MAGAZINES.

WE deal in our leading columns with by far the most im- portant of the topical articles in the October Nineteenth Century—Mr. Edgar Crammond's masterly survey of the financial difficulties of Home Rule. Mr. W. S. Lilly writes on " The Philosophy of Strikes," condemning in no uncertain terms the excesses of the strikers. The recent strike in his opinion has shown four measures to be indisputably necessary : the creation of special tribunals to settle industrial disputes, the total abolition of picketing, the stern repression of disturbances of the public peace, and the acquisition by the State of the railways. We have so often given our reasons for thinking the nationalization of the railways to be a huge mistake that we shall not inflict them again on our readers. In our opinion, and not ours alone, the recent railway strike has given a great set- back to this movement.—The Rev. Cyril Emmet deals with " Liberty of Criticism within the Church of England." The peg on which his paper is hung is the case of Mr. Thomp- son, but he is not concerned to examine the soundness or unsoundness of Mr. Thompson's opinions. His aim is rather to consider the teaching of history as illustrated in the last -fifty years by the controversies which arose over Hampden's Bampton Lectures, Maurice's ejection from his Professorship at King's College, the Gorham case, Essays and Reviews, the condemnation of Colenso, the publication of Lux Mundi, and other attempts to repress heterodoxy. The article is very long, but there is no hesitancy about Mr. Emmet's conclusions. The policy of repression, he declares, is always mistaken. Toleration does not imply approval, and the ferment of present-day thought, in religion as elsewhere, demands a wise suspension of judgment. Lastly, "our view of truth is dynamic not static. Our insight into the meaning of the Christian relation grows continually. We believe in the Holy Ghost, who not only spake by the Prophets, but, in accordance with the promise of Christ, reveals to each age of the Church aspects of truth which it could not bear before."—Lady Paget gives us a delightful budget of reminiscences headed " When Florence was the Capital," with graphic portraits and anecdotes of King Victor Emmanuel, Minghetti—il fanciullo eterno, as he was called because of his naif belief in goodness—Sir James Hudson, Count Usedom and his eccentric wife, and many others.-- Of Captain Mark Kerr's exhaustive paper on Nelson's much- debated Trafalgar Memorandum we can only say that it maintains, as against recent critics, that Nelson adhered to the plan which he had prepared months before, and explained to his admirals and captains ; in short, that the Memorandum was carried out.—General Frederick Maunsell, K.C.B., con- tributes "A Reminder of the Siege of Delhi from One who was Present." As the senior surviving officer of the Royal Engineers who served under General Sir Alexander Taylor, G.C.B., he is chiefly concerned to make good the dying words of Nicholson : " Taylor took Delhi, and if I live through this, the world shall know it," and to explain how it came about that this fact was never fully brought out either in despatches or in any of the histories or narratives of the event.— Miss Emily Hickey writes with enthusiasm, not untempered by criticism, of Robert Browning. It is curious, she notes, that he does not seem to have cared much for children, and she hazards the opinion that in this he resembled Shakespeare, in whose plays, with the exception of Arthur in King John, " nearly all the children are keen-witted, sharp-tongued folk." —We may note, in conclusion, Lady Blomfield's paper on "Our Moslem Sisters," illustrating the advance of the

feminist movement in Turkey from the appeal of a Turkish princess to her compatriots and co-religionists. The princess thoroughly sympathizes with a free educational policy for Turkish ladies, provided it ioes not offend against the rules of her religion, which she sh ,ws to be actually most favour- able to her countrywoman, "though centuries of misinterpre- tation have made them forget the broad and noble sphere which the founder of their faith fully intended them to enjoy."

The " Episodes of the Month" in the National .Review are mainly devoted to the Canadian Elections, which afford th editor abundant opportunities for abuse of Cobdenism, Ambassador Bryce," the white flag brigade, the weathercock Press, and " our present damnable system " of party politics. Ulster's example is warmly commended, but we are warned that " something suspicious occurred last autumn in connexion with Home Rule," and all Unionists are advised to remain toujours en vedette. At the same time lavish praise is bestowed on the Observer for its prescience and intrepidity. But the violence of the editorial comments is eclipsed by an article headed " The Champion Scuttler," i.e., Mr. Balfour, and signed "B. M. G." According to the writer Mr. Balfour's services have been rendered, not to his own, but to the Radical.

Party, of which be has become the chief asset. " The Unionist Party is condemned to impotence and powerless for good so long as it has as its nominal leader Mr. Balfour," who is further charged with being in league with Mr. Asquith.

—Lord Willoughby de Broke, who writes on " The Tory Tradition," at any rate abstains from the violent and puerile personalities which have unhappily become the rule in recent numbers of the National Review. His advice to the National Party is simple : " The road to power as well as to office can only be found in the first instance in the study of the Law and the Prophets of Conservatism and by adhering to their doctrines. Let us drink copiously at the fount of Bolingbroke, Pitt, and Beaconsfield." We are glad to see that in endorsing the counsel of Lord Robert Cecil, who recently observed that the first necessity of the Conservative Party is to be Conservative, he adds that the first duty of the Unionist Party is to be Unionist. And we readily own that there is a danger of overdoing magnanimity.

" The tendency on our part to praise the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary for merely performing the primary functions of government in a domestic crisis which has mainly been created by their own speeches in the country, and for the underlying causes of which they have no cure, was a piece of consideration entirely thrown away. The satisfaction expressed at seeing Mr. George rebutting Mr. Keir Hardie in the House of Commons was premature. The Minister went down to Wales a few days afterwards, and began his old game of setting class against class. Mr. George does more harm in ten minutes than Mr. Keir Hardie does in ten years."

It is a relief, however, to turn from the political to the literary and miscellaneous articles in the National Review.

Mr. Austin Dobson contributes one of his delightful eighteenth-century studies on " Garrick's ' Grand Tour," suggested by the valuable monograph on David Garrick et ses Antis Francais recently published by M. Hedgcock. Garrick was not only amazingly popular in Paris, but it is pleasant to learn that he did not forget his French friends. The legend that he came of noble French extraction is conclusively demolished : his immediate ancestors were frankly middle-class and commercial ; "but Huguenot and Bordelais, with a dash of Irish vivacity from the maternal aide, is by no means a bad histrionic blend."— Another excellent paper is that on " Voltaire and his Age," by Professor Pelham Edgar, in which, amongst many other interesting points, we may specially note the passages which deal with Voltaire's talent for finance and the contrast between his humanitarian zeal and his contempt for the rabble.-

" Voortrekker," who writes on " The Problem of South. Africa," propounds a drastic solution of the problem of Imperial Defence, i.e., to remove immediately all British

troops in South Africa. " While they remain no action will be taken. . . . The presence of troops in the country blinds the ' man in the street' to the necessity of protecting himself from within and without."

In the Contemporary Mr. B. Seebolim Rowntree discusses "The Industrial Unrest" from the point of view of a humani- tarian whose attitude towards the strikers is certainly non iniquus. Professor Bowley's estimate that the number of industrial workers earning under 25s. a week is over one and a half million forms his starting point, and he proceeds to show by the aid of an actual working-man's weekly budget what kind of life is possible for men receiving such wages.

He lays stress on the uncertainty of regular employment under which the unskilled labourer suffers and on the lack• of consideration and petty tyranny of overlookers. " Though probably most employers and overlookers treat their men considerately, this is not the case with them all." Instances of harsh treatment are in his opinion not excep- tional. The working classes, he holds, are no better off for the recent boom in trade and the increased wealth of tha, nation. This line of argument—we say nothing of its cogency —ia only too familiar, but we suddenly come upon a new and curious piece of observation

"A second reason for the present industrial unrest is to be found in the growing discrepancy between the standard of com- fort of the labouring classes and of the class just above them. While the man with 18s. to 25s. a week is still forced to spend it as he would have done two decades ago, the man left with a small margin after supplying the demands of physical efficiency can satisfy a greater variety of desires every year. I need only remind the reader of the halfpenny newspapers, the extremely low prices of admission to excellent theatrical and musical enter- tainments, cheap excursions, cheap books, and facilities for thrift and insurance on attractive terms. Even apart from the wider range of choice in food and other necessaries, it may be said that the advantage which a family with 30s. a week has over one with £1 a week is greater than it ever was before. It is probable that even the luxury of the rich does not rouse in the labourer so acute a sense of the inadequacy of his own resources as the greater comfort and freedom from monotony enjoyed by the class just above him."

Mr. Rowntree also places education and the effects of hygienic propaganda amongst the causes of unrest. His conclusion is that " recognition " is inevitable and that employers will have to raise wages. This he admits may raise the cost of production for a time and lessen the return upon capital, but "improved methods of organization and new machinery will, in the great majority of industries, very soon bring it down again, at any rate to the old level." How this is to be reconciled with that cardinal tenet of the new trade unionism—which he accepts—that hours and wages are to be regulated so as to make the work go round as wide a circle as possible, and to depress individual efficiency to the level of the least efficient, Mr. Rowntree fails to explain.--Mr. J. M. Robertson, M.P., states : " The Case Against a Second Chamber " in a very significant paper. A non-elective body with veto powers is, in his opinion, out of the question, and as Liberals in general are unable to make out any rational case for an elective Second Chamber with or without veto powers, " why cannot they make up their minds to 4o without one altogether ? " He then continues :— " This question, which may seem surprising inview of the Govern- ment's undertaking to draft a Second Chamber scheme of some kind, takes on a new aspect when put in connexion with the coming problem of Home Rule, which has thus far been excluded from our discussion. Liberals, obviously, are bound to reflect that their Second Chamber principle, if they have one, ought to be applicable to the parliament they propose to confer upon Ireland ; and, in the event of an extension of devolution to Scotland, Wales and England, to those parts of the Kingdom also. Is Home-Rule-all- round to mean four sets of sectional parliaments, each with two Chambers, of which the second shall have either revising or veto powers ? The development from the Home Rule Bill of 1886 to that of 1893 is significant of the rapid ripening of the problem. The Bill of 1886 provided for two "orders," of which "the first," number- ing 103, was to consist of 28 peers and 75 elected members, with a property qualification. The second order was to consist of 204 elected members without a property test. The two orders were to deliberate and vote together ; but as a majority of either order could demand a separate vote, and a conflict was to resolve the question in the negative, the smaller or "first" order had a virtual power of veto. In the Bill of 1893 all this was changed. The smaller body was to be a Legislative Council of 48, all to be elected, with a small property qualification ; while the larger was to be a Legislative Assembly of 103 elected members. They were not to sit together ; but the veto power of the Council was limited to two years, whereafter a measure rejected by it was to be discussed and voted on by the two Houses together. The question now is, Shall the Home Rule Bill of 1912 repeat the provisions of that of 1893 ? Most Liberals, surely, will answer that the question must be answered with an eye to future devolution for the other parts of the Kingdom. Do we want Second (or, in terms of Gladstone's " First ") Chambers for Ireland, England, Scotland, and Wales, plus a Second Chamber in the Central or Imperial Parlia- ment, plus the County Councils now existing in all four sections ? If the County Councils, like the Municipal and District Councils, can do their work satisfactorily without two Chambers, why should the sectional parliaments require them? And if these can be satisfactorily constructed as single Chambers, why need the Imperial Parliament have two ?

We have to thank Mr. Robertson for unconsciously adding to the battery of arguments against Home Rule. "It is," he observes, "kstaggering reflection that if Gladstone could have carried his Home Rule Bill in 1886 he would have established in Ireland a Second Chamber which to his own judgment in 1893 would have been highly objectionable."—Mr. C. E. Mallet sets forth the case for Reciprocity in an excellent article in which he insists that national influences and Canadian in- terests count for more than Preferential tariffs. On the annexation scare he writes with admirable point: "Alarmed Protectionists who are unwilling to trust Canadian loyalty may

confidently count upon Canadian pride. The theory that more trade with America must mean less affection for Great Britain is not only an idle illusion; it is an insult to the Canadian people." But whatever decision Canada takes, no British party

can dispute her right to take it. We could not interpose without violating one of the governing maxims of our Empire— fiscal freedom for our self-governing Dominions.—The Rev. J. FromeWilkinson waxes lyrical over the National Insurance Bill, and Sir Andrew Fraser appeals for support on behalf of the movement to raise £250,000 for the education of the Domiciled Community in India—i.e., for children of European descent, whether pure or mixed.—We may also note Miss le Pelley's

reply to Mr. A. C. Benson's appeal to the heads of the Church

to state bow the Bible should be taught, and Dr. E. J. Dillon's striking tribute to the moderation, the unflinching courage, and the single-minded devotion to his sovereign and country of the late M. Stolypin.

Writing in the Fortnightly Mr. Ellis Barker reviews the Morocco crisis. He shows how vacillating German policy has been in the past, and how it desires things, now hard to get, which it might have got easily some years ago. In trying to accomplish her aims Germany has sought to attain them by threats, and her diplomacy has been blundering and uncertain, so much so that a university professor, writing in the Post, recently declared :—

"In Germany the conviction has become general that we are no longer capable of energetic effort, that our latest diplomatic action in Morocco is likely to become as miserable a failure as the numerous diplomatic actions preceding it. . . . We have no longer any confidence in those who direct our foreign policy. We have repeatedly changed our leading statesmen, but our vacillation, incapacity, and untrustworthiness have remained unaltered during the last twenty years."

The danger of the situation to us is, as Mr. Barker points out that a discredited diplomacy may seek to recover its prestige in another direction, and that we ourselves may be used as a lightning conductor. Such incidents as the sham interview- I*

with Sir Fairfax Cartwright, reproduced by all the semi- official newspapers of Germany, and articles like the one on " The True Hereditary Enemy," which Mr. Barker quotes from the Standarte, are not hopeful indications, nor for the matter of that is Bismarck's dictum that " no great Power can be tied by the wording of a treaty which is opposed to the interests of the people."—" Curio" writes his " Thoughts

on Unionist Discontents." The article is a temperately worded plea for the assumption of the leadership of the Unionist party by Mr. Austen Chamberlain. Mr. Balfour is blamed for the ineffectualness of his leading, and the reason assigned for this is the fact that he has been willing to take advice from people whose outlook was wholly different from his own.

" There is hope for a party when its leader makes a mistake, as long as it is his own mistake. But that party has no pro-- spects in which the leader is constantly adopting policies and expedients which are alien to his whole temperament and abilities." " Curio " traces the history of the rejection of the

Budget. A conjunction of the rising and setting stars of

the Observer and Highbury proclaimed a forward policy, Mr. Balfour adopted it, but after delivering the blow returned to the Conservative attitude natural to himself. Even if we are thank- ful that Mr. Balfour did not continue to draw inspiration from the rashest of his followers, we can agree with the wisdom of the following remark :—" But if followers are often rash, in giving advice. leaders are rasher still in bowing to

dictates which consort ill with their own habits of mind. But rashest of all is the habit of taking counsel of one school in one month and acting upon it and then taking the advice of another school and acting on that to the utter ruin of both alternative policies suggested."—M. Maeterlinck writes of Death, and quotes- Napoleon's saying that "the doctors and the priests have long been making death grievous." There is something to be said for the writer's plea that doctors should not consider it

their duty to prolong life for days or even hours where the end is inevitable ; the difficulty, of course, comes in deciding that- inevitability has been reached. M. Maeterlinck seems to con- sider that the religious attitude is merely of the mediaeval Dance of Death kind, and with the view taken by St. Paul he seems less acquainted. Annihilation is thus ingeniously die- posed of. " To be able to do away with a thing, that is to say, to fling it into nothingness, nothingness would have to exist; and, if it exist under whatever form, it is no longer nothing: ness."—Mr. Walter Sichel writes a sympathetic study of

Gilbert, under the extravagant title of "The English Aristo- phanes," and Miss Hallam Moorhouse gives us a picture of " Nelson as seen in his letters."

Miss Gertrude Bell's article in Blackwood, "Asiatic Turkey tinder the Constitution," is of great interest, especially at the present moment. Her view may be summarized as follows. In the remote places excellent work is being done by young and capable soldiers, who are reduc-

ing the country to order, making life more secure, promoting education, and affording police protection without bribery. The civil administration is not quite so efficient, largely because the civilians have not had the advantages of foreign travel and education possessed by the soldiers. But when it comes to the central government Miss Bell is more doubtful. Local officials declare that now it is even more difficult to get questions referred to headquarters decided than formerly. In old days a bribe might ensure a hearing; now this means has been put an end to, and has not been replaced by a sufficiently effective administration. Miss Bell says :—" I came out of the Asiatic provinces convinced that Constantinople was the stumbling-block in the path of progress, and what I saw and heard when I was there did not convert me to another opinion." The writer is severe on the subject of the Christians, who asked for the right to enter the army and now try to evade the -responsibility, or when there desert. That difficulties should arise seems inevitable when we consider the past treatment of Christians, however regret- ; table now this state of things may be. The Armenians, we are told, have shown a manlier spirit, and enter the army in great numbers. An archbishop, one of Miss Bell's great friends, told her that upon inquiry he found his people had nothing to complain of in the army, there being no difference made between them and the Moslems, and no jealousy or prejudice.

The article concludes with this significant paragraph :—

" How essential it is that the moral tone of the Christian AP populations should be raised we who know something of Asia can measure to the full. Their impotence provokes the attack which can be made without fear of reprisals. Massacre stands in Asia at the back of all our thoughts; it casts a shadow over all our predictions. We know the Christians to be helpless pieces in the political game. For wholesale massacre is not born of local conditions, it is instigated from without. And those of us who hold the Committee responsible for the terrible Cilician outbreak of two years ago (I speak with a conviction slowly and reluctantly acquired) dread lest, in,the struggle for mastery at Constantinople, the Committee may once more call upon that latent fanaticism which, in complete ignorance of the secret purpose which has roused it will destroy confidence and wipe out hope. The struggle is now engaged. Those who wish well to the Ottoman Empire must desire to see it result in giving to the moderate liberal elements a preponderating share in directing the pollcy of the State, for they alone can find a solution to the difficulties with which Turkey is beset."

—" Outside the pale of the law " is one of those stories which make the Englishman living at home realize the meaning of a chance paragraph in a newspaper relating to trouble on the Indian frontier arising out of raiders from the hills descend- ing into the lowland villages. Here we have not only the incident of the bandit and his followers being surrounded in a tomb, but also a description of the process which causes the formation of these lawless bands. Adventurous spirits in border villages get into trouble with the authorities and take to the hills, where they join together under a leader, and attach themselves to a tribe. From their mountain security, and with local knowledge of their old homes, they descend both to plunder and pay off old scores, till the fate described in the story overtakes them. Mr. Vernede recounts the incidents of a day when he accompanied the Collector on a visit to a Bengalee school when the prizes were given away. On the road rivers had to be passed swarming with crocodiles, of which the writer gives a horrible description. At one place as many as fifty were seen lying on the banks together, and the Collector estimated that in his district in one year three hundred people were devoured by these creatures. The prize-giving was accompanied by speeches by eminent local Balms, and

when all was over the Collector received a present of fruit and the following letter from the schoolmaster, which began : - "God Have our District Magistrate!

"Hounoured Sir,—I beg you to accept as kindly gift in departing 6 pomegranate fruits, 6 oranges, 2 doz. walnuts, and 1 bottle of hair lotion. The latter is restorative to hair, and invaluable after much toil to weak brain."

—In Musings without Method is to be found a thoughtful study of " Macbeth " and some reflections on the performances now taking place of the play in London. The author records that once again the vicious procedure of swamping the drama in the staging has taken place, as, indeed, it is done in all the Shakespeare productions at His Majesty's Theatre. Action is delayed so that processions and dances may encumber the play, and the vast and misplaced ingenuity of the producer merely results, as the writer says, in achie.ing a series of Academy pictures ; to be able to suggest such a comparison indicates what a "deep damnation" the actor-manager has prepared for himself. The verdict of the critic is that he regrets "the elaborate production of 'Macbeth' the more because if Sir Herbert Tree had rid himself of his encum- brances, and had realized that the art of drama is higher than the art of tableaux vivants, he might have given us the best Macbeth' of our generation."

The theme of Mr. Wharton Metcalfe's article in The United Service Magazine is the relation of sea power to human pro- gress. It is, of course, very difficult in such a case to decide which is cause and which effect : whether the Elizabethan seamen made the intellectual and material development of England, or whether they were products of a sudden and general stimulation of national vigour. All the same the- survey in this article is an interesting one, showing as it does the connexion between such men as Drake, Hawkins, and Blake and the national greatness of the times in which they lived. "Denkmal " continues his study of the Waterloo campaign on this occasion he treats of the loss of time by Napoleon on June lfith. The Emperor's strategy hinged on attacking the Allies before they could join forces ; hence the avoiding of delay was all important. The difficulty is to account for the loss of time which occurred. The writer of the paper considers that, though some allowance is to be made for faulty staff work, the real cause was Napoleon's false estimate of Wellington's character.-- Dr. Miller Maguire gives us an account of the generalship and intellectual qualities of Montecucculi, the Italian in the service of the Empire who opposed Turenne. Montecucculi was an instance of a man who had made a profound studyof the eternal laws of strategy in the abstract and then put them into practice with success.--" Ex-Non-Com." writes of " Soldiers and Strike Duty." He says that the great self- restraint habitually shown by the troops upon this most highly uncongenial duty arises from the fact that they feel so. strongly the inequality of the struggle—rifles against stones. He thinks that soldiers would be glad if the strike leaders' threats to arm the mob were carried out, not only because the weapons would be probably most dangerous to the strikers themselves, but it would take away the natural dislike of soldiers to firing on unarmed men. The writer is very strongly of opinion that soldiers on strike duty should be under the- same conditions of pay and allowances as if they were on active service.