THE - MAGAZINES By far the most arresting article in an
excellent number of the Nineteenth Century deals with " Modern Tendencies in Scotland.". Mr. Lewis Spence warns Englishmen that 'tit sharp sense of the neglect'of those questions which peculiarly affect Scotland " is taking hold of every class of the com- munity. In the West . " Moscow works her will." ." The upper classes in the cities are segregated from the mass of the people almost as sharp1.3i as they were in Tsarist Rnssia.". -" The younger generation of toilers arc Socialist almost to a man." Emigration is taking away the best blood in the country to an alarming extent. The housing question is worse than here. . The slums of Glasgow are full of " wild- eyed, haggard and desperate "men. According to Mr. Spence England simply smiles and looks the other way.
Perhaps the most interesting article in a very good number of the Contemporary deals with present conditions in Ireland " Ireland ; after the Storm." Mr. Law answers from the inside all the obvious questions which Englishmen ask among themselves when they talk about the matter. Good order preiails everywhere we are assured. That the Northern Government still retains in its service not only the Ulster ConStabulary, but also a great number of Special Constables can .be explained by. the fact that it is easier to pay the men in this way than to throw them upon an overstocked Lahour market. Economic anxiety has killed political interest. At the recent Urban and County Elections candidates frequently won on the cry of " no politics." A prominent Protestant, speaking lately at an Orange gathering, declared he " was voicing the minds of the Protestant people by saying they had a right to be thankful and to be fair and honest with those in authority." " Life," Mr. Law concludes, " is :much of a muchness on either , side of the Border." " A member of the last Government " writes hopefully of the future of the Liberal Party. ".This country," he argues, " remains instinctively Liberal, and a Conservative Govern- ment can only hold office by doing Liberal things." " Dante as a Political Thinker," by Mr. Ambrose Parsons, is an extra- ordinarily interesting piece of historical comparison. Dante gave voice to the mediaeval idea of "one supreme, impartial, unifying and co-ordinating authority." Mr. Parsons argues that Europe in creating the League of Nations has once more the same great end in view. Sir Charles Hobhouse writes with the latest information on "The Situation in Morocco" which he has lately visited.. He allows us no. illusions in his well-written article, except perhaps the hope that the League of Nations could sett& the matter for the benefit of all concerned. But he thinks that the days are in sight when " Europe will have to renounce her self-imposed mission " of government over natives, not in North Africa alone.
Sir Thomas Barclay, writing in the Fortnightly of " Joseph Caillaux," sketches his life and character from personal knowledge in very favourable colours. " Is there Protec- tion-against Bolshevism ? " asks Mr. John Bell. He maintains that if we will study the action of France we shall see that very effective measures of protection have been found possible. From a French writer, M. Andre Fontainas, conies a striking paper upon " How English Writers have Influenced French Literature." He maintains, and we think proves, that our influence has covered a larger ground and gone very much deeper than is ordinarily supposed. .
Blackwood, among many good things, contains a charming article by " A. M.," called " Chinese Contrasts." " Chinese Characteristics " as the writer admits, have better described it. The writer has lived many years among the Chinese, and feels that he cannot generalize. He tells of their kindness and their cruelty, their honesty and their dishonesty, their candour and their deceit. All the stories are interesting and all throw a light upon the dark ways of a fearfully sophis- ticated, yet in some vzoy.s. childlike, people. - = The World To-day continues to publish the " New Page Letters."___. The October number contains "A Fifth Selection from the Private Files of President Wilson." They concern the first year of the War and are interesting in the extreme telling of highly confidential talks with " Sir Edward Grey " and " General French " and drawing a picture of English life during that first year such as could be drawn only by a man in his position, a man of the same tongue, and another country, whose power of sympathetic insight amounted to genius. -
" Ancient Parochial Discipline " in this month's Empire Review is a delightfully Amusing paper. Mr. E. G. Swain is to be congratulated on the treasures of huinour he has dis7 covered among his " church wardens presentments " of the time of James I.
_The Ilibbert Journal is as usual full of grave and interesting matter. The new number is perhaps more pessimistic in tone than will please the general reader. Mr.. C. D. Broad, writing of" Belief in a Personal God " sums up against it. Mr. T. J. Hardy, writing as a Christian minister, regards the modern world as almost wholly devoid of religion. A strong prejudice against _Catholicism prevents his seeing vitality in the Anglo- Catholic movement. "There may still be reserves of hope," he writes, " in. the only element which can always be relied on-=:the inconsistency of mankind." "Women in Rebellion," by Mr,Meyrick Booth is, again, a lament elicited by "the super- ficial mechanical, soulless and non-moral character " of present times. A very inadequate attempt to portray the mind and character of that great theologian and devout Catholic, Friedrich von Hiigel,- is made by Miss M. D. Petre. Miss Petre endeavours to sum up in a few superficial paragraphs his attitude towards mysticism on the one hand and modernism on _the. other, obscuring the issue by_ insisting upon a false comparison between Von Hugel and George Tyrrell.
". Whitewashing Germany " in the National Review is a warning signed by Mr. John Pollock and Mr. F. de Marwicz, against a recent French book entitled La Virtoire, which they regard as a pernicious effort to shift the blame of the War. " A Socialist Experiment " by Mr. Frank Hird describes the failure of Socialism in Czecho-Slovakia. Mrs. Kinross, in " Light and Cancer," suggests that the increase in this fell disease is due to the use of electric light.
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