differentiated. The League had not the power and resources to
deal with matters in which larger political issues were involved,
and its activities were chiefly confined to those specific matters
referred to it by the treaties of peace, or to other matters of
minor importance in which its help was invoked, as, for instance,
the Aland Is. and Vilna. In 1921 it included all European States
with the exception of Germany and Russia, but these two
together represented a potential force equal to that of almost the
whole of the rest of the continent, and the League was not yet able
to take the position, which its advocates anticipated, of a final
Court of Appeal whose decisions would be, if necessary,
enforced. So far indeed the hopes of a new era in international
relations had not been fulfilled. Disarmament had been
imposed upon Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria, and there
had been a great reduction of armaments in Holland and Scandinavia;
but France and Italy maintained the older system, and
the new States, intent on their independence and integrity, were
determined to rely on their own strength. In particular, Poland,
occupied as she had been in the war with Russia, and with the
enforcement of her territorial claims on her other frontiers,
maintained an army of some six or seven hundred thousand men,
an army which was a heavy burden on the finances and the
resources of the country.
After the Napoleonic War, the Great Alliance, supported as it was by large armies, was in fact able to impose its will upon the continent. In a not dissimilar situation France, Great Britain and Italy together had neither the resources nor the unity of will which would have been requisite even if they desired to imitate their predecessors; in particular, England, occupied with urgent difficulties of finance, and burdened with great responsibilities in other parts of the world, was intent, so far as possible, on avoiding new continental entanglements. The task of supervising the execution of the treaties of peace was in itself more than sufficient to occupy the Allies, and in consequence the smaller States were enabled to show an independence, the attainment of which was one of the avowed objects of the Allies in the war. Europe had been freed from the danger of one European predominance; it showed no disposition to accept that of the victors in the war. In this state of affairs the smaller States were tending to associate themselves in local groups—e.g. in Scandinavia, the Baltic States, the successor States of Austria-Hungary—and the political problems by which the continent was still distracted more and more assumed a local rather than a general character. It might be hoped that, though slowly, the animosities excited by the war would subside, and that these local groups would be able to concentrate their attention on the very urgent economic problems, the settlement of which was so essential to the future welfare of the continent.
See A History of the Peace Conference of Paris, edited by H. W. V. Temperley, 1920.
EVANS, SIR ARTHUR JOHN (1851-), English archaeologist, was born at Nash Mills, Herts., July 8 1851, the eldest son of Sir John Evans, K.C.B. (see 10.2[1]). Educated at Harrow, Brasenose College, Oxford, and Göttingen, he was elected fellow of Brasenose and in 1884 keeper of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, holding this post till 1908. He travelled in Finland and Lapland in 1873-4, and in 1875 made a special study of archaeology and ethnology in the Balkan States. In 1893 he began his investigations in Crete, which have resulted in discoveries of the utmost importance concerning the early history of Greece and the eastern Mediterranean (see 1.246, 7.421). A member of all the chief archaeological societies in Europe, he was given hon. degrees at Oxford, Edinburgh and Dublin, and was made a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1911 he was knighted. His chief publications are: Cretan Pictographs and Prae-Phoenician Script (1896); Further Discoveries of Cretan and Aegean Script (1898); The Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult (1901); Scripta Minoa (1909 et seq.); and reports on the excavations at Knossos. He also edited, with additions, Freeman's History of Sicily, vol. iv.
EVANS, SIR SAMUEL THOMAS (1859-1918), British judge, was born at Skewen, near Neath, May 4 1859. He was educated at the local school and at London University, being afterwards admitted as a solicitor (1883). He practised for some years at Neath, but in 1891 was called to the bar, where he soon built up a large practice, his numerous Welsh connexions being of great value. In 1890 he was elected Liberal member for Mid-Glamorganshire, and held the seat until 1910. In 1901 he became a Q.C., in 1908 was elected a bencher of the Middle Temple, from 1906-8 was recorder of Swansea, and in 1908 was knighted and appointed solicitor-general by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. In 1910 he was raised to the bench, becoming president of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty division. On the outbreak of the World War the Prize court was reëstablished, and the work here done as president by Sir Samuel Evans was of the highest value, many of his judgments laying down principles of great importance. He was created G.C.B. in 1917, and died in London Sept. 13 1918.
EVERT, ALEXEI (1857-1917), Russian general, was born in 1857 and entered the army in 1876 after finishing his course at the infantry military school in Moscow and receiving a commission in the Volinsky Guard Regiment. He passed through the academy of the general staff, and was appointed on the general staff. Later, after commanding an infantry regiment, he was in 1900 promoted to the rank of general. In the war with Japan 1904-5, he served on the commander-in-chief's “quartermaster” (i.e. general) staff and later as the chief of the staff of the I. Army. In 1906 he became chief of the general staff, but very soon afterwards he was appointed commander of the XIII. Corps. In 1912 he was commander of the troops of the Irkutsk military district. In Aug. 1914, while commanding the IV. Army, he participated in the victory of the Russians in the Galician battle, for which he was awarded the cross of St. George of the 4th degree. In Oct. his army was thrown on the W. bank of the river Vistula, where under his leadership it fought in the fierce battles of the winter of 1914-5 and the summer of 1915. In Aug. 1915 he was appointed commander-in-chief of the north-western group of armies, and he extricated the armies under his charge from a very critical position during the Vilna-Molodechno operations. In 1916, in order to relieve pressure on the western front, several attempts to break through the German line were made on his front, causing great losses of men and ending unsuccessfully. In March 1917, at the beginning of the Revolution, he was relieved of his duties, and he was later reported to have been killed by the Bolsheviki.
EXCESS PROFITS DUTY AND TAX.—The outbreak of the World War in 1914, and the consequent gigantic increase in the public expenditure of the belligerent nations, led inevitably, not only to an increase in the weight of existing taxes, but also to a search for fresh sources from which substantial amounts of revenue could be raised. It soon became clear that, among the potential sources of additional revenue, the taxation of “excess profits” merited serious consideration, and the subject was explored in many countries, with the result that, during the war, taxes of this character were imposed in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, France, Italy, the United States of America and other countries. The characteristic features of these taxes were:—(i.) that they were charged in respect of the profits of trading concerns as such rather than of individuals, and (ii.) that the amount payable was determined, not by reference to the total profits of a concern, but by reference to its profits in excess of a certain standard, ascertained separately in each case on a prescribed basis. It was in the basis adopted for the computation of the standard that the main difference in principle between the various taxes was found, and in this respect the taxes fell into two distinct classes. On one basis the tax may be described as essentially a tax upon war profits, inasmuch as it was levied upon profits arising during or after the war in excess of a standard representing the profits or average profits of a period prior to the war. On the other basis, the tax took the form of a tax on profits in excess of a prescribed return on capital, and the standard was generally calculated by reference to a percentage upon the capital employed in earning the profits. It was the former of these two principles which was adopted as the general basis of the tax in the United Kingdom (where a tax on excess profits was first imposed), although the latter principle
- ↑ These figures indicate the volume and page number of the previous article.
