Eevieiv of liuricivs, 110/13. 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



/^j 



economic struggle," are the real causes, 

 the wrirer continues : — 



If we agree tliat Imnianity has always pr-.»- 

 duced ami, it is likely, will Jong contiiuio 

 to produce groups of persons who end their 

 lives by committing suicide, it will be 

 necessary to recognise this manifcistation as 

 normal in a certain measure. The suicide of 

 individual persons then becomes a function 

 of the social organism. It can have different 

 tendencies which would give it a deiluite 

 character, form, and intensity. 1 would say 

 that these tendencies, no niiatter how strange 

 this may sound, can be healthy or unhealthy. 

 For instance, the relative growth of the 

 number of suicides in connection with the 

 approach of old age can, so it .seems to nie, 

 be called a liealthy tendency. The non- 

 changing number of suicides in diffei-ent 

 countries, or its .slow and gradual decrea.se 

 or increa.se, can also be added to tlie num- 

 ber of healthy tendencies. ... On the 

 contrary, the increase in the number of 

 suicides among the active and the .strong or 

 a sudden epidemic of suicide among all 

 classes of population of a given oounti-y 

 would be something abnormal and wouM in- 

 dicate that that society is undergoing a 

 serious crisis. 



In Russia the writer observes two un- 

 healthy tendencies : a constantly rising 

 number of suicides since 1905, and the 

 predominance of young people among 

 them. We hnd that, of 4175 cases of 

 suicide in the years of 1906-1909, where 

 the age was known, 59 per cent, were 

 younger than 25 years, 34 per cent, were 

 from 26 to 50 years, and only 7 per cent, 

 over the age of 50. 



It is the opinion of Mr. Volsky that 

 the number of suicides is closely con- 



nected with the political and social life 

 of a country, that it decreases when the 

 people are united in some common cause 

 and increases in the absence of such a 

 unifying force. He says on this 

 point : — 



We see in Knrope where public organisa- 

 tion is .strengthening, where the social 

 struggle is becoming more intense, the num- 

 ber of suicides for the last t-en to fifteen 

 years has been falling off: hero in Ru.ssia, 

 in the atmosphere of reactionary oppression 

 ami public dejection, the number increases 

 at a terrific rate, in Western Europe they 

 voluntarily end tlieir lives who have done all 

 they coukl on earth, people who liave pre- 

 served only a human, form, but have lost the 

 fire of life. In Russia people depart in their 

 prime. There life's energies have been ex- 

 pended, and the exhausted organism natur- 

 ally perishes; here the colh'ctivc sense of life 

 has been lost. 



And this is the remedy, as the Russian 

 writer sees it : — 



The only po.ssible way to combat the sui- 

 cide evil IS to fight again,st the <lisintegra- 

 tion of society. That man is a .social animal 

 finds a new confirmation in. our epidemic 

 of suicide. Only a group, only a coUectiTe 

 body creates religion, morality, right, only 

 in a collective body can man live. Only in 

 society, in an organisation of beings like 

 himself, does man find freedom from the forces 

 of the extcrival woild which are striving to 

 enslave him, aiul only in such organisation 

 is he able to struggle against them. 

 Man is a slaA'o to natur(^ in general, and to 

 his own in piarticular, when he is alone. 

 Man is truly the king of creation when he 

 is ])art of a collective whole. 



DAMASCUS OR CONSTANTINOPLE? 



The events that are shajDing them- 

 selves in Turkey since the cessation of 

 hostilities in the Balkans make it appear 

 as though the peace that has followed 

 the war will prove to be little more than 

 a truce so far as the Ottoman Empire, or 

 what is left of it, is concerned. Already 

 a process of detachment of Arabia and 

 the other Arabic-speaking parts of 

 Asiatic Turkey from the rest of the 

 country is setting in, and in the region 

 between the Mediterranean and the Per- 

 sian Gulf a movement has been set on 

 foot for the separation of Arabia and 

 Palestine from Anatolia and the other 

 parts inhabited by the Kurds and Arme- 

 nians. So pronounced is this movement 

 that Field Marshal von der Goltz, the 



German military authorit}', whose name 

 is well known in connection with the 

 efforts to reorganise the Turkish army 

 during the reign of Abdul Hamid, has 

 written an article on the subject in the 

 Ne//e Frcie Presse, of \''ienna. 



In tliis article he lays down as the 

 first requisite for the maintenance of the 

 integrity of the Ottoman Empire, as 

 now constituted after the Balkan War, 

 the completion of the armaments in con- 

 sequence of the gravit\- of the situation 

 in Syria and the disorders in Arabia. 

 He would also banish politics from the 

 arm\' ; the navy he regards as solid and 

 lo)-al. But he particularly insists on the 

 necessity of gaining over the Arabs, and 

 without loss of time, to the defence of 



