THE TONGUE NOBODY KNOWS

The one point of agreement between President Cosgrave of Ireland and his bitter opponent De Valera, leader of the Sinn Fein, has been a common desire to see Gaelic culture and the Gaelic language predominant in the newly autonomous state. In Wales, recently a similar movement has gained official recognition; and Welsh, which is still the only language of some hundred thousand people, has become the medium of instruction in the majority of the public schools. But this revivefication of language and culture is but a phase of the nationalistic movement that is sweeping the world. In Russia, in Italy, in China, the symptoms have been the cause of international attention. Yesterday in India, natives decreed a day of mourning, and evoked bloodshed by rioting at the appearance of the Royal Commission on Indian Reforms, whose health measures come into sharp conflict with caste tradition.

Dear as such patriotic and cultural revivals attempting to withstand an unexotic uniformity, may be to the lover of the humanities, they are unfortunately a last gesture before the advancing front of commercialism. Just as the great London papers penetrated Wales and threatened its native tongue, so must the efficiency of mass production inevitably break down the barriers of custom and nationality. Protective tariffs imposed merely to support an interior industry are economically unsound; a confusion of dialects clogs the channels of trade and diplomacy. The radio, moving pictures, artistic advertising, all the weapons of modernity, are weapons as well of internationalism. Whether they compensate for the colorfulness of unhygienic custom and inefficient quaintness must remain an academic question for the antiquarian and tourist.