The Latin-American situation remains obscure. According to advices
from Archangel, Paraguay intends to act, though curiously enough a
strange cloud of silence hangs over recent (and coming) events in
Ecuador. Bolivia has decided to construct a fleet, despite the fact
that the absence of a seaboard is being made a reason for sinister
opposition in pro-German circles. Patagonia has mobilised both her
soldiers, but her gun is still under repair.
Panagua has declared war on Germany. It is hard to over-estimate the
value of this new adhesion to the Allied cause. The standing army is
well over six hundred strong, and there is a small but modern fleet,
consisting of two revenue cutters, one super skiff, eight canoes
(mounted with two pairs of six-inch oars) and one raft (Benamuckee
class). The President, in a moving address to the Panaguan Senate,
declared, "The world is watching Panagua; it does not watch in vain."
Señora Hysterica, the first woman senator, cast the only vote against
war. "I cannot," she sobbed.
Things are moving in Mexico. General CARRANZA has summoned a
mass-meeting of ex-Presidents to consider the situation, and a
counter-demonstration by the Brigands' Trade Union Congress is feared.
Even as far north as Greenland the repercussion may be felt. Here,
owing to the new régime of blubber-cards, Eskimo opinion is in a
very nervous state. Indeed, according to an inspired semi-official
utterance by Prince Bowo, the Siamese Deputy Vice-Consul at Fez, it
is not too much to say that almost anything may, or may not, happen in
this Arctic quarter.
The outlook in Palestine is dark. Strict-silence is enforced in all
public places, and even whispering is forbidden at street corners.
More than two-thirds of the population are spies. Relatives are
only allowed to speak to each other if granted a special licence
or talking-ticket by the Sheikh-ul-Islam, though there is a special
dispensation for mothers-in-law. The reported mobilization of eighty
goats on Mount Tabor shows pretty clearly which way the wind is
blowing; whilst it is persistently rumoured in Joppa that five camels
were seen passing through Jerusalem yesterday. Suspicious dredging
operations in the Dead Sea are also reported by a Berne correspondent.
The future is big with presage.
All eyes are fixed on the two great African Powers which still stand
aside from the maelström of war. The position in Ethiopia is, to say
the least of it, tendentious, and at any moment the natives may change
their skin. The coronation of the new Empress of Abyssinia is being
followed as usual by the great Feast of the Blue Umbrella, at which
an important pronouncement is, I learn, to be made. I hear, moreover
(from a private source in Trondhjem, _viâ_ Mecca and Amsterdam), that
Wady-ul-Dzjinn, the new Premier, and a staunch pro-Ally, is expected
to speak with no uncertain voice. Unfortunately serious liquorice
riots have broken out in the capital, and these are being cunningly
used by German agents to turn popular discontent against the Allies.
Fräulein von Schlimm, a niece by marriage of the acting Montenegrin
Envoy, is accused of purposely hoarding five hundred sticks of
"Spanish" so as to aggravate the crisis. The usually reliable
correspondent of _The Salt Lake City Morning Pioneer_ telegraphs
(_viâ_ Tomsk) that she only escaped lynching by distributing her
treasure to the mob.
In a similar way economic issues are determining the attitude
of Thibet. Prices in Lhassa are rising fabulously. The new Food
Controller is endeavouring to grapple with the situation, and the yak
ration has again been reduced. It behoves British diplomacy to see
that the ensuing discontent is not turned into Germanophil currents.
Where is our Foreign Office? What is being done? We are in the third
year of the War and yet, while the German Minister is distributing
free arrowroot to the populace, Whitehall slumbers on. It may be
nothing to our mandarins that a full platoon was added to the Thibetan
field-strength only last week, and that the Government dinghy is
already watertight.
_Later_. Paraguay's attitude is now defined as one of Stark
Neutrality. Patagonia has increased her army by fifty per cent. The
new recruit promises to make an excellent fighting unit.
* * * * *