THE MAGAZINES.

TITE Nineteenth, Century opens with an excellent article— qua inininte reris—on the best way to prepare England against possible attack. The author is none other than Cardinal Bourne, who tells us in some interesting prefatory remarks that he is only expounding thoughts which be expressed years ago in a leaflet on the "Paramount Need of Training in Youth." He is convinced that universal service is a vital necessity, but he is also convinced that no Government will venture to propose, and that the people of England will never consent to accept, conscription until an enemy has us by the throat. Henee the compromise which he suggests— a combination of voluntary effort with a slight element of

compulsion, to which alone certain natures will yield :—

"Could not opportunity be given to all to fit themselves of their own accord, as part of their normal education, to be ready to take effective part in the defence of their country ; while there would be held in reserve for those who wilfully neglect the voluntary opportunity the certainty of compulsory service, when the limit of 'that earlier opportunity had been reached? Might it not be enacted that every male member of the community should, by the time that he is twenty-one, if he be physically fit, have rendered himself efficient in certain departments of military training ? If by that age he has failed to take the means to make himself thus efficient, neither he nor anyone else would have legitimate ground for complaint were he then compelled to go to barracks until such time as, by compulsion, he had been raised to at least the same standard of efficiency as his snore patriotic and foreseeing fellows."

Cardinal Bourne does not enter into details as to the nature and length of the training, or the cost, but bolds that com- pulsion would only have to be applied to the hooligan element. He concludes with some admirable remarks in which he fore- stalls the objections of the anti-militarists. Militarism which means the love of fighting for fighting's sake, or the lust of aggression, be condemns without reserve, but "if it means that, in the face of the vast armies that may one day encounter us, we feel our unpreparedness; and realize that it is only the strong man armed who, at the present day, can hope to build his house in peace ; and resolve by preparation to make sure of. that peace, then must both word and thing be blessed, for it is the condition of security."—In "The Promised Land," Mr. Atherley Jones, M.P., discusses the prospects of land legislation in a temperate article, in which he deprecates the sensational, highly coloured, and inaccurate pronouncements of Mr. Lloyd George and other politicians about the wickedness of the feudal tyrants. The great majority of landlords, he declares, "have a full sense of their responsibilities to their tenants, and discharge them to the best of thelr ability." Again, though the condition of the agricultural labourer is often distressful, "on the whole the condition of the farm labourer may be compared favourably with that of the urban labourer," in view of the continuousness of his employment, the opportunities for extra earnings, and the fact that he does not pay the economic rent. Mr. Atherley Jones, however, regards as a genuine grievance the fact that dismissed labourers have to quit their cottages, and he believes in the multiplication of small holdings as the true solution of -the rural problem. He inclines to tenancy rather than ownership, and regards the development of co-operative effort as of prime importance. Also he holds that the working of the Small Holdings Act of 1908 proves the entire incapacity of the County Councils to institute and

administer the system. Mr. Atherley Jones, we may note, speaks in a coldly critical way of the intentions of the

Government. As for Mr. Lloyd George's land inquiry, as regards all material considerations it was superfluous, while its clandestine methods destroyed all confidence in its trust- worthiness.—M. Philippe Millet has a very interesting paper on "France and her Algerian Problem," starting with a frank admission that the present rigime-is hampered by serious defects. Briefly put, the reforms be advocates are a wholesale abolition of the special taxation and corvieswhieb■ press so hardly on the Moslems ; the abandonment of. the harsh judicial system—borrowed from unreformed Egypt— applied to the natives; and the grant of some genuine political representation to the natives. M. Millet does not depreciate France's great achievements in Algeria, nor does he ask her to disregard the interests of the colonists—whose numbers make the ease of Algeria differ so widely from Emit —but, as he puts it, "France has done much for her subjects: only she has not done enough." He asks for no wholesale or- precipitate changes, and does not overlook the dangers of a nationalist movement. But, as be wisely observes, "party warfare is, however, less harmful to the general well-being of a country than the secret discontent which exists to-day among the Moslems."—Mr. H. F. Wyatt, dealing with the "Future of Aviation," maintains that recent events seem in a fair way to fulfil two prophecies which lie made in the Nineteenth Century in September 1909 :— "Of these forecasts one was that those who, at Dover, watched and applauded M. Latham's attempt to fly across the straits, were assisting at the first stage of the funeral of the sea power of England ; while the second expressed the belief that within ten or fifteen years 'the centre of military gravity '—that is, the principal force in war—would pass from the surface of the sea and the land to the air."

After discussing the three functions of air craft—as scouts, fighting machines, and bomb-throwers or destroyers—Mr. Wyatt arrives at the conclusion that since aerial fleets can only be effectively met by other aerial fleets, it is plain that "such fleets must ere long become the dominant factors in that culmination of international competition which we call war," and, as a natural corollary, that it is one of the first duties of every Government to develop national power in the air, a duty which, in his opinion, our Government has hideously neglected.

In the National Review the Rev. Lord William Cecil has a curious article headed "What is Wrong ? " His answer is that we have somehow tumbled into a class war, and that masters and employers are not blameless. Lord William Cecil finds an explanation of this growing estrangement. between the classes in "the enormous size of commercial undertakings," and in the "erroneous business maxim which limits the relations between employer and employed to the buying and selling of-labour." He thinks that a great deal of bitterness might be allayed if employers, and in parti- cular railway directors, would only study the welfare of their men with the same care that they study the convenience of their customers. He advocates the sympathetic :encourage- ment of thrift, i.e., by making it easy for the men to buy stock and become shareholders, even if no co-partnership scheme were possible. In fine :— "Much good feeling can be established between masters and men by consideration that costs trouble rather than money. The same mental acumen, the same skill of organization which has built up the great commercial interests of England, can, if applied, build up in a short time the good feeling between master and man. Indi- vidually each director of a company is possibly a sympathetic and kind-hearted man, giving largely, in charity and caring for the welfare of his fellow man, but the present business maxims of England disregard in the most unbusinesslike way the first necessities for business success, namely, loyal labour and national security. Both these will result from treating working men ins sympathetic and kindly spirit ; the frequent strikes, the power of the agitator, are the natural result of a class bitterness engendered by bad business maxims. When companies recognize that they have men working for them who have souls and are living sentient beings, not hands,' the prosperity and peace of England will only be excelled by the contentment and efficiency of our industrial population."

—Mr. Claude Grahame-White and Mr. Harry Harper discuss "Our Peril from Above," i.e., the possibilities of attack by dirigibles of the rigid type which, in the view of the writers, must be reckoned with as extremely potent engines of destruction. They hold that the most effective countermove that can be devised for the specific purpose of defence against aerial invasion is to equip a fleet •of armed aeroplanes, which have the advantage both in spedd and -cheapness. But as an instrument of retaliation, in a oross-Channel raid or for reconnoitring in the North Sea and elsewhere, the aeroplane cannot compare with the airship. In conclusion the writers insist on the importance of the selection and training of aircraft crews.—" Ignotus " bewails the decay of patriotism in England as evidenced by "a degenerate youth, a disloyal Government, and a treacherous press," but finds some consolation in the awakening of France, which he attributes in great part, curiously enough, to the inspiration of M. Bergson. The first genuine sign of awakening, he says, 'will- be when the nation sweeps away the present Government, 41.6 the French nation swept away that of M. Caillaux.—Lord Percy writes in a somewhat similar strain under the heading -" The Truth about War," and Lord Roberts's fine speech at Wolverhampton is reprinted under the title " Citizen- ship and Duty."—The editor, besides some caustic coin- anents on the progress of the Marconi inquiry, also reprints verbatim the report of the libel action against the .Matin.—Mr. Maurice Low discusses the composition -of Dr. Woodrow Wilson's Cabinet, and applauds Mr. Taft for the perfect equanimity with which be has accepted his defeat. Though Mr. Taft was, on the whole, unfortunate in the selection of his Cabinet, two of its members, Mr. Wickersham, the Attorney-General, and Mr. Meyer, the Secretary of the Navy, did extremely well. In conclusion, Mr. Maurice Low abstains from drawing too encouraging omens from the speech made before the Senate by Mr. Marshall, the Vice-President, on the obligation of that body to protect the national honour by the strict observance of treaty stipulations. He sums up by observing that in all probability the free toll clause of the Pan ama Act cannot be repealed unless President Wilson makes it an administrative policy; but very possibly it can be repealed if he insists on that course being tak en.—A Bulgarian 'officer gives a most interesting account of the method of training officers for the Reserve at the School of Kniajevo. These officers are recruited almost exclusively from the educated civilian classes ; the vast majority are functionaries, members of the liberal professions, or men of business, and in the war they suffered nearly twice as heavily as those of the permanent service. The development and working of the system justifies the writer's remark that in Bulgaria the army still remains an engine of war, but thkt the spirit which permeates it is that of the community-at large and not of a military caste—a state of things mainlydue to the democratic character of the country.—Mr. j. 0. P. Bland has a remark- able paper on "New York Revisited," in which he discusses the formidable problems presented by the rapid growth of industrialism, the amazing figures of the census of New York, and the probable submersion of the Anglo-Saxon and Teutonic races by the Slav, Semitic, and Illyrie stocks.—Mr. Waldorf Astor, M.P., urges on the Government to deal seriously with the pressing question of boy labour, and Miss Frances Pitt writes pleasantly on hedgehogs.

The new Contemporary Review also gives prominence to the prospects of land legislation. Sir W. Ryland Adkins, M.P., de- scribes himself as a strong supporter of Mr. Lloyd George's Budget with its various land duties, but fortunately he does not resemble the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his controversial methods. In his paper on "Liberalism and the Land," he advocates with few reservations the land reform proposals of the Newcastle Programme—repeal of the laws of primo- geniture, enfranchisement of leasehold and copyhold, &c.— and suggests that the difficulty of rural housing should be gotnver by sharing the loss between the State and the local ratepayer. Like Mr. Atherley Jones, Sir W. Ryland Adkins deprecates the "turgid emotion" which has been imported into the discussion of land problems. "The ownership of land is neither a patent of nobility nor a stigma of crime. . . . The divine right of landlords, like the divine right of kings, is an obsolete figment of the imagination ; but another figment of the imagination, equally untrue and equally morbid, is the notion that every owner of land is a traitor to the State, and, in the old phrase, a wolf's head' to be put out of the pale of the law."—Mr. Philip Morrell, M.P., reviews the "Seven rears raf Liberal Government" in a strain of eulogy tempered by intermittent candonr. He is not of those who hold that the power of the Lords is still considerable. "Their influence as a political force has been shattered. They can still hamper and delay legislation, but it is impossible to regard them in the light of a real second chamber, revising and restraining the hasty action of a popular assembly. If it is desirable to have a second chamber at all, the reform-of the House of Lords, to which. the Governmentare pledged, is obviously necessary." And again, "The victory gained in 1911, if it was a victory for democracy, was not in any real sense a victory for the House of Commons: It is to the Cabinet, and not to the House of Commons, that most of the power taken from the Lords has been trans- ferred." Mr. Morrell deplores the growing tyranny of the Executive, and observes that if the setting tip of a new Second Chamber is now desirable, the reform of the procedure of the House of Commons is not less urgently required. He bewails the increase of national expenditure, but consoles himself with the thought that whatever may be said against Free Trade finance, no one will now assert that it is not a good means of raising revenue. He bestows a somewhat reluctant praise on the exertions of the Foreign Secretary, and concludes by remarking that only by proving themselves as much in earnest in dealing with the evils of our social system as with the problems of Irish Home Rule or Welsh Disestablishment can the Government hope to maintain their position.—Sir William Wedderburn discusses the "Objects and-Reasons" of the Royal Commission on the Indian Public Service from the Congress standpoint. While wishing to see-Indians-admitted freely and impartially to high office, he warns Indian reformers not to overlook the corresponding drawback—" the consolidation of bureaucratic authority and the grave loss to the popular cause from the Congress leaders being drawn away and absorbed in the official body." Sir William Wedderburn is very strong on the Parliamentary control of the Secretary for State. He deeply regrets the extinction in 1858 of the "great national inquisition" by periodical Parliamentary committees, and urges on all who wish well to India and the British Empire to insist on their restora- tion.—Mr. M. Philips Price advocates a modification of our Persian policy on the basis of the immediate withdrawal of the Russian troops in North Persia; a substantial financial advance to Persia—with or without the assistance of Russia —to form an efficient gendarmerie to patrol the trade routes; and co-operation with Germany in railway construction in Mesopotamia and Central and Southern Persia.—Mr. Edward Jenks writes optimistically on "The Making of Australasia." The Commonwealth Government is "an accom- plished and extremely solvent fact," and bids fair to dispel the fears alike of those who saw in colonial federation a threat to colonial freedom and to the Imperial connexion.—Under the title of "A Manchu Heroine," Miss Bowden-Smith gives a remarkable account of the romantic history of a Chinese lady of royal descent, Principal of the one Classical Girls' School in Peking, "a lonely, noble, but pathetic figure of an old order which is passing away."

" Islander " returns to the charge in the Fortnightly and again writes of the "Military Conspiracy." He begins by quoting Napoleon, who said, "England can never become a Continental Power, and in the attempt must be ruined," but makes no allusion to the necessity of Waterloo after Trafalgar. We are told that our generals. dissatisfied with one million three hundred thousand regular and auxiliary troops within the Empire, want to force conscription upon us. The first step is to cajole Parliament into enforcing universal training, and from this to conscription the path will be easy. The conspiracy which "Islander" has discovered and is anxious to expose is the desire of the soldiers to make England rely on them rather than on the Navy.—Mr. Baughan writes of the operatic music of Richard Strauss in relation to the great problem of the opera. This problem, briefly, is that every drama, for constructive reasons, contains a certain amount of dialogue which is inherently unsuitable to be set to music. The old recitativo secco, spoken dialogue, and the Wagnerian vast orchestral commentary, all have been tried, and none with final results. Strauss merely accepts the last of these conventions and shows no power of developing it, or of meeting the objections to which it is open.—" A Journalist" writes a thoughtful study of the problem of the future of the war correspondent. He points out that in a democratic State it is very desirable that the voters should take an intelligent interest in a war being waged by their country. This they cannot do if there is no news. The problem is bow to supply this news without endangering the secrecy of military opera- tions. The best way would be for the Navy, Army, and the press to consult together for the formulation of some plan

which could be made law. The danger at present is this, that until the beginning of hostilities there is no power to restrain the press. Yet it is, as Lord Se'borne pointed out, before the opening of a war, and during the period imme- diately preceding mobilization that the greatest danger exists of important disclosures being made unconsciously. A Bill was prepared to make it a penal offence to publish information as to naval and military forces, but it was not passed into law. One defect of this Bill was that it had to be put into force by order of the Privy Council. But this might mean that at a critical moment when its provisions were most wanted, to put it into force would be equal to announcing that the country was going to war. There seems no doubt that the question ought to be properly considered in peace time.—Mr. Herbert 'Vivian writes a discursive article on" Turkey's Problems in Asia." The main contention is that the Turk is an exploded fiction, and that sooner or later the Mohammedan world, which has looked upon his collapse with equanimity, will find a worthier leader.—Mr. Walter Lennard writes a study of "The Soul of the Suffragette": the one shown to us is a pathetically lonely and fanatic daughter of a materialistic and successful London shopkeeper. To suffer martyrdom for a cause is her only desire.

Mr. T. F. Farman, writing in Blackwood, considers in some detail and with great lucidity the question of the fighting value of airships as compared to aeroplanes. He begins by pointing out what formidable engines of war the German aerial Dreadnoughts are, with their capability of long flights and capacity of carrying explosives. But if the airship can attack, it is also liable itself to be attacked, and its greatest enemy is the aeroplane. The smaller flying machine has the power of soaring to great altitudes with ease, and from above could drop bombs on the gas-bag of the airship, while it wee, by its position, difficult to be hit by its enemy's guns. The question, of course, has to he considered as to the effect on the aeroplane of an explosion of the hydrogen gas below it. Mr. Farman says that experts declare that the danger is small. Hydrogen gas is only explosive when mixed with air ; ignited by a bomb it would burn fiercely but would not explode. Mr. Farman considers that for the price of one airship thirty-five aeroplanes can be built, and he then goes on to consider the comparative usefulness of the one against the thirty-five. The general result of the comparison is in favour of the aeroplanes, provided they are sufficiently numerous. One of the advantages possessed by the smaller craft is that it can land anywhere, while an airship must return to its shed, and also every tine it descends it loses gas. Germany has gone ahead of us in airships, and so, according to Mr. Farman, "It is therefore of vital importance for Great Britain to possess a fleet of fighting hydro-aeroplanes, at least equal to that which Germany is creating, as it is difficult to foresee the moment when she can hope to be able to surpass her eventual foe in the numerical strength and fighting power of vessels lighter than air."—From the outposts come, as usual, not only adventures, but adventures told in language which is simple and direct, and has in this case the power of making us feel the oppression of the jungle, with its endlessly entwined growth, its torrential rain, and plague of leeches. This is the all-enveloping background to Mr. De Lancey Forth's description of the unsuccessful bunt for two sepoys who had strayed away in search of game.—Mr. Gilson gives us an amusing study of a Chinese servant who incidentally shed some light on the mysterious forces which lie at the back of both losing and recovering "face." In one way it seems as if losing face was the same thing as being scored off, and regaining it scoring off someone else, not of necessity the person who scored off you. How All One put this into practice is most amusingly told.

By far the most interesting thing in the United Service Magazine for April is a long and closely reasoned letter by the poet, William Wordsworth, addressed by him on March 28th, 1811, to Captain C. W. Feeley, the author of the famous essay mentioned several times before in these columns. We advise not only every lover of Wordsworth to read the letter, for it will certainly raise his opinion of his hero as a patriot and a man of thought, but also everyone -who ia interested in the higher politics. We wish we had space to quote at length from the letter, and especially the -remarkable passage which begins, "Woe be to that country whose military power is irresistible." Instead we will .give a passage which is memorable for its prophetic insight :—

" The materials of a new balance of power exist in the language and name and territory of Spain, in those of France, and those of Italy, Germany, Russia, and the British Isles. The smaller States must disappear and merge in the large nations and widespread languages. The possibility of this remodelling of Europe I see clearly; earnestly do I pray for it; and I have in my mind a strong conviction that your invaluable work will be a powerful instrument in preparing the way for that happy issue. Yet still we must go deeper than the nature of your labours requires you to penetrate. Military policy merely will not perform all that is needful, nor mere military virtues. If the Roman State was saved from overthrow by the attack of the slaves and of the gladiators, and through the excellence of its armies—yet this was not without great difficulty ; and Rome would have been destroyed by Carthage had she not been preserved by civit fortitude—in which she surpassed all the nations of the earth?'

Wordsworth saw clearly that what preserves a State is the energy and determination of its population, and nothing else. Here is another passage of great significance :—

"England requires, as you have shown so eloquently and ably, a new system of martial policy ; but England, as well as the rest, of Europe, requires what is more difficult to give it, anew course of education, a higher tone of moral feeling, more of the grandeur of the imaginative faculties, and less of the petty precession of the unfeeling and purblind understanding, that would manage the- concerns of nations in the same calculation with which it would set about building a house. Now a State ought to be governed (at least in these times)—the labours of the statesman ought to advance—upon the calculations and from the impulses similar to those which give motion to the hands of a great artist when he is preparing a great picture, or of a mighty poet when he is determining the proportions and march of a poem. . . . Much as I admire the political sagacity displayed in your work, I respect you still more for the lofty spirit that supports it, for the animation and courage with which it is replete, for the contempt—in a just cause—of death and danger with which it is ennobled, for its heroic confidence in the valoar of your countrymen, and the absolute determination which it everywhere expresses, to maintain on all points the honour of the soldier's profession, and that of the noble nation of which you are a member—of the land in which you were born—no insults, no indignities, no vile stooping, no despondency, will your politics admit of ; and, therefore, more than for any other cause, do I congratulate my country on the appearance of a book which, resting on these points—our national safety upon the purity of our national character—will, I trust, help materially to make us at the same time a more powerful and a more highminded nation."