THE MAGAZINES.
THE Magazines, like the rest of the world, show evident signs of the relief experienced on the rejection of the Home-rule Bill by the Lords. That nightmare passed away, they have become distinctly more readable. The Contemporary's first article, "A Story of Crooked Finance," by Dr. Hunter, deals. with a subject so interesting and important that, in spite of the feeble and often blundering handling of the writer, it is worthy of attention, Dr. Hunter's aim is to show that the wicked Unionists have been robbing the working man, be- cause they have relieved the rates out of the Imperial Exchequer. His argument is that the working man contributes to the Imperial taxes far more than he ought to in view of his wealth. His stomach and his capacity for smoking are as large as those of the rich man. Therefore on the tea, beer, wine, spirits, and tobacco they both consume, they pay an equal amount of taxes. Therefore A, with £2 a week, pays to the Customs and Excise as much as B, with £200, or even £2,000, a week. There- fore A, even though he pays no Income-tax, is grossly overtaxed. But if A lives in a £10-a-year house, and B in a £1,000-a-year house, each pays in rates what is strictly his fair share,—his proper proportion gauged by his wealth, admitting, that is, that a man's house-rent is a safe indication of his material resources. Hence, according to Dr. Hunter's theory, if money is raised by Imperial taxes, and then used to relieve rates, it is equivalent to raising money on an unfair system in order to prevent its being raised on a fair one. Now, there is some- thing, nay. a good deal, to be said for this contention in the abstract, but it is mere lanaoy to say that the Unionists have favoured the relief of rates in order that they might plunder the poor. The truth is, that Parliament has cast an incredible number of expensive duties on the local authorities, and that the local authorities could not carry out those duties if compelled to rely on the rates as their sole financial resource. If no help had been given, the rise in rates would simply have driven the land of England out of cultivation. Doubtless it would have been better to have devised some good scheme of local taxation other than, or rather in addition to, the rates ; but that has hitherto proved impossible. One of the great difficulties is that "the Rates" are three perfectly distinct taxes, arbitrarily tied together. In the first place, the rates are a local form of the Inhabited House-duty, and so a very fair and reasonable form of direct taxation. Next, they are a tax upon the profits of agriculture, calculated on the basis of the yearly rent or sum paid by the farmer for the hire of part of his capital. Thirdly, they are a tax paid by persons engaged in other trades and industries on the lands and buildings used by them in carrying on their business. Look at the different incidence of a shilling rate on a man living in a £40-house in the country, and making £500 by a profession or from stocks, and on a farmer who owns and occupies a farm of 100 acres rated at £2 an acre. The farmer is unquestion- ably much the poorer man, yet, as the local House-tax and the local Land-tax are lumped together, the farmer pays £10 a year, and the professional man or stockholder only £2. Dr. Hunter, as far as we can see, has completely for- gotten the dual character of the rates, and blunders along regardless of the distinction. We wish as heartily as Dr. Hunter to see England a free port, but the thing is only possible if some means can be found of raising revenue other than by the Income-tax. Many of Dr. Hunter's assumptions will not, we feel sure, bear the slightest investigation. They are often wildly unscientific.—In "An Early Aspirant to the German Imperial Crown," Mr. Karl Blind tells how the late Dnke of Saxe-Coburg came very near to securing the Imperial Crown. He early formed relations with the ad- vanced Liberals—the men of '48—and when, in 1808, the Austrians summoned a meeting of the German Sovereigns at Frankfort, for the purpose of effecting a Federal reform, men argued that a Prince who was neither a Hapsburg or a Hohen- zollern, and who was liked by the Liberals, would be just the man to be named Emperor. Nothing, however, came of the scheme—Bismarck would not, of course, have tolerated it for a moment—and the Duke had to be content with giving advice, generally not very welcome, to his brother-Sovereigns.--- " The Banditti of Corsica" is a readable paper, and shows that brigandage is as rife as ever in the island. It is the one place in the world which has successfully defied the great administrative machine worked by the lever in the hand of the French Minister of the Interior. In Corsica, the law fails to protect a man from his enemies.
Mr. Swinburne, in his verses, " The Palace of Pan," which have the first place in the Nineteenth Century, has tried to get a new intonation for his verse. but has only succeeded in making a very mechanical, cantering measure,—a fault which one would have said was impossible for so great a master of metre. At the same time, the poem has some line phrases ; if -not, it would not be Mr. Swinburne's. Our guess is that he has been reading Shenstone's ballads, and has said that be would do what he has so often done before,—get a sonorous measure out of a jingle ; and that for once the attempt has proved a partial failure.—"Setting the Poor on Work " is a very clearly written and impartial account of the various attempts made under the old Poor-law to do something in the nature of public farms and houses of industry, after the manner of national workshops. It appears that occasionally the parochial farms did well. That is, if there happened to be able, energetic, and public-spirited Guardians, the farms paid their way while those Guardians lived, and there was no slackness or jobbery, Taken as a whole, how- ever, they were anything but a success. Professor James Mayor's general conclusions from a careful survey of the attempts to set the poor on work, do not afford "much substan- tial ground for optimism regarding the probability of success of modern attempts in the same direction." Free men will only do work worth having, either for reward or to avoid starvation. If they know that they will get no reward, and also that they will not be allowed to starve, they will not volun- tarily do an hour's work a day. No doubt you can compel them by stripes or their equivalents; but that is either slavery or penal servitude. Besides, who would dare to punish the poor P —Mr. Spenser Wilkinson—we presume, the distinguished Volunteer officer—gives an account of how we manage to keep the Khyber Pass open by paying the Khyber Pathans, who be- long to that large class of persons who ‘. cannot live on their holdings." Naturally enough, the tribesmen prefer good money down, to the older and more troublesome and pre- carious method of collecting their tolls. The spirit of the Khyber Pathans is, however, by no means broken, and on off- days they keep up the "customs of the hill" by shooting at each other. The village feuds give a ready excuse for free shooting. It is, however, a rule that what the schoolboys call "Pax," is called whenever Colonel Warburton, the Political, is in the Pass. Mr. Spenser Wilkinson gives the following account of his feelings in going through the streets of Peshawar, and how he discovered in person the sell by which we hold India :— " The town gate of Peshawar is a mile from the cantonment, and the morning after my arrival I drove in with no companion but a native interpreter. Peshasvar, with its mud and wood houses, its lattice windows, and its multitude of men, is infinitely picturesque. But the impression of the first visit' upon an Englishman is not due to the quaint appearance of the houses nor to the Eastern dress of the inhabitants. There are about eighty thousand natives in the city. As soon as you are through the gate and inside the walls you are among them. Not another Englishman is to be seen, and possibly enough you are, at the moment, the only one in the town. Everyone looks at you. There is no staring and no rudeness, but you feel the eyes. The looks of the first half-dozen men you pass, as they sit in their shops or stand in the street, give you a now and strange sensation. You straighten yourself and hold your head up, with a resolve, of which you are hardly conscious till afterwards, that if a knife is plunged into your back you will not flinch. The eyes about you suggest that if there were no cantonment, no others to ask for an account of you, your throat -would be cut and your corpse thrown away, and that the people in the street would look on without moving. You immediately feel that there is a responsibility in being an Englishman ; you are a representative of your race, and all that you do or say must be worthy of the position. The first duty is to not mind the eighty thousand people in Peshawar nor anything they may do. Those first five minutes in the Peshawar bazaar reveal to you the secret of British power in the East. It is impossible without utter fearlessness."
—" The Parsees " is a readable account of that peculiar people by a Parsee lady. They carry, it appears, the system of marriages of convenience to its utmost limits. The girls are classed in lists, in which money, beauty, accomplishments, character, and age are all considered and estimated; and so are the young men. By a judicious use of these catalogues of eligibles of either sex, the matchmakers arrange the family alliances.
The National _Review contains an exceedingly readable article by " M.P." on the personal aspects of the Session. Though the Member's name is withheld, it is clear that he is a person of weight in the Tory Party, and that he has not failed to observe the personal changes of the Session. He notes the extraordinary way in which Mr. Gladstone lived and thrived on the hard work in Committee, and exhibited a perfect miracle of vitality. Mr. Balfour, be says, gave his party some uneasiness at the beginning of the Session. It was thought he would prove too casual and too much inclined to let things slide. As the Session went on, however, he developed the highest characteristics of a leader, and soon put an. end to the talk that Lord Randolph would outshine
him in Opposition, and that Mr. Balfour would merely become "a titular chief." Yet at the beginning of the Session, and at the meeting at the Carlton, " M.P." tells us that such talk was rife :-
" The history of the remainder of the Session has signally falsified these hopes and fears alike. That speech of Lord. Ran.. dolph's on the Welsh Church has been his one successful speech in the House of Commons. From physical causes, which everyone feels must be temporary, his subsequent efforts, and notably in Committee on the Home-rule Bill, have been not merely ineffective, but positively painful. Mr. Balfour, on the other hand, has gradually and steadily all through the rest of the Session strengthened his now undisputed pre-eminence over every other occupant of the Front Opposition Bench. He has been untiring in his attendance, and painstaking in his attention to the daily business of the House. He has not shrunk from the least inviting and the most laborious work of the Committee on the details of the Home-rule Bill. Asa speaker he has improved greatly and continuously. Up to this year there has been a certain stiffness in the manner, and sometimes an awkward hesitation in the language of some of his most powerful speeches Now he has learnt to unbend. He has lately made speeches full of a playful humour; and then his manner has been unconstrained, and his voice has freed itself from the rather artificial and monotonous intonation that detracts from the charm of his more ambitious speeches."
It is only in his set speeches, says " M.P.," that Mr. Balfour has failed to satisfy his followers. Possibly ; but for all that, we think Mr. Balfour was right not to overdo his opposition. Cobden's instructions to the Anti-Corn-Law League lecturers was, "Always understate your case ;" and we suspect they were founded on a wise observation of the effect of too much fervour. " M.P." admits that it is possible to make the pace too hot, for, while praising, as he could not help doing, Mr.
Chamberlain's splendid eloquence and vigour, he notes that he often overshot the mark :— " To be exceedingly critical, we must add that on some occa- sions, when his object should have been to put the Government in a minority, he has not made the kind of speech which would lead to this result. He has satirised the Gladstonian waverers, and prematurely exulted over the impending defeat of their Party, when he should have done everything to conciliate them, and nothing to frighten them, from voting against their leader. Notably is this true of the speech he made after the announcement by Mr. Gladstone of his acceptance of the omnes amnia principle. Convincing as was that speech to Unionist ears, and damaging as it was to the conclusion at which the Government had arrived, and to the motives which had led them to it, if it had not been made, the Division might have been a less favourable one for the Government. These, however, are very trivial blemishes in a statesman who has struck and sustained a commanding note of patriotism throughout the controversy."
We cannot quote more of " M.P.'s " article; but it is full of bright talk about the past Session, and the reputations it made and unmade. Among other things, the House dis- covered that the Speaker, who, as every one knows, is the man who never speaks, is in reality one of the greatest orators in the Kingdom.—Another very notable article in the National Review is " The New Chamber of Deputies," by Mrs. Crawford. It will help to show the British public what is really meant by a victory of Moderates. A Moderate in France is, as regards Socialistic legislation, Free-trade, Foreign policy, law and order, what we should term a "true-blue Tory," Moat of the Revolutionary Socialists are, she tells us, farceurs, and M. Goblet "holds a brief for Socialism without himself being a Socialist." The great growth of the Socialist vote is, however, an important fact. The Socialists cast 164,000 votes in Paris. On the whole, Mrs. Crawford seems to think that the Moderates will follow with docility any Government which is determined to keep order. What Mrs. Crawford has to say of M. Constans is worth quoting :- " M. Constans had, contrary to what was generally expected, no band in the elections, but it does not follow that he will play no prominent part in Parliamentary politics. The Socialists are likely to frighten the moneyed classes, from the servant who has savings, to the Rothschilds. Should this happen, there will be a rush towards Constans, the strong fisted " man of Fourmies," who threw Louise Michel into a madhouse. He commands a con- siderable number of votes in the Senate, a body that may gain in prestige through the flatness of the Chamber of Deputies. M. Constans is purposeful, daring, clever in intrigue, tolerant of the weaknesses of others, good-natured, ready to oblige, is now rich, and has an ambitious wife."
—.The October National has also a striking article on " Biography " by Mr. Leslie Stephen, who draws some very interesting lessons from his experiences as the editor of the Dictionary of National Biography.—Another article which is exceedingly pleasant reading describes the present condition of Finland. Judged by any test, says the writer, Finland has reached a very high state of civilisation, the roads, rail- ways, and canals are excellent, and the condition of the people most satisfactory, and the Government respected and en- lightened,—in a word, the state of Finland is the opposite of the rest of Russia.—Mr. Alfred Austin contributes a singularly charming essay, " The Garden that I Love." It is full of pleasant chat on houses and gardens.
The only paper of distinction in the Fortnightly is Dr. Pearson's " Causes of Pessimism," which we have noticed else- where. The rest of the articles are somewhat perfunctory. Mr. Harrison, who seldom fails when his subject is literary or historical, has contrived to make a very dull dialogue about the study of history. The paper will be unintelligible to those who have not been through the History Schools at Oxford, and even History men will find it tiresome.
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