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THE WELSH OUTLOOK The Editor does not necessarily identify himself with the opinions of contributors to The Welsh Outlook. Editorial responsibility is limited to the views expressed in the Notes of the Month," and in the unsigned article immediately following. NOTES OF THE MONTH The German The Kapp coup d'etat in Germany and its Counter quick failure will, in the opinion of those Revolution. most qualified to judge, do an immense amount of good, provided in the first place the Allies continue to repress the constant inclination of their militarist parties to interfere in Germany merely for the purpose of inflicting more suffering on that unhappy and broken land, and, secondly, that it results in a fusion of the two socialist sections to form a stable constitutional government. The two greatest dangers of Germany are, on the one hand, a complete swing back of public opinion into the Chauvinist position, or, on the other, a definite lapse into Spartacism. For months after the Armistice, Germany was moving further and further away from the old ultra-nationalist standpoint, but the harsh anti-nation- alism of the Treaty of Versailles undoubtedly gave the German militarists and Junkers much greater strength, and for months now they have exercised very considerable power on the Government and in the country. In the industrial districts, however, Spartacism has been making rapid progress, and it has been greatly assisted by the weakness of the Ebert-Noske Government, by the terrible economic condition of the country which, in spite of their high demands, the Allies-if judged by their dilatoriness in taking steps to restore Germany financially and indus- trially-seemed to desire to perpetuate. By habit and temperament, however, the German people are constitu- tional and orderly and the signs of the moment seem to indicate, as a result of the foolish Kapp revolt, that the extremists of both the Left and the Right will be dis- credited, and that a strong constitutional Government may be formed. But stability of Government in Germany will never be achieved until there has been an entire re- orientation of Allied policy towards it. Until then it will remain a danger and a menace to our civilization, and if the awful crash ever comes, we, by malice, hatred, selfish.- APRIL, 1920 ness and unreason shall have been responsible for it. surely the fate of the Kapp plot and its treatment at the hands of the German people, and of all the political parties in the country, ought at any rate to do something towards demonstrating the futility of the argument, used by the men of hate and distrust among us, that the old Chauvin- istic spirit of Germany was still alive and ready at any moment to reappear. The Premier We deal elsewhere with the effort recently and Labour. made by the Prime Minister and Mr. Bonar Law to fuse into one compound the heterogeneous elements at present making up the Coalition mixture, but there is one aspect of the affair which will give the greatest concern to many of the Premier's best friends and most loyal supporters. Every one knows that for months a great struggle has been going on within the Labour Party between the extremists on the one hand and the moderate men on the other, and at last, largely owing to the influence of a group of intellectuals," the first pitched battle was won by the adoption by a large majority of constitutional and political methods instead of direct action. Those who remembered the great tact of the Prime Minister in connection with the many labour dis- putes with which he has dealt, thought that, at any rate, he would be the first to encourage the new spirit, in spite of Mr. Clynes' warning that nowhere would there be more joy at a direct action majority than in Downing Street. Within a few days, however, he declares that in a word his policy for the future is the defence of the old system, tars all Labour, moderate and extreme, with his obnoxious Bolshevik brush, and the next day in receiving a miner's deputation for an increase of wages declaims against it as a syndicalist demand, and makes every one feel that his reply was not intended as a reasoned reply to the miners, but as a piece of political strategy. He may have been