Djin or Kamu Flaj,--there is something worth talking of over an
afternoon tea table. But suppose that the whole of the Manitoba
Grain Growers were to die. What could one say about it? They'd be
dead, that's all.

So it is that people all over the world turn to English politics with
interest. What more delightful than to open an atlas, find out where
the new kingdom of Hejaz is, and then violently support the British
claim to a protectorate over it. Over in America we don't understand
this sort of thing. There is naturally little chance to do so and we
don't know how to use it when it comes. I remember that when a chance
did come in connection with the great Venezuela dispute over the
ownership of the jungles and mud-flats of British Guiana, the
American papers at once inserted headings, WHERE IS THE ESSIQUIBO
RIVER? That spoiled the whole thing. If you admit that you don't know
where a place is, then the bottom is knocked out of all discussion.
But if you pretend that you do, then you are all right. Mr. Lloyd
George is said to have caused great amusement at the Versailles
Conference by admitting that he hadn't known where Teschen was. So at
least it was reported in the papers; and for all I know it might even
have been true. But the fun that he raised was not really half what
could have been raised. I have it on good authority that two of the
American delegates hadn't known where Austria Proper was and thought
that Unredeemed Italy was on the East side of New York, while the
Chinese Delegate thought that the Cameroons were part of Scotland.
But it is these little geographic niceties that lend a charm to
European politics that ours lack forever.

I don't mean to say the English politics always turn on romantic
places or on small questions. They don't. They often include