The Conflict. By David Graham Phillips. (D. Appleton and Co.,
Os.)—This novel deals with a subject which will frequently appear, we imagine, in the fiction of the near future —labour unrest. Victor Dorn reminds us, of course, of Felix Holt ; he reminds us, also, now and then of certain utterances of an eminent political economist of our own time who classes dancers and clergymen together, as examples of unproductive labour. But we can admire a hero., especially in the region of fiction, without accepting, his theories. and Victor Dorn is certainly admirable. We have seldom seen a more picturesque and interesting figure. Another aspect of the story is that which shows us the working of American politics. It is not unlike what we have seen elsewhere—in the writings of Mr. Winston Churchill, for instance—and it is not a pleasing spectacle. The prominent sights in it are legislatures and courts of justice, not exactly venal, but existing mainly for financial purposes. There is a love story, but it has the look of being put in because a novel can hardly be without it. Mr. Phillips's style is a. little clumsy now and then. "The quality of the mill is the thing, not of the material which it may happen to be grinding." Surely a little transposition would improve the sentence: "The quality of the mill, not of the material," &c.
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