'rnE special feature in the new Nineteenth Century is a

group of articles on "The Defence of the Empire." Sir William White criticises the recent policy of the Admiralty in regard to the revision of the list of effective warships temperately but severely. He holds, to begin with, that the intentions of the founders of the Fleet Reserve—Lord George Hamilton and Lord Spencer—have never been fulfilled, nor has the system been given a complete or thorough trial, and points out that no exact, or even approximate, estimate has been put forward for the savings that will be effected by the elimination of the obsolete ships. Incidentally he contends that the redistribution scheme involves the abandonment of the principle, accepted for at . least a century, which has maintained on distant stations for the protection of British interests a considerable number of small and lightly armed vessels of comparatively shallow draught. Returning to the elimination of ineffectives, he shows that many of them had already been classed as unfit for service, and observes that the Admiralty ought not to have spent such large sums quite recently on these vessels, and then have placed them on the sale-list. As regards the sales, he wisely remarks that, in view of the low prices realised, there will be a serious glut in the market if the sales c' the remaining ships are forced. Further, he records his emphatic belief in the utility, of the protected cruisers which have been condemned wholesale in Return No. 74, on the general ground that it does not follow that the introduction of a superior type absolutely destroys the value of its predecessor. From the scheme for the creation of a "middle class" on which no money shall be spent Sir William White strongly dissents. " If ships are to be reckoned in the effective reserves, they must be maintained continuously as regards the essential features of propelling machinery and armament fittings." Finally, he clinches his argument in favour of proceeding cautiously in the diminution of our reserves by a quotation from Lord Selborne's farewell speech to the House of Lords to the effect that " in actual war both Japan and Russia have found use for almost every conceivable kind of ship." Major-General Frank S. Russell deals with the question of the possibilities of invasion, setting against the optimistic conviction of Mr. Arnold-Forster the views of the Duke of Wellington expressed in 1846-.47 and the evidence of Lord Wolseley before the Norfolk Commission in 1903. As against the view that we shall have ample warning of danger, Major-General Russell reminds us that Sir F. Maurice's Memorandum compiled in 1883 showed that between 1700 and 1870 there were no fewer than a hundred and four cases of hostilities without declaration of war. Lord Meath pleads for universal military training for lads, not only as a means of national defence, but as an antidote to militarism. We are glad to note his effective protest against the restriction of the Government grant to Cadet corps which can provide themselves with uniforms as an invidious anomaly. Lord Erroll writes on " The Dearth of Officers.” His view is that while "we are losing the men who are well off and who make excellent officers, especially in the cavalry, because they won't stand so much interference with their liberty, we are not getting the poor men because the pay is not good enough The fact is, the plums are too few to make soldiering a paying profession." There is a good deal of sound sense in Lord Erroll's paper, though he shows a certain bias against the highly educated soldier, and has evidently little sympathy with any attempt to lower the standard of expense in the cavalry. Lastly, we have a plea from Lieutenant- Colonel Alsager Pollock, based on a system tried by himself, for a common-sense training of recruits,—his view being that the young soldier should be taught field duties simultaneously with drill. With refreshing candour, Colonel Pollock tells us that an essential part of his system was "a complete dis- regard of the Regulations ' in all cases where they were found antagonistic to success. The Regulations of those days [1895-97] rendered training difficult, if they were observed ; whilst, in my opinion, the present Regulations have rendered it impossible."—The place of the late Sir Wemyss Reid's notes on the month is taken by a caustic survey of the political situation from the pen of Mr. Herbert Paul.

The anonymous author of the notorious article in the Quarterly on the Czar contributes to the new National another paper hardly less sensational in its tone entitled "The End of the Autocracy." The gist of the article is that the Grand Dukes are deserting the sinking ship of autocracy, and that the Czar, weak, obstinate, and uxorious, disregarding every warning and omen, still con- tinues to block the wheels of progress. The article

• May 6, 1905.1 THE SPECTATOR. 67g

is inspired with an immeasurable contempt ; as the writer himself says, few among his countrymen can be said to be dispassionate ; but the extremely circumstantial character of certain passages seems to preclude the possibility of mere malevolent invention. The picture that he draws of the Czar is not that of a bad or unscrupulous man, but of one "impervious to any deep impressions." " No occurrence, no event, makes a lasting impression on his mind. Abroad our armies may be scattered, our ships sunk, our credit ruined ; he is serene in spite of it all. At home the whole framework of society may be going to pieces, Nicholas sits still and fondly annotates State papers, a very Narcissus of the ink- pot." He is, in short, according to this view, just the sort of Monarch whom Dante would have put into purgatory along

with Henry III., non. per far ma per non fare. As an old- fashioned writer puts it, " imbecile virtue upon a throne, as

affording scope to the evil passions of others, often weighs as grievously upon a people as the daring crimes of ambitious tyranny." The writer's remedy may be given in his own words :—"Autocracy has heated its palace with sparks and must now do penance in the ashes. As for its last representa- tive, whose reign has been a ten years' illness, and whose Empire is a cross between a poorhouse and a hospital, his fate can happily still be shaped by his kindred and friends. But they have no time to lose." This passage may merely point to deposition, but is not altogether void of a certain sinister suggestiveness. We may note that the writer condemns M.

Witte as a time-server, on the ground that when his power was unbounded he used it exclusively for the autocracy, forgetful of the nation, and that it was not till he fell from power that he discovered the existence of the people and made haste to remedy their grievances. The writer has a firm belief in the marvellous recuperative power of his compatriots under normal rule, but at present admits that the nation lacks leaders as well as rulers.—Mr. A. C. Benson's paper on " An Eton Education" (written last autumn before Dr.

Warre's resignation was announced) is extremely interesting in view of the special claims to a bearing possessed by the writer. Mr. Benson is a devoted lover of his school, but he is not afraid to criticise unsparingly the nature of the school curriculum or the methods of instruction employed. Again, he speaks very freely on the "disproportionate belief in the rewards of athletics," asserting that "many boys who are modest, active-minded, kind, generous, pass through Eton without the slightest recognition of their good qualities."

And lastly, he dwells on the bad results of the presence of an immature, inconsistent, and highly elementary code of morals.

His views in regard to reform are excellently summed up when he says : " What I desire with all my heart to see is an increase of the intellectual spirit, a larger share of generous admiration for all effort, a truer view of the end of physical prowess, and a stronger, healthier, morn manly tone of. morals ; more simplicity, less conventionality; a bigger conception of duty, a larger view of patriotism."

The Contemporary has two articles dealing with the Far East. Of these the first, by Mr. T. H. Reid, deals with the wider aspects of the present struggle, and the possibility of a

coalition of the yellow races. Mr. Reid's forecast is tran- quillising so far as the " yellow peril " is concerned. He apprehends no military aggression on the part of the East, holding rather that Japan will carry out her great mission— that of awakening China out of her secular lethargy—in a pacific spirit. " Japan will bring the Eastern races into line with the Western, and it lies with the nations of the West to help and direct, instead of seeking to retard, her efforts to consummate her great task." But while he apprehends little probability of conflict between Japan on the one hand, and France, America, Great Britain, and Holland on the other, he has serious misgivings as to the attitude of Germany, whom he regards as the real menace of the East. This view is not based on mere surmise, but on Germany's record, on the utterances of the semi-official Press, and the trend of recent events in China :—

Shantung for the benefit of German capital—seeks to import into the 'yellow peril' agitation the idea that the Japanese are scheming for the overthrow of the reigning dynasty in China, and are seeking to set up as Emperor Yuan-shi-kai, • having,' according to one of the speakers at Berlin, brought him com- pletely under their influence.' The Germans have a double object in view. They wish to discredit Yuan-shi-kai in the-eyes of his own Government; and they wish to play upon the susceptibilities of the white races by creating a panic about a yellow peril.'"

The other article on Japan is by Mr. Joseph Longford, and deals with the more restricted subject of the com- mercial morality of our allies. The explanation he gives is very simple, and, we believe, quite correct,—viz., the fact that the whole foreign trade of the great commercial cities of Yokohama and Kobe remains in the control of the descendants of the men who first embarked in it, and who are still un- affected by the Code of Bushido. He derives hope, however, from the fact that trade no longer labours under any social stigma, and that men of good birth, " full both by inheritance and training of all the instincts of national pride and honour," are now engaging in commerce.--Professor Vambery replies with great vigour and success to the bitter attack on the Magyars made by Professor Draghicesco, of Bucharest, in the last number. Many of the alleged grievances of the Roumanians in Hungary he shows to be visionary or exaggerated. In particular, he retorts with great force in regard to the alleged favouritism of the Jews that "the toleration shown by the Hungarians to their Jewish fellow-citizens is certainly not to the taste of a Roumanian Our nation would have blushed for ever if the shame of ' Article VII. in the Treaty of the Berlin Congress, in which the Roumanians were taught a lesson in humanity by the whole of Europe, had fallen on it."—Dr. Brandes's paper on " Hans Christian Andersen " gives some curious examples of Andersen's naive vanity, his "vehement, half-childish greed of honour," and of the deplorable pedantry of Danish critics. Dr. Brandes's appreciation of Andersen is both delicate and sympathetic, but there is perhaps too mach autobiography in the paper to please our taste.—We must not omit to call attention to a strangely interesting sketch, founded on fact, and entitled " The Empire Builder," from the pen of Mr. Sydney Olivier.

" Lucas Malet " writes in the Fortnightly a paper upon " The Threatened Re-subjection of Woman." Her view is that there has been little change in the highest and lowest classes, but that a serious state of things has arisen in regard to the middle class. The writer believes that the condition deplored is transitory, and that we may expect a return to the older ideals of womanhood. The doors closed against the activities of women have been forced and now stand open, and the question is asked " Is it not among the constant characteristics of the feminine mind.—a mind, from the beginning of things, somewhat perversely addicted to experimentthat complete liberty to act in a given manner takes away the desire so to act ? " " Lucas Malet" believes that there are indications that a change of fashion is about to take place, and that there will be a return. to the older ideals of the mother and the housewife. At the same time, the experience of emancipation in the past will make it impossible that woman " should ever decline again, unless she herself wills it, to the level of the mere plaything, chattel, or squaw."—Mr. Julius Price adds his testimony as to the remarkable results attained by the Siberian Railway during the war. According to him, it has worked extra- ordinarily well, conveying enormous numbers of men and quantities of stores without collapse. The success is attributed to the remarkable man, Prince Khilkoff, who seems to boa genius. As a young man he renounced titles and estates and emigrated to America, where he began by tending a bolt-making machine at a dollar a day in Philadelphia. Gradually he rose to be an engine-driver, and on one occasion by great skill averted a bad accident to a train. One of the passengers by this train was the Minister of Railways of a South American Republic. Through this man the Russian became a railway manager in Venezuela; but his ambition was to make a position for himself in his own country. On returning home he was given an insignificant place at a small country railway station. This place was the centre of con- stant traffic dislocation, for which no one could find a remedy. Khilkoff, with his American experience, at once discovered the cause, and offered to cure the defect. He was allowed to

680 THE SPECTATOR. [May .6, 1905.

try, and succeeded at once. After this his rise was rapid. Mr. Price tells us that the Russian soldier is better fed than the English. He describes the travelling regimental cooking apparatus as being "a sort of circular iron boiler mounted on what looks like the limber of a gun ; there is a fire-box attached underneath, and the whole invention is so ingeniously constructed that even when on the march the regimental cooks can be getting the men's meal ready, so that there need be no delay when the halt is called."—Mr Stephen Gwynn in discussing " The Irish University Question," a question on the importance of which the Spectator has always insisted, tells us that he favours the plan of so extending Trinity College as to make it possible for Roman Catholics to accept the old institution. This he would do by creating separate Chairs of Theology and Philosophy, and by building a Roman Catholic chapel. He admits that there are difficulties, as some of the extremists insist that all teaching—science, for instance—must be taught in accordance with the tenets of the Roman Church. In a concluding sentence Mr. Gwynn says his plan " postulates desire on both sides to arrive at a compromise ; and even on a sanguine estimate it cannot be said that there is on either the trace of a very coming on disposition."—Mt. H. B. Irving's advice to actors will, it is to be hoped, be studied by the profession. The warnings against egotism are well and forcibly expressed.

The first article in Blackwood is an unsigned attack upon the present policy of the Admiralty. We are told that power is being too largely concentrated in the hands of the First Sea Lord. The writer also maintains that questions of materiel are made to outweigh questions of fighting policy. The selling of old ships is vigorously condemned, and described as "quite contrary to war experience." Altogether, the article is a vigorous criticism of the present state of things at the Admiralty. We shall not attempt on the present occasion to say whether this attack is or is not justified, but -must be content with calling our readers' attention to the fact that it is made. —Colonel Scott Moncrieff's paper, "Sir James Browne and the Harnai Railway," describes both a wonderful personality and a great feat of mountain engineering. The history of the undertaking includes the vacillation of states- men, and the harassing of competent people on the spot by officials at the centre. Mr. Gladstone on coming into office in 1880 caused the abandonment of the projected Kandahar Railway, but three years later the work was ordered to be pushed forward at all possible speed. To save Mr. Gladstone's face, this railway-making was called " The Harnai Road Improvement Scheme," and no rails were to be bought !— indeed a verification of Carlyle's description of the Prime Minister as a sham. The new line had to rise from 300 ft. to 6,500 ft. above the sea ; and the variations of temperature endured by the workers during the year ranged from 120°F. in the valley to 18° F. below zero at the summit. The country, too, was of the most difficult description. During the work, after tunnels and bridges had been advanced and the line was in full swing, Lord Kimberley announced in the House of Lords that the Kandahar State Railway was to be begun, this Parliamentary insincerity being prompted by an advance made by the Russians. An outbreak of cholera on one occasion spread panic among the native staff of clerks at a point on the line, and the Engineer-in-Chief received the following tele- gram from the senior • native clerk :—" All babus at Nari • assembled have in consequence of cholera resolved to resign, and in anticipation of sanction leave to-night. What can a man give in exchange for his soul ? "—An unsigned article on mountaineering truly differentiates between the lover of the mountains who climbs in the true spirit, and the athlete who spends days in gymnastic exercises upon an aiguille. " The Elizabethan age of mountaineers," we are told, " is gone, and if we would be preserved from Jacobean decadence we must hold fast to the great tradition." How this is to be done is discussed, with illustrations taken from the mountains of four continents, without forgetting the rock-climbing to be done in Scotland.

holds the contention of the Charity Organisation Society that it is impossible to distinguish between parents who can and parents who cannot feed their children to be untenable. The plan favoured by Mr. Barrow is that private charity should be called in to the work of administering the free meals by making use of voluntary workers, " so as to prevent the meals being given in a sort of Dotheboys Hall fashion, and to humanise and socialise these dwellers of the slums." The question is a wide one, and not detached from the related questions of housing and alcohol.— Mr. David MacRitchie gives some curious information con- cerning the Gipsies in the fifteenth century. Apparently they were treated by Kings and rulers with extraordinary attention. In 1420, Lord Andreas, a Duke of Little Egypt, with a hundred of his people and forty horses, were received by the town of Deventer, in the Netherlands, and were entertained by the burghers. In Scotland, too, Gipsies were treated with consideration, and stocks and prisons put at the disposal of the King of the Gipsies for his use when governing his own people according to Gipsy law. Emperors gave them passports, and generally they seem to have been treated as favoured people. What is the explanation of this strange state of things is at present wholly obscure, though further research may some day make things clear.—" The Hunt for the Political Secret," by Mr. MacDonagh, is a curious account of the leakage of State secrets. Accident may be the cause of things becoming known, and in proof of this the story is told of the Cabinet draft of the second Home-rule Bill, which was left on a writing-table at the Reform Club by a Minister, and fortunately found by an official private secretary. Also we are told that a volume of highly con- fidential plans and maps of the defences of the Dardanelles prepared for Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet of 1880-84 found its way into a second-hand-book shop. The volume had fallen from the Minister's writing-table into the waste-paper basket, and had so passed to the second-hand dealer, who, finding the Minister's name on it, restored it.