THE MAGAZINES.

In the Nineteenth Century is an elaborate survey by Mr. Edgar Crammond of "Imperial Defence and Finance." By means of exhaustive statistics he shows the ratio which exists at present between the material wealth of the various portions of the British Empire and the share borne by them in its

defence :-

" The United Kingdom possesses 64 per cont. of the wealth of the Empire, but it contributes 70 per cent. of the expenditure. India contains 14.4 per cent. of the wealth, but she contributes nearly 20 per cent. of the outlay. Canada has 8 per cent. of the • How Girls can Help to Build up the Empire. (The Handbook for Girl Guides.) By Miss Baden-Powell and Sir K. Baden-Powell. London : Nelson. and Sons, [1s. net.) The History of the People of Israel. By Mary Berson and Mabel A. Phillip', London: Longman and Co. Lis. 6d. net.]

wealth, but her contribution is little more than 2 per cent. of the total. Australia has about 5 per cent. of the wealth, and she now expends about 5 per cent. of the total outlay on defence. But when comparison is made on the basis of the naval expenditure alone, it will be found that practically the whole of the burden of the naval defence of the Empire is borne by Great Britain. Out of a total outlay of £48,000,000 Great Britain contributes no less than £45,000,000, or 94 per cent."

Mr. Crammond proceeds to argue, very much on the lines of Mr. Borden's recent speeches in London, that a necessary correlative of increased contributions from the Dominions Must be increased control over the issues of war and peace. He consequently advocates the formation of an Imperial Federal Council, elected upon the basis of white population and of the amount spent upon Imperial defence. This Council would have, upon Mr. Crammond's system, 174 members, of whom 119 would be representatives of the United Kingdom. Its duties would be the organization of defence, the making of peace or war, the arrangement of treaties, and the general conduct of foreign relations.—Mr. R. C. K. Ensor writes a moderate article upon " The Practical Case for a Legal Minimum Wage." He premises as

the chief cause of industrial discontent the under-pay- ment of the lower-paid workers, which, he argues, means that the underpaying industry is, in the strict economic

sense, parasitic. After considering briefly the a. priori objec-

tions to State regulation of wages, he maintains that the principal difficulties in its way have been practical, and for this reason he agrees with the contention that Parliament must• not fix the figures itself, but must delegate the details to appropriate bodies. Mr. Ensor next shows that there are two conceptions of the minimum wage—one a "physiological " minimum, which means the lowest wage on which a worker can decently subsist, the other a " trade " minimum, which means the highest wage that any particular trade can bear. Though desiring to enforce the more drastic or physiological minimum, Mr. Ensor recognizes that if it were abruptly or universally established "statesmen would find themselves creating a sudden contraction of trade and expansion of unemployment with which they are powerless to cope." He concludes his argument with an attempt to prove that the actual history of the working of the Trade Boards Act shows the practicability and desirability of gradually establishing legal

minima in the second or more moderate sense.—"The Morality of Excavation" is the subject of an article by Mr.

Arthur Weigall, the Inspector-General of the Department of Antiquities in Upper Egypt. He emphasizes the Egyptian archaeologist's duty to the community, and especially to Egypt. "Any excavations authorized in Egypt which are not of an absolutely scientific character are injnstices to the Egyptians and to all men."—We may also mention an article by Miss Katharine M. Loudon upon some rather dis- appointing unpublished letters of Lord Chesterfield. These were written by him, in French, between 1731 and 1747, to Baron Frederick of Rosendael, whose acquaintance he made while Ambassador at the Hague.

The National Review contains a very strongly worded attack by Lord Percy upon Lord Haldane's administration at the War Office. Two problems, Lord Percy says, demanded solution : first, the creation of a foreign service army, readily available for service in any part of the world and capable of expansion to the widest possible extent on mobilization; and secondly, an efficient home defence army. Neither of these problems has, in the writer's view, been met by Lord Haldane. The foreign service army lacks the capability for speedy mobilization, is badly equipped, has a bad transport system, and lacks adequate reserves. As to the home defence force, Lord Percy is equally dissatisfied. Lord Haldane's scheme has had a fair trial and it has completely failed :—

I " History will not blame him because his scheme failed, but it will condemn him till the end of time because it was founded on false reasoning, nurtured by subterfuge, intrigue, and humbug, and, worst of all, because its author, after the truth had been clearly shown, after the real danger was revealed, not only did not tell the truth about that danger and the responsibilities it involved on the nation, but deliberately minimized it, told the people they had no obligations or responsibilities, and misled them as to real issues it was vital they should understand."

Lord Percy concludes by declaring the necessity for National Service, and for the immediate reorganization of the expedi- tionary force.—Mr. W. H. Mallock discusses "The Intel- lectual Bankruptcy of Socialism, and Syndicalism as a

Proposed Substitute." He begins by tracing the history of the evolution of Socialist theory and practice since the days of Marx. Syndicalism is next considered, and shown to be "a frantic rejection of the one practical principle which renders Socialism a thinkable scheme at all "—namely, the principle that no form of property essential to production shall be the subject of a monopoly. On the other hand, Mr. Mallock proceeds,

" whilst rejecting the most reasonable element in Socialism on its constructive side, Syndicalism, as an economic theory, repre- sents a harking back to everything in the Socialism of the past which the educated Socialists of to-day have rejected as crude and obsolete. It is a harking back to the doctrine, together with those directly associated with it by Marx, that all wealth is the product of manual labour alone."

—We must also mention an amusingly written article called " The Blind Spot," signed very appropriately " Egotistical Eighteen." The writer, taking his metaphor from the spot

upon a cricket pitch, about a yard from the block, which the batsman cannot see, discusses the " blind spot" in literature which prevents every succeeding generation from appreciating authors who lived at a certain distance of time before it.

Those of us, for instance, who have the misfortune of belonging to what " Egotistical Eighteen" is too polite to call the last generation are unable to appreciate the beauties of Adelaide Anne Procter and Mrs. Hemans, for which this up-to-date—we might almost say this Cubist—critic cannot find high enough praise. " Egotistical Eighteen" is most engagingly frank, moreover, about his—or is it her P—own " blind spot," and pours unmeasured scorn upon Alfred Lord Tennyson and the " chocolate cake " effects of Swinburne. Any one, in fact, who wants to learn the worst as to the taste of the rising generation will have the truth broken to him gently, if candidly, in this article. We admit, however, the charm of the quotations from Mrs. Hemans and Tommy Moore.—Mr. E. Bruce Mitford selects for description " Britain's Five Finest Walking Tours," but his choice will probably be much disputed. The Lizard and the Land's End, the North Devon Coast, the Snowdon District, the English Lakes, and the Trossachs and Loch Awe make up his sound if not very original selection.

The first article in the Contemporary Review is an encomium by Dr. Macnamara, couched in the most flowery language, of " the Great Insurance Act." The pages are powdered with references to the " stupendous scheme," to the " terrific campaign," and to " that wonderful little man, Mr. Lloyd George?' Dr. Macnamara's vigorous defence of the Act and his fierce attack upon its critics is too rhetorical to allow of any useful summary. We may, however, quote his peroration, which is a fair specimen of the article as a whole :—

"We shall watch the working of this great scheme of social regeneration with the closest care. It may need modification here, it may need readjustment there. But in its chief features it will remain an established part for all time of the British Social and Industrial System—its plan conceived by minds nobly touched ; its structure raised by hands patient, skilled, and directed by patriotic purpose. It does not usher in the millen- nium; but it brings our country a long step nearer the realization of the Psalmist's aspiration, when there shall be `no decay, no leading away into captivity, and no complaining in our streets."' —Mr. C. Roden Buxton contributes a paper upon "Minimum Wages for Agricultural Labourers." He begins by adducing evidence to show that " agricultural labour, throughout the greater part of England, is in effect a `sweated' industry." Next he considers the suggestion that "if a higher wage were fixed by law, the industry would become unremunerative and land would, in some places at least, go out of cultivation." He advances a number of reasons for supposing that this is not the case, among them being the fact of "the startling variation in agricultural wages from district to district." As to the method of fix- ing the minimum, Mr. Buxton suggests that the country should be divided into districts, as in the case of the

Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act. He also asks that the wage shall be determined according to the minimum of food, house room, clothing, fuel, and lighting necessary for the healthy subsistence of an average family. —An article by Canon Lilley deals with " The Religion of the Frenchman." He remarks that the religious future of France is bound up with Catholicism, and that the prospects of a recovered influence of Catholicism in France depends on the power of Modernism to secure an effective foothold within the traditional Church:--

"The French mind even at its freest has not consciously abjured Catholicism. At most it sits loosely to the practices of religion mainly on account of what seems to it the negative attitude of the official Church in its dealings with the world of contemporary action. Yet a new sense of religious need is every- where making itself felt throughout the national life. On the depth and intensity of this need depends the influence it will be able to exercise on the Church. And that in the end must be the measure of the Church's influence upon it."

Mr. Sidney Whitman writes in the Fortnightly Review upon " The Anglo-German Mirage." He describes and deplores the fact that "for over ten years a reckless game of misrepresentation and cross-purposes has been going on between the two countries and sown its seed of dragon's teeth." Among the explanations of our estrangement with Germany which he declares to be fictitious is the one which holds that Bismarckian traditions are necessarily hostile to England. Mr. Whitman argues that the reverse is the case. "Bismarck's dealings with foreign countries were marked by a spirit calculated to gain their confidence by deserving it, as lie himself laid down, in the axioms of ' honesty, candour, and conciliation." It is only in so far as Germany has departed from Bismarck's ideals that she is hostile to England. Mr. Whitman next speaks of the great influence in Germany of a number of irresponsible scribblers and talkers, and of the atmosphere of intrigue and unrest produced by them. Un- fortunately, however, he has no clear practical suggestions to put forward as to any means of changing the present state of affairs, and can only vaguely remark that "we should be best advised to attend to our own business without offering

provocation to any one."—Mr. F. E. Smith discusses the question of Tariff Reform in the light of the last nine years' experience, prefacing his remarks with a statement of his belief that, "unless the party is unanimous in the support of the main items of the Unionist programme, the return to power would be shortly followed by irretrievable disaster."

Into his fiscal arguments we cannot enter, for they appear to us as fallacious as ever. He concludes by observing that Tariff Reform is " the master-key of all Unionist activities. Labour unrest will be settled, or at least mitigated; the condition of the masses will be improved ; agriculture will be restored; and the Empire will be firmly consolidated."—" The Sur- render of the Mediterranean : the Military Aspect" is the title of an article by Captain Cecil Battine. He combats the " blue-water " school of strategy, which, he maintains, involves "the confiding of all mobile warfare to the Navy, while the

land forces are relegated to the deteriorating rote of providing stationary garrisons and gendarmerie for the preservation of local peace." Captain Battine maintains that, in order to ensure the co-operation of our Indian Army in case of a war, it is essential for the Navy to possess an assured supremacy along the sea-route through the Red Sea and the Mediter- ranean.—Of the remaining articles we may mention a review of Mr. Gosse's poems by Mr. Alfred Noyes and a discussion of the housing question by Mr. J. L. Green.

A remarkable article in this month's Blackwood is

that entitled "The Constitution under Cromwell and under Asquith" by Mr. Arthur Page. The following quotation from one of Cromwell's speeches well indicates its nature :— I tell you that unless you have some such thing as a balance, we cannot be safe. By the proceedings of this Parliament, you

see they stand in need of a check or balancing power. . This instrument of government will not do your work.' "

Here is another quotation from Cromwell to show what happens when you have the full unrestrained power of a Single Chamber :-

" Nor can they,' said Cromwell in 1652, 'be kept within the bounds of justice, law, or reason ; they themselves being the Supreme Power of the Nation, liable to no account to any, nor to be controuled or regulated by any other Power, there being none superior or co-ordinate with them: so that, unless there be some Authority and Power, so full and so high as to restrain and keep things in better order, and that they may be a check to these exorbitancies, it will be impossible, in human reason, to prevent our ruin' ; and again, in 1654: 'Poor men, under this arbitrary power, were driven like flocks of sheep by forty in a morning to the confiscation of goods and estates without any man being able to give a reason that two of them had deserved to for- feit a shilling. I have given you but a taste of their miscarriages.'"

Even more impressive in its wording is the following :— "Cromwell, in September 1654, pointed out that a Constitutional Instrument, such as that set up by the Parliament Act, could

never do its work. 'Of what assurance is a law, if it lie in one and the same Legislature to unlaw it again P Is this like to be lasting ? It will be a rope of sand. It will give no security ; for the same men may unbuild what they have built.' And again : There are many circumstantial things which are not like the laws of the Medes and Persians, but the things which it shall be necessary to deliver over to posterity, these shall bo unalterable. Else each succeeding Parliament will be disputing to change and alter the Government, and we shall be as often brought into confusion as we have Parliaments, and so make our remedy our disease.'" We have often shown in these columns how the leaders of the Army, and at the beginning Cromwell himself, held that one of the best ways of restraining a single sovereign Chambei was some form of Referendum. We are convinced that they were right, and that the proper remedy for the Parliament Bill is the institution of the Poll of the People. If the Acts of the House of Commons are in the last resort made liable to the veto of the electors the danger of the " horridest arbitrariness that ever existed on earth " is got rid of. The House of Lords is a very proper body to draw the attention of the people to dangerous legislation, and to ask them whether it is really their will that such legislation shall be passed.—Major MacMunn summarizes the deeply interesting autobiography of Seetaram, a Brahmin of Oudh, who served in the Indian Army for nearly fifty years during the first half of the nineteenth century. The book was originally issued in 1873, and has lately been republished, and is now used as a text-book for the Army examination in Urdu. The story is an adventurous one, but it also possesses historical interest, for it gives a vivid idea of the attitude of the Sepoys in the past towards their British officers. The most tragic moment in Seetaram's career was when, during the Mutiny, he found himself in command of a firing-party engaged in carrying out executions upon some captured mutineers. " He was asking the names of the condemned men, when one gave the number of the regiment of the son that he had not seen for many years. The old man asked after his son, Anunteeram of the Light Company. The wretched man said, ' I am Anunteeram, from Tillowee, the son of Seetaram Jemadar.'" Seetaram was, however, mercifully relieved from the command of the firing-party.—We may also mention an agreeably written sketch by Mr. St. John Lucas, " The Lady of the

Canaries."

The most interesting articles in the August United Service Magazine are "Night Fighting in Future Campaigns," by Lieutenant A. B. Baumann, and " Plain Clothes," by " Teufelsdrockh." In our opinion the principles in regard to plain clothes which are applied to the officers should be applied to the men. Wearing uniform should only be insisted upon when the men are performing military duties of any kind, i.e., in business hours. When they are off duty they should be allowed to dress as they like. The following

seems to us a very sensible piece of argument :—

There are two apparent fallacies which one may suppose are often lurking in the minds of those officers who are opposed to the granting of any licence in this matter, and which need to be exposed. First, that it is a privilege to wear plain clothes. If it is an honour to be able to wear the King's uniform, it is mani-

festly absurd to consider it a privilege to be allowed not to wear it.

There is no privilege about it. It is simply a convenience, and a necessary convenience. The bishop cannot always be in the Cathedral. The strain of constant reverence without relaxation would be more than human nature could endure, and either the bishop's health would give way or (more probably) the quality

and intensity of the reverence would slacken. It is the same with a soldier and his uniform. But both with the soldier and the bishop, society expects that in their hours of ease they shall do nothing unworthy of their cloth. In the case of the soldier this is ensured by only allowing those to wear plain clothes who have proved themselves to be generally well-conducted. The wearing of uniform acts as an incentive to good conduct in two ways. First, the respect felt for the uniform representing the good name of the Regiment acts as a restraint on ill-behaviour ; and secondly, the conspicuousness of uniform is a help to super- vision by the military police and enables the deterrent effect of the law to operate. This explains the second fallacy : that by making a man of indifferent character wear uniform and permit- ting a man of good character to go in plain clothes, we are making the wearing of uniform a kind of punishment, and the wearing of plain clothes a. reward. The reader will have realized that the enforced wearing of uniform is merely an assistance to the weaker vessels in behaving themselves, and enables them to be thoroughly supervised during the period their conduct is on probation.

To those officers who have objections on such grounds as these to granting permission to wear plain clothes it will not be out of place to point out a genuine and serious anomaly which weighs heavily in the other scale. Officers' servants have the invidious sanction of a coveted concession which is but grudgingly granted even to the higher non-commissioned ranks.