ROBERT SPENCE WATSON.*
Mit. CORDER prefers to arrange his Life of Robert Spence Watson " under topics " rather than chronologically. This is a point on which the author is commouly the beat judge. But the chapters, which deal with the moat important or the most characteristic subjects might have come more naturally early in the volume. Spence Watson was before all things an educationist and an industrial peace maker. But it is not till the sixth chapter that we hear anything of him in these capacities. From the time that he left University College, London, and became a solicitor in Newcastle he gave much of his leisure to the management of a Shoeblack Brigade and an Industrial School. He was secretary of the Literary and Philosophical Society which has played so large is part in the intellectual life of Newcastle, and found time to write its history. There, too, he gave more than forty lectures on the history and development of the English language. He was one of the founders of the Newcastle College of Physical Science in connexion with the University of Durham, and from the first urged the addition of a Faculty of Arts. Watson's interest in the College was unceasing, and in 1907, when the Principal of the College, Sir Isambard Brunel, presented him for the honorary degree of D.O.L. at Durham, he said of him : "Holding no office but that of a simple member of its managing body, Doctor Watson's influence in the affairs of the College has been all-pervading. Work for the College has not been for lain the relaxation of a leisured career ; it Lae been one more duty imposed upon the overburdened hours of a busy life."
Watson, says Mr. Corder, "was an ardent advocate of peace among nations." A generation which is tasting the 'fruit nf the pacificist movement will think more highly of Lie practical sense when, they read that in him this sentiment mostly took "the practical and useful form of acting as peacemaker in the various disputes between masters and men." His first appearance in this character was as arbitrator in a local dispute in the coal trade, in which Mr. Thomas Burt appeared for the workmen, and his account of the proceedings has a special interest just now:—
" The great feature was Burt's speech. He almost seemed to give his case away. Wherever an argument had been brought forward by the employers which he knew was correct, he simply stated that it was so and that he could not answer it. The first part of his speech consisted of concessions of this kind. But when he came to his own case, this very frankness gave him extra- Ordinary power, and ho stated it quietly, simply, and moderately, but with wonderful force."
• Ilia Life of Robert Spence Watson. By his Nephew, Percy Corder. London: Headley Brothers. [les. Got, net.]
As arbiter in trade • &sprites Watson was very successful, the more so perhaps because his work came to an end just when the controversies between employers and workmen were taking new forms. The canons which be laid down for his own guidance are as time now as they were then. "The old relationship of master and servant is gone. The position of the parties is now that of buyer and seller." The really important function of a Joint Committee of the two parties he held to be conciliation. Arbitration only meant that " the men who know having been unable to decide the matter, they ask the man who does not know to decide it for them." It is only when there is no other way of avoiding a strike that ft should be tried. Watson would probably have had many doubts as to the wisdom of the appeals to State intervention in trade disputes which have been so frequent of late years, but Mr. Corder describes him as holding "the conviction that in the long run the sterling common-sense of Englishmen would prove sufficient for their right solution." He adds, how- ever, with much truth, that the satisfactory results which have "on the whole" attended "the cry for State intervention " may really be due to the exceptional capacity of Sir George Ask with- The two chapters which deal with Watson's political career have little interest outside Newcastle. This is commonly true of political biographies, save in the case of a Minister of State, where there is a chance of finding some of the public affairs in which lie had a hand presented in a new light.
Though we have questioned the wisdom of giving so early a place to the chapter on " Friendships and Hospitalities," Mr. Corder may fairly plead in his defence that it is perhaps the most interesting in the volume. Watson had a genius for friendship, and lie was fortunate in having abundant oppor- tunities for giving it play. There are several letters from J. R. Seeley in defence of his 'method of writing history. His object was not to be popular. He was convinced that history had been made "far too romantic. far more interesting titan it ought to be." It could not, he held, be given these qualities without attracting the wrong bind of readers. It does not seem to have occurred to him that if the right kind of readers were also attracted no harm would be done. "I remain." he writes to Watson, "firmly convinced that I have hit on the right way of writing history, and that the Macaulay style is radically wrong." It may be objected that Macaulay'e fault is not that be made history amusing, but that he was occasionally inaccurate and occasionally preju- diced. Were it not for these blemishes the charm which carries readers from volume to volume would have been all to the good. If Seeley could have written his Stein in a more attractive style, it might still have contained an equal amount of "precise information thoroughly trustworthy, scientific, and impartial," and by being better known would have made more converts . to Seeley's views. Watson touched men at many points, and this is only one example of this happy att.-
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