BOOKS.

POLITICAL IDEALS.*

Mn. DELISLE Besets reminds us that there are severe!. different ways .of writing history. There is, in the . first place, what he calls the "Date-and-Fact" history, which he considers very much akin to journalism. Now for journalism Mrs Delisle Burns appears to entertain the greatest scorn. " The future historians," he says, " will feel certain that nothing. mentioned .in 'a newspaper has much value as a record of the current'life of the' time. . . . The newspaper reader remains savage, in mistaking the' exceptional. for the important." . rf this be so; the political prospect in democratic countries is- somewhat gloomy, for apparently the people in those countries will have to choose between two alternatives—namely, that Of being governed by " savages " who are in touch with the 'public. opinion of the day, or.that of entrusting their fortunes to philo- sophers who do not reckon with public opinion or keep them- selves informed about it, and who would lbws certainly before long bring about a state of political chaos. - Another method of recording past events 'is that' adopted ' by Carlyle, and is called by Mrs Delisle Burns "Heroic History." There is also 1" Naturalistic History," of which. Buckle was the great apostle. Mr. Delisle Burns discards these methods, but thinks that much may be learnt from recording not so much what men .did as what they hoped to do—in other words, from writing a. :" History of Ideals?' Thus the Athenian ideal was Liberty; the Roman, Order; the mediaeval, as embodied in the Holy, Roman Einpire, European Unity. The French Revolutionary ideal was Equality, and the modern ideal is Nationalism.: Mr. Delisle Burns, who iseevidently a -profound schoIar.and an acute thinker, has worked out this pregnant theme in a 'Very, 'interesting essay .whieh 'affords abundant.• food for reflection. gis.generalizations axe at times, perhaps, somewhat too sweeping, 'and, like .most of those who have spoken . of the theories. of 'government without' having themselves •been concerned in its -practice, he is terribly logical. There is, after all, seine truth. pi Hawthorne's remark that "no sagacious man will long,retnim his sagacity if he lives exclusively among reformers and pro- gressive people." Thus, as an instance of 'a wide and :somewhat fallacious generalization,. Mr. Delisle Burns says that " no one, disputes that. Liberty. or Order is desirable." But Kaiser. William IL, followed in a greater or less degree by some seventy million Germans, though they worship Order of a kind, are nowt ;disputing very vigorously the desirabilitysof Liberty in , the sense in 'which that werdis generally interpreted by the'eivilized 'world; or in which presumably Mr. Delisle •Burns would himeelf interpret it. Again, Mr. Delisle Burns speaks of compromise with all the scorn common to politicians of the study. Com- promise, he says,' " will alerays be the political excuse for in- competent and 'illogical thinking." Lord Morley, was at' one time of a somewhat similar opinion, but it is, perhaps, open to question whether half .a century of political2experience has out somewhat modified the views he originally hold on this -subject. The man whcsrejects compromise naturally tends to intolerances Of the opinions of others and to an overweening degree of Con& Bence in his own judgment. Thus the question of the extent to which- political power should be •conferred on women• is one on which very divers opinions have been held, and are still' held both by experienced politicians and by thinkers at least as eminent as Mr. Delisle Burns. He, however, has not the least difficulty in forming a final judgment on the question. He is an ardent suffragist; He does not consider it worth the trouble. to refute the " antiquated and -obsolete opinions" of those who differ from him on this subject, and he holds that if their argu- iments are to be considered as valid, "we must believe that.* !woman is more like a cow than like a man." 1 In dealing with the past, Mr. Delis's, Burns shows how, Athenian liberty degenerated into licence, and he lays down the • Poliikal Ideals, their Nature and Dereiontent: en .4%say. By C. Dellee Duro. OXfOnl: at the University Pres% 125, 43(1.1

somewhat questionable proposition that the fall of Athens was " directly due, not to the liberty she had attained, but to the attempts she made to limit her ideal to herself." He also explains how Rdman order was perverted until it became Roman tyranny, and how by the growth of Nationalism the mediaeval idea of unity as embodied in the Holy Roman Empire was shattered. In dealing with these subjects, however, although Mr. Delisle Burns puts forward his views with much ability, ho has, in reality, little to say with which the historical and political student is not already familiar. It will be more in- teresting to turn to Isis observations upon the methods which may or should be adopted in order to realize fully the modern ideal of Nationalism.

Imperialism, Mr. Delisle Burns very truly says, has to be reconciled with Nationalism. And he adds that there seems no possibility of this reconciliation being effected " except through Federalism." Now, if there is one expression in the whole political vocabulary which at once throws the practical and experienced politician on his guard, it is the word " Federa- tion." It is not that ho will object to a federal system, or deny its merits. But before giving his assent in any particular instance to Federation, he will want to know in con- siderable detail what the word means and how the system is to be applied. Mr. Delisle Burns says that " the presence of a dominant partner distinguishes an Empire from a Federation." He adds that the essence of Federation is that each com- ponent group is united as an equal to all the others, A Federal Empire he defines in the following words : " What we mean by such a phrase is that each group is most likely to know what is best for itself ; that none may be treated as politically incom- petent by any other ; that each may express through its own institutions, govermental or legislative, its own conception of its own interests." If this is all that is meant by Federation, then it is abundantly clear that in so far as the self-governing Colonies are concerned, the ideal has been realized. None of the self-governing groups which constitute the British Empire are in any way forced to maintain their connexion with the central body. They can withdraw whenever they please. The idea of exercising any coercion in order to prevent them from establishing separate and independent governments is wholly obsolete. Self-government in all internal affairs has been introduced into each of these Colonies. More than this, the critical questions of commercial policy and immigration have both been treated without any serious danger of disruption having been incurred. The Colonies are wholly free to frame their own tariffs, and to allow or not to allow the presence within their midst of other members of the Empire. And yet it cannot be

said that the full ideal of Federation has been reached, because the Colonies leave questions of foreign policy and of peace or war entirely in the hands of the dominant partner of the whole concern. The really important question now at issue is whether

this state of things can possibly last. The case is thus stated by Sir Charles Sifton in a speech delivered early in 1915 in Montreal :-

" Bound by no constitution, bound by no rule or law, equity or obligation, Canada has decided as a nation to make war. We have levied an army ; we have sent the greatest army to England that has ever crossed the Atlantic, to take part in the battles of England. Wo have placed ourselves in opposition to two great world Powers. We are now training and equipping an army greater than the com- bined forces of Wellington and Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, and so I say to you that Canada must stand now as a nation. It will no longer do for Canada to play the part of a minor. It will no longer do for Canadians to say that they are not fully and absolutely able to transact their own business. We shall not be allowed to do this any longer by the nations of the world. We shall not be allowed to put ourselves in the position of a minor. The nations will say, If you can levy armies to make war you can attend to yeur own business, and we will not be referred to the head of the Empire, we want you to answer our questions direct]y. There are many ques. tions which we shall have to settle after this war is over, and that is one of them."

It is almost certain that the relations between the Mother Country and the self-governing Colonies will have to be re- considered at the close of the present war. Those relations are full of anomalies, but a system of government is not to be condemned solely because it is anomalous, neither is the fact that glaring inconsistencies exist in itself sufficient to justify drastic and, it may be, hazardous reform. To quote a single instance in point, nothing could be more anomalous than the system under which for many years past both Egypt and the

Egyptian Sudan have been governed, and yet it is no exaggera- tion to say that the progress which has been made in both these Countries is in a large measure due to the fact that their am

have tolerated many of the most serious of the anomalies of the two systems and have not endeavoured to apply any very drastic or logical remedies to their acknowledged defects. In the case now under consideration the question really at issue is whether the self-governing Colonies themselves think it is better to continuo the present system, which, in spite of its defects, has produced very satisfactory results, or whether the time is come when it is necessary to embody the Imperial connexion in " a cut- and-dried scheme," the enormous difficulty of framing which has been recognized by every one who has given any serious thought to this matter. " So great is the danger of definite schemes," so high an authority as Sir Charles Lucas has stated, " that it is impossible for warnings against them to be too serious or too of ten repeated." The only plan so far which has been seriously

discussed is that which was put forward by Sir Joseph Ward in 1911, and Mr. Asquith was able, in a few sentences, to show that his plan of creating a permanent Advisory Council, which

should represent the self-governing Colonies as well as the United Kingdom, was open to the strongest objections. It is, however, possible that the difficulties, though great, are not insuperable. It cannot be doubted that at the close of the war the minds of the most experienced Colonial statesmen and administrators will be brought to bear on the subject.

As regards the Dependencies, the case is very different. Mr. Delisle Burns sees no " obstacle to Federalism " in eases such as India or Egypt, or Algeria in respect to France, or the Came-

roon in respect to Germany. As regards this point, all that need be said is that if Mr. Delisle Burns's ideal is ever realized, its realization is at present so remote as to be scarcely worth dis-

cussing. The idea of federating the States of India is not new. Something of the kind was advanced more than fifty years ago by John Bright. But the principle which now holds the field is comprised in the despatch of the Government of India in December, 1911, which contains the following passage :-

"The only possible solution of the difficulty would appear to be gradually to give the Provinces a larger measure of self-government, until at last India would consist of a number of admmistrations, autonomous in all provincial affairs, with the Government of India above them all, and possessing power to interfere in cases of mis- government, but ordinarily restricting their functions to matters of Imperial concern."

Whatever is done in the direction of self-government in India, it is, however, absolutely necessary that one dominant partner should exist in order to obviate the existence of political chaos.

It cannot be doubted that the whole question of Indian self- government will have to be reconsidered before very long, but it does not help much towards a practical solution for us to be told, as Mr. Delisle Burns tellis us, that "governing others in spite of their own will, even if it be for their own good,

is an obsolete policy." One of the leading Indian papers (the Hindoo Patriot) remarks with great truth :-- " Wo have to make ourselves lit for Homo Rulo before we can expect to get it. All this premature talk about Homo Rule, there- fore, serves no other purpose than to fill the minds of the unthinking portion of the community with aspirations which cannot be fulfilled for some time to come, and the non.fulfilment of those aspirations must necessarily cause disappointment and thereby breed dis-