon become evident to them that no real approach to agreement was possible, as the Nationalists put it beyond doubt that what they wanted was "full national independence," or a Parliament possessing co-equal powers with those of the Imperial Parliament. If the Ulster Unionists had anticipated this at the outset, their report explained, they "could not have agreed to enter the convention." Objection was taken to the Nationalist scheme, which aimed at denying the right of the Imperial Parliament to impose military service in Ireland "unless with the consent of the proposed Irish Parliament."

Dr. Mahaffy, Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Archbishop of Armagh, in a separate note, stated that they found it impossible to vote for the majority proposals, since these involved, in their opinion, either the coercion of Ulster, which was unthinkable, or the partition of Ireland, which would be disastrous.

Twenty-two Nationalists, including Joseph Devlin, M. P., the Archbishop of Cashel, the Bishop of Raphoe, the Bishop of Down and Connor, and the Lord Mayors of Dublin and Cork, signed a report favoring a subordinate Irish Parliament with immediate full powers of taxation.

The majority of the Nationalists also signed a note explaining that for the sake of reaching an agreement with the Unionists they did not press their claim for full fiscal autonomy.

The Southern Unionists, who for "high considerations of allied and imperial interests" signed the majority report, also added a note. They insisted that all imperial questions and services, including the levying of customs duties, be left in the hands of the Parliament of the United Kingdom; that Ireland send representatives to Westminster; and that the whole of Ireland participate in any Irish Parliament.

THE FINANCIAL ISSUE

Apart from the main question whether an Irish Parliament with an Executive responsible to it should be established, debate chiefly centred on the question of fiscal autonomy. By January, 1918, it became apparent that on the financial issue there were three clearly defined bodies of opinion:

First--The Ulster Unionists favoring the maintenance of the fiscal unity of the United Kingdom;

Second--A section of Nationalists insisting upon complete fiscal autonomy for Ireland;

Third--The Southern Unionists, supported by other Nationalists, and the majority of the Labor representatives, favoring a compromise which left to Ireland the proceeds of all sources of revenue and the imposition of all taxes other than customs.

It was to overcome these and other differences that Premier Lloyd George invited representatives of the convention to London to confer with the Cabinet. The Premier's letter, dated Feb. 25, 1918, is published in the report. It discloses the fact that some of the Nationalists had been willing to set up an Ulster Committee in the Irish Parliament to veto the application of certain legislation to that province, to make Belfast the headquarters of the Irish Ministry of Commerce, and to let the Irish Parliament meet alternately in Dublin and Belfast.

GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE

Dealing with "the difficult question of customs and excise," Lloyd George wrote:

The Government are aware of the serious objections which can be
raised against the transfer of these services to an Irish
Legislature. It would be practically impossible to make such a
disturbance of the fiscal and financial relations of Great Britain
and Ireland in the midst of a great war. It might also be
incompatible with that federal reorganization of the United Kingdom
in favor of which there is a growing body of opinion. On the other
hand, the Government recognize the strong claim that can be made
that an Irish Legislature should have some control over indirect
taxation as the only form of taxation which touches the great
majority of the people, and which in the past has represented the
greater part of Irish revenue.

The Government feel that this is a matter which cannot be finally
settled at the present time. They therefore suggest for the
consideration of the convention that, during the period of the war
and for a period of two years thereafter, the control of customs and
excise should be reserved to the United Kingdom Parliament; that, as
soon as possible after the Irish Parliament has been established, a
Joint Exchequer Board should be set up to secure the determination
of the true revenue of Ireland--a provision which is essential to a
system of responsible Irish government--and to the making of a
national balance sheet, and that, at the end of the war, a royal
commission should be established to re-examine impartially and
thoroughly the financial relations of Great Britain and Ireland, to
report on the contribution of Ireland to imperial expenditure, and
to submit proposals as to the best means of adjusting the economic
and fiscal relations of the two countries.

The Government consider that during the period of the war the
control of all taxation other than customs and excise could be
handed over to the Irish Parliament; that for the period of the war
and two years thereafter an agreed proportion of the annual imperial
expenditure should be fixed as the Irish contribution; and that all
Irish revenue from customs and excise as determined by the Joint
Exchequer Board, after deduction of the agreed Irish contribution to
imperial expenditure, should be paid into the Irish Exchequer. For
administrative reasons, during the period of the war it is necessary
that the police should remain under imperial control, and it seems
to the Government to be desirable that for the same period the
postal service should be a reserved service.

CONSCRIPTION IN IRELAND

The announcement of the British Government's twofold plan of home rule and conscription for Ireland caused an outpouring of protests from the whole of the Nationalist population. Preparations for resistance were begun, a great anti-conscription fund was opened, resolutions from public bodies began pouring in, and the Sinn Fein clubs renewed their activities.

The most striking feature of the opposition to conscription was that it welded together all the Irish elements represented by the Nationalist Party, the Independent Home Rulers, led by William O'Brien and Timothy Healy; the Sinn Fein, and the Labor organizations, which in recent years had not been very friendly to the Nationalists. Representatives of all these parties were present at a conference in Dublin, held, under the Chairmanship of the Lord Mayor, on April 18. The Catholic Bishops, at a meeting in Maynooth the same day, adopted a declaration against conscription. This meeting was attended by five representatives from the Dublin conference--John Dillon, Edward de Valere, Timothy Healy, a Labor delegate, and the Lord Mayor of Dublin.

A majority of the Nationalist members of the House of Commons decided to abstain from attendance in Parliament during the crisis, thus adopting the attitude of the Sinn Feiners who were elected to the House but have never attended. Fifty-five of the Nationalist members met in Dublin on April 20, with John Dillon presiding, and passed a resolution in which they declared that the enforcement of compulsory military service on a nation without its assent constituted "one of the most brutal acts of tyranny and oppression of which any Government can be guilty."

Fifteen hundred delegates of labor unions met at the Mansion House, Dublin, on April 20, and pledged their resistance to conscription. They also fixed April 23 for the stoppage of all work as an earnest of this resolve and to enable all workers to sign the pledge of resistance. The complete stoppage of work was duly observed on the day mentioned, and passed off for the most part in a quiet and orderly manner.

Sunday, April 21, was observed throughout Catholic Ireland as the day for the administration by the priests of the anti-conscription covenant. From every Catholic pulpit conscription was the subject of discourse, and the action of the Bishops and political leaders was explained. The assemblies where the pledge was taken were generally outside the churches, sometimes in the open air, sometimes in a hall. The practice followed in many cases was for the priest to read the pledge, sentence by sentence, the people reciting after him. In other cases the pledge was given by the raising of hands or the signing of a paper. The Bishops took part with the inferior clergy in administering the pledge, addressing the people and generally warning them against isolated and unconsidered action. They urged obedience to the orders of the recognized leaders, who act in co-operation. All classes, including lawyers, bankers, and merchants, as well as farmers and workmen, took the pledge.

On May 1 an Order in Council was issued by the British Government postponing the operation of the National Service, or conscription, act in Ireland beyond that date, to which it had been previously postponed.

Premier Lloyd George, commenting on the new attitude of the Irish Home Rulers in a letter addressed on May 2 to Irish workers on the Tyneside in England, wrote:

The difficulties have not been rendered easier of settlement by the
challenge to supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament in that
sphere, which always has been regarded as properly belonging to it
by all advocates of home rule, which recently was issued by the
Nationalist Party and the Roman Catholic Hierarchy in concert with
the leaders of the Sinn Fein.

While Nationalist and Catholic Ireland had already begun its campaign of resistance to conscription, the Ulster Unionists, under the leadership of Sir Edward Carson, prepared to oppose home rule. Sir Edward Carson declared that the Government had broken its pledges to Ulster by undertaking to pass a Home Rule bill, and on April 24 he advised the Ulster Unionist Council to reorganize its machinery for the impending struggle.

The appointment of Field Marshal Viscount French as Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and of Edward Shortt, member of the House of Commons for Newcastle-on-Tyne, as Chief Secretary for Ireland was officially announced on May 5.

Lord French, before his new appointment, was Commander in Chief of the forces in the United Kingdom and had gone to Ireland in that capacity a few days before he became Viceroy. Edward Shortt, in addition to being a Home Ruler, had voted against the extension of conscription to Ireland until an Irish Government had been established.

Greatest Gas Attack of the War

_W. A. Willison, Canadian correspondent, cabled from the Picardy front on March 22, 1918:_

While British and German troops were struggling far to the south in the opening clash of the Spring campaign, the greatest projector gas bombardment in the world's history was carried out by the Canadians tonight against the enemy positions between Lens and Hill 70. Sharply at 11 o'clock the signal rocket gave notice of the beginning. A moment later over 5,000 drums of lethal gas were simultaneously released from projectors, and were hurled into the enemy territory from the outskirts of Lens, and northward to Cité St. Auguste and the Bois de Dix-Huit.

From his front lines and strong points favoring winds carried the poisonous clouds back upon the enemy's supports, reserves, and assembly areas. The whole of the front was lit up with enemy flares, dimly seen through the heavy mist, while the men in our lines could hear the enemy's gas alarms and cries of distress from the hostile trenches.

Nine minutes later our field artillery, supported by heavy guns and heavy trench mortars, opened up with a slow bombardment, which gradually increased in intensity, until, forty minutes later, the enemy positions were swept with a short, intensive, creeping barrage, which raked his forward and rear areas with high explosive. Caught by our gas without a moment's warning, caught again as he was emerging from his shelters by our artillery, the enemy's casualties must have been very heavy, for the effectiveness of our smaller gas operations has been emphatically proved by the evidence of prisoners.

Tonight's bombardment was three times greater than anything of its kind ever attempted by us on the Western front, and much greater than anything ever launched by the Germans, though the score of the second battle of Ypres and other reckonings are still to be settled, and will be settled.

Plucky Dunkirk

By Anna Milo Upjohn

_Inspector in Paris for the Fraternité Americaine_

[Since this article was written Dunkirk has faced a new peril from the blow struck in her direction by the powerful German armies around Ypres, to the southeast; but the author's vivid and sympathetic description of the daily life of the little city remains as true as in the Winter days when it was penned for CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE.

In the track of the wind stands the plucky little City of Dunkirk, still flapping the flags of courage and constancy in the face of an increasingly rabid enemy. It is the only city of France that is subjected to bombardment from land and sea and sky.

What is the every-day life in a town near enough to the front to be never free from the menace of a triple bombardment? That is what I went to find out, traveling by way of Calais in stygian darkness, for the train was without lights to avoid the danger of bombs.

A little before dawn the train drew into the black station of Dunkirk, through whose roofing the sky showed dimly in spots where air-raid shells had spattered. The silent crowd jostled through the darkness, the soldiers separating themselves from it at the military exit. Inside, only a ray from a dark lantern, held by the officer who scanned the passports one by one, made a spot of light among the overlapping shadows. The wind sighed through the draughty place, the snow entered freely, the floor was sloppy with mud. Outside in the empty square not a vehicle, not a porter, in sight. The street cars had stopped running.

My hotel lay beyond the centre of the town. In the driving storm, through unknown streets, I knew it would be foolish to attempt to find it. An officer passed and to him I appealed. "To the right, in the middle of the square," he said, with outstretched arm, "is the Lion de Flandre. If they can't put you up there, come back and we will see."

Not a point of light indicated the identity of the Lion de Flandre. On nearer approach all the houses appeared boarded up, as though long since abandoned. In the middle of the square was an oblong hump, like the roofed-over foundation of a demolished building. I learned later that this was a public refuge built for the inhabitants of the section.

HOTEL IN DANGER ZONE

As I turned irresolutely in the direction of the dark façades, the silhouette of a man in casque and puttees passed across the snow. A crack of light gleamed from a hidden doorway, and through it he disappeared. I followed hard after him and stepped into a lighted room full of smoke and soldiers, a _man's_ place, with sand-strewn floor and bottles conspicuously in evidence. Nevertheless, the comfortable woman behind the bar received me without surprise. A room she could give me, but as for food, that was a different matter. The boches had the habit of coming at about dinner time, and it had become a nuisance to abandon the untasted meal every night and to dive into the cave--it really had! So she had given up trying to have anything hot at night and let the fires go out at 6. But if I would like a sandwich and some beer--?

After the long, starved journey this was not alluring.

"Not a cup of tea with the sandwich?" I pleaded. A collaborator was called, a plump, dark woman, and after a hurried conference I was asked to wait in the room behind the café. Nothing could be more dismal than this compartment. It was high for its floor space, like a deep box with a lid, and had no outside windows, being wedged between the café and the kitchen. The ornate glass divisions were gone or clinging in fragments, the walls pierced in many places, the plaster down. A tiny point of gas burned high above the table.

They were very good to me, these warbound women, one of whom, I discovered, had an ulcerated tooth, the other two little boys captive in Belgium.

FIRST NIGHT'S EXPERIENCES

In a short time a small bit of steak and a potato cut in quarters and fried were placed before me, and simultaneously a large black dog with wistful eyes but determined manner stationed himself at my side. The steak was followed by a chilly little salad, bread and cheese, and more butter than I had seen for many a month in Paris--and a cup of tea which, for its grateful warmth, I drank without challenge.

Snatches of honest English, mingled with French, filtered in from the café, where the fire was not quite extinct and where beer was served until 9 o'clock. Before that hour I was fumbling upstairs guided by the patronne, who carried a two-inch stub of candle between her fingers. "This is the way to the cave," she explained, pointing to a doorway under the stairs. "In case of an alarm you have only to rush down there. There will be a light burning at the entrance." Passing through the hallway she indicated the spot where a man had recently been killed. "If he had stayed where he was, at the table where you have just eaten, Madame, he would have been all right, but as he ran to the refuge a bomb exploded outside in the square, burst open the front door, traversed the length of the corridor, passed through the kitchen wall and into the garden beyond. But you can rest assured that nothing will happen tonight, Madame," continued the patronne, who seemed as familiar with the habits of Gothas as a farmer's wife is with those of fowls--"Not in this wind, oh, no!"

After that first night I groped my way alone to bed, the candle stub having come to an end, feeling my way along the pitch dark passageways to the room with the linoleum mat, the room which had not known fire for three years and a half, whose paneless windows were boarded up, the one room in the house which had not lost a ceiling or floor or whose walls were not clipped through with shells. The regular inmates of the hotel slept nightly in the cellar. It saved time and was warmer.

Notwithstanding the reassurances of the patronne I confess to going to bed with half my clothes on. But under the wing of the storm Dunkirk slept tranquilly for three successive nights. Of course, there was always the soft bum-bum of the cannon on the northern horizon, strange tremors shook the bed, and the night was full of weird sounds, the rattling skeletons of dead houses.

BRAVE LITTLE DUNKIRK

Like an arm held up to protect the face, the coast between Calais and Dunkirk bears the brunt of storm from the North Sea. A dark sea, sombre and brooding, girdled by lowering clouds; on the snow-driven plain a few detached towers, etched as though in sepia against the gray sky and rising abruptly above the low line of roof--this is Dunkirk on a Winter's day. A homely little town with a deep fringe of docks and waterways on its seaward side and a girdle of fortifications built by Vauban encircling the rest. The whole set in a ring of dark water which fills the moat. It is thoroughly Flemish in character, and, seen from the water, must resemble a city on a delft tile. The moral attitude of the town has always been one of robust activity. Even its patron saints are among the most industrious and enterprising in the calendar--notably St. Eloi, who brought Christianity to the Dunkerquois and to whom the original Dunkirk (church on the dunes) was dedicated.

All the history of the town is tinged with a vigor which has blown in to it from the sea. Here the crusading ships of Baldwin of Flanders, and later those of St. Louis of France, were fitted out. After the momentous marriage of Marie of Burgundy had thrown the city for a time under the dominion of Spain it played a brilliant part in the game of the period--piracy.

The quaint tower on the quay--called Lugenhaer, the Liar--was used at that epoch to give false signals to ships at sea. But it dates from a much earlier period, and was one of twenty-eight towers with which Baldwin of Flanders bound together the wall with which he surrounded the city. The Liar and the belfry of the recently ruined Cathedral of St. Eloi were the only interesting architectural bits left in Dunkirk. The thirteenth century tower, dark and strong at its base, rises to a great height, flowering into restrained tracery at the top and shepherding under its shadow the heart of the town, which lies below it. This is the lodestone. Toward it I turned after leaving the battered hotel that first morning at Dunkirk.

(_American Official Photograph_)]

(© _Underwood_)]

CITY OF SHATTERED HOMES

From the snowy Place de la Gare the street cars started regularly in divergent directions, but oh, the gloom of those dead streets which they passed! Wide streets, winding between rows of low houses, plain and solid, but built on a neighborly plan. Their desolation is the more marked because of this innate, homelike quality. In almost all of them the window and door spaces were boarded up, and the first impression was rather that of a deserted city than of a demolished one. But a second glance showed that destruction had come from the sky, tearing away the roof, annihilating the interior, and rendering the house uninhabitable, perhaps irreparable, though the walls might to a certain extent be left standing. Often the havoc was more apparent, exposing the bare skeleton of a home and the shattered remnants of household comforts in shocking nudity.

The freakishness of destruction by bombardment is proverbial. It is this which creates in the timid an intense anxiety and in the hardy the willingness to take a chance. The 8-year-old son of the chief surgeon at the Military Hospital, stretching out his hand during a bombardment, said calmly, "Of course it _may_ fall on _that_, but there is plenty of room on each side." And this rather sums up the spirit of the Dunkerquois who remain.

Of a population of 40,000, about 5,000 are left, and most of these have become modern cave men. To be thoroughly up to date one must live in a "casemate." In every quarter of the town posters announce the locality of these public refuges. They are either cellars reinforced overhead, or dugouts in the public squares, strongly roofed with corrugated iron, which is covered with wood and sandbags. Often there is extra trench work inside, always a tight little stove with a pipe running the length of the cave, plank benches along the sides, and usually beds with army blankets.

DODGING THE BOMBS

Into these refuges the Dunkerquois has learned to precipitate himself with extraordinary celerity. He considers a minute and a half sufficient time in which to gain safety, no matter where he may be when the "alerte" is given. When there is a bombardment from the land side the alarm is sounded as the obus leaves the gun at the front. It takes 90 seconds for its flight to Dunkirk. So accurately is this calculated that casualties seldom result from a land bombardment. The inhabitants scuttle into safety, and the damage is limited to bricks and mortar. The peppering from sea is also taken lightly. The firing is very rapid, but it is soon over, and the shots are comparatively small, passing clean through the walls without shattering them. It is the air raids which are dreaded, and these are increasingly frequent and destructive. Often the chugging of the motors can be heard in the thick darkness for a quarter of an hour or more before there is an explosion, and this is a nerve-racking experience.

A striking feature of the streets in Dunkirk is the incumbrance of the sidewalks by boxes filled with stones and sandbags. These cover the windows and approaches to the cellars and serve as shock absorbers against flying pieces of shell.

And why does any one stay in so precarious an outpost on the verge of the fighting line? Some perhaps because to set forth alone or with a brood of children into an unknown world already trampled by countless refugees seems an equally perilous outlook. Others because their maintenance still depends upon the docks and shipyards, though the 6,000 longshoremen usually employed about the piers have disappeared. Then there are those whose interests are bound up in a shop or other investment in the town, and business is brisk in Dunkirk, owing to the presence of two armies. A few there are who are not only _of_ Dunkirk but who _are_ Dunkirk itself, upon whose presence depends the prosperity of the town and its usefulness to the State.

STILL A LIVELY PORT

For if the picturesque landmarks have disappeared, Dunkirk has by no means lost its sea prestige. It is the third port of France, and though its position is singularly exposed it is largely through its harbor that the British Army has been revictualed since the beginning of the war. This renders still more remarkable the fact that not one ship has been lost between Dunkirk and the English port of clearing. One does not appreciate at first glance all that this implies. It means for one thing that some one must sit tight at Dunkirk. Traffic by sea has gone on uninterruptedly and until recently has been quite that of normal times. Now, owing to the recent restrictions on imports and exports, it is greatly reduced, though still regular. The sailings and dockings take place on schedule time.

One of those largely responsible for the order of the port is the Consular Agent of the United States, M. Morel, also President of the Chamber of Commerce of Dunkirk. His house, a mere skeleton, has long since been abandoned for the superior comforts and safety of the cellar. Attached to the jamb of the almost equally ruined office building his small sign in black and gold makes a brave showing. The front of the building had been largely torn away and with it a part of the roof. Looking up one saw a dizzy arrangement of laths and rafters, suggestive of the underside of a heap of jackstraws. But the staircase was firm and led to a small back room, where a bright fire burned and where business was transacted as usual; not only the business of the port, for while I was there an American Red Cross doctor and a bevy of nurses came in to have their passports renewed.

Another home which I had the privilege of entering, that of Commandant Boultheel, had been more fortunate, for it stood as yet untouched by disaster. Here in an atmosphere of warm charm, a serene and gracious hostess dispensed hospitality to her friends. Pewter and old china on the walls and a great fire of logs dispelled the depression of the outside world. Around the table were men of war and men of the world, who represented the finest qualities of the French. Among them was a valiant Préfet du Nord, who had spent ten months as hostage in a German prison, using his time to study English and reread Horace. In fact, I felt, as I had on the train, that the further I got from Paris the nearer I came to the heart of France.

A glimpse of "cave life" I had in the pharmacie maintained by the Sisters of the Sacré Coeur in the basement of the Hôtel de Ville, where it had been temporarily installed by the city, its own quarters being untenable. This was a large space lighted by electricity and crowded with bottles and jars, bundles of herbs and bandages, and made cheerful by the bright faces of the sisters. In another portion of the cellar they sleep, living entirely underground.

Families are large in Dunkirk, and children troop unconcernedly to and fro between home and school. To them the nightly flight to the casemate is no longer a wild adventure.

BUSINESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES

The business part of the town has not the sad aspect of the residence streets, for it is full of life. The decrepit shops, half boarded up, many of them resembling a face with a bandage over one eye, are doing a lively business. With the demands of a large floating population of two armies, Dunkirk is not suffering commercially. Department stores, book shops, shoe stores, provision shops of all kinds, make the most of a short day. Oranges, figs, dates, nuts, and conserved food of all kinds are much in evidence, also warm clothing, blankets, boots, and novels. The restaurant of the Hôtel Chapeau Rouge was filled with French and English officers, and an excellent meal was served much as it would be in Paris. At 4:30 everything is closed. Lights are extinguished, windows and doors are sealed with their householders behind them, unless the latter are among those who seek the comparative safety of the suburbs at nightfall. For though the entire surrounding country is subject to bombardment, the town is the centre of attack. In the twilight of the unlighted streets scarce a footfall is heard. Only the occasional rumble of a heavy cannon shakes the air. Behind the wall of darkness pulses a full life undismayed by the terrors of the approaching night or the possibilities of the tomorrow.

A STAG AT BAY

In the heart of the forest I once saw a stag leading his herd to the shelter of a rock in the rush of an oncoming storm. Having urged them into crouching positions around him, he turned and with a simple gesture lifted his head to the storm. There was that in his attitude which compelled reverence. One mentally saluted, though one might think "poor, silly beast, in what way could he mitigate the lash of the tempest?" But instinctively he had obeyed the highest for which he had been created, the protection of the weak. And his calm presence caught away all panic from those around him. Often while in Dunkirk this scene came back to me, recalled by the simple matter-of-courseness with which these brave men and equally brave women stayed on because it was the place for them to be.

At the Military Hospital of Rosendael, with the exception of the intrepid surgeon and the almoner, it is the women who hold the position. Originally the city hospital, it was taken over by the army at the beginning of the war. An immense building with modern equipment and a capacity for 700 patients, it has been necessary of late to evacuate many of the sections because of the increasing frequency of the bombardments. The hospital has been struck many times and one ward completely destroyed. As it happened there were no soldiers in that section, it being used as a maternity hospital for the city. Several women and little children were killed and also the sister in charge, Sister St. Etienne, so dear to her co-workers that she is never spoken of without tears. She had just finished her rounds for the night when the alarm came. Her one thought was to save her ward from panic. A bomb crashing through the roof hurled a beam across the sister, killing her instantly and wrecking the entire wing.

"FOR ALL AMERICAN WOMEN"

In spite of this tragedy and of recurring attacks, the other sisters and the head nurse, Mlle. Guyot, have held their posts with quiet heroism and have never lost an hour's duty. The patients now are mostly convalescent, because fresh cases are no longer brought there.

The supplies of shirts, pajamas, and bandages sent from America were gratefully commented upon by Mlle. Guyot, and I was touched by similar expressions from the men. One poor aviator, terribly burned, but recovering, put up a bandaged hand and saluted me "for all American women." Another poilu wove for me a table mat of red, white, and blue cord. All were fervent in their good wishes.

Everywhere warmth and order prevailed, from the wards where the bandaged soldiers sat about with their pipes and their knitting to the big bakery where the fragrant brown bread is baked and to the kitchens with their caldrons of broth and crisp roasts of meat.

Dry, well ventilated "abris" or bomb shelters have been built in connection with each section of the hospital. The surgeon, who sleeps in a cellar near the centre, is the first to assist his patients to shelter in case of an alarm. There, underground, long games of cards are played on the brink of the unknown. This is not callousness, but is done with deliberate intent by the clever surgeon, (a refugee from Lille,) knowing that by this means his men may be saved a nervous strain which might prove fatal.

Mlle. Guyot, who has been at the hospital since the beginning of the war, knows as well as any one what the city has endured. It was she who said to me:

"I shall never forget that Dunkirk has borne the weight of the war from the first day; that she has seen the exodus of the Belgian population, to whom she has given refuge as well as to the people of the Department du Nord; that she has known the passing of innumerable armies going and coming from the Yser; that in October, 1914, she began to be bombarded, having at the same time to fulfill the immense duty of bringing in and caring for the wounded from that immortal battlefield; and through it all I have seen Dunkirk living and working and saving with a smile!"

The military position of Dunkirk is sometimes confusing because it has been alternately on the French and English fronts. The English are now retiring, but sentinels of three nationalities still guard the city gates; English Tommy and French poilu stand with their arms across each other's shoulders, the Belgian stands apart.

On the sands of Malo, which is but a prolongation of Dunkirk, with a sweeping beach toward the North Sea, strange men from Tonquin were digging trenches--dark men branded by the sun and the mark of the East, with warm dabs of color on their high cheekbones, and small opaque eyes under rising brows. The uniform of the French Colonial is often a medley. He looks as though he had begun "dressing up" like children in the attic, and as though his mind had fallen short of his expectations. Out on those bleak sands his touches of rich blue, crimson, and green had almost the fervor of stained glass set against the dark and sinister sea. To the north the Belgian coast cut the background with a livid streak of sand.

In spite of the moving figures, the loneliness was as of the ends of the earth. The silence was accentuated rather than broken by the purr of the cannon and the mewing of a stray gull slapped sidewise by the wind. But it is thus that I like to think of Dunkirk--scourged by the wind, blotted out by the storm, knowing that for the time being her stout hearts are safe.

As the sea has been the life of Dunkirk in the past, so it will be its resurrection. The city cannot be struck a deathblow from the land side as has many another less favorably situated. But what a unique protégé for some god-mothering American city to help re-establish through her sympathy and aid!

Is it any wonder that France has just included in the arms of Dunkirk the following legend in addition to the one gained by the naval battle of 1793: "Ville heroique, sert d'exemple à toute la nation"?

Brutal Treatment of Italian Prisoners

Sworn statements from British soldiers returned from German prison camps and hospitals received by Reuter's Agency (the Associated Press of Great Britain) indicate that systematic brutality is practiced there upon Italian prisoners. Lance Corporal Horace Hills, 7th Suffolk Regiment, made the following statement under oath:

Five or six thousand Italians came in. They had traveled three or
four days, and had had nothing at all to eat. After they arrived
soup was brought in, and, as they were starving, they rushed at it.
The Germans then dashed forward and stabbed them with their swords
and bayonets, and killed and wounded a lot. Seven or eight Italians
were dying every day in the camp of starvation. They had no parcels.
I saw an Englishmen give an Italian bread, and the Italian went down
on his knees and kissed his hands.

Private J. F. Jackson, King's Liverpool Regiment, swore:

One Italian told me they had been fifteen days on the journey and
had only three meals all the time. Our hospital lager was separated
from the camp by barbed wire; we took some bread and threw it over
the wire to the Italians; they all began to grab for it, but a lot
of Germans rushed up and drew their bayonets and flourished them in
the air in a threatening manner, and kicked and threw the Italians
about, and got the bread for themselves.

At Friedrichsfeld the treatment of the Italians was equally barbarous, the sentries shooting them for trying to get food from the British. Equally revolting stories come from Ohrdrup, Nammelburgh, Stendal, Soltau, Limburg, and Hamburg.

Germany's Attempt to Divide Belgium

Official Summary of Recent Political Events in Flanders, Issued by the Belgian Foreign Office

_Germany's plan to divide Belgium by organizing a small group of "activists" to establish a so-called Council of Flanders for the purpose of separating the Flemish from the Walloon Provinces, was described in the April issue of CURRENT HISTORY MAGAZINE, pp. 91-96, along with the fearless opposition which the attempt created. The following summary of the case, with a fuller array of dates and details, has since been prepared by the Belgian Foreign Office at St. Adresse, France, the seat of King Albert's Government in exile:_

The semi-official Wolff Agency in Berlin announced on Jan. 20, 1918, that the so-called Council of Flanders had proclaimed the autonomy of Flanders Dec. 22, 1917. Soon after that action, which had passed unnoticed and had left Belgian opinion indifferent and scornful, Herr von Walraff, German Secretary of the Interior, had judged the time opportune for a trip to Belgium, (Jan. 1, 1918.) The "council," after getting into close relations with him, had taken up the decree which the Landtag had intrusted to him on the 4th of February preceding, and had declared that it would submit itself to a popular referendum.

At length a commission of executive officials was created; it included heads for the Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Public Works, Arts and Sciences, Justice, Finance, Labor, National Defense, Posts and Telegraph, and the Navy. The German telegraphic agencies sent out this news in all directions to spread the idea that Flanders was showing an intention of detaching itself from Belgium, and to give the impression of a spontaneous popular movement for political separation.

The thought that inspired this intrigue dates back to a period almost two years earlier. On April 5, 1916, the German Chancellor, in defining the war aims of Germany before the Reichstag, had outlined the imperial policy of establishing a protectorate over the Flemings. Later there were found in Belgium some obscure and discredited citizens who, betraying their sacred duty, placed themselves in the pay of the enemy and consented to make themselves the agents and accomplices of the invaders.

GERMAN ACT OF SEPARATION

On Feb. 4, 1917, an assembly composed of 200 Belgians speaking the Flemish language met and voted for the creation of a "Council of Flanders." On March 3 this body sent a deputation to Berlin, and the Chancellor announced to it that "the policy tending toward the administrative separation would be pursued with all the vigor possible during the occupation," and that "during the negotiations and after the conclusion of peace the empire would not cease to watch over the development of the Flemish race." The German decrees dividing Belgium into two administrative regions followed close upon these declarations, (March 21, 1917.)

At the end of 1917 the German authorities believed that the moment had come to consummate the enterprise by completing the administrative separation with a political separation. Thus the end would be attained: Belgium would be dismembered; one part of the country would fall under vassalage to Germany, and, in case there were no annexation, would become in a way a sphere of influence for the empire.

The intrigues of the "Council of Flanders" are merely a comedy intended to mask this policy. The policy rests upon a clever juggling with the question of languages. Under cover of the principle of free self-determination of peoples, it seeks to internationalize an internal problem in the hope of dislocating the Belgian nationality. Perhaps it also aims at the creation of a fictitious Government which shall furnish the German Government with the means for opening fallacious peace negotiations to deceive the world and weaken the cohesion of the Allies. Many German newspapers have allowed these aims to appear, and some have boldly unveiled them.

ALL BELGIUM PROTESTS

But the strong protests of Flemish communities and of the entire Belgian Nation have foiled these plans, and the news coming from the occupied region enables us to determine with precision the character of the rôle played by the "Council of Flanders." At the same time it attests the determination of the Belgian people to repel all foreign interference and to maintain its unity unshaken.

What is this "Council of Flanders"? It has no representative character. It was created by a private assembly which had no mandate from the people. It now pretends to seek popular sanction through an election. This is only a subterfuge. There has been no election. There has been no consultation of the people. The promoters have limited themselves to assembling groups of adherents in theatres or restaurants, and causing gatherings composed of their proselytes, with an admixture of the curious and the idle, to vote on lists of candidates previously arranged in the private offices of those who are directing the work.

The Deputies and Senators, in a protest to the Chancellor, thus denounced the pretense of an election that was organized in Brussels: