Page385 OXFORD AND THE AN INDEPENDENT SOCIALIST REVIEW NATION. By OXON. 684 [New Series, Vol. 1, No, OF POLITICS, LITERATURE, Edited by AND ART JACKSON &BLUE FORBREAKFAST& AFTER DINNER It In making, useless quantity, being so much stronger than A R. ORAGE and HOLBROOK No. 25] THURSDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1907. ONE PENNY this time) which they received, and we trust, moreover, that they were not unduly shocked by some of the things that they must have noticed. Evils arising from poverty and greed are common to all modern Liebknecht and the Kaiser. cities. But there are a good many things in London Dr. Liebknecht, the son of one of the mighty prophets which must astonish an intelligent Parisian, and who made European Socialism, has just been him with a sense of the meekness of the English prosecuted for saying about the German army much impress There is our English Sunday, for example, people. what we have many times said about the British army there is our -that it is an instrument used by the Kaiser and the with its closed theatres and restaurants; iron law of closing whereby all places of refreshment governing class to secure the complete subjection of the must business at workers. Dr. Liebknecht’s language-is stigmatised as These stop things which the stroke of twelve at thirty. are must strike the eye once, “unpatriotic,” surely an-extraordinary epithet to apply but there are other matters which we hope were. mercifully to a German so proud of his-fatherland that he is unable kept from our guests. We shudder to think what to bear the thought that her arms are being used they would say if they heard that we had prohibited for vile purposes. It is rather the Kaiser and his tools Living Statuary ! Is it not time that the Nonconformist who are unpatriotic in that they care so little for Conscience entered its protest against these inGermany that they will willingly see her power made ternational amenities ? Who knows but that our to serve the sordid ends of cosmopolitan finance, just as Sir Edward Grey cares so little for England that he is County Councillors may be corrupted by contact with willing that she should become bottle-holder to the wicked foreigners, just as Mr. John Burns feared we might all be corrupted by the appearance of a miniature Russian autocracy. It is quite time that the democratic Paris at the bottom of Kingsway? It would, forces of the various European nations combined indeed,be a terrible thing for British morals if the to counter-act the intrigues which are continually going intervention Continental guests were to infect us with’ of on between their respective ruling classes. Sir something resembling ordinary horse sense ! Edward Grey concludes an agreement with the Russian Government which will give. to that Government Is Peace Possible? a freer hand for the oppression of the Russian people. The Kaiser, in his turn, makes it clear that he is Before the whole industry of the nation is disturbed prepared, necessary, to use the German army for the and arrested by a railway strike, it may be just as well if suppression of Russian liberties. to enquire whether there are any terms upon which an Finally, that there may be no doubt about the completeness of the agreementhonourable peace can be concluded. The answer to between our several oppressors, the Kaiser is to this question depends entirely upon the directors of the visit this country as the guest of the British sovereign. great railway companies, who have so far refused to Doubtless he will have a polite reception. conclude it upon any terms such as self-respecting men The British people have the instinct of hospitality, and in social can accept. Lord Claud Hamilton, who is so anxious matters the word of their King is law. But we do “bring home to the mind of the public that the not think that there will be much warmth in the greeting. pronounced Socialist is devoid of honour, principle and It will be more in the nature of the welcome patriotism," is himself apparently so lacking in the last of these qualities that he is willing to see the trade of which a ladylike hostess extends to visitors to whom, had it been possible, she would have preferred to the nation imperilled rather than concede to his employees elementary rights of citizenship. the give the message-“ not at home.” Certainly With him it is practically impossible to argue ; hut there must Socialists can take no part in acclaiming a man who is persecuting our comrades abroad, and herein we surely be among the directors some who are open to reason, and it is to them that we appeal. think we shall be more in sympathy with the English We ask people than are the governing classes which misrepresent them to pause before they put themselves hopelessly in the wrong, not only with their workpeople, but with them. The people have not forgotten the Kruger telegram and the anti-British policy which the Kaiser the country at large. After all, the present demands of has pursued ever since he ascended the throne, and if the men are exceedingly reasonable. They only ask that they may be allowed to represent their grievances they join in welcoming him, it will be from politeness by persons qualified to represent them. The reasonableness and not from enthusiasm. of this last condition and the unreasonableness of the demand that the representative should be of Paris and London. necessity himself an employee would be self-evident to Very differently do we regard the visit of the Parisian anyone not blinded by class-prejudice. There is not municipal councillors to London. Just as nothing can one of the directors who would tolerate the suggestion be worse for the cause of progress than the fraternising that in a legal dispute he should forswear the help of of despots and oligarchs, so nothing can be better than a solicitor. Yet a solicitor is not more necessary to a friendly intercourse between the chosen representatives rich man engaged in a law-suit than is, the trade union of free cities. We hope that the Parisians enjoyed secretary to the workmen engaged in an industrial dispute. their visit to London, and the welcome.. (quite heartfelt To ‘suppose that the “paid organizer” (why THE OUTLOOK. Your Ride Will Cost You More. on the lines- sketched ‘out by the Fabian Society in its “New Heptarchy” tracts. It may here -be pointed out that the community, being able to draw social profits need not bother about commercial ones. Indeed, profit-making by municipal undertakings, though often indefensible it practically expedient, is theoretically means that the citizen who makes use of the. tram or what not is paying an unfair share of his neighbours’ rates. There is no reason why the municipality should not run its trams and the like at a loss, provided it gives the public a handsome profit in the shape of cheap. swift, and comfortable carriage. Indeed, there is no reason why it should not,. if it chooses, make the trams To the Sea in Ships. as free as the roads, paid for, like them, out of the We are naturally proud to think that the “Lusitania" public revenue. We make a present of this suggestion Express,” which will doubtless exhibit has succeeded in breaking the record of the to the “Daily it in lurid colours to an “apathetic” middle-class. But, as patriotic Britons, we should “Deutschland.” be still prouder if the “Lusitania” were really a British The Welsh Revolt. ship-that is to say, were the property of the British people. As things stand, it is a company’s ship The discontent of their Welsh supporters is, we and the property of a group of shareholders, most of would wager, giving the Ministers an-uneasy quarter of whom, for all we know, may be Germans or Americans an hour. Their educational proposals caused widespread disappointment among English Nonconformists, or Japanese. That is the worst of trusting to private enterprise; wherever you may. look for patriotism, it is and now the promise of an Education Bill next year, involving as it does the indefinite postponement of quite useless to look for it in the realms of cosmopolitan finance. It is generally admitted that the Welsh Disestablishment, has driven the Nonconformists owes its triumph largely to a Government “Lusitania” of the Principality to mutiny. Mr. Lloyd George has We make no objection to such a been trying to soothe the ruffled plumage of his fellowsubvention. subvention under existing conditions, but it would be countrymen and co-religionists, but without much success obviously more satisfactory if the nation reaped the His cool reception is perhaps accounted for by profits of the speed and efficiency. to which it has the fact that he assured them that they had a Government contributed. The problem of our shipping and its inevitable which was “in earnest” about Disestablishment. nationalisation is becoming a pressing one ; and if These were ominous words, for when a Government anything could make it more pressing it would be the proclaims itself “in earnest" about anything it always international combination of ship-owners, reported this means that that particular thing will not be done. The week, pledged to resist the demands of “Socialists” present Government was “in earnest” about social reform before the election. -that is to say, the demands of their work-people for The result is before us. The capitalists of the whole Altogether the situation of the Ministers is by no fair conditions of labour. means enviable. to lose but their They are pledged to re-introduce an world are to unite, having “nothing so that wages may be everywhere forced Education Bill and to carry a Licensing Bill next year, dividends,” down and the trophies of the great dock strike and as well as to formulate their plan for dealing with the other labour victories may be retaken. The conspiracy Lords. It is difficult to see from whence the necessary is an ugly on-e, and we do not under-rate the danger backing is to come. With the, Irish estranged, with The presence of such a danger should that it involves. Labour disappointed, if they. cannot count upon the Nonconformists, on whom can they count? At present cause international labour to present an equally united front, and make such scandals as the Antwerp exportations it looks as if the timidity of their education policy, impossible. But it should also strengthen the together with the neglect of Disestablishment, would demand for the creation of a national fleet to break the alienate the Dissenters, while the Licensing Bill alienates ring of cosmopolitan capitalism. everybody else. Under these circumstances, there does not seem much chance of raising the “Peers v. People” cry with success. not the “paid director,” by the way) foments such disputes to misunderstand utterly the facts of the case. is Why, indeed, should he do so? They wear him nearly to death with extra work, and do not add one penny to his income. The fact is that, when a strike occurs, it is almost invariably forced on an unwilling executive This is notoriously the case by the men concerned. with the railway servants and Mr. Bell, and the sooner the directors realize that fact and all that it implies, the better for their own sakes as well as for the sake of the community. It may seem a far cry from the gigantic “Lusitania” to the tubes and motor omnibuses which ply between London and its suburbs. But the same problem is presented both-cases. In the case of London transit, howin ever, private enterprise seems to have come almost The companies which have to the end of its tether; strangled London are fast strangling each other and themselves. A typical case is that of the motor omnibuses which, having killed the old horse ‘buses, now find themselves unable to live. In their despair they are trying to get out of the impasse at the expense of a long-suffering public by means of a general agreement to raise fares. But it is doubtful if even this device will save them ; it is certain that the embarrassments Tube have rather increased of the “Twopenny than diminished since it ceased to be “twopenny.” The fares for London transit are preposterously high as it is, yet even so they cannot be made to yield a profit to private capital. Apparently, almost the only service which is paying is the despised municipal tram. The motor ‘bus, which was to have driven it off the road, finds it difficult enough to keep its own feet-or should we say wheels?-in the struggle. The moral of all this is, of course, simple enough. The competitive system has hopelessly broken down in transit as elsewhere, and we are faced with only two practicable alternatives, plutocratic monopoly or socialisation. If we are not to be systematically exploited by some trust or combine, the whole system, tubes, trams, and ‘buses, must be handed over to some public body, constituted BULBS. 500,000 Hyacinth Bulbs To be cleared within the next two months. All New Bulbs and every one Guaranteed. Colours assorted and named. 2 Dozen, 1/3 100 Bulbs, 4/Carriage forward. In order to encourage our customers in hyacinth cultivation, we have decided to offer a SOLID GOLD WATCH (Lady’s or Gent’s) to the successful grower of the best bloom from our bulbs. Full particulars are sent with orders, Early application should be made as these low prices apply only to the 500,000 ; when these are disposed prices will be as before. of 4 " 2/3 1 250 " 8/6 The Dutch Bulb Supply Co. 286, BASINGHALL (Dept. 3), London Agent’s ST., LONDON; E.C. Office, OCTOBER 17, 1907 387 programmewas one of undiluted atheism, theft, and immorality, they would make a clearance of the Graysons Hardies.“. quite Being Notes on the Great Anti-Socialist Campaign. and the Keir But is the This appears to me prepared to incontrovertible. Duke. of Rutland wait for that rather remote contingency? REALLY, I had no idea we were so powerful ! Our * * * * * * latest feat has been, according to the “Daily Express,” to reduce the British Navy to scrap-iron, or, at any The Duke further refers to “the loathsome Socialist rate, that is what- we are going to do unless Mr. C. objects” and “the vilest of political creeds.” And yet It Arthur ‘Pearson can save it’ at the last moment. we are told to abhor the scurrility of Socialist writers appears that though our “fatuous and fantastic theories and speakers. have no effect upon the average seaman,” the stokers * + * x x * -are all class-conscious Social Democrats, so that all So far I have left the Liberal Press alone, because its discipline has been destroyed, and it is no longer possibleutterances are less piquant than those of the Pearson to call the men dogs and make them kneel-to their organs. But I really should like to be told whether I The “Express” is most officers with impunity. am to support the Liberal Party because its policy will indiscreetly frank on this point. “Liberty, Equality, lead to Socialism or because it forms an obstacle to and -Fraternity,” it says, “would be very excellent ideals Socialism. As Lord Melbourne is reported to have said in an ideal world, but they have no place in a force like on a similar occasion : It doesn’t much matter which Yet I seem to remember that a navy or an army.” we say, but we had better all say the same.” The there was once an army which had those three words “Daily Chronicle” and the “-Westminster Gazette” for its war-cry, and which didn’t do so badly, all things both urge that Liberalism is our only bulwark against I also remember that there was an army considered. Socialism. That is intelligible enough, and may be sent to South Africa-but that is another story. quite true, but, if so, it is obvious that the Liberals * * * * * * have no right to expect Socialist support. Yet, when “Atheism and Free Love” being somewhat played a three-cornered fight takes place, these two journals out, we are now being treated to a great deal of talk are the first to cry out against “dividing the forces of which Socialism would foster. about the “idleness” progress.” Similarly the Master of Elibank, who also Thus a correspondent of the “Telegraph,” signing himself claims for Liberalism that it is the only safeguard encloses a cutting descriptive of Arthur “Worker,” against Socialism, adds that he does not see what the Chilcott, the “laziest man in England,” who has just Socialists have to gain by letting in the Tories. But been sentenced to a year's imprisonment as a rogue if the Master of Elibank is right and Liberalism is the and vagabond, and adds-only obstacle to a complete Socialist triumph, their I suppose this is the type of gentleman who under gain is patent and undeniable. * * * a Socialistic régime will be provided with a pension * * * of 5s. per week when he reaches 65, at the expense The “Standard” ties itself into rather complicated of those who have worked hard all their lives to earn knots over the relations between Socialism and their own living. Imperialism. It says:-Now, it does not seem to have occurred to this sapient Mr. Bernard Shaw has a better conception of gentleman that we already have to support men of the Imperialism, and believes that British rule is beneficial Chilcott type in prisons and workhouses ; that we also to coloured races, but he does not carry the Fabians have to support thousands of men willing and able to with him ; their views on Empire are those of Karl work, condemned to idleness by our insane economic Marx (!) re-expressed, with the approval of all the arrangement, and gradually dragged down by our Socialist leaders, by Mr. Quelch. infamous Poor Law to Chilcott’s level ; lastly, that we This passage raises some interesting problems. To have to pay life pensions of considerably more than 5s. begin with, one does not quite gather whether the per week to landlords and shareholders, whose services quotation which follows is from Karl Marx or from Mr. to the community are about on a level with Chilcott’s-Quelch or from the Fabians who refuse to be “carried” save that Chilcott has probably had to do some work with Mr. Shaw. Further, the only Fabian pronouncement in the course of his life. Personally, I should be inon Imperialism is Fabianism and the Empire,” clined to dispute Chilcott’s right to the title of “the which Mr. Shaw himself drafted. since I should think men could be when have the Fabians become disciplesMoreover, Marx? laziest man in England.” of Karl found in Mayfair and Belgravia who could give him And since when has Mr. Quelch become their mouthmay rest assured that points. Anyhow, “Worker” piece? under Socialism there will be no easy life for the man CECIL CHESTERTON. who will not do his share of the world’s work, whether he be Arthur Chilcott or another. * * * * * + By the way, there is one question which I want to A BOARDING AND ‘DAY-SCHOOL FOR put to the accredited spokesmen of the Anti-Socialist GIRLS AND FOR YOUNGER BOYS. ‘campaign, and that is : “How can you have Divorce without Marriage?” I ask this because we Socialists the are accused of proposing- to “abolish marriage,” and In addition to a thorough general equipment SPECIAL AIMS are the CULTIVATION of in the same breath of proposing to “extend divorce.” HEALTH by means of an outdoor life This seems to present some difficulties. Again, I find the PHYSICAL “People” heading a column “Free Love,” and then in ideal surroundings, and by a well-studied dietary. The DEVELOPMENT of FACULTY by-a careful chronicling a speech of Mrs. Snowden, in which she adaptation of method to individual requirement, and by says that under Socialism the religious ceremony will due attention to practical work and to the formation of probably be abolished, and a declaration before a civil CORRECT MENTAL HABITS. I confess I do not see why magistrate substituted. people should not have a religious ceremony under For Prospectus apply Socialism, if they want one. But surely the “People” MISS CLARK, COOMBE HILL SCHOOL, does not mean to imply that marriage before a registrar WESTERHAM, KENT. is merely a form of concubinage. + * * * * + The Duke of Rutland is evidently ambitious to With on compete Lord Claud Hamilton who, it may be remembered Thoughts Love, Happiness. Fidelity, Sympathy, Jealousy, Adultery with and Divorce --_ wanted “to bring home to the public minds that By the Rev. J. EDGAR FOSTER, M.A. (Cantab), the pronounced Socialist is devoid of honour, principle, Author of the "Science ofHappiness” etc. Price 1S. -and patriotism.” copy, postfree, from J. F. SPRIGGS, Paternoster Square 21 In the course of a long letter to a London E. C? Conservative association, his lordship. observed that Circulars descriptive of above and Mr. Foster’s other publications sent free on application. Please name paper. ‘when Englishmen realised that the Socialist Bombastes in Fleet Street. SECULAR EDUCATION. THE PHILOSOPHY OF MARRIAGE, 388 OCTOBER 1907 17, The average Oxford man instinctively working-men. forms his friends among those possessing” tone” ‘and refinement and any others he leaves strictly alone. A THE speech of the Bishop of Birmingham in the House striking instance came under our notice while ”up.” of Lords, followed by the conference in the Examination A colonial student, whom we knew intimately, and Schools at Oxford, on the subject of the relation of whose “people were a generation or-two back members the University to the working classes, has, together of the English landed class, and who had himself with Lord Curzon’s energetic demand for funds, once had an honourable career in his Colonial University again temporarily focussed public attention on the old (and this despite almost super-human obstacles), was problem of the gulf which at present divides our premier on account of mere lack of social distinction, cast into university from the mass of the nation. outer darkness. During his whole time in Oxford he The most liberal, and not the least loyal, of the sons hardly made half a dozen friends, and his mental of Oxford claim that she should become a reflection of powers remained entirely unappreciated by the average our national life, and a series of capable articles in undergraduate. both the “Times” and the “Westminster Gazette,” The truth, is that if working-men go to Oxford with while drawing attention to the question of ways and the idea that they will find it all that its dutiful sons means, have given much in-spired information as to the have found it, they will be bitterly undeceived. If an difficulties facing any solution of the problem. There attempt is made to absorb them into the old college still, however, remains a side of the question comparativelysystem, they may be hospitably treated for a week or little considered and one on which we propose to two, but eventually they will infallibly be left to themselves make a few comments, They will see the worst of Oxford and of the To our mind the crux of the situation lies in the with the English upper classes-- become familiarised answer to the double question : Is Oxford - John horrible orgy of a college “drunk” and hear in "the Bright’s “home of dead languages and undying prejudices C. R.” the filthy language derived from the public J. a fit place for the higher education of the fully understanding all the beautiful schools, --without working-classes, even if it is fit, do they want, or better, and which lies behind and which prompts the frequent and ought they to want, to go there? sincere eulogies of Oxford life. The social gulf will in NOW as to the fitness of Oxford to receive and educateconsequence be deepened and a bitterness may arise which at present hardly exists. our working-men, let us first make quite clear what If, on the other hand, the Ruskin College precedent we really mean by Oxford, and what we do not. We desire to point out that the Oxford whose praises are be followed, and a separate institution be founded at then we maintain that the sung by her loyal sons, the Oxford which excites feelings Oxford for working-men, whole movement will be as mistaken as the alternative of almost romantic tenderness, the Oxford which “by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer we have already discussed. The foundation will certainlybe in Oxford, but its sons will be in the position to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection,” Far better It is rather the men in it. of mere step-children of the Alma Mater. is not the mere place itself. let London or one of the new universities develop the True, the old city may be itself “steeped in sentiment," may “spread her gardens to the moonlight” and “whisper" collegiate system of Oxford without the inherited traditions of extravagant expenditure and exaggerated to us from her towers the last enchantment of the Middle Age, but this is all of small importance when social distinctions which are her bane. Then gradually the working classes will be able to raise their standard compared with the type of man which inhabits the colleges,with the spirit which dominates not only the of intelligence and culture, and will themselves eventually react on the older universities and cleanse them of undergraduate members of the University, but a very some of their faults. large proportion of the teaching staff as well. If Even supposing, for a moment, that the Oxford possible, is good to be educated here where the long it social atmosphere were suitable to the working-classes, cavalcade of the English great has passed, to be what can be said for her examinations, for her tutorial surrounded traditions of the fearless English independence by of Whitefield, and of Gibbon: by the system, and much else? Oxford refuses to abandon rhythm of Addison’s prose, and the haunting beauty of the tradition which she follows in forcing everyone Shelley’s poetry ; but if it involves for all- but the who enters her doors to acquire what is, in the majority greatest of us -and the present writer maintains that it of cases, a ridiculous smattering of Greek. Can Responsionsand Pass Moderations be said to have any danger that many of our finer susceptibilities does -the purpose at all? Can they be regarded by any unbiassed may be blunted, that our enthusiasm for human And what of the progress and our love for human beings simply as mind as in any sense educative? Final Schools? Literae Humaniores, the premier one, human beings, may be dulled, then it is worth while is of course only within the scope of those who have considering a little before sending our working-men read Greek and Latin all their days, and although the there. School of Modern History would form an excellent We maintain that the whole life of Oxford is irremediablytainted with the “class” idea, arid that, as basis of study as a preparation for practical life and the performance of future civic duties, what is to be a consequence, even were working-men to go there, except in so far as they were specially sought out and said of the methods which are employed to teach it? The much-vaunted tutorial system is, of course, whattheir society cultivated by a few better spirits, they ever it may be for Greatsmen, most often a failure in would practically be outside the world which the word Modern History. The good Modern History tutors in Oxford recalls to us when we have ”gone down.” The experience Oxford can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There is no need to labour this point. Essays are taken, the tutor is often of the non-collegiate body will be enough to give some When well-acquainted with, nor in the least With all the efforts made by a neither idea of our meaning. when succession of wise and devoted Censors of Non-collegiate interested in, the subject under consideration. a man commences to read the School, his psychology Students, nothing has been done to really remove his mental capacity, his previous history the disadvantages of the non-collegiate’s position. So are rarely taken into account. No effort is made much is this the case that this body finds it almost impossibleto keep any man of real talent whom it gets (except in the case of one or two exceptional tutors) to for the early part of his career. Though its men arc stimulate thought or give help in the acquisition of one of the most difficult of arts, that of reading well and drawn from a class which is comparatively well-to-do, The system results in hazarding the whole they are almost never met in college rooms, and it is quickly. success of a man’s single university career on his only under disadvantages that they are allowed to chance of getting one of the few good tutors. If he participateat all in the refining influenes which should fails in this one thing he is undone, for, as to the lecture result from sharing on equal ground the ideas and impulses naturally generated from some 3,000 minds, all system, not only is it wasteful, but it fails almost to of them trained in circumstances which at any rate completely stimulate and encourage, and surely stimulus and encouragement are the only justification of a might have made for their development. system lectures such as that pursued at Oxford in these of If these men are unable to penetrate to the real heart of Oxford; how much worse would be the position of days of cheap and reliable text-books in -every depart- Oxford and the Nation. OCTOBER 17, 1907 THE NEW AGE of knowledge. Though almost every college has Ibsen‘s idea of Hedda Gabler, restrained, thin-haired, its lecture or lectures a tutor will frequently remark at a little anaemic, with her steel grey eyes and deadly the beginning of term, “I am afraid there is no one I whisper as she trusts Lovbörg’s MSS into the can really recommend you to go to,” and, in fact, flames : “Now I am burning--am burning your child; except for courses by a few outslanding tutors, such as you woman with beautiful hair.” I have seen Elizabeth Mr. Fisher of New College. and Mr. A. L. Smith at Robins and Eleonora Duse, but both of them are full to overflowing of a kind of power which it was Balliol, there is hardly one in history worth attending. Hedda’s tragedy not to possess. They can feel lift, The lecturers arc rarely specialists-we have attended Nothing short of death really, a course on Anglo-Saxon England by a lecturer who but Hedda cannot. short of the Dionysus of her was at the moment correcting proofs of a work on thrills her-nothing imagination with vine-leaves in his hair could have stirred Europe during the Napoleonic era-and are almost a real pulsation of passion in her heart ; anything short never enthusiasts. And yet the process is perpetuated of that bores her. year after year. . . . That Oxford could, if her men wished, give social Anyone who has a moderate amount of brain can polish and charm to the working-classes, we have no perceive the incongruities, the gross absurdities, the doubt, but that Oxford men in general do not care to impossible pretensions of human life--we have to we arc equally certain. Nor, as we have said, do we becomea little blinded by the light of our life-work think that her present educational system-is capable of before we can really forget such facts. Hedda was developing the minds of our working-men as they need clever enough to see through the illusion of the things developing Keen as is our affection for Oxford, and that are apparent, but she had not enough force to dig much as we should like to see her become truly into them and to seek the heart of the mystery. national, we feel impelled to express our opinion that She played at life a little while-long enough to hurt the present movement springs from filial sentiment her self-respect then killed herself rather than alone, and has no relation to the real needs of the contemplateher own incompetence, her own lack of If London be chosen for this special developmentvitality. masses. our new seekers after knowledge will have the The physiology of the sexes appears to be undergoing great world about them as a school of character, and extraordinary modifications. Co-incident in time incomparable opportunities of many-sided development. with the over-population question there have arisen If our successful business-men will but emulate the in our midst women who hate motherhood. These example their confrères in the United States, a national of beings arc filled with emotional ideals. They are university on modern lines, and one forming the real eloquent and clever ; they are often the most conspicuous apex of our educational system, may be built up here member’s of their families; they go through, life where no harassing traditions will need to be respected ; exciting strong enthusiasms and strong antipathies; they and the teaching staff, as at Paris and the great Continental look upon average when and women as indecent universities, can be appointed by a process of swine. Hedda Gabler IS the great type of this transitional careful selection from among those of known capacity womanhood. The curiosity which Hedda to stimulate and instruct minds in accord with the displaysabout the extravagant details of passion is a principles of mod&-n psychological and pedagogic curiosity which is tinged with disdain as she wonders OXON. research. at the strange vagaries of human nature. She herself finds nothing to tempt her to join in the throng. She is bored by marriage and driven to desperation by the ignominy of losing her looks and of passing By Florence Farr. through the other unpleasant details of motherhood. No. 1. Hedda Gabler. Her position is so logically sound that those who with it cannot understand how any woman can THERE is a wonderful music in the name of Hedda sympathise It is one of the be found willing to help to increase the population. And Gabler, an almost magical music. it is to be hoped that before long it will only be those best remembered sensations of my life driving rapidly down the Knightsbridge Road after the first epoch- women who really hear their unborn children crying making performance of the play on April 20th, 1891, imperativelyto them that will be expected to become mothers of a generation that may surpass in quality if not in with the words of the name wailing and singing to me unwilling wives and the tragedy of a quantity this generation of and crowding my mind with all unmated mothers. If there were not in Hedda Gabler's woman who IS not quite enough a woman. Hedda Gabler’s nerves arc set on edge by the mere tragedy this background of the tragedy of the transitional woman it would be mean enough. To listen facts of middle-class life. She dreams of men in livery to the aspirations of a young woman who wants to ride because she wants to put a stately and riding-horses, Row with a liveried servant and a fashionable retinue between herself and natural necessities. She in the what is the mere blind feels acutely the agony of the ideal in the presence of habit would be futile indeed-but expression of the needs of a highly-strung woman who lhe real ; the disgusting contrast of animal functions She has with the outward beauty of lovers and birds, and the cares neither for sex nor for motherhood. contrast of the genteel poverty which she has fallen dim yearnings for an intellectual comradeship with men ; but she has not learned to stand up to life into, with the social ideals she believed would mean enough to succeed. When a woman’s social ambition escape from the boredom of facts. is bounded by suburban ideas she must be very careful The background Ibsen has provided for her is to keep within the bounds prescribed by suburban perfect. She stands out from it as the woman who failed To be mixed up in any kind of scandal, to to find the vine crown of Dionysus and bound instead opinion. the purple fillet of her own life blood upon her temples. have to appear in any public capacity, let alone in a Tragic and beautiful, yet linked to her surrounding by law court, to have to take a part of any kind in a an inexpressible meanness of outlook, we perceive in matter that is likely to be commented on by the newspapers thin not to be thought of by a real lady in is a her a never-to-be-forgotten picture of the under-sexed And up to a certain point that is all poor well-meaning Suburbia. woman. She is there among the fussy suburbs. little family so content to shed tears and laugh and Hedda Gabler is; she is a real lady of the Then comes the quaint touch of poetry that justifies accept death and birth and marriage in the regular that almost makes her of one kin course of things without thought of impossible wonders her beautiful name, with the goddesses who demand not love but great which the rich, imagination can enjoy and the poor and its deeds from their heroes : the goddesses created in an imagination can only crave. For imagination oratory, of age before woman had learned to be abject and amorous &cations, the great potencies of art, of when instead she was half-mother, half-lover, with invention, of empire arc the heritage of the Childless Hedda dimly feels that more often than of the fathers and mothers of our a touch, of the patron saint. some such relation is possible between a man and a race. Hcdda is especially dcscribcd as a cold type, ,a morbid woman. The despised Thea, with the beautiful hair, has achieved something of the kind in her own little curiosity taking the place of any kind of interest in passion as passion. On the stage Ihave never Seen trembling way- Somehow her very weaknesshas been Ibsen’s Women. 390 THE NEW AGE. OCTOBER 17, 1907 The machine production increases, for the workers. an inspiration to men. Hedda longs for a more positive influence, and she invokes Dionysus and his vine- productivity and presumably the profits of the box-making But Dionysus and the mighty huntress of industry ; the level o the worker’s standard leaves. men, the red-haired Diana, are too over-coloured for remainsprecisely as before. * * + + * * Hedda’s taste. Just as so many others have done who sought ecstasy and found drunkenness, sought I notice that cables from the Cape state that Mr. illumination and found darkness, Hedda sought excitement Merriman, the leader of the Bond, has made the Her romance, nationalisation of the sale of alcohol a plank in the program and found hideous dissipation. her cold savagery, when she destroys the great book with which his party is appealing to the country. written by the man who loved her, and confided in her Thesignificance of this move on the part of what in his love for other women, redeem her character from Cape politics is considered the reactionary and Conservative meanness. She shoots herself finally for many reasons, party is very much greater than it would be in but chief among them was probably the abiding sense England, but once more illustrates the entire freedom that women of her temperament must have of the from the hampering of tradition which is the conspicuous mediocre ugliness of the only life they know. mark of the South African Dutch. There can be Matthew Arnold has put the case of Hedda Gabler very little doubt that the progress of the consolidation in a haunting quatrain:of capitalism in South Africa will drive the Dutch party, “An aching body, and a mind which is essentially the people’s party, more and more Not wholly clear, or wholly blind, The policy of Het Volk into the arms of Socialism. Too keen to rest, too weak to find, in the Transvaal, coupled with this new move of Merriman's Are God’s worst portion to mankind.” may mean that this movement towards The very meanness of this tragedy of Norwegian Socialismis going to be be very rapid indeed. At the Suburbia is the thing that cuts us to the heart. We Cape, too, the nationalisation of the sale of alcohol may know that thousands and thousands of girls in every have an important bearing upon-the nationalisation of part of the world are being trained into just these little the land, as a very large and very valuable part of the They are realising purposeless grooves of thought. country is used for the cultivation of vines and the the unpleasant details of motherhood ; they want to production wines. and brandy. of * * * * * imitate the fine ladies they see driving in the park ; they * want to amuse themselves by flirting with a dozen That the excessive modesty of the demands of the men ; they want to escape all that touches the disgusting working classes is one of their chief sins is clearly aspects of life ; they want to keep the hem of their substantiated by the White Paper just published on the In pursuit of these ideals they harden hours of railway servants. What they are now, through skirts white. their hearts ‘until they are like dead things without the mouthpiece of their officials, demanding, is not too sympathy or understanding, harbouring the strange much, but too little, and if it be a fact, as the perverted jealousy of the dog in the manger and the Companies’ directors allege, that to accede to the men’s aimless conceit of a foolish tradition which tells them demands would reduce railway dividends to 1 1/2 per perpetually : “My dear, people don’t do these things.” cent., this can only be construed as a very excellent Hedda’s case makes us realise the futility of convenreason for nationalisation. For even according to Col. tionality, for she was conventional in all her ideals ; van Donop, it must be admitted that the railway servants only her selfish instincts broke through and shattered have other duties than those of making profits for her system of morals. She would not hear of “any the companies, and must be allowed some time to she was ready to flirt and lead discharge duties of human beings and citizens. kind of unfaithfulness“; the And men on ; but some innocent critics have even gone the these other duties cannot be discharged without a very length of supposing that she “preferred death to great change in hours and conditions of service, even Why Hedda really preferred death is, I greater than the men demand. It is, however, time dishonour.” believe, simply because she was proud enough to feel that the low standard of wages and conditions that the the ignominy of the situation which was forced upon workers set up as the value of their own lives should be her by Brack’s knowledge of her secret. swept out of existence. What the organised workers ready to commit any crime that amused her if she did it ought to demand is not a minimum wage of 30s. a week of her own free will and was sure it would not be but a minimum of £3. Why should there be the vast found out ; but she was’ not willing to be forced into a differences between what the middle class man requires That was what surprised Brack who and what the worker requires? mean intrigue. At the present prices had not reckoned on the pride of General Gabler’s of housing, food, clothes, service and the necessaries daughter. of life, it is impossible bring up a family adequately to Pride is a very effective substitute for virtue, and has on less than £3a week, and only barely on that. If much the same effect on our actions; but if the nature the workers are content to accept the conditions of has innate nobility it will remain noble, however much inferiors for themselves, let them at any rate refuse to it may outrage social standards ; so, perhaps, Hedda’s accept them for their children, and insist on the abolition chastity was rather a poor affair after all. of the present vast discrepancies between the children of the middle and of the working classes, differences which can every one be resolved into questions of £ s. d. I HAVE just come across an interesting example of the + * + * * * value of machinery from the workers’ point of view. The trade of box-making is largely carried on in Lambeth Mrs. Mackirdy ‘s book on “Baby Toilers,” with its _ by home-workers, who earn about 2s. 3d. a gross plain tales of the sufferings of child toilers, brings to my mind a story which I got the other day on excellent for making boxes for boot polishes and similar small The home-workers provide their own glue authority, and which has reference to one of the most articles. The generous of English tailoring firms. It is sometimes and manage to make about 8s. or 9s. a week. price for the different kinds of boxes varies ; thus those assumed by well-off people that they avoid the danger boot polish are paid at the rate of of employing sweated labour, with its consequent risk for “Nugget” of conveying infection, by only dealing with the best2s. 9d. a gross, but on the average the weekly sum mentioned represents the wage a worker can expect known and most expensive concerns. But in this particular case, His Majesty the King of Siam ran considerable On the other hand, however, a large number to gain. risk of catching any zymotic disease that happened of boxes are made in the same district by machinery, to be prevalent, although his Royal order was being and for these boxes for soap and candles the workers executed by a firm (apparently) above suspicion. His get paid IS. 5d. a gross, all the materials being Majesty probably knows nothing about the risks he ran provided. The machine production is more rapid than that of the home-worker, but the smaller price paid per to this day, and the outside world would have known gross averages out the weekly wage at the same level nothing either but for an inopportune fire somewhere at as before, namely 8s. to 9s. Both the machine trade the back of Regent Street where in an overcrowded sweater’s den some clothes got burned. These clothes and the home-work trade are liable to be very “slack,” were sent out from the aforesaid famous tailoring firm and are quite casual, that is to say, quite demoralising A Socialist’s Note Book. 391 --such as it is-remains. and were destined for His Majesty Chulalongkorn, And in the ultimate resort, pending the discovery of any new weapon, we must fall being probably used at night as bed coverings. It would indeed almost appear that the only way to avoid infection back on the strike as our last line of defence against and sweating is to buy cheap machine-made clothing the aggressions of greedy and tyrannical capitalism. . . until we have a Board of Trade which troubles to made by Trade Union labour under reasonable understand its business and earn its salary, or a legislature conditions. Perhaps someone in the tailoring trade will that can see further beyond the tip of its nose give us ‘instruction ? * * * * + + than the last page of its pass-book. And since it is A matter arising out of this question of the King of sometimes well to be quite obvious, I will- remind my Siam’s clothes has an interest of its own. So far as I correspondent that the best way to prevent war is to am aware, the matter was never mentioned in any prepare for it. And there I will leave that particular point. journal except strictly trade journals, and one wonders But there is another point that is not so particular, why? Any journalist, one would imagine, could have in that it is persistently raised against all manner of got up a nice little scare headline on Chulalongkorn’s men, in all manner of disputes, everywhere and everyclothes, but no one did. The question is were the when. The point consists in charging your opponent reportersbribed ? It is possible to bribe some police court reporters to keep things out of the paper for about 10s. with a love of rhetoric. (Mr. Read does not use that a time. Did Messrs. -, the illustrious tailors, pay precise word, but other of my correspondents do.) Well, well ! Mark Antony’s speech over the dead body of the reporters who “smelt them out” not to put Caesar was more than faintly rhetorical. Was it any anything their newspapers? It is, at any rate, interesting in I may be told that to note that a reporter may be able to make more by the less effective on that score? Mark Antony never used the words that Shakespeare not inserting news than by doing his ordinary work. puts into his mouth. A sufficient retort to that objection It is a sidelight on capitalism not unallied to the would be that neither does the actor on the stage refusalof every London paper to expose the labour conditions use a real corpse. of Sir T. Lipton’s workers at the time of his first For the life of me I cannot understand this objection yacht race some years ago on the simple ground of fear to the decorative, the ornamental aspect of things. SCIPIAN. of losing valuable advertisements. It is not Socialism. On the contrary, it is Utilitarianism. And Utilitarianism is the manure of life : of considerable service in the right place, of course, but not the sort of thing that one wants to have under one’s nose Final Reflections. all the time. Nuttall-perhaps my favourite authorrhetoric” as : The science or art of ON reflection, and on yet another re-reading of Mr. or W. J. Read’s letter respecting my article on “The Mere persuasive effective speech ; the art of speaking with propriety, elegance, and force ; the power of persuasion Clerk,” I am inclined to reconsider myself and to allow that my ebullient correspondent may after all have or attraction.” So that when next my enemy goes out to meet me in raised a point or two that it is worth while to deal with. the gate, I would recommend that he first looks up his To begin, he falls into some very usual errors which EDWIN PUGH. seem to me to be in urgent need of dissipation.He references. says : “It is useless to ask : ‘Does the Mere Clerk know his power?’ The Mere Clerk has no power at From Fame and Eternity.” present, and therefore cannot know it.” Here Mr. Read commits a fault in dialectics which is as common Hush ! as it is clumsy, and as foolish as it is (I admit, with Of great things--(great things I behold)regret) ordinarily effective. By implication he denies a We should be silent statement that his opponent has never made, puts the Or else speak greatly : denial into his opponent’s mouth, and then gives the Speak greatly, oh ecstasy of my wisdom ! signal for the cheering to begin before he has scored even a Pyrrhic victory. I gaze aloftDoes he not see that a man may be very strong and yet be unaware of his strength, There seas of light are rolling, just as a hound may have the power to leap a high Oh night, oh stillness, oh sound that is silent as fence if only it had nous enough to retire a few paces death ! and take a run before jumping? He does not seem to I behold a sign, know that power, like matter, is an immutable and Far off, how far ! indestructible quantity. Force is not created out of Slowly there sinks, twinkling before me, the nothingness, but can only be generated by an accumushape of a Star. lation or combination of other forces. The clerk has Star, of all Being most high, the power now, or he will never have it; and the Table of the eternal imagery, pathetic spectacle that Mr. Read conjures up of the Comest thou to me? long-suffering Secretary of the N.U.C. burning “the Thy speechless beauty, midnight oil,” putting in “hours of slogging over Which none hath beheldcorrespondence,”and spending his holidays in organising Shrinketh it not before my gaze? -this spectacle waxes even more pathetic because, granted Mr. Read’s assumption, it is all puerile. Shield of Necessity ! The power of the clerk lies in his ability to strike : Table of the eternal imagery!just that. Mr. Read says: “Why is it that no But thou knowest it now : sooner is Trade Union mentioned than the majority of What all men hate, people-Fabians, too, though their motto is ‘Light what alone I love, rather than heat’ -think of strikes, picketing, brickThat thou art eternal, bats, -broken bottles, broken heads, and the rest? That thou art of necessity ! Surely it is time that Fabians at least should recognise For at Necessity alone that the strike is a blunderbuss, which wounds the My love is kindled into eternity. firer more often than the fired-at. It is time that the damage to the community should also be considered by Shield of Necessity ! the combatants. If and when it should come to a fight Star, of all Being most high ! for ’extra pence’ per week, or whatever else may be That no wish can attain, involved in a higher standard of living, the National No Nay can stain, Union of Clerks must find or invent some more modern Everlasting Yea of Being, weapon than the clumsy strike.” Ever thy Yea am I, That is so. I agree, heartily. No doubt it would For I love thee, 0 Eternity! be better to have power, if one had never to use it; for Translated from Nietzsche by E. M. that is a limitation of power. Nevertheless, the power “The Mere Clerk.” 392 KENSINGTON AND DISTRICTFABIAN GROUP. thing lie possible the along OCTOBER 17,. 1907 under the circumstances ; others send. to me, which is sensible of them but troublesome to me; some take a risk and disavow the MONTHLY PROPAGANDA LECTURES. alleged opinion as mine. Well, I want -to say that The Question of the Hourthey are quite safe in denying the lie. I have never "WHAT IS SOCIALISM?” advocated “free love,” nor the destruction of the Thursday, October 17th, at 8 p.m., at Chelsea Town Hall, family. They may boldly challenge the opponent for evidence and then denounce him as a liar. There is G. BERNARD SHAW nothing to support On “HOW THE MIDDLE CLASSIS FLEECED." there is aanywhere my writing tothese Statements, and mass of prove the contrary. MRS. PEMBER REEVES IN THE CHAIR. Of course, I have written about the relation of ADMISSION, 1/-, 2/6, 5/-, and 7/6 Course Tickets (for 3 Lectures), 5/- and 12’6, Socialismto the family, and it is almost impossible to write upon such a topic without:’ at times writing BIRMINGHAM LABOUR CHURCH. phrases that in unscrupulous hands and torn from their The Fifteenth Annual Meeting will be held in the Town Hall on contest may “look bad” in their discussion. I discuss SUNDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1907. these points in my “Modern Utopia,” but there Speaker: PETE CURRAN, M.P. (Jarrow). Ireally never made the ghost of a slip, and it is never Chairman : FRED HUGHES. and the quoted, and in a pamphlet, “Socialism Doors open at 6. Organ Recital by &It. C. W. PERKINS,6.30 to 7.’ Family” (Fifield, 6d.). In the latter I have to confess Chair will be taken at 7 o’clock. Collection to defray expenses. to careless writing. I speak once or twice of the “family” when I ought to have said the “patriarchal HENDERSON’S, family,” that is to say, the family in which the mother 66, CHARING CROSS ROAD, LONDON, WC,, is regarded not as a citizen but as the property of the father. My meaning is perfectly clear, and only in ALSO AT 15A, PATERNOSTER Row, E.C., such absolutely unscrupulous controversy as’ the FOR REVOLUTIONARY LITERATURE, present Anti-Socialist campaign will it have been distorted. Socialist, Labour, Rationalist, and all advanced If the pro-Socialist will bear that in mind and read thought books and periodicals, “Socialists and the Family" before replying, he will have no difficulty in tackling the antagonist upon this REQUIRED ‘Five Friends to d- the domestic work of a small particular point. It is all he need read of me for that Nerve Training Home, 20 miles from London. A cottage IS purpose. But in my forthcoming book, “New Worlds provided for the accommodationof workers, who must include: (I) a Plain Cook (2) General Kitchen Assistant; (3) Parlourmaid : for Old,” now appearing in the “Grand Magazine,” I (4 and 5) Housemaids. AppIy first by letter to 12X,Office of believe I have got the Socialist position in these matters stated in absolutely unambiguous language, and the portion relating to the family is already available for quotation. There is, however, a second point upon which attacks were made for which the pro-Socialist must be prepared. A romance by me called “In the Days of OCTOBER 17, 1907 the Comet,” presents the world as altered mentally and spiritually by a comet. The inhabitants of the earth become changed and exalted, they become “above the law" ; like the early Christians, they have all their EDITORIAL NOTE. goods in common, and they develop towards a state where. as in the kingdom of Heaven, there is no marrying nor giving in marriage. The book is a dream, is intended to be a beautiful dream, and it ends with an epilogue that makes that intention perfectly clear. If the book is immoral and indecent, then the New Testament is equally so. The story has just: as much to do with current politics and ordinary social relations as Michael Angelo’s Last Judgment or the well-known picture of “Love and Life.” So far as I know, no one has been fool enough to say Mr. G. F. Watts wants young people who are not married to stand together in exposed situations without clothes because of that picture, and it is quite equally foolish to treat “In the Days of the Comet” as a Socialist tract. A fellow Fabian- (bless him !) saw fit in the course of heated controversy to treat this book as my Socialist Utopia, and the misrepresentation has been caught up by the Anti-Socialist writers. In the interests of Socialism I have done all I can to stop this mischievous and silly perversion. I have written letters to papers and articles, and I have dragged the A Personal Statement. point into everything I have since written about Socialism. It is. quite possible, however, that those who to make a personal statement WILL you permit me arc busily fighting “at the front” have not heard anything that may be of of service to your readers who are actively at all about that, and it may be useful to tell side in the present anti-Socialist what engaged on the defensive them to say if “In the Days of the Comet” is My name is frequently given by suddenly flung in their faces. campaign? Apart from those books, I do not think there is the the Anti-Socialists as an advocate of “free love” as minutest possibility of misrepresentation in my writings one who wants to “take children from their parents,” in relation to these matters. etc.) etc., and sometimes these assertions arc I must apologist, Sirs, for the apparent egotism of supported minutest rags of quotation from my writings, by this letter, but my daily bundle of Press cuttings makes Now a great number of Socialists have never read any it clear that Socialism is being frequently attacked of my books, and probably none have read all--they through me upon these points, and my correspondence have other things to do-- and as I am not quite the shows that our side finds these attacks at times ordinary type of Socialist writer, they don’t precisely extremely inconvenient to deal with. This letter may know what to do about me. Some accept the opponent's save one or two good men the bother of a hunt through lie and disavow me, which is perhaps the silliest my books. H. G. WELLS. THE NEW AGE. Mr. Wells and Free Love. Towards Socialism. III. By A. R. Orage. even worse conception of Solidarity than the mere ONE of the most difficult conceptions for the Western denial of it. Individualism may be bad, but so long as mind is the conception of Solidarity. Most Socialists it is sincere, it is far better than the simulation of the employ the word as if it were a blessed Mesopotamia. feeling of Solidarity, which is the sentiment of most Plainly it is a rhetorical word ; and its prevalence altruism. Nothing, in short, can be worst from every amongst Socialists would alone assure the future point of view than the fixed intention of an individual historianof the zealous oratory of primitive Socialism. That the word means anything in particular to the to go about doing good merely because the fact of majority who use it is perhaps improbable ; but it does Solidarity implies such service. To be altruistic from stand for a certain flow of sentiment which may easily logical motives is to be as nearly devilish as man Can well become. Any of us would rather a man were be mistaken for a genuine emotion. I would not, honestly our enemy and took every occasion to harm indeed, deny that the flow may be a genuine emotion. After all, we none of us can be always certain that our us than that he should batter himself into the belief emotions will give light as well as heat! The point is, that he should love us and do us good. The alliance of mere kindness with the sense of solidarity is due however, that the sentiment of solidarity is the distinguishing feature of the Socialist movement. Not to to false sentiment ; for, in truth, the, sense of solidarity may as easily lead a man to slay his brother as to be able to respond to the idea in some form disqualifies to my mind anybody from the name of Socialist. A keep him alive. In short, we need to be on our guard man may be, and often is, convinced of the economic against the tendency of all of us to want to be comfortable and nothing else ; and to employ the theory of desirability of abolishing poverty as well as of the political Solidarity to extort from our neighbours a feather bed possibility of doing so for no other conscious reason than that he cannot tolerate disorder and for our own most detestable weaknesses. Again, it is necessary to protest against the association economic waste. But while such a man may be an of the idea of Solidarity with much that passes efficient servant in the cause of economic emancipation, current as Socialist, not to say Philistine, ethics. I can I can hardly conceive him arousing any human enthusiasm see very well that many Socialists are as far from understanding Socialism on its ethical side as the ordinary Many people have protested, and will protest still politicians arc from understanding Socialist economics more, against the association of what they call And, naturally enough, such Socialists arc the Socialism with plans for the emancipation of the soul first to protest loudly that the genuine Socialist of man ; but I confess that if Socialism were no more very than the abolition of poverty, if it did not imply a ethics arc either not Socialist or arc not ethics at all. It would be amusing if it were not, stale by this time parallel desire to abolish ignorance, and an underlying purpose in abolishing both-which purpose alone justifies to contemplate the spectacle of professed Socialists clinging with all their might to the ethical planks of all the pain likely to be caused by both propagandas the old individualist boat, when all the time they have --I should hesitate to call myself a Socialist. Unless in some way the souls of all men are knit in a half shares, and might have both shares, in an entirely single unity with my soul, why should I be moved by new Socialist boat. For instance, it is perfectly plain that the doctrine (or let us call it the sense) of solidarity things that do not concern me? But the underlying conviction of Socialists of my sort-and there are makes the idea of punishment impossible. You do not that the souls of all men are so knit, that, in punish your lungs for catching cold, nor condemn many is truth, whatever happens to others happens also to your foot to penal servitude for allowing a brick to oneself, and whatever happens to oneself happens also drop on it. Doubtless you suffer for both “offences,” but only naturally and not by the addition of a penal to others. imposition ; although, of course, vou do all you can It is, however, just this doctrine of the solidarity of souls that is so difficult to grasp and realise. We to avoid the pain either of the original injury or of delay in recovery. But being no longer human infants are yet so gross in our psychology that we still labour under the heresy of separateness, which permits us to mistaking the parts of the body for aliens in the none of us associate punitive with remedial believe that one individual is really insulated from all community, others, that, as it were, each soul exists by itself in a measures. Yet there arc still Socialists who indignantly and protest tower of solitude, surrounded by a moat which he may deny that punishment is anti-Socialist, against the association of the doctrine with the bridge or unbridgc at will. Yet, as psychologists of know, there is no real evidence for the theory ; as doctrines economic justice. Well, but it was not so long ago in the history of moralists know, the theory is the fruitful parent of the world that the mind established its unity in the every sort of immorality, comprising most of our presence of the diversity of the body. When one thinks current morality and as artists of all kinds understand, and prophets in all ages have announced the truth is of the astonishing tour de force of the intelligence in the very reverse, namely, that the individual in him- welding all the myriad sensations and impulses of the body self is nothing, means nothing ; in short, is as inconceivable into a single whole, and in achieving the final or Iapart from Mankind as an apple is non- creative act of naming the whole Ego, thereby, of course, not destroying the multiplicity, but, existent but for a tree. as it were, comprehending it, and handling it as a All this, however, is not only compatible with what but demands individuality in craftsman -thinking of this great act of intelligence, we call individuality, greater and greater degree. Individualism is no more one is encouraged to believe that the multiplicity which now call ourselves and others may one day be than the theory that each separate anatomical structure we into a single whole, and in the kingdom of man is complete and self-sufficient welded by the imagination Individualism, indeed, whether in politics, in thereby comprehended and handled. But we shall ethics, in philosophy, or in religion is merely a dark necessarily abandon therewith the idea of punishment, shadow of the real individuality. It presupposes an or punishment of others as well as of ourselves. And atomic structure, an infinite multiplicity. a congeries of who ever does not realise this is still far enough from comprehending Socialism. persons, without the necessary addition of the unity We should do well, I think, to make this amid the diversity. Individuality, on the other hand, question of Punishment decisive in matters of Socialist ethics. while even more emphatic in its claims to uniqueness, yet recognises that its uniqueness is conditional and The practice, of course, is a very different affair. Even privileged. True individuality is not a claim to possess the realisation that punishment is incompatible with so much as a claim to give. being itself complete as a the sense of Solidarity is only an occasional visitor to as our minds are ripe fruit it demands no more than to be allowed to minds still imprisoned or wandering in the caves and jungles of individualistic modes of scatter itself. Giving is its responsibilities but taking thought. and possessing are at best no more for individuality The practice will only come with than necessities --conditions watchfulness. Let nobody suppose that Socialist ethics, for new giving. We need, perhaps, to guard ourselves against an involving the abolition of punishment, is 394 THE NEW AGE “pretending that. sociology is -merely a higher department either easy to grasp or easy to maintain when grasped. He regards it -as an independent of biology.” The Kingdom of Heaven is taken and held by violence only. But, on the other hand, the more I think of it science. This recalls Driesch’s famous pamphlet, “Die where he and the more I compare my experiences with those of Biologie als selbstständige Wissenschaft,” stands out for biology as something other than a men like Carpenter and Shaw, Whitman and Shelley, the more convinced I am that we may have all the matter of physics and chemistry. Of course, Professor Thomson is right. We have sonic real knowledge of effects of economic Socialism without being a single men living in societies ; we see them at work under sentiment the better off so long as those radical, ‘time dishonoured, and most damnable beliefs remain that the varying conditions, so that it is not difficult to eliminate individual belongs to himself alone, and that “punishment"the factors that give rise to different civilisations or Experiments in sociology are always is the proper penalty of “crime.” So much at non-civilisations. being carried out. any rate the sense of Solidarity destroys. In the same paper, “The Sociological Appeal to (To be continued.) Biology,” Professor Thomson deals in a masterly fashion with the illogical reasoning that would protest with natural selection.” Much of against “interfering the weakness and disease is, as he points out, not Vol. III. Sociological Papers. Published for the inherited, but purely accidental. Many of the unfit are Sociological Society. Macmillan and Co. 10s. 6d.) simply persons who do not happen to fit in with-some “The successful flight of Nulli Secundus brings in its academician’s scheme of life. In many cases it is not train a revolution in human ideas and in human the individual but the environment which is unfit. conditions. We are watching the dawn of a new age.” withal Professor Thomson would not disagree with Thus my newspaper of this morning. The birth of a my view that there is in a very literal sense an new age invariably elates me ; I really don’t know aristocracy birth, but he becomes absurdly cautious of why. On this occasion I had certainly taken no steps when he approaches anything eugenic. to compass it. Feeling immensely puffed up, my eye “A Practical Eugenic Suggestion,” Dr. In wandered to another column-a cable from New York : McDougall makes a kind of suggestion that we might “Mr. James R. Duke had presented his wife with a expect from a University Lecturer. He admits that magnificent pearl necklace valued at £40,000. The “much can be said in favour of a restricted polygamy pearls are all flawless and perfectly graduated ; and it (not the harem).” Seeing that polygamy in some form is doubtful if the necklace could be matched in the or other is the rule nearly the whole world over, it world.” I recalled the cannibal Uitote Indian who would be strange indeed if something could not be consented pilot me on the Orteguaza River for some said in its favour, to But Dr. McDougall will admit weeks against a magnificent bead necklace, not to be no changes that destroy the institution of the family, matched in the whole of the Caqueta. The dawn of a since every great civilisation can only be based on a new age! Perhaps. My newspaper is inexhaustible in sound family life. He gives no reasons why we should “The National Council of the not regard this conception of a sound family life as a interest this morning. Independent Labour Party at its concluding meeting mere figment of the imagination, nor does he tell us . . . repudiates the charge that Socialism is antagonistic what great civilisations have been reared upon it. to the family organisation.” Revolution in human Dr. McDougall believes that women will come to On investigation, I find that the ideas? Perhaps. National Council is made up of twelve men and one realise that maternity is their highest and only career. Indeed, woman. As a man, I am immensely pleased with the This seems a quite unnecessary assumption. until women realise that all careers are open to them pronouncement of the Council. As a Socialist . . . on the same terms as to men, no eugenic advance will Does this third volume of the Sociological Society’s be made. Maternity is an excellent profession, but papers bear promise of a ”revolution in human ideas ?” many women capable of other excellent work are as Sir Francis Galton, the founder, claimed as the main unsuited to be mothers as many men are to be stokers work of the Society the “introduction of Eugenics into the National Conscience, like a new religion . . . The or dramatists. There will be no dearth of mothers when once the economic handicap is removed, which now improvement of our stock seems one of the highest forces civilised woman into monogamy. By what objects that we can reasonably attempt.” Dr. McDougall’s practicable suggestions takes the method are we to breed this new race? This is exactly form of the modest proposal to increase the offspring where the Society should step in. This is exactly what it does not attempt, thus justifying to some extent the of our Civil Servants, who are selected from the ablest youths of our Universities. He suggests that the scepticism Professor Pearson expressed as to its power married Civil Servant be paid on a sliding scale according to do good work. to the number of his children-with one child £675, Dr. G. Archdall Reid leads off with a paper on “The rising with six children to £1,050 per annum. As Dr. Biological Foundations of Sociology.‘* Here he simply McDougall favours polygamy, I presume the word repeats the speculations already made familiar at greater married is not to be legally interpreted. length in volume form. Is it really worth while telling I take it that any first-class clerk who can prove himself to be the a Sociological Society that heredity is really a very important subject. It is the facts about heredity that we father of six children will be paid a salary of £1,050. One objection to this proposal is that it is the mother are anxious to know, and Dr. Reid has nothing to tell that should be endowed, and not the father. She bears us Vague scraps of history and crude ethnological the child. There would be less danger of fraud. guesses no longer suffice for biological speculations. Another objection is that-the class of persons whom it Dr. Reid must learn that Biology is being reconstructed is proposed to endow is not the one I am anxious to from the experimental side by physiologists like Loeb, see increased. zoologists like Herbst and Morgan, or in this country, The university-reared Civil Servants form a wretchedly stereotyped class, representative of Bateson and Lock. The era of Haeckel and Spencer, I should from whom Dr. Reid dissents, but whose methods he the intellectual sluggishness of the country. have preferred to ‘see the experiment begun with the follows, belongs to the astrological period of biology-able artisan or the alive commercial classes. all very excellent in its day. The interminable discusHowever, those who feel as keenly as myself the sions between Dr. Reid and his opponents are always necessity for making a start, and thus helping to form futile, because both sides start out with an equally public opinion, will not cavil at the proposal. At all profound ignorance of recent work. events, no harm n-ill be done. We can produce nothing Dr. Reid, who knows all about heredity, considers that Sociology is entirely a biological problem. It is worse than the actual conditions. interesting to turn from the views of the physician to I can but just mention some of the other papers. Dr. J. L. Tayler’s on “Individuology” is ingenious, those of the biologist. Mr. Darbishire, who announces and merits an article to itself. Professor Geddes himself as a biologist pure and simple, confesses “that elaborates plan for a Civic Museum. his I don’t understand we know very little of heredity.” Professor J. Arthur a word of it. Mr. H. G. Wells is seen at his Thomson, who is likewise a pure biologist, though worst in The So-Called Science of Sociology.” certainty not a simple one, enters a protest against He wishes the Society to engage in-framing Utopias rather than in building up a science-from a knowledge of the But Mr. Wells’ own, efforts in present and past. Utopiadom are certainly not written “pour encourager Eder les autres." Beyond Good and Evil. By Friedrich Nietzsche. Trans. Helen Zimmern. (T. N.. Foulis. 5s. net.) Nothing vexes our patriotic soul more than the reflection that in France, which is only a few hours’ distant from London, one can buy a cheap and complete translated edition of Nietzsche, while in all the British Empire a man, unless he reads either French or German, must content himself with five expensive translations of only five of the sixteen or so books written by the greatest humanistic philosopher of modern Europe. The present volume is the fifth of the appearance only due to is English edition ; and- even its the public-spirited generosity of Dr. Oscar Levy and the enthusiasm of Mr. Thomas Common. It speaks volumes for our intelligence that the works of Nietzsche should remain so long inaccessible, since in insular-England we cannot console ourselves with the belief that many of our fellow-countrymen have read him in the original or in the French translation. This being the case, we may as well congratulate ourselves ‘that the interrupted publication of Nietzsche translations is now resumed with the definite promise that it will be continued till there is nothing left to translate. The present volume is not, in our opinion, the most opportune, being in some respects the most difficult of all the writings of Nietzsche, with the single exception of his last and unfinished work. “Beyond Good and Evil,” in fact, was a sort of flaming nebula cast off from the luminiferous ether out of which Nietzsche was creating his magnum opus. It belongs to the series which includes “The Genealogy of and is, like Morals” and “The Case of Wagner.” them, a completed study for a single section of his contemplated work, “The Will to Power.“. Good and Evil” As the title suggests, “Beyond contains the Nietzschean doctrine of super-morality ; together with a good deal of metaphysic and sociology. Of metaphysic proper Nietzsche had, it is true, very little, since his curt dismissal of all absolutes disqualifiedhim from the communion of the logomachers. On the other hand, he may be said to have revived an older metaphysic than any of the modern schools propound, if we except the mystics whose doctrines hark back, as they believe, to the foundations of the world. For, in truth, Nietzsche was an intellectual mystic of the highest order, and his forerunners were less Kant and Schopenhauer than Heraclitus and the Buddhists whom he thought he despised The primacy of the will, the world as an aesthetic phenomenon for the delectation of the soul, the tragedy of life, the affirmation of Becoming and the denial of Being, the eternal wheel of recurrence, all these are doctrines easy enough to be found in Indian teaching, and not indiscoverable in the meagre remains of the aphorisms of Heraclitus. What, then, is Nietzsche’s contribution to thought? Certainly not a philosophy, since he was the first to deny the absolute value even of his own philosophy. Nor again, was his contribution a contribution to Morality, much as he believed himself to be the very first to ever burst into that silent sea. As a matter of fact, the repudiation of absolute morality in the terms of Good always and everywhere, Evil always and everywhere, is a common-place of the Old Testament which informs us that God made both good and evil. And if God made both good and evil, evil becomes, on every teleological principle, as purely relative to an end as good, and both lose their absolute value. We need no more than. mention India again, where for at least three thousand years the Nietzschean doctrine of Beyond Good and Evil has been taught more or less explicitly. The fact is that Nietzsche’s merit lies almost altogether in his dramatic representation of some of the Like Socrates, he oldest doctrines in the world. Moreover, revealed the mysteries to those without. there is a flame in his style and ideas which easily communicates itself to imaginative minds, and just as readily alarms the pedants who dislike nothing so much as heat, even when it is luminous. Hence Nietzsche will always appeal to the Latin more than to the Teutonic temperament. The latter, indeed, will probably never understand Nietzsche ; or, understanding him, will become obsessed after the faithful Teutonic way. Unfortunately, however, there is not much danger of an obsession of Nietzsche in the mind of England. When so tropical a nature as Mr. G. K. Chesterton utterly fails to grasp the elementary distinction between the relative Bad and the absolute Evil, there is little wonder if the majority of his contemporaries, temperate in mind and almost frigid in the climate of drama, gape with horror at the bare suggestion that Good and Evil are only relative terms after all, and in the absence any defined aim in- life mean nothing more of than that Mrs. Grundy has usurped the throne of Jehovah. We write perhaps prematurely. The appearanceof this volume may mark a turning-point in the history of popular discussion. It is even conceivable that Nietzsche may begin to be read in England. We hope so. By Emile Faguet. History of France. (Unwin. 12s. 6d. net.) Monsieur Faguet has the reputation of being the most prolific of contemporary French authors of the first rank. His responsibility must be considerable in preparing for the public an incessant stream of criticism essais psychologiques, studies in literary history and even efforts in political journalism. But when the quality of the output is always maintained, as is the case of M. Faguet whose “studies” are masterpieces in miniature, whose critiques almost always exhibit a safe arid penetrating judgment, whose essays are masterly, and whose historical efforts are equal to the best-the literary public can only rejoice. A limpid style, charming in its ease and simple elegance and we may add, only in consequence the more difficult to reproduce in translation -- clothes our author’s carefully-considered and perfectly-arranged ideas. "Pourqu’on lise Platon” is a typical example, and is bearing its happy fruits. “En Lisant Nietzsche,” the last word on the subject in the French, and perhaps the best in any tongue, would well repay translation into English. As for M. Faguet’s “petit dernier,” “Amours d’hommes de lettres,” is a delicate and piquant morsel of psychological study. But to cite all that M. Faguet has done well were a long story. We have already said that he is prolific. The book before us is a translation of his “Literary History of France,” which appeared in Paris a year or two back in two volumes. The author here departs a little from his normal method of pleasing dalliance with somewhat minor matters, but we are compensated by a series of brief, telling characterisations of authors, their works, and of the literary atmosphere of periods or centuries, which light up almost every page of the work. The book is well stocked with names, dates, private judgments general ideas. Though no one is compelled to accept M. Faguet’s standpoint, at least there is no A Literary 396 OCTOBER 1907 17, doubt what that standpoint really is (for ourselves, we Kirkup thought there was a necessity for him to write should like to cross swords with him on the subject of a book, and-that is why we venture mildly to quarrel with him; for he has nothing of much importance or Zola). novelty to tell us. His book is constructed on the It is regrettable that so little space could be allowed In the opening chapters he tracks the rise for the “origins,” and for the Carolingian and Arthurian usual lines too, that the translator has of the present system out of feudalism ; he subjects cycles (regrettable, the adopted the discarded and unscholarly form of “Carlovingian present system of capitalism to an examination by no means sufficiently comprehensive or severe ; and But with what charm does M. Faguet treat Louise Labée, la belle Cordière, the precursor of the follows this up by. a chapter of current views on Socialism. In any future edition of his book Mr. Kirkup Pléiade ! How penetrating his simple characterisation will be well advised to delete this chapter. Current of Konsard’s penchant for classical imitation, which he views on Socialism arc out of place in a serious treatise; that we must reach “in order to understand remarks they should be left to the columns of Liberal and Tory the half Pagan soul which is to be found occasionally newspapers. Much more to the point is the chapter in his writing--and was not his ! This was Ronsard’s chief fault : that he sought to. absorb in some way the describing what Socialism is, and this is the part of his subject in which Mr. Kirkup is most at home. most diverse and the most alien imaginative expression, Socialismin its essence is an economic change. Questions (We quote from the translation Greek, Latin, or Italian.” connected with it as to religion, ethics, politics tion). This chapter is quite one of the most suggestive and as to the methods of realising the theory, may be in the book. and are of supreme importance ; but they arc not let us note his dictum on Voltaire, But to pass on, Socialism.” This is excellently said ; but why, then, one of M. Faguet’s own masters :should Mr. Kirkup devote the next chapter to discussing It is “He never really knew what he wanted. Aspects of Socialism“? the “Moral The book impossibleto reproach him seriously on that account, for concludes with the respective difficult& and prospects the number of people who have known what they of Socialism. wanted is very limited in the whole of history. But he Mr. Kirkup writes throughout with conspicuous knew well enough what he did not want.” impartiality and conscientiousness, and his book can be And then, to quote for a third and last time, heartily recommended to that numerous class which is approvingly, let us take the following short passage on beginning to regard Socialism as a subject of pressing Renan, whose recently-published correspondence with importance. The more advanced student, WC are afraid, Berthelot has revealed the greatness of heart of these will resent a certain looseness of thought and Renan, says M. Faguet, “was an construction,displaying itself in useless and irritating two men Of genius. amazing writer and disconcerted criticism by the impossibility repetitions, and occasionally in self-contradictions, even of explaining his method of procedure ; he was in essentials. We will give two examples. “Competition luminous, supple, naturally pliant, yielding ; beneath is and must always; be a potent element of human his apparently effeminate grace an extraordinary progress, But it should be conducted on reasonable strength of character would suddenly make itself felt ; terms. The principle of competition should be subordinated moral principle.” to he exercised a caressing influence which finally These sentiments are unimpeachable, but to find them solemnly introduced enveloped reader.” (There, as always, the translation the into a philosophical discussion is more than disappointing is halting and imperfect, and fails to do the French Again : The evils of society arc not dependent credit.) solely on economic causes,” while a dozen pages later We should like to have seen reproduced the beautiful engravings of the French edition, but it would, of on he tells us the evils of the competitive system are course, have involved great outlay, and resulted in a felt throughout the whole of society, resulting too generally very expensive book. But we may fairly ask : Why so many French quotations in an English translation ? We do not forget the somewhat cryptic note on this subject which the translator prefixes to the volume. but we can hardly forbear to wonder whether, if a student could master the comparatively idiomatic French of these extracts. he would not be equally capable of appreciating M. Faguet’s work in its original form, and LADIES WHO REQUIRE REALLY certainly with far greater enjoyment than he could hope GOOD. TASTEFUL OUT-DOOR to expect from a translation. WEAR AT A MODERATE PRICE Finally by way of criticism, may we ask what SHOULD CALL AND SEE OUR induced M. Faguet to allow such a preface to appear above his initials ? We allude to the very bad English MODELS OF COSTUMES AND rendering, from which we quote a sentence, not by any COATS, OR WRITE FOR ILLUSTRATIONS means the worst contained in it. “We shall not cease, AND PATTERNS. that French romantic literature it runs, “to maintain OUR COSTUMES TO MEASURE, au fond is essentially original, essentially French; TAILOR-MADE AND FITTED, LINED and that, on the other hand, in her (sic) evolution THROUGHOUT, AT. TWO GUINEAS fowards self--recognition, self-detachment, and finally self-consciousness, she has been materially aided by the AND THREE GUINEAS, ARE THE practice existing at the time among the French of BEST VALUE IT IS POSSIBLE TO constantlystudying the works of Shakespeare, Ossian, OBTAIN. Byron, Young, and Walter Scott, is surely no SHOW ROOM IN OXFORD STREET, incontestable fact” (sic). IMMEDIATELY OVER THE Surely hf. Faguet’s priceless reputation gained in TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD “TUBE” France should not be thus lightly endangered in England. STATZON -LIFT AT ENTRANCE. where he is, at present, comparatively unknown. LADIES TAILORS Socialism and Economics. An Inquiry into Socialism HOURS OF BUSINESS FROM 12 NOON TO 9 P.M.; SATURDAYS 12 TO 4 books on Socialism should usually be so prodigiously dull: as though dullness were always synonymous with wisdom. It really need not be so. We have ourselves gained a firmer grasp of Socialist economics from Mr. Bernard Shaw’s Fabian Essay than from anything we It is too late had read before or have read since. for most or us to become witty Irishmen. but then there Now Mr. is no necessity for us to write books. OLIVER & CO., 9-15, OXFORD ST., W. Over Tottenham Court Road "Tube" Hours Station, 12noon lo 9 pm. Sats.4. OCTOBER 17, 1907 397 but which would help all existing industries and The wealth a man increase the wealth of the nation.” might dispose of during his lifetime was limited by the number of his family; while at death all property exceeding million dollars should pass to the Department a If would be a fascinating pastime of Public Wealth. to describe in detail how these proposals were carried out in actual practice, but in justice to the author we must refer enquirers to the book itself. WC might perhaps whet the reader’s eager curiosity by mentioning that in the case of marriage,. for example, “it was deemed necessary that every couple starting in life should have at least 5,000 dollars” ; and how by an ideal and original arrangement all friction in the industrial world was avoided by a declaration of Congress it is the purpose of the Government that “Whereas to deal out justice and equality as far as human needs and demands may permit, yet it will not sanction a strike or lock-out for any cause.” But we think we have Besides, there is not only a limit to said enough. wealth, but a limit to our space. ally in demoralisation, etc.,. etc., and has perverted our Now moral judgments and debased our moral ideas." if a man have clear ideas on Individualism or Socialism it matters little which side in the controversy he chooses to take ; but he is trifling with his readers when he calls the same thing. black and white at different stages of his argument. We should not think it probable that Mr. Kirkup has an enemy, but if he has he would be well advised to let him edit the book before the next edition appears. He concludes with the hope that a future generation, having outlived the enmities of our own day, will. “place the wreath of laurel on the tombs of Robert Owen and Lord Shaftesbury, of the Emperor William I and Bismarck, as well as of Lassalle and Karl Mars, of Cardinal Manning and General Booth ; as well as of the poor weavers of Rochdale and Ghent, who made the Co-operative Movement live.” We cannot we any objection. Limit of Wealth. By Alfred I.. Hutchinson. (Macmillan. 5s. net.) It would really seem as if History, after all, would finally decide that the Socialists were on the wrong tack. For in the beginning of 1942 there assembled at Paris a committee consisting of the President of the lrene Wycherley. French Republic, as chairman; the King of England Miss Lena Ashwell has opened the Kingsway Theatre and Emperor of India, the Emperor of Germany, the Sultan of Turkey, the Shah of Persia, and the with what I hope is going to be a triumphant success. For Miss Lena Ashwell is aiming high-at a success Mikado of Japan. (with power to add to their number). On the 4th March, 1913 a great revolution occurred in like that of the Court Theatre, although a success of a different genius. And Mr. Anthony P. Wharton’s play the administration of the Government of the United States, which had enabled that fortunate country so to is a very courageous beginning of that success. “Irene is a very powerful play, a very real play, Wycherley” “outrank all the other nations in power and material prosperity that the aforesaid committee was called to possibly almost a great play ; it presents life as it is, take such steps as would even advance their nations to it is free from many conventions, and, as is usual, it raised the actors to its own level, and was very well the rank of the Great American Republic. It resulted in a very voluminous document, consisting of no less acted. The story of the play is that Irene Wycherley, having been separated from her husband for several than 25,000 pages of typewritten matter. BY a happy years on account of his general conduct and personal chance Mr. Hutchinson came to be the official stenographer violence, goes back to him when he is blinded and and with. the exception of occasional footnotes dangerously wounded by an accidental explosion of his he has been good enough to supply us with a narrative own gun. Irene is partly driven to do this by the which “follows strictly’ the verified statements accident and her Roman Catholic conscience, and partly contained the original report.” in by the discovery that her platonic friendship for Harry The glaring inequalities of wealth had long disturbed and alarmed all genuine patriots, but up to the year Chesterton is love she cannot fight against. 1913 no satisfactory solution had ever been offered. The first act brings us to this point, and the second displays Philip Wycherley, six weeks after the accident, There had, of course, been theories ; “theories which appeared beautiful in the extreme, and which were horribly scarred, blind, raging and brutal, cursing those honestly advocated; but beautiful only as theories, and around him, loathing his wife, and desiring only drink absolute failures when put to a practical test.” Among and one of the women who have fascinated him, Lilly these must be included Henry George’s Single Tax Summers. Lilly Summers has been intimate with System, which when put into practice meant “the Wycherley before her present marriage to the Colonial, confiscation of all landed property, which would have Summers, her first husband having shot himself on this led to a serious revolution.” The Socialists were account. And in the third act, Summers, who has lived unqualified‘failures ; for “while they were never able to in wild places, discovers the whole business, and the put their theories to a complete test, there were local play ends with two shots heard outside and the knowledge tests made to such an extent as to prove the inefficiency conveyed to Irene and Chesterton that Summers of the theories of Socialism.” has killed Wycherley and then himself. It transpires It fell “to the lot of a young pedagogue to first at the same moment that the “accident” to Wycherley enunciate the doctrine” that was destined once for all was Summer’s previous attempt. This outline of the to reconcile the conflicting interests of society. Being story perhaps conveys a more bloodthirsty impression a pedagogue it was quite natural that he “had seen than the play itself, which deals not so much with the the evil effects of vast accumulations of wealth“; and incidents as with the personality of Irene and Wycherley his proposals, which we append in a condensed form, The study of Irene, her love for Chesterton, her rapidly secured the support of all classes, save the very control of that love, her detestation of her husband, rich. These proposals are:and her jealousy of Chesterton is the best part of the The creation of a Department of Public Wealth: an play. That this owed very much to Lena Ashwell goes income tax graduated to apply to all persons whose without saying, the contrast of temperament between income exceeded 1,000 dollars a year ; to limit the husband and wife being obvious not only in the words amount of wealth a person might dispose of without and gestures, but in a horrible void of words and restriction ; to collect from every person at death all gestures.Irene’s Catholic conceptions compel her to consent accumulations of wealth, beyond the amount permitted to act dutifully to Philip, so she forces herself to to be held by the estate ; and to inaugurate “such walk towards him frozen with repulsion; she determines public work as would not compete with existing industries to make overtures to him, and does so in negatives. The DRAMA. He curses her, and she endures him with a monumental merry-go-round (even Stanford is less ponderous); and passivity which would have steam-rollered the fury or Mr. Lloyd Chandos failing to excite- any interest in an elephant. Lohengrin’s dreadful narration--all this seemed -to Just as powerful was Mr. Norman McKinnel’s acting of Wycherley, stumbling and damning knock the whole evening out of joint. Perhaps I am against chairs, fumbling in the grate for a light and unduly captious about the concerto after a first hearing burning his fingers, fearing the pain, “I, who thought but it inspired me with only one wish : that Elman not to-fear the fires of Hell itself,” and bursting out or Kreisler might play it one day. Then we should know whether it has to be finally relegated to the limbo into wild, hysterical fury at his shackling blindness, All of which is real, primitive, horrible, all of which has of unachieved things. On Wednesday evening a new concerto for piano-forte something of an Elizabethan flavour about it, a and orchestra was performed for the first time. thunderstorm glamour. .-But is it all good enough?, Mr. Wharton may reply that he has accomplished the It is by Mr. Edward Isaacs, who played the solo Instrument himself. It was a great pleasure to listen artist’s work in putting reality into his drama. That one cannot deny ; the play stands by itself, it grips not to this new music, fresh from the Midland of England, because of its subject, but because of the genuineness of from the place of smoke and noise and perspiring labour, from Manchester of all unideal places. The its men and women. It confutes argument by existing. But have we not the right to demand something more music suggests to me the hard, persistent struggle of a of the artist than this, some kind of beauty, some man for that which he has a right to possess-his own soul. It is virile, vigorous, emphatic, ringing with all bringing of small things into relation with big things, the brightness and romantic ardour of youth. And yet “Irene some star shine reflected on muddy waters? Wycherley” is a whirlpool of desires, passions, vio- it is not a self-conscious essay in optimism, but something inevitable, something strictly human and impulsive. lence, and all the turgid, hot humanity of little people. Therefore it is’ valuable. But apart altogether It is real as a dramatisation of the murder of Emily Dimmock in Camden Town would be real. But I hold from any “independent spiritual mission” or from any that in all presentment of life there should at least be metaphysical explanation of its message (and, after all, some chink-hole through which we may look upon no one but the composer can know its real purport-; it it is a work of things greater than those immediately brought before is a conceit to try an interpretation), classic musicianship that will please anyone- but the Art must be a key to unlock life, not merely a most decadent trifler in neurotics. Mr. Charles picture of some phase of life, and this is particularly played the ‘cello in Tschaikowski’s Variations the case nowadays when realism is infinitely easier Warwick-Evans on a Rococo Theme for that instrument excellently to us than at any previous time. Our wider psychological and thoroughly deserved the ovation he received. knowledge enables us to play tricks with men’s He is one of the most “promising” of our younger emotions with almost the certainty of a physiologist ‘cellists, and should yet do good work. I should like stimulating a monkey’s brain with an electric current. Even Hall Caine has found this out in “The Christian." to hear him play Hugo Becker’s solo part in “Don it -is enormously difficult,’ but its wayward, I do not demand that every play should show Quixote"; half-cracked, irresponsible upside-down-ness should to a greater way of life, or open vistas of thought and suit his humorous fancy. speculation, as does “Major Barbara.‘: But no play On Thursday yet new work was ought to deliberately shut off men’s relations with big performed for theevening time. anotherwas a Symphonic first This It is clear that things, as does “Irene Wycherley.” by Frank even in the author’s mind Irene’s Catholicism is a Poem, calledis “Isabella,” inwritten height Mr. fashion. H. Bridge. It a creation the of It determining fact in her existence, but except as a name it does not come into the play at all. It has to be is clever, skilful, tricky, brilliant, vulgar, with a kind assumed, just as we should assume it if we knew Irene of Madame Tussaud’s chamber-of-horrors scene thrown Wycherley in private life, but it is the business of art in for sensation ; it is everything in fact which John Keats would have loathed. Master Frank Bridge to introduce us beyond the barriers of mere acquaintanceship evidently saw in this divine poem a glorious opportunity else why do more than selectively edit the police news. The fact that you and I do not perhaps for the display of all the fantastic tricks suggested by believe in Roman Catholicism does not affect the question.that arch-demon, Richard Strauss, and which practically every young musician has learned before he leaves the Catholicism is a human, as opposed to a merely nursery. We feel it is not the moment for an exhibition personal thing, it is an idea through which we can meet of all this silly stock-in-trade, but when he, to and understand our fellow-men, as we cannot either vary the emotion, piles on the agony with a still more embracing, hanging, or dissecting by shaking hands, banal exhibition of shoddy sentiment, picked up them. Perhaps Mr. Wharton’s achievement is that he anywhere between South Kensington and the “front” at brings us to the discussion of these matters. Negatively Brighton, we are revolted and disgusted. The literature at any rate, it is no small thing to have got free of the of English music is better off without this greasy worst traditions of the English stage. And-this is only sentiment. X. one play. No doubt Mr. Wharton will write more, not less realistic and more human. L. HADEN GUEST. MUSIC. Some new works at the Promenades. makes adelicious milk pudding in ten minutes You will be delighted. The new violin concerto by Sibelius performed on Tuesday was in every way disappointing. From the one is led to expect great things. author of “Finlandia CATALOGUE ON APPLICATION It may be that his country is his only subject; at any OCCULT, AGNOSTIC, SOCIALISTIC, rate in this, which belongs to the category of what has MASONIC, THEOSOPHICAL. become known as abstract music, he has failed ingloriously. As a friend remarked, it was rather- more EVERYCHILD: A Book of Verse for Children, interesting when the solo instrument wasn’t playing ; Compiled by HOLBROOK JACKSON. Containing Selections from Rudyard Kipling, Edward Lear, certainly Mr. Verbrugghen could not infuse any meaning W. B. Yeats, Christina Rossetti, Tennyson, and others. into the stuff at all. It may, or may not, have been Paper 6d., Cloth 9d., post free beyond his powers of execution to start with, but--let ELZEVIR BOOK CO., 17, Boar Lane. LEEDS. him attribute it if he likes to the heat of the room--he scarcely ever seemed to be playing in tune. This, with TYPEWRITING AND SHORTHAND, Elgar’s colourless “Sea Pictures” (sung with good intention by Miss Gladys Roberts) and Mendelssohn’s NEAT, ACCURATE, PROMPT. MODERATE CHARGES. “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music played by Mr. Wood for all the world like the automatic music of a Miss ANSELL, 70-72 CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. MILK PUDDING Eiffel Tower BOOKS BOUGHT, SOLD& EXCHANGED. October 17, 1907 I cannot even agree that a chair has no ‘(mission.” I believe that (unlike me) its mission is to be sat on. It is particularly interesting to be told (I) that “Art For the opinions expressed correspondents, Editors do not concerns with ugliness as well as with beauty,” and (2) that by the itself hold themselves responsible. the proper use of painting is for decorative purposes, and that “it is just this lost purpose of decoration that painting has to re-find if it is to live under Socialism.” Will Mrs. Hartley, when she has got a house duly decorated with ugliness invite the Fabian Society to view it? SOCIALISM AND NATIONAL DEFENCE. Some passages, however, in her article compel my cordial To THE EDITORS OF "THE NEW AGE" assent : as when, speaking of her own set, she says "In Until the Hague or some such universal tribunal can prevent truth, we were in the deeps of confusion; and the trouble war, disarmament is not to be thought of, but if then it is we have not found a way out”; and also when she adds, be necessary to have an army for defence, that army should "It is time that this folly of talking about pictures should be the best obtainable and a national Socialist undertaking, be put a stop to.” for-the days of mercenaries-the capitalist armies-are gone. AYLMER MAUDE. * * * Your correspondent, Mr. F. Cochran, quotes General von der Goltz on the probabilities and chances of an AngloTo THE EDITOR OF "THE NEW AGE.” German war; the German general wrote in the year 1900 at Your article on "The Confusion of Art,” with its illuminating a time when we had our hands very full in S. Africa, but onslaught on the rival theories, “Art for Art’s Sake,” I myself a few days ago heard the opinion of an admiral in command of our most important fleet on the subject. He and "Art, the Handmaid of Morality,” dashed my hopes by the impotence of its conclusion. Let us think of the moderns. said that the most responsible men in Germany openly Let us take four representative names, Velasquez, Whistler, declare their warlike aims are directed against this country that Monet, Rothenstein. Will such men serve the Socialist and that even were Germany to land 30,000 men in England the effect would be deplorable and disastrous, whatever the State of the future merely in the capacity of wall-decorators? final result. NO one can tell what would have happened had God forbid! They are the eves of Society. The great painter is a master-seer. His power of perception is far Hoche disembarked in Ireland with the 18,000 he intended. beyond that of common men, an impassioned vision that a portion of which force did land under Humbert. When Napoleon sat upon the cliffs by Boulogne with an army of recognises first and then reveals the outer. semblance and inner nature of the visible world. Not beauty, not ugliness, 170,000 around him and below him a great flotilla strong enough to repel Nelson and his boat attack with heavy loss. not virtue, but the mighty visible world is what the artist Pitt already moribund was engaged in drilling 3,000 volunteersteaches us to see. Velasquez shows one the glory of the at Walmer and all along the coast there was marching lighted spaces of a great room. Whistler, the subtleties of and counter-marching, patriotism at boiling point, more than half-lights and low tones, Monet, the transfiguration wrought 500,000 men in arms through England.; but patriotism is no by dazzling sunlight ; Rothenstein, with a passion of racial sympathy that illuminates like a flashlight, helps our blind match for military training and the discipline necessary for eyes to recognise the ancient majesty of Judaism in the fighting battles. neighbouring synagogue. A retired British N.C.O. holding a commission in an All these things we can see when they have been shown to Australian contingent told the writer in Cape Colony that they not before. The Artist is the Herald who leads us (the Australians) were good horsemen, good shots, and good into our Kingdom. Scouts, and he added, “but they would not take a position, EMILY TOWNSHEND. sir.” what he meant was the steady advance under fire, au ZION'SWORKS contain explanations of the BIBLE, which free mankind charge of Sin. Read the "Dialogue, Vol. IV., and first Letter, advance only known by,, and possible to, disciplined men ; Vol. IX. principal Free Libraries no mad rush with its excitement, neck or nothing, but a slow walk between the bullets, chilling, unpleasant, the calmness UNITARIANISM AN AFFIRMATIVE FAITH," "UNITARIAN Christianity Explained" (Armstrong)," Eternal Punishment" (Stopford Brooke of despair almost. “Atonement ( Hopps) given free. Miss BarmbyMount Pleasant post We require efficient mobilisation of regulars and auxiliaries Sidmonth and the railways which have not been laid strategically, only for dividends. Mr. Cochran is quite correct in saying that the Army Service Corps was in charge of all the transport service in New Catalogue free on application. post South Africa: ox and mule waggons were hired and purchased private sources and the drivers were generally from BEST PRICES given for good books. coloured men, but the organisation and command were in the NOW READY. hands of the A.S.C. If war is wrong and abnormal, there is nevertheless an art Bernard Shaw Souvenir, containing two of warfare which the nations study rather more than the arts fine portraits of G. B. S. Illustrations of peace. CORRESPONDENCE. us, and BOUGHT, & EXCHANGED, BOOKS - SOLD + * WILMOT VAUGHAN, Major. * CONFUSION OF ART.” OF “THE NEW AGE." Heroic It is a-lecturer% business to make himself intelligible, and your correspondent’s remarks on my lecture given at the POST FREE, 8d., TWO COPIES 1/3, Fabian Summer School fill me with humiliation, for I evidently C. CANNON (Successor, D. J. RIDER), failed completely to show Mrs. C. Gasquoine Hartley what I was driving at. Next time I have the honour of 36, St. Martin’s Court, Charing cross Road, making any remarks on the subject of Art in her presence, “I’ll write ‘em out ; and so avide all jeal’sies READ JOHN PAGE HOPPS’ MONTHLY, ‘Twixt nonsense o’ my own an’ some one’s else’s." My subject was the Relation of Socialism to Art, and my proposition was a very simple one, that as laws and institutions For the advocacy of the Religion of Humanity, basedon the depend for their stability and efficiency on the feelings PermanentFoundations of the Fatherhood of God and the of the population, art -which sways, forms, guides and Brotherhoodof Man. deflects feelings-is of greater social importance than is our London : Mr. A. C. FIFIELD, 44, Fleet St. And all Booksellers. generally recognised. THREEPENCE. TO discuss “the Ruskinian theory" of "the justification of art” which Mrs. Hartley imagines me to be “the new of PLEASE SPEND apostle” was not my aim but my critic’s head was full of that matter before she came to my lecture, and I never managed to get her to see that I was talking about something else. Or, perhaps, she saw it well enough, but wishing to have her Say on a well-worn topic, sheattributed to me nonsensical notions in order to knock them down again. But what really interests me in Mrs. Hartley's article is not -AND SEND US A POST-CARD WITH THE NAMES what she attributes to me, but what she herself has to say on AND ADDRESSES OF ANY FRIENDS WHO WOULD the matter. She tells US that “a chair is art as much as is LIKE TO SEE “THE NEW AGE,” WE WILL a picture,” which suggests the inquiry, "What is Art?" or SEND THEM A FREE COPY. what, at least, doesshe mean by Art ? Is a factory chimney Address MANAGER 1, Took's Court, Chancery Lane,W.C. as much Art as Westminster Abbey? And if not, why not? To THE EDITORS l “THE Of "You Never Can Tell” and Cleopatra” ; and “Captain Conversion.” Preface by G. B. S. on, “The Actor." l “Caesar Brassbound's BOOKS ld 2 a IMPORTANT NEW VOLUME OF NEW AGE. INCREASE IN SIZE. ARTICLES BY LEADERS OF THOUGHT. SPECIAL ARTICLES. DICKENS A SOCIALIST. IBSEN’S WOMEN. TOWARDS SOCIALISM ANNOUNCEMENT. With the completion of the first volume of the present series, on October 24th, many improvements in THE NEW AGE will be made which will add greatly to the value and utility of the paper. The first of these is the enlargement of the paper With our issue of October 31st THE NEW AGE will be increased in size by four pages, As in the past, the Editors are determined to keep THE NEW AGE abreast of Modern Thought, and with this aim in view they have arranged for series of articles from the pens of the foremost living writers. There will be important contributions by George Bernard Shaw; Edward Carpenter ; G. K. Chesterton; Arnold Bennett ; Hamilton Fyfe, and others. Edwin Pugh, whose articles have given so much delight to our readers, will contribute a series of papers entitled "Dickensas a Socialist.” Miss Florence Farr will continue her subtle studies of men and women in a series of articles on "The Women of Ibsen.” The Series of articles already begun nuder the title "Towards Socialism” will be continued week by week until the whole of the Socialist position has been considered. As an inducement to our readers to extend the circulation, the proprietors offer a bound copy of Volume I of TEE NEW AGE to every reader who secures before the end of December, Six new Annual Subscribers (12 half-yearly or 24 Subscription rates to THE NEW AGE are: 12 quarterly) to THE NEW AGE. months, 6s. 6d.; 6 months, 3s. 9d.; 8 months 1s, 9d. post free. I SPECIAL OFFER. Address : THE NEW AGE, 1 & 2 Took’s Court, London, E.C. 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