THE MAGAZINES.

Mn. E. J. Mixon's articles on foreign politics, one of which he contributes to the Contemporary Review this month, leave on us the impression of exceedingly clever shallowness. He points out blunders, or what he thinks blunders, with much clearness and force, but the result of his sentences generates no conviction. It is difficult, for instance, to

believe that British diplomacy has always lacked both con. sistency and success. If that be so, how does it happen that this little country owns so much of the world, and so fre- quently, as at present, holds the balance of power ? We quite admit that we often seem to be defeated on details, and that our policy frequently swerves, but we fancy that the Con- tinental view of our relentless persistence has a certain truth in it too, and that we often sacrifice trifles to secure larger ends. Mr. Dillon's main idea seems to be that Germany is playing us and her allies false, and intends in the end to make an alliance with Russia. Well, that being granted, why is England unwise in maintaining her isolation, that is, in waiting till tendencies declare themselves ? We also believe that the rulers of Germany are very doubtful as to the best course to follow for their own interests, but surely, if such an alliance is to be deprecated, the best course is to make the Triple Alliance while it subsists a strong combination. It we help it to fall to pieces we help to compel Germany to seek a new ally, who can only be Russia. Mr. Dillon is worth reading, because he often shows insight, but he leaves on us no sense of having obtained clear guidance.

Mr. W. Basil Worsfold argues with much force that the moral right of Great Britain to be regarded as the paramount Power in South Africa arises from her steady protection of the native population against injustice and oppression. She cannot make this protection successful unless she controls the Boers, whose view of their relation to the natives is the " patri- archal " one,—that is, in fact, the one held by slave-owners.

It follows that Great Britain must be ultimately sovereign, and that, as the sovereign Power, she has a right to compel the Dutch in the Transvaal to grant to British settlers the rights which she herself in the other South African Colonies granted to the Dutch. That argument would be sound enough if we had not granted to the Dutch in the Transvaal certain treaty privileges. As we have done so, the obligation of good faith seems, in our judgment, to override the argu. went from general policy.—Mr. John A. Hobson's inquiry, " Is Poverty Diminishing ? " is one which interests us all, and his very thoughtful paper is a substantial, though not a final, answer to the question. He maintains that the view which we may roughly define as Sir Robert Giffen's, is much too optimistic. The decline of pauperism, for example, is only a decline of outdoor relief, indoor pauperism increasing in England and Wales slightly faster than the population :-

Indoor Pei:Twin:L. reputation.

(Mean for Year.)

1851 114,367 17,927,609 1861 132,236 20,066,224 1871 149,200 22,712,266 1881 183,374 26,018,112 1891 186,607 29,081,147

In the same way he contends that in all calculations of average income the lowest or " casual " class of workers, which is exceedingly numerous, is either omitted or too slightly considered, while the fall in the prices of necessaries is exaggerated, the retail prices not having fallen equally with the wholesale. The rise in rent and in all direct payments for labour, which the poor must give as well as the rich, though in a less degree, is, moreover, forgotten. Mr. Hobson

also contends that the evidence from the statistics of savings is evidence as to the position of a class and not of the whole community ; and finally he is of opinion that, while there has been an increase in the average income of the working class,

its benefit is materially reduced, first, by the increased transfer of population to the towns, and secondly, by the great increase in the desires of that population, whioh desires are as yet wholly unsatisfied. All this, as it seems to us, only amounts to the statement that the " progreaa " of the population still leaves a residuum which advances very slowly or not at all; but the facts are put temperately and in an interesting way. We must add that Mr. Hobson falls into one very common error. The statistics convince him that the towns are less healthy than the country, and he forgets that this may not be true of

adults, the high rate of mortality in towns arising rather from the consumption of children. That is an important point when we are considering the comparative contentment and healthi- ness of those who grow up.—Mr. H. A. Kennedy declares

on native evidence that, in spite of the desperate resistance of the priesthood, the French Canadians are becoming Anglicised, the people gliding, through the habitual use of English words, into an English way of speaking and writing French, and finally into the use of English itself. This process has been much more rapid, however, in Louisiana, where English

is rapidly becoming the only language, the children declaring that English is indispensable, and that it is too much trouble to learn more than one tongue. The instances given of anglicisme are very carious, the most striking being the intrusion of the English habit of employing the passive, where Frenchmen insist upon the active, verb. They begin to

write " nous sommes informs de Washington." The process, it should be remarked, is by no means reciprocal, the English in Canada rarely learning French, even though without it they have in French Canada no chance of local appointments.--

The Irish Priesthood," by Michael MacDonagh, is full of minute knowledge. It seems that the two thousand four bun. dred secular priests in the country require about sixty ordina- tions a year to keep up their numbers, and these are supplied from Maynooh. The curate never receives more than £80 a a year, and very often not more than £40, while as a parish priest his income varies from £150 to £600 :— " These figures probably represent the two extremes, though parishes of £150 are far more common than parishes of £600. The average income of a parish priest, exclusive of the allowance to curates, runs from £200 to £300 per annum, which, compared with the stipends of Protestant clergymen, and even with those of Nonconformist ministers, is very small indeed."

These incomes are derived from voluntary offerings, whioh are, however, regularly collected on a fixed system based on rental or wages, and are considered by good Catholics obligatory payments. The heaviest " due " seems to be the marriage-fee, which the writer, to our amazement, declares to be usually 5 per cent. upon the " fortune " of the bride. Priests are not now allowed by the Bishops to hold more than twenty acres of land :—

" They have little inducement to acquire means, even where it is possible to do so. They have no families to provide for, and are required to leave to the Church any property they may be possessed of at death. The incomes of the bishops also vary con- siderably. They run from about £600 in a few poor dioceses in the West of Ireland to about £1,000 in dioceses in the more prosperous South and East. I do not think the incomes of even the Archbishop of Dublin, or of the Primate, the Archbishop of Armagh, exceed, if they reach, £1,500 a year."

A disfrocked priest in Ireland is almost invariably a drunkard.

"There is never a lady in the case." The chief literary interest of the priesthood is arcbreology, and it is a curious fact, when the genius of the race is considered, that there is not one great preacher among the secular priesthood of Ireland.

The best paper in the Fortnightly Review, perhaps the most

instructive in the April magazines, is the one by Major Arthur Griffiths on " Egypt and its Frontier," an entirely passionless sketch of the position, with the following result.

The force at Wady Haifa is in admirable order, such order as to excite the amazement of "a distinguished German officer of high rank," and the same may be said of the entire Egyptian Army with a certain reserve, due to want of experi- ence as to the fighting qualities of the Egyptian regiments raised from among the fellaheen. The means of transport

are, however, so deficient that the march to Dongola cannot be undertaken until the rising of the Nile enables the General to utilise the river, which will not be till August. The time will be occupied in getting up supplies and extending the rail- way to Akasheh. The Dervish strength may be taken at forty-five thousand men, well adapted for hard fighting, but imperfectly armed, and without means of transport for anything like that force. The paper should be carefully read by every one in- terested in the expedition, and the only statement in it that we should doubt is the effect of the British advance in relieving Kassala. Major Griffiths thinks Kassala too far off, and forgets that the Khalifs is much nearer, that he knows any blow to his prestige will set free thousands of deadly enemies, and that he is certain to think first of his own power of controlling Omdurman.—Miss Schreiner's "Stray Thoughts on South Africa" contains much information. She says that the wall which separates the Boer from the world is his language, which is not Dutch, but "Taal," " a broken form of speech based on that language." It is not a dialect, still less a substituted language, but it is Dutch strangely reduced to a few hundred words. The true analogy, says Miss Schreiner, is to the "pigeon- English " used in China. This is the language of the Transvaal, of the Orange Free State, and of our own rural districts in South Africa, and it shuts the Boer off from the rest of the world so completely that when he has learned Dutch, French, or English, he is said to have ceased to be a Boer. The origin of the Taal is much disputed. Some say it is broken Frisian, and others that it is a kind of child's language used in intercourse with natives ; but Miss Schreiner thinks that it is Dutch as learned and spoken by French Huguenots, and imposed by them as a superior caste upon the colonists among whom they settled. At all events, its effect as a wall against external knowledge is unmistakable. Miss Schreiner writes, of course, as a South African expert. —Mr. Sidney Buxton's account of Cardinal Manning as a " Socialist," or rather philanthropist, is exceedingly interest- ing. and certainly shows that the Cardinal laboured most earnestly for the poor, and had a hearty belief in his doctrine that Catholicism could be made compatible with certain forms of honest Collectivism.—We are not greatly in- terested in any of the remaining papers, for our search in the dearer magazines is always for some fresh contribution to knowledge ; but to those who enjoy literary invective, we would recommend Mrs. Lynn Linton's account of " Viewy Folk." If the reader happens to agree with its governing thesis, which is that viewy folk are rather bigger fools than average people, he will find it very delightful reading, and even if he does not, he may admire a form of literary skill nowadays but seldom employed.

The National Review publishes two valuable papers upon the question of the day. The first is Lord Farrer's on Egypt and England ; the second, Captain Lugard's upon the Soudan. Lord Ferrer, who was originally opposed to the occupation of Egypt, now advocates the continuance of that occupation for an indefinite period. He has found in his visit to the country that Mr. Chamberlain did not exaggerate in his splendid description of the improvements we have effected, and he says that we must remain, and moreover must announce that we shall remain, if our work is to be fully com- pleted : " The first essential is confidence in the maintenance of the present system. No doubt should exist about our in- tention of maintaining that system until the time when the Egyptians shall have acquired the moral strength and courage necessary for independence and self-government." Lord Farrar is strongly in favour of increasing the resources of Egypt by building a great reservoir above Assouan, a work which would cost £5 000,000, but would produce £850,000 a year. The only difficulties in the way are the uncertainty of our tenure, and the international control which prohibits the devotion of Egyptian surpluses to the work. It seems to us, moreover, that the work can hardly be completed until Egypt is safe from invasion to the southward, and from any risk that the water of the Nile will be arrested before it reaches Egypt, an opinion which we fancy is not Lord Ferrer's. He evidently doubts about the expedition to Dongola, though in part his doubt is due to a fear that England may make Egypt pay for the extension of her own power in Eastern Africa. That, we think, is improbable, though, no doubt, India has once or twice been unfairly charged.—Captain Lugard is in favour of the conquest of the Soudan as a British duty, and he draws, on Slatin Bey's evidence, a terrible picture of the Kbalifa, a hideous tyrant who delights in massacre, and of the effects of his rule:—" And now the unhappy Soudan was to suffer a fate even more awful than any which had yet befallen. Throughout all the districts owning the Mandi's rule a famine broke out, so that people died by thousands, and thousands of the living

could not cope with the work of burying the dead. Canni- balism, and the most awful and ghastly tragedies were of daily occurrence, till one wonders how there were left any people alive in this misruled famine-stricken land. No sooner had the cruel strain relaxed than flights of locusts, hitherto unknown, came to complete the destruction of the people. Yet they met it—as the Batahin met their fate—with a mar- vellous heroism. The 'proud and moral' Jaalin bricked up their houses when their food was done, and whole vil- lages thus calmly and silently awaited death. It is a har- rowing, heart-rending tale, this story of a nation of heroes mowed down in battle, starved by famine, murdered in cold blood by a despot's orders, yet falling short of their standard of invincible courage Nor have we the moral right to restrain France and Italy, and to per- petuate the massacres, slave raids, and oppression of the Soudan for a further period of years. It needs no trans- port of troops or a vast bulk of war material. The mere guns and ammunition are all that are required. Men,

transport, and food are all to be obtained on the spot. An advance from Egypt—for which everything is ready—

simultaneously with a diversion from the south by a local levy in the Bahr el Ghazal under English officers, and supplied with munitions from Uganda, would upset the tottering dynasty of the Khalifs."

The Nineteenth Century contains fifteen papers, most of them readable, but the one in the post of honour, Professor Mahaffy's essay on "International Jealousy," is by no means

the best. It is a clear and, in the main, accurate account of the jealousies felt by other countries against Great Britain, but it contains no new facts or thoughts, and its conclusion is so tame that the writer himself is aware of the fact. We doubt if self-restraint on the part of Englishmen in their speech and their writing would greatly diminish international jealousy, which arises not from the English demeanour but from English prosperity. The English were till lately singularly honorific in their treatment of Germans, bat the Germans cannot bear to feel poor while the English, without a conscription, are so rich. They want some of the wealth, and think South Africa would be the easiest bit to get.—The two papers on Egypt do not add much to general information. Mr. Trail], however, puts the case for the conquest of the Soudan as a duty we owe to Egypt exceedingly well, and makes a new point of

the fact that the partition of Africa has occurred since we commenced the occupation. That partition endangers not only the independence, but the very life of the country. The following is very well put indeed:— "Her very lifeblood is drawn from sources which, now for the first time in the long ages of her history, are being brought within the reach of powerful European States, and might pass under the control of some great Power which could lay an arresting finger on its pulse at will. It would not take much effort on the part of modern engineering science in the hands of an enemy to spread famine and death along the whole Nile Valley. When the inundation is at its height, the waters of the great river are brackish up to the barrage on the outskirts of Cairo—so slight is the gradient, so narrow the margin between fruitfulness and dearth. Egypt cannot afford to dispense with the protection of a great Power on the North, when another such Power might any day approach her from the southward and obtain command of the very seat of her life. Nor could England, as the protecting Power on the North, be now called upon to evacuate the country, except in pursuance and under the terms of some new international African Convention which should provide among its articles against the possibility of any European Power making itself master of Egypt by advancing upon her from equatorial regions, and establishing itself on the head waters of the Nile."

Sir Wemysa Reid, on the other hand, advises the evacu- ation of Egypt upon the ground of our pledges to Europe, which, he says, involve our honour. He does not prove that we are pledged to retire before Egypt is safe, and his complaint that British electors have never been consulted on the Soudan expedition will strike most politicians as trivial. When is the country, as distinguished from its repre-

sentatives, ever consulted before an expedition P As to his assertion that the electors would have voted against it, it is an assertion merely. Oar own impression is that the country is much fonder of risky adventures than Parliament is, and that a plebiscite would release Dr. Jameson at once, and perhaps decree the immediate conquest of the Transvaal.— The best paper of the number is the sketch of Sir Robert

Peel, by the Hon. George Peel, who, though most appreciative of his great ancestor, is far from blind to the fact that he was a man who, with all his virtues, was a "made" man lacking in spontaneity. The following story is to us entirely new, and throws light upon a wholly unexpected side of Peel's intellect. The last quality we should have thought of attributing to him is prescience :—

" It was, if I remember aright, in 1847, the year preceding the revolution of 1848, that the Comte de Jennie was dining with Sir Robert, then fallen from office, at his house in Whitehall. The Count spoke hopefully of France and of the stability of the Government of Louis-Philippe. His host listened with profound attention, sometimes inclining forward as be assented, or shaking his head as be could not agree. Then, speaking in his turn, he foretold coming revolution and the earthquake that would shake the soil of this ancient Europe. He spoke of the tidal passions of democracy, of the vast realities of human misery, and of the unenlightened lot of man. And it was so that to the mind of his hearer the walls around him, bright with the masterpieces of Rubens and Reynolds, seemed to crumble and vanish, and that from the darkness arose. at the apostrophe of the statesman, the disinherited outcasts of society, who would return at all costs in- to their inheritance. Then it was,' said the Count, that I understood for the first time the motives for the abolition of the Corn Laws and the character of the genius of Sir Robert Peel" —" Vulgarity," by the Hon. Mrs. Chapman, is not very nutritive. She believes the essence of vulgarity to be self-

assertion, but there are many vulgar people who are not self- assertive at all, and many self-assertive persons, Canning, for example, are not vulgar. We have seen many Irishmen in whose natures self-assertion was the dominant foible, but who remained gentlemen for all that. To say that it is other-

wise is to say that a man of fine taste can never be self- assertive. Tennyson, the least vulgar of human beings, was distinctly self-assertive, and so was Cardinal Manning. Would Mrs. Chapman describe him as vulgar ? The root of vulgarity is pretence.—Mr. S. Van Oss, an economist with whose name we are unacquainted, is horrified at the rise of Consols. He says it is artificial, that the price will probably

reach 120, and that when it does the Postmaster-General will be in a mess, because deposits will be withdrawn from the Savings Banks and he will have to sell rapidly to meet the withdrawals. We think the Treasury may be trusted to avoid that scrape, and meanwhile the high price of Consols is a national security, and by keeping interest on sleeping capital low tends to drive it into new and fruitful

enterprises.—Mr. J. Macdonell wants all' "dirty " cases to be heard in camera because of the evil effect they exercise on the horrid crowd who usually go to hear them. Do they make that crowd more impure than their own thoughts and talk do, and if they do not, is it wise to exempt all persons whose guilt is of the sexual kind from the penalty of social opprobrium ? They manage matters better in France, it is said ; but is Paris purer than London ? Some check is wanted occasionally on the lower Press ; but would not an occasional police prosecution be effective, especially as it has been ruled that such matter is not

privileged even when it occurs in a report of a trial P—Mr. A. Birrell will, we doubt not, bring the Anglican clergy down upon him in a body. He contends that at the Reformation there was a distinct solution of continuity in the Church which gave up, while Rome retained, the sacrifice of the Mass That being so, he calls upon the Church as it exists to state with greater distinctness what it holds about the doctrine of the Real Presence. Till it does that it is " a dumb Church." We do not quite gather Mr. Birrell's object from his paper, but it is quite certain that if his advice is followed, the English Church will be rent into fragments never more to be rejoined.

Blackwood opens with a new story by Miss Beatrice

Harraden, marked so far by distinct originality ; and Miss Helen Zimmern contributes an instructive but carelessly written biography of Catering Sforza. She is a great deal too tolerant of cruelty and viciousness when the person who displays those qualities is a woman of striking beauty and ability.—There is a most curious paper on " Recent Home- Polities in Germany." It is, we presume, a translation. It is nearly unreadable from heaviness of style, yet it leaves a

definite impression on the reader that Social Democracy in Germany is advancing fast, and capturing classes who in England would be horrified by its tenets.