The usual list of birthday honours was published on Mon.
day. It is not this year an interesting one, but it is directed• by a motive that ought to be cordially appreciated. There is. no peerage conferred, and the two baronetcies—to Colonel E. Bingham and Mr. .Lees Knowles, M.P.—require no coma•; Mont; but one knighthood has been given—to Mr. R. IC, Douglas, the sinologue of the British Museum—for unusual and invaluable knowledge, and there has been a visible effort in distributing the remaining titles to honour men who have done good service to the State yet have remained compara- tively obscure. That is the way to secure good service. Much of the hard work of the nation is done by men who are scarcely heard of, and when one of them is marked for distinction the rest receive a fillip for their energies. A list of honours which seems to the London public dull may create in all the Services an impression that they are carefully watched, and that nothing is forgotten. Those who think such a stimulus useless, and argue that America does well without it, do not know England, or remember how inadequate our pecuniary rewards must often be.
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