PATRIOTISM UNDER THREE FLAGS.
Patriotism under Three Flags. By Ralph Lane. (T. Fisher Unwin. 6s.)—In the introduction to his book, which contains its "philosophy," Mr. Lane tells his readers that "the fortunes of nomadic journalism have in recent years obliged me to treat— from observation at first hand—of such apparently dissimilar events as Cleveland's Venezuelan Message, the Hispano-American War, the Dreyfus Affair, and certain phases of the South African conflict. The close contact with the national states of feeling which the task involved in each case produced finally a profound impression of the essential identity of the forces underlying each of the events mentioned." This statement explains both the strength and the weakness of Mr. Lane's book, the variety of the information it contains, and its want of compactness. Mr. Lane's main object is to prove that nations enamoured of "patriotism" of the Imperialistic variety lose all faculty for reasoning, and become, to all intents and purposes, insane ; that, in his own experience, the British did so qualify themselves for a lunatic asylum during the Boer War, the French during the Dreyfus convulsion, and the Americans at the time of the Venezuelan scare and the war in the Philippines. Mr. Lane, as may be in- ferred from what has been said, follows to some extent in the now familiar steps of Mr. J. A. Hobson and Mr. J. M. Robertson. But he does not go quite so far as Mr. Hobson; for example, in attributing the origin of the Boer War to mere pecuniary con- siderations. Mr. Lane's " psychology " of "Jingoism," either in this country or in others, is not very profound, while it is eminently pedantic, and his explanation of what he regards as occasional outbreaks of madness in nations is far too laboured Nevertheless Mr. Lane's book will be, and deserves to be, read for
the collection of curious facts which it contains. We have never seen anything more amusing in its way than his enumeration ef the fifteen reasons why the American farmer hates, or used to hate, England. The ninth is that "she gives rise to Anglomaniacs in America, who turn up their trousers, wear knickers and pyjamas, part their hair in the middle, take 'berths,' and are an offence generally te good Americans."
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