SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we notice such Books of the week as have not bees reserved for review in other forms.] Lord Milner. By W. B. Luke. (S. W. Partridge and Co. is. Cd. net).—Mr. Luke gives us a very interesting review of Lord Milner's early political life. It is difficult now and then to repress a smile. Alfred Milner held some views which now, if they do not seem absurd, are certainly out of date. Who cares a "brass farthing" for "shorter Parliaments " ? And the epigrammatic sentence about the House of Lords, that "to leave its composition to be determined by the accident of birth is as absurd in principle as it has proved mischievous in practice," he would hardly utter now. Then there is the Egyptian question. A decade and a half ago Alfred Ptlilner was for clearing out; and so indeed were most of the politicians both in and out of power. But who lives learns. And no one has learnt more in his time than Lord Milner. It may please doctrinaire statesmen to speak of him as "a lost mind." Really he is one of the wise men, seldom to be found, but not unknown, who are ready to acknowledge that after twenty years of learning they know something more than when they began. "I don't hesitate to confess," we find him saying in 1835, "that I was in favour of it [going to Egypt] myself. I am neither ashamed to confess an error nor superior to learning from it." And he goes on to say that, practically, our work in Egypt has been a failure. But that was sixteen years ago, and what has not happened since! It is only the editor of a party newspaper who never errs and never changes, except when a proprietor commands a nate face or instals another Vizier in power. We do not always agree with Mr. Luke, but we always admire his work.
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