THE MAGAZINES.

WE have already noticed one or two of the papers in the Fortnightly, especially those by Mr. A. Dicey and Mr. MacColl, on the relation of the Clergy of the Church of England to the law, and the one on "The, Social Discipline of the Liberal Party." Mr. John Macdonell sends another very good one on the law of blasphemy, which he maintains, differing therein from Sir James Stephen, has varied in every age with the current of opinion. The statutes remained unchanged, except by the repeal of William ILL's law for the protection of the doctrine of the Trinity; but the tone was changed and the Judges' with it, until in the period between 1797 and 1817 the Judges' charges became constantly evasive. They were willing enough to say that such and such a publication was a blasphemous libel, but they were not willing to state distinctly what kind of denial of Christianity was a civil crime. Lord Coleridge is willing, and his dictum that any belief may be assailed if the decencies of controversy be observed, is, in Mr. Macdonell's opinion, perhaps "the first clear rule on the subject expressed from the Bench by an English Judge." The law, however, even when thus explained, is harsh, and as Mr. Macdonell points out, might be interpreted by Judges without juries so as to have serious civil consequences. For instance, a bequest for the publication of Buchner's or Hackers works, or, we should imagine, Darwin's Descent of Man, must inevitably be held invalid. Moreover, even if Christianity is protected, no special form of religion, if nnestablished, is, and the Jew, or the Swedenborgian, or, we may add, the Roman Catholic, may be subjected to merciless ridicule or direct abuse. He would, therefore, repeal the blasphemy laws, and substitute for them the Indian law, which makes attack on any religion with the intention of insult a penal offence, adding, however, the proviso that the insult must be serious. Even that law, however, might be worked so as seriously to hamper controversy, and we disagree with Mr. Macdonell in his proposal that the magistrate shall decide, and not a jury. The country clergyman, who is often the magistrate in a country district, is hardly qualified for the exercise of such great power. Mr. Boulger's paper on China, though not novel, except in the paragraphs as to the jealousy felt in Pekin for the landborne trade of the Empire, is very thoughtful and convincing. Mr. Boulger's proposition is that China cannot maintain her authority over her distant provinces without a great army, unless she keeps foreigners from her frontiers, and that the ruling men in Pekin are thoroughly aware of this. They will, therefore, struggle energetically to keep the Russians out of Kuldja and the French out of Tonquin, and ourselves out of Thibet ; and they will, Mr. Boulger thinks, succeed. They have millions upon millions of brave and hardy subjects who approve the ancient system, and they will in the end succeed in making from them a formidable army. If the Empire were really endangered, he believes that the Chinese would demand, and perhaps ensure, a total cessation of all foreign intercourse. Mr. Sydney Buxton draws a frightful picture of the state of Connaught, with its congested population, and shows that emigration from it has hitherto been far less than from richer districts. Some counties have lost 10 per cent, of their people, but -Galway has lost only 3 per cent., and Mayo only per cent. Moreover, in the latter counties, thoee who go are exclusively the bread-winners, the strong young men, the remainder being too poor. These latter, moreover, are growing poorer, all accidental sources of income dying away, while the land becomes less and less productive of corn. Mr. Buxton therefore argues strongly for family emigration, and shows that wherever it takes place the population does not fill up, but remains thinner, and the

holdings are consolidated. He thinks, moreover, that the relief required is sometimes exaggerated, and that the departure of 25,000 families will make a sensible difference.

This number of the National Review is decidedly the best which has appeared. Mr. A. J. Balfour's argument that the Tories are criticising, not obstructing, is most temperately written, and supported by figures which show that the Liberals in 1881 and in the debates on Supply in 1882 consumed more time than the Tories. That does not prove that the Tories were not obstructing, for the object of the consumption of time must be considered; but it does prove that blank denial has been abandoned for argument, which is an advance. Mr. Colquhoun, the explorer, sends a most valuable account of the great Shan race, who now occupy the whole of Indo-China, except the portions immediately touching the seaboard. They are keen

traders, devoted to their independence, and have shown such vigour that the Chinese have never been able to conquer them. Mr. Colquhonn believes they will contend just as successfully against the French, though he does not draw the deduction we should, that the two peoples should be left to fight out their own battle. Mr. Mallock is as bitter as usual, and much, more shallow, in his article on "The Radicalism of the Market place," which is really only an extension of the old

taunt that the cause of Liberalism is envy. He says that a minority, the new middle-class which has risen within thirty years, wants to oust the old families from their position in theland, and, that this is the root of Radicalism such as Mr. Chamberlain's. His object is not democracy, but middle-class sovereignty. All we can say in reply is that if so, the object is sought in a very curious way, for the new Radicals are steadily, and, as many think, rashly increasing the power of the work men, whose love for the new aristocracy is very small. It is certainly not in the interests of Villadom that they are en franchising the agricultural labourers, whose votes, wherever they go, will certainly not go to the kings of the counting..

house. The whole argument belongs to another age than ours. There is force, to us unexpected, in Earl Percy's answer to the question, "What is a Whig P" We cannot agree with a sentence in the answer, but Lord Percy clearly has an opinion, and expresses it with a strength and a moderation which in his speeches we do not find. His charge against the modern Whigs is that they are opportunists ; that, unlike the Radicals, whose "intense belief in general principles" gives them strength and energy, they attend only to what is immediately before them, and so drift in the direction settled by their more resolute allies, the Radicals. They "regard politics as a field to which tentative processes only are applicable," and therefore lose all power. There is a certain trath in the statement, but Earl Percy should not forget that in accepting movement, even if it be blindly, the Whigs check and regulate it ; and that if, as he wishes, they seceded from the Liberals, the country would be split into two camps, those ' who possess or approve privilege, and the entire remainder. That would not be a safe situation for men of his opinions, who

in fact regard with distrust any further change, as leadinginevitably to Revolution, not, he is careful to say, in the sense of anarchy or disorder, but in the sense of a change in the fundamental principles of accepted political science. Mr. Moffat in his

paper" On National Unity" maintains that this change has gone so far already that a straggle of principles is at hand, and that national unity is already lost, as it is among some nations of the Continent. There is no idea common to the whole people upon which general action can be based. We believe Mr.

Moffat wrong in his facts, the cleavage of ideas being more shallow than he supposes, but he points to a danger which statesmen are feeling very seriously. We seem to approach a time during which parties may be, at least apparently, irreconcileable. Mr. Saintsbury, in his sketch of Quinet, is amusing and shrewd, as usual ; and Mr. Austin's poem in defence of the Northern Spring deserves a less foolish title than "Lines to an Unknown Cockney." It is fall both of poetry and feeling for Nature, and after a fine burst of appreciation of the South, "where fades not flower, nor falls the leaf," ends thus :—

"But none of these, nor all, can match,

At least for him who loves to watch The wild-flowers come, hear wild birds sing, The raptare of an English Spring.

With as it loiters more than where It comes, it goes, half-unaware; Makes winter short, makes summer long,

In autumn half renews its song,

Nor even then doth hence depart, But hybernates within my heart."

Professor Goldwin Smith, in the Nineteenth antury, asks why we should send more Irish to "America," that is, Canada .or the Northern States, and would prefer to send them elsewhere, to Crown Colonies, or even to the Southern States. The article is, however, in the main, a tirade against the Irish, a lecture on the expediency of putting down "the rebellion of the vote." The answer is clearly that the Irish will only go to America, that abase of them, just or unjust, is of no more use than scolding at one's wife, and that -a rebellion of the vote cannot be suppressed by mere force, any more than a rebellion of opinion. We must convert the votes, not silence them, if the country is to be governed by the Parliamentary system at alL Mr. Finlayson, in a paper on "Falling Trade and Factory Legislation," attributes the occasional defeats of English manufacturers by foreigners to over-humane legislation, which has reduced the hours of labour, and sighs for a return to the old thirteen hours per diem as the proper stint of work. He might as well ask for the eighteenth century back again, and even if he were Tight, would be sacrificing to success the objects of success. If the English cannot live here with fifty-four hours of toil a week, they are better elsewhere. Mr. W. Bromley Davenport repeats the well-worn arguments in favour of foxhunting, in a good-humoured, breezy style, which it is pleasant to read. He does not argue that fox-hunting is a divine duty, but that it is a pleasing folly, good to be kept up, for the happiness it confers. He dreads a saturnalia of prigs, an apotheosis of claptrap, and fears that a day is coming when "the butcher shall lie down with the lamb, the alderman with the turtle, and the oyster shall not be eaten without atuesthetics ; when nature itself shall be under the eye of the police, and detectives watch the stoat's pursuit of the rabbit and keep guard over spider's webs ; when all property (and not in land -alone, my advanced friend !) save that of Hardware magnates, -who have made a monopoly and called it peace, shall be confiscated as an unearned increment' to the State," and when many other woes shall be on the land. It is all nonsense, but Mr. Davenport writes nonsense with a vigorous heartiness that Radicals should appreciate. Mr. Howell sends an instructive paper on "The Dwellings of the Poor" and the operations of the Peabody Trust, and evidently agrees with Lord Salisbury that the State ought to extend the system by lending money for the construction of more Peabody houses at low rates of interest. He should promote the Government plan of creating a corporation for London strong enough to grapple with the evil. Mr. George W. E. Russell, in spite of his hereditary position, is nearly as sharp upon the Whigs as Earl Percy, declaring that it is impossible to become a Whig, that the men of the party are born so, and that " Whiggery will have no place in the Liberalism of -the future, because it distrusts the people." Is not that a little like Frederick the Great's "You ought to love me, sirrah " ? Demos, as we hold, is rightful monarch, but a little gentle distrust of any monarch is a security for liberty. We are unable to forget that if one people elects Lincoln, and another Grevy, a third, with hurrahing and delight, sends up Parnell. Prince Krapotkine continues his argument with Mr. Lansdell about Russian prisons, and gives at least one frightful and authenticated story -of the confinement of a prisoner for fifteen years in a dark and damp cell. This was M. Pushkin, who was only released in 1881, having been confined for that long period in solitude because he expected a new Messiah to descend. There are two agricultural papers, in one of which Mr. J. Howard shows that the Tories are not the farmer's friends ; while in another, Mr. W. E. Bear -criticises the Agricultural Holdings Bill, first, because of the agreement clauses, which, he thinks, make the Bill permissive; secondly, because it does not protect the sitting tenant; and thirdly, because it retains the right of distress, even for one year. It is satisfactory to find that so steady an advocate of tenant-right as Mr. Bear has discovered no new defects in the Bill. Mr. Blanchard Jerrold's paper on "The Manufacture of Public Opinion" has the merit of originality. He maintains that the great debating clubs, of which a hundred have been opened all over England, and which imitate the procedure of the House of Commons, form a great educational agency, in which the subject of education is politics. The amateur members take to their work earnestly, and their rules of procedure are clearer and more definite than those of the House of Commons. They usually limit speeches to ten minutes, and insist on a division on the fourth night, at the latest. Mr. Jerrold, we think, exaggerates their influence ; but such as it is, it is undoubtedly beneficial. By far the most readable article in the heavier magazines of June is Mr. Train's, in the Contemporary, headed, "Wanted, an Elisha." Mr. Trail! answers Lord Randolph Churchill, and boldly intimates his doubts whether Lord Beaconsfield ever was an Elijah, whether he had any mantle, that is, any policy, to leave; and whether, if he was Elijah, and did leave a mantle, and Lord Salisbury has received it, anything will come of those facts. Mr. Traill's theory is that defeats in Parliament are of little moment to the Government, for the householders scarcely notice them ; that the sway of opinion in the electorate is absolutely beyond the ken of the most experienced, and that in all human probability the voters will insist on a change when they want repose, and not before. He adds that Lord Beaconsfield's idea, if he had one, was to conciliate the masses by improving their condition, that although he brought out this notion in 1871, he never acted on it, and that the probability is it was one of his many dreams. Even if it was not, the policy is not a working one, for though there may be Democracy in it, there is no " Toryness." There is nothing in the conception on which the Liberals could not outbid their rivals. The article is the more striking because the rest of the number is a little heavy. We doubt if M. Emile de Laveleye's proposal to neutralise the Congo by placing the control of the river in the hands of an International Commission is not a little premature, and England certainly will not as yet declare all stations on the Congo founded by the International African Association neutral. Nobody could protect their neutrality but herself, and she has more African work already on hand than she can well manage. The article contains, however, a lucid account of recent explorations. Miss Cobbe writes a fine protest against that doctrine of hereditary conscience, as distinguished from intuitive conscience, which she says is necessary to the Agnostic system, and must ultimately kill morality, leaving only a kind of rule of the road. She maintains that with agnosticism triumphant, there would be no Father, and, therefore, no obligation of benevolence, and no personal duty owing to man himself by himself. There would be nothing but duty to the community, which would perish under the sense that its fulfilment or neglect would in a short time not matter. Yes, and would not duty to the community produce, instead of pity, mercilessness ? If that duty is to be the sole law, the killing-out of the unmanageable would seem to be the most effective method of improvement. Suppose we hang the whole criminal class, all hereditary paupers, and all incurable idiots and lunatics, would not the race have a much better chance ? And if it would, which is undeniable, where, if there is no God, no future state, and no duty except to the community, is the objection ? Sir Arthur Hobhouse argues with great wealth of illustration and evidence that the Ilbert Bill is a necessary consequence of all recent Indian legislation, and is essential to our policy of doing equal justice to all, subjects. If it is so, cadit qucestio ; but the opponents of the Bill argue that the white man is as much entitled to justice as the dark man, and that he does not get it when he is made amenable to a Judge who, from radical differences of creed, civilisation, and upbringing, is unable to understand him. Mr. Gordon Cumming, in defending cremation, gives some curiously disgusting details of American funerals. The practice of making the dead look alive has there developed an art, and the embalmed and painted corpse is exhibited to friends in a " casket " with a glass top, and lined with different-coloured velvets :—" A gentleman returning from the Philadelphia Exhibition told me that he bad heard two ladies discussing the exhibits, and they agreed that the Funeral Department was quite the most interesting. Said the first, Oh I that lovely casket of delicate blue velvet lined with palerose satin so beautifully quilted!' ' Well,' said the other, 'for my part,I preferred the black velvet with crimson-velvet lining. You know, crimson is so becoming to a corpse !'" Mr. Sheldon Amos defends the new Egyptian Constitution with needless vehemence. Already the world has decided that nothing is wanting to it, except the public spirit which must be its motivepower.

The Cornhill announces that from next month its price is to be sixpence, and it is to be "readable from cover to cover." That is an excellent promise, but then, readable to whom ? Apparently, to those who love short stories ; but there may be better matter behind. Macmillan is already under its new management, and its editor contributes a thoroughly workmanlike account of the politics of the month, full of interest and suggestion. We cannot agree with it all, especially with the prophecy that we shall annex Zululand ; but in every page there is something to arrest attention, e.g., the remarks on the universality of " block " in the legislatures of the world. The sketch of Mr. W. It. Greg is delicate, as well as appreciative, though the praise given him for humility covers too large a surface of his mind. Like most strong men, Mr. Greg believed in himself on points with decision. The paper styled "French Souvenirs," really a study of M. du Camp and some of his friends, by "IL A. W.," is a fine example of delicate, whitelight criticism, by a mind almost pitilessly impartial. This is new to us. We had fancied that in France the litteratear was well paid :— " Another is the impression of the material difficulties which surround the French literary man. As we all know, pure literature is nowhere a very lucrative profession. But certainly it would seem that in France the intelligent reading public is niore limited, and the rewards of the critic or the poet more scanty than amongst ourselves. Alfred de Musset would gladly have sold the copyright of all his poems, towards the end of his life, for a life-income of £100 a year. Theophile Gautier earned a bare pittance oat of his dramatic feuilleton for the Presse, and found existence a hard struggle to the end. Flaubert, after his generosity to his family had ruined him, thankfully accepted a post of about £100 a year at the Mazarin Library, well knowing that he could not count upon his pen to support him. Charles Barbara was all but killed by the intensity of the writer's struggle to live ; and so on. In England, the reading public is more widely diffused ; in France, for literary, as for political purposes, Paris is the country."