THE MAGAZINES.

"THE Crisis in the Near East" is treated from three points of view in the November Nineteenth Century. Dr. Emil Reich, who undertakes to vindicate the policy of Austria- Hungary, asserts that the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina was inevitable, as the only means of averting a revolution of the South Slays, and that the worst that can be alleged against it is a "formal incorrectness which did not entail any substantial damage on any of the non-Turkish nations in the Balkans, nor on the Great Powers, and which conferred upon the most interested party, on the Turks proper, a considerable advantage." The choice of time is further defended on the ground that "the new Constitution in Turkey had added a • Luxury and Mist* of Lifs. By E. J. Uswiek. London: 3. N. Dent and Co, [4s. 6d. net.]

most dangerous weapon to the arsenalof the countless foreign enemies and secret plotters in Austro-Hungarian Bosnia and Herzegovina." Dr. Reich quotes freely from the Pan-Servian Press in Bosnia and Herzegovina to illustrate the lengths

to which the racial propaganda has been carried. His con. elusion is that "Baron Aerenthal has done in 1908 what the Congress of Berlin did in 1878,—he has entered on the

registers the results of historic forces. If he has done that somewhat faultily in externals, there can be little doubt that, as he did not in the least mean to insult. the Powers, so the Powers do not at all mean to resent

it gravely. Force majeure is an accepted principle. If ever a statesman was under the pressure of force majeure in the true sense of the term, Baron Aerenthal

Colonel Percy Massy (late British Vice-Consul at Varna)

states the case for Bulgaria temperately enough. He admits, for example, that here la force prime le droit. "Had Austria and Bulgaria not possessed powerful armies they would not have

cared to risk incurring the displeasure of the Concert." He also admits that it was ungenerous to seize the moment for action when the institutions of Turkey were in a state of' transition, and that the new Turkish Government has behaved with admirable calm and patriotism. Summing up the situation, he holds that, if no fresh complications arise,

"the aspirations for a Southern Pan-Slav union and German influence in the Balkans have received a considerable check; Turkey gains a material advantage in the withdrawal of the- Austrian troops ; the prospects of a better understanding between Turkey and her northern neighbours are improved; and. the chances of a pacific settlement of the Macedonian question are far greater than at any time since the. Powers began, now more- than five years ago, actively to interfere in the administration of that province."

This may seem unduly optimistic, yet it is not beyond the• bounds of possibility that some of us may see the realisa- tion of Sir William White's scheme of an Alliance between a reformed Turkey and an independent Bulgaria and.

Roumania, serving as a rampart against Russian or Austro- German encroachment in the Near East. The other States Greece, Servia, and Montenegro—could come into it if they could reconcile their ambitions with the requirements of practical politics, which is, however, doubtful. It looks- as if the Servians would be compelled to enter on an- open or covert struggle with Austria. It may be argued that this would end in their absorption by Austria, with the-

ultimate result that a larger Servia, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, and part of Croatia and Dalmatia, may be formed,—possibly under a personal union with

Austria like that which exists in the case of Hungary. That might conceivably satisfy the nationalist aspirations of the- Servian races, and terminate the sordid squabbles, dynastie- and other, by which-the present Servian Kingdom has been disgraced. It would also be possible to argue that this might- relieve the tension between Servia and Bulgaria, due to the- former being checked by Austria in her natural expansion

towards the West, and encouraged by her to seek " compensa- tion" at the expense of the Bulgarians. On the other hand,.

the Slavonising of Austria-Hungary would in all probability lead to internal disruption in both parts of the Dual'

Monarchy. Neither the Germans nor the Magyars, in their- present mood, seem likely to tolerate anything that would

throw the balance of political or electoral power into the - hands of the Slav subjects of the house of Hapsburg.—. Professor Vambery, in an " independent view " of Europe and: the Turkish Constitution, holds that the upheaval was inevit- able and foreseen, and differs from Lord Cromer as to the- possibilities of a reformed Islam. He is not apprehensive of ' reaction, but earnestly appeals to the European Powers to give a trial, and a fair trial, to the Young Turkey Party, in. view of the moderation and wisdom they have shown both during and since the revolution.—Mr. Ramsay Mac- donald subjects the Report of the Select Committee on Wages - Boards to a good deal of hostile criticism. Even where Wages Boards have been tried under conditions of extraordinary advantage, as in Australia, he asserts that the results are meagre, and that their introduction into this country will not . abolish sweating, but may rather intensify its evils. These, in his mind, can best be met by supplementing old-age pensions by sickness and accident insurance, and by a system of granting licenses for the carrying on of borne work.--,In this contex mention should. also. be made. of Kim Belleria interesting paper on the methods of dealing with the unemployed in Switzerland, where a voluntary system of insurance against unemployment has been in existence for seventeen years. An effort was made some ten or twelve years ago to make this system compulsory, but it was found that the mass of workers opposed it, the better paid amongst them regarding it as an attempt to levy a tax on them for the benefit of their less well-to-do comrades.

Owing to the extraordinary lack of consideration shown by the Kaiser in deferring the publication of his inter- view until just after the monthlies had gone to press, the National Review does not deal with the Daily Telegraph interview. Still, the action of Austria and Bulgaria has furnished the editor with suitable material for a character- istic, and, in our opinion, perfectly justifiable, deliverance

on the diplomacy of the Wilhelmstrasse, which he sums up as illustrating the old saying, " You can pay your money and take your cboice,"—a variant on the already famous " bookkeeping by double entry."—Mr. George Lloyd, writing on " The Reform Movement in Turkey," agrees with Professor Vambery in affirming that the upheaval was inevitable and not unexpected. "The only uncertainty was the date." The article is interesting in that it gives some account of the members of the Committee of Union and Progress,—whose self-effacement has been so remarkable. Incidentally Mr. Lloyd alleges that Freemasonry played no unimportant part in assisting the plans and aims of the revolutionaries, and—more remarkable still—asserts that "the movement was not only begun but carried through from start to finish without any foreign financial help." The chief difficulties in the way of the reformers are, he considers, finance, Army reorganisation, and the attitude of the Christians. As for the first-named, we may note that he regards the new Baghdad Railway contract signed last June as marking the climax of the ruinous financial policy of the late Palace party.—Mt. Maurice Low in "American Affairs " discusses the Presidential Election campaign, and, in particular, the charges brought by Mr. Hearst against various leading politicians.—We may also notice an article by Mr. C. M. Knatchbull-Hugessen championing the cause of the Magyars as against the Nationalities ; an ably written anti-suffragist paper by Mrs. Ivor Maxse ; an almost lyrical rhapsody on the splendour of Paris under the Second Empire by Colonel de la Poer Beresford ; and an excellent study of " Ballads and the Border " by Miss Eveline Godley, from which we may quote her interesting comparison of the characteristics of the old and the new ballad. After noting that with Scott and other " imitators of the ancient ballad " the reign of the self.

conscious ballad-maker began, she continues :—

"It was not altogether his fault. In an age when it was still possible to produce good ballads, or carols, or folk-songs of any description, there were none of the awful formalities which belong to modern authorship. What gives these writings such a dis- tinctive character is their air of irresponsibility, of complete detachment from the personality of any one singer ; they are created by a race, not by a single mind. Instead of being printed and published with the author's name attached, as a target for the critics, they were handed on chiefly by word of mouth, just as the local tunes still played on the fiddle and 'small pipes' in Northumbrian farm-houses, are handed on by ear. The work and the author are not of necessity identified with each other. Unfortunately, the only modern equivalent to this arrangement would be that ballads should be composed by a syndicate, which scarcely has an inspiring sound; unless, indeed, it could be formed on the principle described in the Breton folk-song. Perhaps, after all, that is as good a recipe as any for the making of popular poetry :

This song was made on the eve of Lady Day, after supper.

It was made by twelve men, dancing on the knoll near the chapel.

Three are rag-pickers ; seven sow the rye ,• two are millers. And so it is made, 0 folk, and so it is made, and so it is made, this song."' The Contemporary opens with a long article on "The Near Eastern Crisis " by Dr. E. J. Dillon. His verdict on Bulgaria is that her aim in resolving to put an end to the fiction that she is still a vassal of the Sultan, and to have her independence ratified by the Powers, was reasonable and patriotic, but that the moment chosen was " singularly inopportune, the means adopted utterly unjustifiable, and some of the consequences disastrous to the Slav cause." He clearly approves of the distinction drawn by Russia between Prince Ferdinand's personal ambition and the genuine patriotic aspirations of the Bulgarians, and believes that the " web of foreign politics in Bulgaria is spun by Ferdinand, who is always active, and not

by his Cabinets, which are here to-day and gone to-morrow." Dr. Dillon, who was present when Prince Ferdinand entered Sofia after the proclamation, gives a rather cruel picture of the Prince's horsemanship, and sums up by con- demning his abandonment of the policy of waiting till Austria

had broken in the door. Turning to Austria, Dr. Dillon unhesitatingly confirms the story of the secret clause in the Treaty of Berlin in which Austria-Hungary, in the person of Count .Andrassy, agreed to the provisional character of the occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and points out that Austria was also bound by the special protocol to the Black Sea Con- ference in 1871 affirming that "it is an essential principle of the law of nations that no Power can liberate itself from the engagements of a treaty or modify the stipulations thereof, unless with the consent of the contracting Powers, by means of an amicable settlement." The moral of the whole story, in Dr. Dillon's opinion, is that Europe in future cannot safely put her trust in Treaties or Con- ventions. "International stipulations have now been dis- credited for at least a generation to come." In conclusion, he gives reasons for his belief that there is no serious danger of reaction in Turkey. A reaction presupposes a chief, the only possible chief is Abd-ul-Hamid, and his co-operation with the new regime can be relied on, " because he knows that with its continuance and success his own well-being, nay, his very life, are bound up."—This view is confirmed by Miss Durham in her picturesque reading of the situation in Albania. Her account substantially coincides with that of the Times correspondent summarised in the Spectator of the 24th ult.; but while admitting that "the Constitution"

is beset with every kind of difficulty, religious and tribal, in Albania, she still hopes that a return to the old order of things is impossible, and that the changes which must come will be changes for the better.—Mr. Edwin Pears's long article on the Baghdad Railway was written

before the upheaval in Turkey, but he contends in a post- script that the new situation strengthens his argument for international control, and, in particular, for British co- operation. " The railway is being constructed, ought to be completed, and will be completed without our help or with it. It is in Turkey's interest and in that of Germauy, of England, and of European peace." Mr. Pears develops these arguments at great length, and with a moderation and ability which demand the careful attention of those who, like ourselves, have opposed the scheme.—Colonel F. N. Maude discusses "Airships and their Value in War." Holding that some years must elapse before we shall find in any country more than a few men capable of controlling airships, he none the less believes it would be well to set our house in order and develop to the utmost our means of defence against the airships when they do arrive.—Mr. Van Wyck Brooks contributes an extremely suggestive paper on " Harvard and American Life," in which he lays stress on the waning influence of old New England, and the supersession of the "fine intense provincialism" which once moved American politics and society by something wider and more cosmopolitan. Inci- dentally he gives a curious example of the working of the "elective" system by which a student is allowed to choose his courses of study:— "Visitors to Harvard are often struck by the study-schedule of the typical athlete, who is supposed to be a kind of dullard in mental matters, but whose work for the year sometimes consists of the esoteric combination of Slavic Literature, Anthropology, the History of Renaissance Sculpture, and Social Ethics. This is the unhappiest illustration of the elective system, for it simply means that these four studies are the easiest available for a man who wishes to do the minimum amount of study."

The account of the Harvard Summer School, especially in its international bearings, is most interesting. In conclusion, Mr. Brooks predicts that Harvard inevitably is tending to become the factory of American Imperialism. " The finality of the old-fashioned undergraduate life, with all its human significance, is giving way before the increasingly intellectual modern idea of effective specialisation Year after year the Harvard type grows less and less distinct as the American type more and more defines itself : with the College the old- fashioned humanist fades away, with the University the efficient practitioner of the future emerges."—Mr. George Barlow, in a paper on Dickens, endeavours to prove that his truest claim to immortality rests on his achievements as a tragle poet. Here we find Mr. Barlow more suggestive than convincing. He devotes much space to emphasising Dickens's exceptional lack of any keen apprehension of feminine beauty combined with a miraculously keen sense of the ugly and repellent in the male. But these, in Mr. Barlow's view, are only spots on the sun

" Dickens will never be out of date. In his measure, he shares with Shakespeare the immortality, not only of great genius, but of great English genius ; not only of great English genius, but of genius invincibly Christian, and therefore invincibly tender, gentle and loving. To turn from the chaotic dreams of theosophy and plunge into the healthy, happy, truly spiritual, truly human, nobly Christian work of Charles Dickens at his best and brightest is like turning from a darkness full of unclean threatening night- mares, and bathing soul and spirit in the boundless sunshine of God."

The Fortnightly _Review has included in its pages Sir Alfred Lyall's presidential address to the Congress of the History of Religions. In this interesting survey the author has insisted on a peculiar feature of the two great Oriental religions,

Hinduism and Buddhism. This feature is that, although both have been connected with the State, there are no records of any religious wars having been carried on in their favour.

In this way these Oriental creeds differ essentially from Islam.—" Diploniaticus " has ingeniously put together various pieces of information, and the " Treaty of Reichs- tadt" is the result. We are told that in 1876 Austria and Russia made a secret agreement with regard to the Balkan Peninsula which was distinctly favourable to Austria. The concessions were not intended to be real by Gortchakoff, who only wanted breathing-time, having fully determined to go to war with the Dual Monarchy. But to do this success- fully he had to be sure that Sadowa still kept Austria and Germany apart. To his surprise, on making inquiries he found that Bismarck was quite prepared to go to the aid of Austria, and so the game was lost. H these statements stand the test of time, another obscure and disreputable incident has been added to European diplomacy.—Colonel Pollock writes on " The Army Question," and makes a survey of the Arnold- Forster and Haldane plans of reorganisation. He points out the great importance of attracting young men of character and intelligence to the Army, for useful soldiers can be formed from these much more quickly than from less satisfactory material. With a view to popularising the Service without harmful effects, Colonel Pollock suggests various small improvements which be considers would affect recruiting. He would remove discontent by doing away with those uncer- tainties which occur in military affairs, and which make the soldier's half-holidays so precarious:—

" Reasonable recreation the soldier must have, and as a rule he gets it; but he would like to know for certain when he is going to get it. Half-holidays on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and the due observance of Bank Holidays, would do much to improve matters. Moreover, the recruit should from the first be encouraged to work hard by the knowledge that from the day when he has been pronounced to be a fully efficient soldier he will have a fairly easy time, subject to no falling off of his smartness and efficiency.

Endless repetitions effect very little improvement The soldier should, moreover, be allowed to wear plain clothes, at his

own discretion, when not on duty By so much as soldier- ing is Made inconvenient, by so much must the difficulty of recruiting the ranks be affected."

— Mr. E. A. Baughan has some sensible things to say of the relation of literature to drama. He points out that when the ordinary stage author in a modern play has no excuse for blank verse he is apt to fall back upon " shoddy rhetoric, a sort of dramatic journalese," for his means of expression in the emotional scenes. From this the true man of letters must save us; but when he leaves the novel for the drama be must

learn that a psychological hiatus cannot be bridged over as in a novel " by a page of brilliant analysis He must also learn that a few moments of action take the place of pages of description."

Some unpublished letters by Scott are printed in Blackwood. These were written to Mrs. Clephane, a Highland lady whose daughters were wards of Sir Walter's. Miss Margaret Clephane married Lord Compton, who later became Lord Northampton, and whose grandson now possesses the letters. Mrs. Clephane helped Scott in collecting old ballads and their tunes, and the letters contain many references to these. Here, also, we find him alluding to a proposed Highland epic, which finally took shape in "The Lady of the Lake." To his friend he writes about his land at Abbotsford, thus describing his improvements

"But I shall be half ruined with drains, dykes, and planting aceompts, only that by good luck my farm on the verge of Parnassus has been so productive as to make amends for the losses which I must sustain by my possessions on terra firma, for by good luck, like the nobility of Laputa, I have possessions both in the flying island of my imagination and the bogs and brambles of earthly mainland."

In the same letter, in alluding to lawsuits, Scott says : " would not for a penny that people in general knew how much I would give up" rather than defend myself at the law."—Mr. Edmund Candler's short story, " Walden," is an interesting study of a shy, reserved, and self-conscious man, who from boyhood distrusted his own courage, but who, when the real trial came when be was dacoit-hunting in Burma, was brave to recklessness. This is a sympathetic study of a tempera- ment which is perhaps not uncommon—one in which a man from imaginative consciousness of fear has doubts of his own essential bravery.—Mr. Weigall describes routes in the Egyptian desert between the Nile and the Red Sea.

Travellers are urged not to remain in the river valley with its cultivation, but rather to climb the garden-wall of rocks and ex- plore where few ever go. There they will find beyond the sandy stretches, the mountain ranges and the quarries out of which the stones came which were sculptured into statues of gods and kings. What the labour in these quarries must have been we can judge when Mr. Weigall tells us that in summer heat

the rocks cannot be touched with a bare band, or a ring cannot be worn on the finger because the hot metal blisters the flesh. What difficulty there must have been to keep these quarrying and mining camps supplied with food from the river across the desert ! Here gold was found, and this region, or rather the

Red Sea edge of it, was very likely the place whence Solomon got his gold.—The feature which most strikes the writer of a paper on "Spain To-day " is the essential anarchism of the people. He instances the continued existence of military pronunciamientos. " The generals do not call the troops into the streets, but only because their power is too well established to need such demonstrations." A Liberal Government and the Cortes passed a law making all people who insulted the Army liable to trial by Court-Martial, only because they knew "that they would be turned into the streets of Madrid if it were not passed." The Church acts in much the same arbitrary manner, and at Barcelona the Bishop, after doing his best to prevent the opening of an Anglican church there, "insisted on the removal of the cross from the gable, on the ground that it was the symbol of a. foreign religion." The Church, we are told, is losing her hold on the people because religion in Spain was always more superstitious than doctrinal, and even the slow process of enlightenment is undermining superstition.—The writer of "Musings without Method" highly approves of the cheap edition of the Life of Gladstone, and hopes that if it is widely read the same conversion may take place in its readers as in the writer of the book. "It would be difficult to believe that the present Secretary of State for India is the same man whom Gladstone sent to Ireland in 1886, if we did not remember that a profound study of his revered leader had intervened." To supply the omission by Lord Morley, the- famous letter to Colonel Dopping, with its amazing verbal juggling about the rifle not being loaded, is here printed in full.

The November number of the United Service Magazine has several very interesting papers, the most striking being a.

comparison between the French and German Armies, noticed by us elsewhere. The writer, Mr. Howard Hemmen, was present at the manoeuvres of both armies last autumn. He begins by a panegyric, which we do not doubt is well deserved, of the manner in which huge bodies of men were moved and handled by the German commanders without the slightest confusion :-

"Not only did the higher combatant officers control their ponderous brigades and divisions as quickly and as surely as we in this country expect to see a company handled, but the supply and transport department was never at fault on one single occasion. Instruction would reach the officers of this department in the morning that, say, ten or twenty thousand men would arrive at a certain spot at nine o'clock that evening, and would require supper there before bivouacing for the night. When the troops arrived, sharp to time, they would find their bivouacs marked out so plainly that there was no possibility of confusion, and billets prepared where necessary, and the men would be passed along under the guidance of the Staff to their appointed positions. Here food for the men and forage and water for the, horses would be found waiting, and all would get a good hot meal without the least confusion or delay."

There is, however, another side to the German Army, 'which is thus expressed :—

" When it comes to actual manoeuvring the vast superiority of the German Army over its neighbour on the other side of the Rhine quite disappears, and it would seem—though it is very -dangerous to dogmatise on such a point—that the -Prom& Army is a better fighting machine than is the German. That, at least, is the impression that is driven home by the respective manoeuvres of the two armies this year."

The writer justifies his remarks by a moat interesting descrip- tion of the amusing manner in which the German troops are taught to assault entrenched positions. The assaulting battalions, we are told, rushed at the positions desperately, and often stood at point-blank range firing into the trenches, and entirely heedless of the terrible pounding the guns and the opposing infantry were giving them. Things, it is asserted, are very different in the French Army :—

" Here all ranks displayed on every occasion an almost instinc- tive knowledge of the great value of cover, and brigadiers and divisional generals kept their men hidden very effectively until the last moment, when they were suddenly launched for a very -rapid dash, in greatly extended order, over the open ground."

Another very interesting point is the comparison between the marching capacity of the two Armies. In the case of the 'French Army forty kilometres a day was quite an ordinary performance, and yet after this being done for several days in succession the men were fresh enough to fight an action. Here is what is stated as to the marching of the German Army :— "At no time since the modern German Army came into exist- ence has the rank and file manifested any great marching power, and it is rather curious that this should be the case. This year, however, things in this direction seem to have gone from bad to worse, and the field hospitals were crowded with men who had broken down while on the march. So bad was the condition of things, indeed, that it is highly probable that a special inquiry into the matter will be ordered, especially when the results of the French manoeuvres are published in detail to the General Staff in Berlin."

—Other interesting articles in this number are "The King's -German Legion," "A Captive of Bonaparte's in Syria," and -" Electric Lights [i.e., searchlights] : Some Notes on their Employment in Night Operations."