The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1921-12-07

incoherent and disorderly 1t is because
OF the complete suppression, completer
now than ever before, of discussion,
is a very strong argument indeed.
India and Britain can not talk to-
gether about their common future,
IL India remains gagged and with
out ever a chance Of learning to talk
IL q break comes in India, 1t is likely
to be a bad and hopeless one because
Of her lack of worked out political
conceptions, due to her long mental
restraint, while all the rest OF the
world from Korea to Peru has been
trying over political self-expression'
But 1t is interesting and perhaps not
quite so pathetically hopeless as IL
seems at the first glance to find these
two men in this city side by SIDE WIN
the Koreans, trying to get some
thing done about 1t" at the Washing.
ton assembly. :.
And a day or two ago / had call
from another unofficial delegate, a
Syrian Moslem, who wanted to talk
over the education of his people. who
are also fretting beneath the wide sur
faces of the treaty of Versailles, with
the ambition to manage the affairs OF
Syria for themselves.
Stifled Voice Of Chinese.
And as another case Of the stifled
voice here are the representatives OF
the Cantonese Chinese government.
who made a scene the other day when
the Picking representatives went into
secret session with the Japanese.
There was an assembly Of hostile Chi
ese shouting Traitor" and things
apparently very disagreeable things
in Chinese. Here again there is
clamor for attention that gets short
shrift from the official conference.
land lest these stifled outcries
should fill the American reader with
self-righteousness. i will note in pass
ing that the entrance to the second
plenary conference was besieged by
an array of banners. reminding us that
that evidently most gentle and worthy
man, Mr.. Debs, is still in prison for
saying his honest thought about con-
scription, and also that l have re-
ceived, / suppose, over twenty letters
about an unfortunate Englishman, a
minor poet, named Charles Ashleigh,
who seems to have come into America
looking like person of advanced
views, to have done some publicity
work for the /. w. W., and to have
been cacght in a gale Of indiscriminate
suppression and given a sentence OF
ten years for nothing at all. The Of
Tense of Mr.. Debs and the alleged of.
Tense of Mr.. Ashleigh, may note fur
Their, We're a premature craving for
universal peace which might have
weakened the will for war;
Sins Against Civilization.
All these suppressions of opinion
strike me as black sins against civil.
ization, which can only maintain itself
and grow and flourish through the
free expression and discussion OF ideas
The temptation to raid off from the
main business of the conference upon
some Quixotic championship of Korea,
or India, or Mr.. Ashleigh, is, there
fore, very considerable.
But when we consider that all these
particular injustices are incidents in
that general disorder which permits
the aggression of nation upon nation
and which blinds justice with a cruel
passion and urgent necessities Of war,
these cases appear In a different light
Korea, and the suppressed and i'm
prisoned Indian liberals, and Mr.. Ash.
leigh, are like people hit casually in a
great combat, and the immediate work
Of the ordinary combatant is surely
not to specialize upon these special
cases, but to go on with the general
fight for world peace which will rem
der the atmosphere that created these
particular wrongs impossible.
Japan is attempting to crus. and