The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-01-01

not wait for the official approval of the French government as the rainy season threatened and on his own responsibility he marched from Mbele to the English post Kaflakingi, in IS days, with a small force of 40 native soldiers and was es- corted back by an equal force of British soldiers.
 The cooperation of the troops will be of great help to the trading caravans and will, 1t is hoped, put an end to the now fiourishng slave trade, though per- haps not until after hard fights with the Arabian traders.
 I have just interviewed the famous Sig nor Martinetti, head of futurism in Italy, who is at present here in London, and who intends shortly to visit his country men in the United States.
 Signor Martinetti wants to clear away all the classical traditions in painting literature and music, and the religion of old things and old men, which he al- leges is the ruin of Italy.
 You can hardly realize," he said, ''the tragedy of the young men of Italy, and the way in which their ambitions are blocked If a man is painter he starves because of the cult of the old masters. If he has any modern spirit moving him to express himself in modern terms as poet or musician he is kept down and trampled upon by the old men who cher ish the classical superstitions-by those worn-out antiquists again. Old age is the one standard of responsibility and talent
 'The futurists are going to alter all that; Italy to the young menr is our watchword. Away with the rubbishly old past. Let us look to the future! Our national destiny depends on the propaganda. As inevitably as the sun rises and sets we shall have to struggle for our life against Austria. That con- test Is absolutely bound to come. If it comes when Venice is still sunk in the lethargy of it's old Romanticism, when Rome Is living on It's classical traditions, when Florence is nothing but a picture gallery-we are doomed.
 we, the futurists, make the call of modernity; we want to leap ahead and themselves modern. We are futurists not only in political and economic way, but in every branch of art--art is at present slumbering in old superstitions. It is hidebound in tradition, not only in Italy, but in France.
 T went into picture gallery the other day where there were 5000 modern paint ings. More than 5000 of them were paint ings of nude women. How absurd. In our cold climates ladies do not go about naked. The modern artist should paint ladies in modern toilettes. He should go even forward and paint the toilette of the future.
 'I would have our artists paint the characteristic scenes of the new age of industry; the great factories, with their smoke and flame and murky atmosphere, the docks with their crowded shipping, the towns and street scenes of modern life. I would hav our noets express the modern spirit of restlessness, of seethings turna6il of life In crowds.
 'The existence of ItaTy depends upon the success of our creed. because on the other hand. as I have said, she Is de- caying with the putrifcation of dead things, and on the other she is being weakened by that most dangerous of all philosophies, the gospel of cowardice. -Tolstoyism and passive resistance gre so debilitating the workinsmen of Italy that believe that If 1t is not checked by the awakening spirit of futurism, the Italian people will be as helpless sheep before horde of wolves when Austria marches over the frontier.''