A remarkable letter from Professor E. S. Beeslyto the Pall
Mall Gazelle of yesterday shows that he has lived and learnt, which is not what we usually expect from people who hold dogmas so very independent of anything like plausible evidence for them as the Positivists do. Usually such theorists hold a shield of triple brass between their hearts and the teaching of events. However, it is not so with Professor Beesly. He admits the fact that but for Russia, Germany might recently have plunged Europe once more into war, and then remarks that of the only coalition which could secure Europe against this danger England must be the keystone. Whereupon he exhorts Englishmen to. demand an increase in the quality and number of our armies, and "puts on the shelf" for the present, though he does not "renounce," all the doctrines unfavourable to expenditure on armaments, which he has formerly broached. In conclusion, Professor Beesly-narrates the follow- ing :—" I was talking the other day to a manufacturer who sym-
pathised warmly with Germany in the last war, and approved of the terms of the treaty which concluded it. I found that he still retained his trustfulness in the virtues of Germany, and could not be made to believe that she entertained any designs of renewing the war. 'But were she to do so,' he added at last, very em- phatically, and somewhat to my surprise, it would be an eternal disgrace to England if we did not draw the sword on the side of France.' " "There is more public spirit," comments Professor Beesly, "left in all ranks of our countrymen than high-placed politicians suppose,"—wherein we quite agree with him. But it will hardly come out without leadership and authoritative expression.
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