CONTENTS, ............... CURRENT CANT ..................... FOREIGN AFFAIRS. By S. Verdad ............ MILITARYNOTES. By Romney . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . NOTES OF THE W E E K PAGE 377 382 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 391 392 TOWARDS A NATIONALRAILWAY GUILD-11. By HenryLastelles E N SOUTH AFRICA. By Sevota T H E IRISH IN ENGLAND. By Peter Fanning ......... JINKS. By Charles Brookfarmer ......... BUSINESS T H E RESTORATION OF THE GUILD SYSTEM-I. By A. J. Penty THE DOCUMENT WORDS. By M. B. Oxon . . . . . . . . . OF A PRAYER. Louis By Sordell ............... ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........................ ............... .................. C. . . . . . . . . . ............ ............ ART. By Anthony M. Ludovici . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PASTICHE;. BeatriceHastings, Arthur F. Thorn,Thomas By Fleming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P R E S E N T - D A Y CRlTICISM READERS WRITERS. By R. H. AND VIEWSASD REVIEWS.By A. E. R. DRAMA. By John Francis Hope -** PAGE 392 393 395 397 398 399 LETTERS “Daitantar,” Joseph Finn, R. M., Theodore Maynard, Peter Fanning, Henry Jevons, F. Chalmers Dixon, WordsworthDonisthorpe,Bertha Morley, BeatriceHastings, T. C. T. Potts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400 . T o w n Council, G . M. H., Writer of “Notes of the Week,” “Press-cutter,” T. Wilson, H. L. Brooke, TO I’EIE EDITOR mohf Ex-Member Johannesburg -- .-- . . Subscriptions to the N E W A G E are at the following rates :Great Brltain. One Year ... Months Six Three Months ... ... ... 80 15 0 d A broad. 76 39 17 4 88 4 4 a. d. _________- All communications relative to THENEW AGE should be addressed to THE NEW AGE, 38, Cursitor Street, E.C. NOTES OF THE WEEK. GENERAL ideas, unfortunately, are generally ignored or misunderstood.Otherwisethereis noproposition that has been more clearly and conclusively proved than the proposition that economic precedes power political power. however, Since, the semi-rationalists of the Labour and Social Reform movements are still infatuated withtheirpracticalfallacyandimagine that by some hocus-pocus they can reverse the natural sequence, there is nothing for it but to employ particulars against them whenever these present themselves. Duringthe last few weeks it is well known that balloting has been going on inside the Trade Unions on the subject of the continuance of the political levy. Under recent the Trade Union Act themembers o unions are only to f subscribe to the electoral expenses of Labour candidates if they feel disposed and their political members are in a majority. The results so far must be as disappointing to expectant the Labour Members of Parliament as they are pleasing to ourselves ; for in the major number of unions thenumber of memberswhoeventook the troubletovote has been a fraction of the whole, and in several unions, even of this fraction the larger fraction has declared againstthe political levy. The conclusion, of course, to which politicians like Mr. Snowden and Mr. MacDonald will come is that the mass of the unionists ignorant apathetic trade are and on matters that vitally concern them. They will deplore in private the want of class or public spirit in the rank and file of Labour, and in public continue on their political course as if they had the whole proletariat behind them. W e , on the other hand, having no desire to be carried into Parliament on the backs of a class for whom Parliament can as yet do nothing, declare that in deciding against political action o in only feebly supporting it, r the instincts of the working classes, whatever their reasoningmay be, arenot onlysoundpolitically, but they are soundeconomically. I t is quite a mistaketo suppose that class-politics is either meritorious or necessary.We, whoadvocateclasseconomics,have never advocated class politics. On economics the various classes of theStateare divided andmustalwaysbe divided until a newnationalorganisation of industry has displaced theexistingsystem of profiteering.But on political matters a class view,howevermuchsuch views exist and are tolerated, is an offence against the unity of the nation. Lord George Hamilton speaking in Parliament for the railway interest is a s much out of place there, but no more out of place, than Mr. Crooks speaking on behalf of the Woolwich workers. Some dim realisation of the impropriety of subjecting national interests t’opersonalorclass or trade interests would seem to have entered into the minds o’f the rank and file of trade unionists. They are, in short, better politicians without knowing it than either the Hamiltonians or the MacDonaldsandSnowdens. * * * But though political action should prove, as it cannot, to be the sole means of emancipationfromthewagesystem, it is clear now that as an instrument the political Labour Party is ill-constructed. I t is even worse than feeble, it is more dangerous to itsown friends than any to conceivable enemy. I t s brief period of existence has seen it develop all the faults of the most reactionary caucus existing Russia. outside From first to last, the efforts of its leaders have been directed tosuppressing every sign of life withinitsranks,to burking every radical discussion o r criticism of its policy, to cutting itself off from ,every intelligence above that of its own average, and, ‘of course, to bribing its f own docile officers with the intention o making loyalty worth their while. The mistakes-if they can be called mistakes ,and not th,e natural and inevitable doings of a party based on a fallacy-committed by the Labour Party have, as we all know, turned everybody against it who is not paid in one way ,or another to support it. They have done more even than that, they have brought not only the but party political action into such discredit that we doubt whether any considerable body of the rank and file will again listen without jeering to the professions and protestations of any Labour leader who avows his desire to into get Parliament. The corruption of therest o,f politics is bad ‘enough; the stench arising from Marconi the affair pollutes still publiclife;but the last tatter of popular belief in the comparative incorruptibility of theLabourPartyhas disappeared with the publication last week of the “jobs” extorted or accepted by the Labour caucus o n behalf of its friends the from Liberal Government. According 378 tothe“Times” thenumber o active workers in the f LabourandSocialist movement whohave in the last six years been appointed to Government is posts (without reckoning sprats), hundred the three and seventy-four,and their total annualsalaryaverages a hundred thousand pounds. Of these sheep turned dogs over a hundred have found a billet under the Insurance Act, and another good hundred a r e barking a t their late friends over counters from the of the Labour A prettystate of thingsfor a party that Exchanges. set out to make war upon the jobbery that maintains the present system of industrial organisation ! A pretty commentary on the “ idealism” of the Labour leaders,upontheir disinterestedness, upon their hearts bleeding fortheirclass ! If the political Labour party can survive this ‘evidence of its paid collusion with the supporters of the existing system, its strength will be greater than we imagine. For ‘our part, title the of Labour Member is henceforth a synonym of a member of the long firm of sharpers. Every aspirant a to Labour Parliamentary membership must in future expect to be asked how much in addition to his salary he hopes to make by commission on his patronage. be able to make. I t is not to be denied, at first glance, that the besom of the new President is stirring up a lot o dust-but the question is how soon the dust will settle f again. In addition to the party funds and the ordinary spoils of office, the American Governmenthas at its disposal (as one caucus here desires) the patronage of the tariff, in consequence of which the profiteers of America subscribe not only to the first in return for the second, but to the current expenses of their politicians for tariff schedules down the on nail. Theextentto which incessant “lobbying” has been carried on in America would be more credible in England if our own procedure were as crude. As it is, our governing classes have learned long ago to conduct most of their operations behind thescenesandbeforetheParliament o f their choice has assembled. Unlike Walpole, who cared not made who Members of Parliament so he might subsequently deal with them, our own wirepullers deal with candidates first and allow them to be made members afterwards. In America, however, both processes, it appears, have been necessary, simultaneously and successively. Members are both made by the bosses andafterwards“dealtwith”onevery occasion when business involved. is The revelations of Col. Mulhall in particular may be cited as evidence of the system at work. National The Association of Manufacturers, numbering 225 masters’organisationsandover 4,000 individualfirms,maintained a permanent organisation at Washington to “ influence” legislation positively and negatively. With hundreds of Congressmen in their pay and, of course, Press the in their service, they succeeded in extractingfromtheLegislaturethe Bills ,they desired and in killing every measure they fancied mightdamagethem.The whole Taft Tariff Commission, it is said, was either nominated by them or subsequently accepted their pay. It was to break down this organisationthatPresidentWilsonissuedhisrecent exposure. Henceforth, as far as his great influence extends, “lobbying” of the ancient sort will be either impossible or comparatively ineffective. So, a t least, theenthusiastssay.Butwhatistopreventtheprofiteers of America learning finesse .as our own profiteers havelearned it?Frombeinggrossandalmost open, corruption will, we are certain, become refined and secret. It will not be less, but only less obvious. Instead of Cod. Mulhall and his Association, America will have a Sir Charles Macara and his. Corruption, we repeat, is inseparable the from maintenance of an unnatural system of industryunderwhichnineout of tenmen suffer andwith whichthey are therefore inevitably at war. * * * I t may be said thatsome hope liesin turningout the present gang and replacing them by men of a better characterandsworn publicly toabstainfromputting their friends the into till. But, Sir ‘as Henry Maine long ago pointed out, corruption indispensable is to caucus politics. Who on earth would sweat himself in obscurity to return a Mr. MacDonald unless h e were confident of beingpaid for i t ? A natural born leader, a popular figure, a great man, a representative, in short, c.an undoubtedly command ,the sacrificial services of thousands; they are only too willing to back him wrong orright.But a mere politician, morepolitical still a partyliketheLabourParty, verysoon dissipates th,e sponglamour of hisfirst appearance, and with it the taneous support glamour the of greatness ensures. Thereafter it is pay, pay, pay, in one form oc .another. W e defy, in fact,apartytoexistwithoutcorruption unless its leaders are popular enough to command unpaid support. The statement is axiomatic. But precisely to the extent that a n organisation becomes a machine, popular leaders are extruded from it and only the cadgers dodgers and remain. other In words, a caucus is necessarily mediocre both and corrupt; it cannot better itself, and it cannot honest be Look, for instance, a t th,e party-system of the main parties in England, both o themmorehonestthanth,eLabour f Party. spring The of the machine,is it obvious, is the secret chest containing the party funds. Each party has itsfund,andthe members o each f depend upon it a s abjectly as .a wheeldependsuponthesupply of power. But in addition to the mere funds,theparty in power has patronage .amounting now to two hundred millions annually t o dispense. The sum simply is beyond realisation. Yet every penny is under the dispensation finally of theGovernment of theday to allot at its own pleasure. With so much spend t,o currentlyand with thepartyfundstofallback upon when out of office, the wonder is that asingleindependment Member is in Parliament or a single “injudicious”question is ever asked of the custodians of the loaves and fishes. The obstacles t40honesty, at any rate, are well-nigh insuperable; and only such good fortune a s fallsto’anybody upon earthbutrarely,or a great family or class tradition, can ensure the return o unpolluted candidates toParliamentortheirstay f there uncorrupted. W e conclude that, for the present, the case of the Labour Party is’ hopeless; for there is not a man of genius among them, and their traditions to quell any al:e base. Worse still, they instantly unite signs of genius or passionate honesty in the movement they control, and thus to ensure that mainly genius or honesty shall never appear among them. * * * * * * Before accepting President Wilson’s purging of lobbying as evidence against the foregoing, we have yet to see the accommodations American business men will ReturningtotheLabourParty, a proposalis now on foot to bring about the union of the British Socialist Party, the I.L.P. and the Fabian Society, and to attach the first named,withtherest,totheLabourParty. There is not, as we have often said,’ the least reason in theconstitution of thesepartiestomakethiscourse undesirable. Thoughtheleadersmay personallydiffer on trifles, in essentials agree they beautifully. T h e leaders of all three little groups have a single eye on Parliament; they all therefore believe in political action; they all pretend t o fancy that Westminster is the way to emancipation. Since is case, this the division among them is to be deplored for their own sake. United they can stand candidates as with chance a of becoming members ; divided they fall to the bottom of the poll on most occasions. If- the objection be raised that a moment ago we were denouncing political action as useless, and are now urging these three groups to more effective, becauseunited,politicalaction,ourreply is that, like Nero, wepreferour fallacies onone neck. T o differentiate between the B. S. P., the I.L.P. and the Fabian Societyis to injureourminds in microscopy. Notprinciple a worthenunciationistobe discerned dividing them. Their economic fallacies have they in common, and their political infatuation is a family trait. Nothing, say we with M. Vandervelde, who came over from Belgium to marry the parties, should prevent up andtheceremonycompletedthebannsbeingput 379 Wecanthink of nolawfulimpediment,but,onthe contrary, extend our best welcome to the union and the hope that the three may soon be only one. the State will do. Will the State be able to afford to see Capital and Labour united t o profiteer ,at the public expense? A trust o capital bad f is enough the for public, but what would the public say to a combined it is clear, trust of CapitalandLabour?TheState, must intervene when the offer o co-partnership is made f and in. place of thecapitalistssubstitute itself. Thus would the first National Guild be formed, consisting on th,e one side o ,th,e State as the supreme owner o the f f means of industry, and, on the other, o a Guild f possessing a complete monopoly of its labour. But this, as we say, though rationally clear and practically possible; though it affords,the only intelligible means and definition of “emancipation,” is still a dark saying to the Labour movement. And a darksayingit will remain those understand have until who it and no interested motive in delaying its recognitionset about makingitknownandunderstood. * + * N o doubt this appears to ,be a counsel of despair, or perhaps o irony. IVe donotattemptto f conceal its nature;but,on th.e otherhand, we contend that it is theonly means thatexists forgettingthebubble of politicalactionpricked once and f,or all. While it can be supposed that political action fails by reason of the inefficiency of th,e LabourParty ‘or by reason of the divisions in Labour’s political forces, political action will always remain as the “ideal” method of emancipation. The MacDonalds and the Snowdens, equally with the Hyndmansandthe Peases will always be able to say that if thepartywere unitedpolitically, o r if the group in Parliament were more ,efficient, political action would work wonders. While more than sceptical of this result from political action without a n economic force tosupportit; while, in fact, we deny thatthe most complete unity of political purpose or integrity of political method can possibly bring about anything more than th,e amelioration, at the expense of all, of the conditions of some, wage-slaves, we are nevertheless disposed toencouragethe various groups to make a trial. If fools mustlearn by personal experience and cannot learn by history or by reasoning, the best advice to givethem is toplungeinto experience under the most favourable circumstances, and to learn there that in politics they can only, like Mr. Lansbury, splash about. The ,emancipation, we repeat, of the proletariat not, is however, accomplishable by political means. Government does not exist to re-distribute property,but to preserveit. Its functionisnot r’evolution but conservation. Its power dependent is absolutely uponth’e will o the owners; it is they who f make andunmakeGovernments precisely a s theycan f and do make and unmake the fortunes s wage-slaves. Until this dependence of political power upon ,economic power is understood, not only will political power producenothing,butwe a r e .afraid the economicpower o the f proletariat will never be collected into a monopoly. * * * * * * The economic purpose, unfortunately, of the Labour movement is rathermore difficuit tounderstandthan its political purpose. Any Tom or Dick can understand theobject o the Labour Party f in Parliament; it is to return a majority of members and finally toform a Labour Ministry. That, we say, utterly though impossible is quite intelligible. But ask aImost any trade unionist o r Socialistwhat end economic action proposes for itself 27d he hasnothinglike so clear a reply. We it is true, have offered him areply : it is the abolition of the wage-system; and we have likewise defined the method,namely, th,e creation in thetrade unions of a complete monopoly of their labour property. Independently o strikes (about which we care no more f in the abstract Mr. than Snowden), independently of political action or of collective bargaining, wage-boards, or an,y other means or intermediate ,objects, the mere creation of ,all-inclusive unions, the mere knowledge that a union possesses’ a monopoly of its labour, would, we contend, have more effect upon legislation than twice forty Labour Members in Parliament. I t would mean that employers .of the labour so consolidated would meet their men on equal terms for the first time in history. Each side would possess monopoly, a the would be one of capital, theother of labour;andit impossible, given equal intelligence, for either party to make more o u t of the resulting production than the other. A s a matter o fact, we confidently f predict that the first union that controls the whole of its Iabour will be invited to icto enter partnership with its federatedemployersuponequalterms ! We shall see a movement towards co-partnership of a very different kind from that advocated nowadays by Sir William Lever and others. The question will then arise o what f AtMorpeth on Saturday last poorMr.Burt proved that he had spent all his diligent years in the Labour movement without knowing what the movement is really striving for. But we can only regard as a Labour representative a man who representstheLabour movembent. A leader who merely presents reflects or his movement,whohasnot divined its objectandcannot define it and make it intelligible and articulate to his followers, i.s not a representative at all. At best he is a delegate, a convenient gramophone to receive and to blare out th’e confused counsels of a multitudinous babel. At worst,heis a blindleader o the blind. “Unless,” f saidMr.Burt to th’eminers,“unlesstheyalteredthe present industrial system absolutely-and he was as profoundlydissatisfiedwithit as any man could be-they could have nothing better than collective bargaining under independent chairmen. Let them not abolish the present system until they had something better to Well, what that is better system put in its place.” which conceivably may alter absolutely the present system with which Mr. Burt‘ is so profoundly dissatisfied? N o hint )of it was contained in, his speech, and nohint,weventuretosay, will befound in all Mr. Burt’s speeches. And the reason is plain. Mr. Burthas n’o idea whatthe new andbettersystemis and no notion even of h’ow tobegin to displacethe existingsystem.Hisappealtotheminerswas indistinguishable the from appeal made by any sensible employer. In effect it was to make the best of things .as they are in the hope that we should muddle through t’o Utopia.Butisit necessary to say.againthatthe proletariat cannot muddle anywhere but to a worse hell than they now occupy? Is it necessary to say that, even if the proletariat should subsidein a woolly muddle of sentif mentality, th’e employing classes will do nothing o the kind?Fancyasking the internationalfinanciers, trust magnates, federations of employers, and other profiteers to put UQ with. profoundly unsatisfactory circumstances, notlook to ahead, to nothing their andrisk lest present plight should be worsened. W e inherit, like everybodyelse, a traditionalrespectforMr.Burt. We h.ave heard, however, more good of him than sense from him. * * * On subject the of Co-partnership a naive address was delivered by Sir William Lever a week ago to his employees at PortSunlight.Hebegan by makingit clear that he didnotrecognise that hisworkmenhad any right whatever to share in “his” profits.Co-partnershipforhimwas a “soundbusiness proposition. ” “You,” he said, “do not make the profits in this business. The directors do. If you menmadetheprofits you could leave me to-morrow and go make it for yourselves. I t is you and I together produce who the money.” There is, as our readers will see, a contradiction here ; but the error in logic is nothing to the error in economics. I t is true that Sir William Lever’s ability makes him a fit and proper superviser of workmen, and probablyhismen would havesenseenoughtochoose 380 him as a master in their guild. But his notion that all the directorial ability in the world can make goods and consequently profits without the co-operation, willing or unwilling, of workmenrevealshisfurtherassumption that hismen are simplymachines. Infact,he specifically denied them the right to share in profits on the analogythat “ a saw or a hammerhas n,o right to share in the profits of the man who makes articles with that saw or hammer.” It is distressing to have to point out to a belted knightthat a manwith a sawor a hammer cannotmakeprofits,but only utilitieswhich he can exchange. A workman cannot “exploit” a machine. I t ismoredistressingstilltohavetourge once again that men, even wage-slaves, are not of the nature of sawsandhammers,andcannotmorallybe classed with and treated mere as tools. Wealth is produced by labouroperating on rawmaterial.Profit, however, is produced by capital operating upon labour. SirWilliam Lever grows rich not by labour,but by forcing labour produce than to more he pays it in wages. A B C. mer’s ingenuity Mr. Pease has reconciled our extremes by undertaking to begin the work in the intermediate and secondary schools. These, he said, are the “broken arches” of an otherwise complete system. The hevirtuallycontradictsLordHaldane, is satisfactory. us, is. likewise satisThe bottom, hevirtuallyinforms factory.Onlytheschoolsthatareneitheratthetop in fact, nothing is begun and nor at the bottom-where nothing .is finished-only these are defective. For this reasonandforthisalone,itappears,we need mildly censureourselves a s “comparedwithothernations.” “The defects,” said, he “of our so-called national system education of were two : it was national, not and it was not a system.” Loud laughter, we are told, followed this determined bon-mot. But the further truth was not uttered and would probably not have been greeted laughter, neither with that is it education. ThesePeases,however, will certainlyhavetheir way. Under them we shall complete the system and make it to the same degree we shall destroy national; but education. Let u s repeat, though it is now too late, the suggestion we offered when the new Bill was first announced; a suggestion not ours alone, but unanimously endorsed by every teachers’ organisation in England;thereform of educationcan only be begun by reducing the size of the classes in elementary schools to human dimensions. Every other reform is con.tingent upon that. other Every reform is sham a without i t tlop, * * * A different view of the ‘‘right’’ of labour to share in profits was expressed in the “Daily News” by Professor Macgregor, of Leeds University. Professor MacGregor has not yet realised that “profit” in the economic sensecanonlyariseunderthewage-systemand would disappearifthelatterwereabolished ; but his approachtothispositionis very near.Profit-sharing as an act of grace on the part of the employer he rightly dismisses asan impossible basis of industry. Grace will never be so common in any industrial system as to establish profit-sharing as a general rule. If thereis to beprofit-sharingitmust be on thebasisnot of a concession which morally need not. be made, but upon rights. “ On the market-view of wages, however-that labour and bought is sold like any other commodity-such a right to share in profits no exists more for the seller of labour to a business than to the seller of coal. The sale closes the transaction. [This market view, a s wehave seen is Sir William Lever’s view and is also the common of thewage-system.]But, view; itis theverybasis continues Prof. MacGregor, “if labour, because it is personalisregarded asbeing alreadyinpartnership with capital. . . . the argument is good that the profits of certain businesses ought to be shared with the workpeople.” Ought to be, we may note with gratitude to the first orthodox economist we have discovered writing in this But strain. “oughts’”, imply ‘obligations, obligations imply rights,andrightsrequirepower to enforce them. It is true that theydonotceasetobe rights because they cannot be enforced at any particular moment. Nor a r e we suchPhilistines as to maintain that right and force are one and the same thing. Right can exist without force, force can exist without right; but it is the business of man to attach force to rights. That, we would say, sums up the whole mission of mind uponthis.planet. It is, we dare affirm, the purpose of man. Every spiritual truth is grounded upon it. The duty of wage-slaves to enforce their right is therefore spiritually imperative. Theyarerightlydamneduntil they do. WillProfessorMacGregor now confirm our suggested means, that of establishing in the trade unions a monopoly each of its own labour power? * * * At the conference of the British Medical Association held at Hove last week the devastating effects upon the morale and intelligence of the profession from the acInsurance Act were revealed in the ceptance of the flashy poverty of the subjects of discussion. “The Breeding of th,e Superman,” if you please, was the title of a paper that gave rise, we are told, to one of the most animated debates of the session. The halfpenny papers positively discovered a topic for the silly season in i. t With intense sympathyandrespectfortheminority of doctors whoresisted.andstillresist the degrading Act, we must nevertheless say that the profession as a whole has not now the standing and credit to enable its association to promulgate opinions on’ the Superman or even upon Man without exciting the ridicule o the f sensible. But a years even few or months ago our apprehension was mingled with our hope the that medical profession might become the most powerful body of saviours in the world, surpassing in beneficence, because acting without superstition, the work attempted by the Churchin past ages. Their tragical fall to the bribe o Mr. Lloyd George shattered f has this noble prospect ; and we see no escape now from a return to superstition, of a worse kind than we suffered formerly. From Christianity the world will now turn to ,Christian Science,andthe medicalprofession hasthe responsibility for it. The discussion whether the Association should form a Trade Unionand,presumably, affiliate with the Labour Party, has no interest to LIS. Doctors have provedthemselvesunequal to theobligations of a Trade Union,, still more of a Guild. Three aut of four are avowedblacklegs. In a trade union they would be called scabs. * * * * * * We have not at this moment the patience to examine in detail the “great” educational policy outlined ‘by Mr. o glorytrailed f Pease on Wednesday last. The clouds by Lord Haldane some months ago have been made to fade into t,he light of common day under the dull rays of Mr. Pease’s mind. Th,e “spiritual values” o the former f t.0 the “building” of the latter. To have descended regenerate education we must build more schools ! Lord Haldane, again, assured the world that the educational system was to be reorganised from the top downwards. W e replied, with every teacher, that it must be reorganised from bottom the upwards. With a trim- The rot that was manifested in the profession a year We should a g o was, however, no sudden seizure. perhaps not be far wrong in attributing to the medical persistence in vivisection Iong afterthepracticehas been condemned by the best moral ,opinions, the weakness of the profession both within and without. Argue as they please about it, the more they defend vivisection o n utilitariangroundsthemoretheyputthemselves wrong in the court of taste. On just such grounds we could defend cannibalism, infanticide, the Inquisition and many other horrors condemned in anticipation o f reason by the more far-sighted moral and aesthetic judgment o man. And the suspicion which even vivisectors f must entertain they out that are of step with the 381 advancedintelligence of civilisation can only havethe effect of leading them suspect to each otherand, in the end to despise each ,other. The Bill ‘to Prohibit the Vivisection o Dogs was, we are sorry to see, dropped f on Wednesday, in consequence of the opposition of the medicalprofession. This, w,e must be allowed to say, is yetanother nail in their coffin. I t is truethatno reasonable grounds exist for exempting the dog among all other animals from vivisection. Mr. Galsworthy’s earnest pleading for the Bill by no means convinces u s that the case o the dog differs from that of thje rest of f the animal kingdom. On other common the hand, sentiment does attach to thle dog a special significance. I t is “friend the of man.” And ourtreatment of it after inducing its confidence adds treachery to cruelty. But if the mere reasons against vivisecting dogs are inadequate,thereasons in favour of it are much more inadequate. Utility we put out of the question since everybody will define utilityaccording to the end proposed. For immediate purposes it may be that the vivisectionof dogsis highlyuseful ; but so alsoare many other horrible practices. A longer view might show that immediate utility is purchased at the price of deferreddisaster. W:e thinkthis will prove t’o bethe case with vivisection. The commmonest defence, howf practice the is appeal the to panic of ever, o the emergency. Would you hesitatebetween killing a dog and sacrificing your child’s Professor life? Schafer to “ The puts this view mostcogently in hisletter Times” last Saturday : “ I love my dog, he says, even more than many ofmy own kind. If the question arose of sacrificing my dog save to my own life I might hesitate. But if it were a question of choosing between the life o€ my dogandthat of my wife, orchild,or friend ; nay, even the life of any man, woman or childwere it the meanest beggar in the street-and that of my dog, I should not hesitateto sacrifice thedog.” This is perfectly sound and, if the dog could speak, we believe it would accept the position. The lower should always be prepared be to sacrificed to the higher. But emergency and certainty are one thing, while common practice speculation and are another. Normal conduct cannot be based upon extreme cases. W e ought to notact in cold blood as if it were hot. The medical profession does live not in a state o research f which isperpetuallyincrisis. Ithas not to choose on the spur of the moment between vivisecting animals allowing and human beings to die. Thereis no certainty that the choice is necessary. If, therefore, they continue, to choose a s if every cut of theirknife were worthy of the Victoria Cross, we can only assume that they a r e demented and fitter for an asylum than a hospital. It is morejust, in all probability, to assume that they vivisection like and have barthe barians’ curiosityforresearch by cruelty. Government. But this plot, as recent cables prove, was n o more successful the than Jameson Raid; it drew blood, it is true; but not, it appears, enough to satisfy of a general strike had the magnates that the danger passedaway. In ,consequenceandwiththecontinued collusion (whether innocent or guilty) of the South African Government, a fresh plot was hatched with the same intention the as first, namely, the suppression by force of the labour and democratic movement in SouthAfrica. It is plainfrom thecables publishedin thePressandconfirmed by ourownthatthesecond plot was better planned than the first. Still m.ore military were concentrated upon the Rand ; provision was made for temporarilyclosingdownthemines ; thenatives wereto be got away from possible mischief; and a wedgewastobedrivenbetweentherailwaymenand the miners so a s to leave the latter completely isolated from all help. Whenthesemeasureshad been taken, the miners were to be once again provoked, and once again, but on a larger scale, they were to be shot down by English soldiers for venturing to demand their elementaryrights.Thelesson so taughtthem would,it of their lives. was supposed, last them the rest * * * We have not yet information enough to say with any confidence whetherthis second plot will succeed;but thatit is well laid there canbenodoubt ; and that nobody in England will stop it we are, unfortunately, almost certain Government The has naturally no intention o interfering in the f domestic affairs of a self-governing dominion, though( even its right is f established that by dominion’s impudent use o our troops. They will postpone judgment until the event is over and in the meantime leave the magnates to act at their ,discretion. As little effective action can we expect o the Labour Party whose leaders, f we now know, a r e in the pockets of the governing class. A single Plimsoll among them, to not say a Palmerston, would have damnedParliamenttoitsfaceand made every other business impossible until the outrages on British citizens in South Africa had been thoroughly discussed. But alas, there is not a Plimsoll ,ev,enin dilution in the whole party; they arerabbits tlo aman. The need,it is becoming daily more clear, is of a Trades Council of W a r armed with all the power of the organised unions, sitting ‘permanently like Parliament, and charged with the duty of protecting its members abroad and at home. We venture to say that such a body, constituted, as it might be, of the Congress Parliamentary Committee (a fifth wheel in the coach at present) would exercise power enough to deal even with South African mining ,magnates. * * * “ A LATE RISER.” Already the clear light of early morn Unlocksthy windows.Now the wakefulswallow Is twittering in his Thou, nest. Parmeno, Sleepest as if thenightwere in heryouth Or had half spun her course. The dormouse yearly sleeps the winter through, Forswearing food th,e while;but of thy sleep Food is the cause, in that thou drinkest much, Distending thy repasts into a cram Of fearsome masses. Thence not a sound can touch thy folded ears; Thy brain is burdened with a heavy sleep; Nor does the splendour of the glittering light Assail thine eyes. Arise,thousimpleton, o r thoushalt be Flayedinto pieces with a rod. Arise, Lest the long sleep of death may come whence thou Parmeno, snatch up thy limbs Leastfearest. From t h e soft bed. Ausonius (“Ephemeris” 1). If our readers will do us the justice of comparing our notes of a fortnight ago on the South African Miners’ Strike with the moist recentpubliccablesfrom Johannesburg, we shall not need to recapitulate the conclusions in detail to which we then came. Both the Government andtheOppositionPress in England have nowbeen persuaded that the outbreak in South Africa andthe subsequentmilitaryproceedings were neitherunanticipated nor unprovoked by the mining magnates; but, on, the other hand, that both were carefully pre-arranged. The facts that a month before the strike took place, the mine-owners insured their property for three months only againstriots ; that the old Volunteershad been disbanded ; that the military ( o w military) were under orders shortly to leave South Africa; that they were in full force near the mines ; that the provocation in the Kleiinfontein mines was deliberate; the that “proclamation” of the public meeting was postponed t o a n hour before its appointed time--all th,ese facts pointed unmistakably, as we said, to a plot as certainly planned as the Jameson Raid. Only in this case the plot wasl to provoketheSouth African proletariatand not 3 Boer 382 Current Cant. “The life o the journalist is suffused with Religion.”f C. SHERIDAN JONES. “When the first animaltook it into its head to be reasonable it became a human being. . , . Prejudice is Life.”-HOLBROOK JACKSON. “It is not so much the quality of Kipling’s verse that counts astheamount of new vision gets he intohis poetry--BERNARD LINTOT in “T.P.’s Weekly.” “Warmloversthese London girlsare.Theyarelike the Romans. . . .”-‘‘ Plain Talk.” “For five pounds a man may be intellectually rich for life.”-J. M. DENT’S ADVERTISEMENT. Foreign Affairs. B y S. Verdad. tury Sultan who, when informed by a courtier that the Austrians defeated French had the (or vice versa-I forget which)replied : “Don’tbother me. If thepig swallowsthedog or the dog swallows thepig,what does it matter to me?” The story occurs to me apropos of an article by Mr. G. K. Chesterton in a recent “New Witness.” defends He the Balkan States from the strictures of certain critics, including myself, by saying, ineffect, that the various Balkan nations are like the old Crusaders : they combined to defeat the Infidel, and nowtheyarequarrellingamongthemselves to decide whether their policy shall be national or imperial. THERE once a powerful fifteenth o r sixteenth cenwas “I find no evidence of the decay of the sense of sin amongst the people generally, for thelatest novels and the newest plays-so to judge from advertisements-deal wi.th sin.Thenation is alive to sin.”-Rev. S. F. COLLIER. * ?U w “Thehoardings are the poor people’s picture gallery, end the posters are helping to educate popular taste ; so, we may hope that, in time, crude and ugly things will no longer have any demand.”--MAbel LUCIEATTWILL. swing. “ “no not miss Bastard.’ ‘The . . . Goes with a . .”-“Everyman” Advt. in “T. P.’s Weekly.” It would be fstal to ignore the existence of those who hold responsiblepositions in the Church.”--“ Morning Post. ” “To the shepherd’s and fisherman’s passion for personal holiness the modern man can ally, as an added factor of enjoymentand power, thetreasures of knowledge accumulated since the passing of Christ.”-HORACE HOLLEY. A curious defence, surely. For the philosophical charge against the Balkan States is not so much that they are fighting one another as that, as in the case of the very Crusaders mentioned by Mr. Chesterton, they have not suited deeds to words ; they are not attempting to harmonise practice with profession. The Moslem, likeallOrientalraces,hasnever been anythingbut logical; and there is no remarkable distinction between whathesaysandwhathe does. Hecame in by the sword and went out fighting; but he would never have suggested that he wanted to conquer Constantinople in order to relieve the distress of the local Moslems. It was left for the Crusaders, mediaeval andmodern, to use this form of,excuse for a campaign of conquest. * * * “Mr. Masefield sets out, not tu paint the town red, but topaintthe sea blue. . . . It is ugly,but it is, therefore, art.”-H. B. MARRIOTT WATSON. “ Some readers will think that Mr. Frank Froest should be seriously reprimanded for writing a story so baffling and so engrossing as ‘ The Grell Mystery,’ for if we take it up, things that matter must wait until we have found out what redly happened at the house in Grosvenor GarNASH. dens. ”-EVELEIGH “Queen Mail. ” Mary never touches tobacco. ”-“ London of “The ‘English Review,’ that brilliant exposition robustious realism.”---“News andLeader.” ---. ‘‘The all-night motor-bus is the beginning of a new life for London.”-GEORGE R. SIMS. “Mr. Wells is almost the only novelist we possess who dares to generaliseboldly,and exclaim themeaning of modern problems.”-“The Nation.” “A statesman, a poet, or a prophet would fipd Europe . . . the whole susceptible tu his suggestive energy western world is hungering for the light and warmth of a constructive thought. ”-Professor SIMON PATTEN. And, as a matter of fact, the theory imperialism and of nationalism won’t work. The Balkan States did not quarrelamongthemselvesbecausetherewas a difference of opinion over a question of confederation or nationality, but because Bulgaria was desirous of securing all the power for herself, leaving her honest Allies out in the cold. Bulgaria wanted, territory first, ; second, power ; and, third, a large indemnity. No wonder thattheotherStatescombatedthese claims. But we have not for a long time heard awordabout of the Christians. N o one Thraceandtheliberation seems to remember that the Balkan war was begun in order certain that Christians might freed be from alleged Turkish tyranny and placed under their morally ; and so noprolawfulrulers. All thisisoverlooked test is madeagainst a madscramble by Greeks and a huge percentage of Servians. for territory containing Bulgarians among the population, or against the Bulgarianclaims toterritoryinhabited chiefly byGreeks andServians, or againsttheServianclaimsto Bulgarianterritoryinhabitedalmostentirely by Roumanians. Such is the welter and confusion of races in the Balkans that all these things are left out of the reckoning.Vidinis a town in Bulgariainhabited mainly by Roumanians. The Servians are advancing it on via Bielogradshik. There ar,e a dozen similar cases ; so many astomakethesituation almost farcical. The factis,theCrusadersweresuperiorland-pirates, and the Balkan States are imitating them. + * * “The King and the Queen, who have repeatedly shown their deep interest in education, made a new departure on Saturday.”--“Daily Mirror.” (‘Mr. Middleton Murry who is a poet. and Leader.” . .”--(‘News . . . remains t h e ‘Peter Pan’ of “Sir Herbert Tree the stage. . . - The man of business that has never ceased to put Art before money.”-’I’. P. O’CONNOR. CURRENT DISTINCTION. “The successful revival of ‘The Second ‘hfrs. Tanqueray’ at the St. James’s Theatre is an object lesson Gn the art of play-writing.”-“The Era.” N o diplomatisthopesfor a permanentpeace in the Balkans. This is why the Powers always supported Turkey ; and England has latterly backed up Japan for thesamereason.Religiondoesnotcountinmatters of highpolitics;nordoes race. ‘The Turks wereonce a united and harmonious nation, and even in the present anarchical condition the of Ottoman Empi:-e there is more unityandstatesmanshiptobefound init than amongthe Allies. An intriguedislodged M. Gueschoff in favour of Dr. Daneff in Bulgaria; M. Pasitch, the ServianPremier, couldhardlywithstandt-heparty in opposition, in which M. Novakovitch seems to have played a prominent part ; and even in Greece M. Venia change in the zelos is beingthreatened.Therewas 383 Montenegrin Ministry weeks ago ; and even the Roumanian swapped when Cabinet horses crossing the Danube,thoughfortunatelywithoutfatalresults.But imagine such a series of intriguesatsuch a critical time, when the conquering countries had to put themselves on good terms with the world in order to secure generous treatment for themselves ! It is true that we had khaki a election ourselves in 1900;butthecircumstances wereverydifferent. Therewas nounderhandintriguingtogetrid o LordSalisbury,or f Mr. Balfour, or Mr. Chamberlain ; aConservativeGovernment went out and came back. well have outgrown this piece o political machinery by f now, but no. The deadlock is this : if the United States undertakes to protect European interests in Central South and America, while refusing to allow any European interference, and yet finds herself unable to carry out her bargain at a critical time, what is to be done? Shall she definitely annex Mexico o r permit Europe to interfere? W5e all know she has decided on annexation; but Mexico is wicked enoughtothreaten to defend herself if attacked by the UnitedStates. A “joint demonstration” is spoken of; and if this is unsatisfactoryEurope will be permitted to intervene. * t * The Powers, o course, have no right to complain of f the Balkan States. If it had not been for the inertness and timidity of the Powers themselves there would have been no war. The only factor which has stirred up the Cabinets‘ within the last few days is the re-occupation of Adrianopleby the Turks. This is “flouting the will: of Europe,” if you choose ; but no more than the Balkan States have flouted it-indeed, much less. We hav’e only to ,recollect the spurned “advice” rejected and “commands” given by the Powers to the Balkan States to realisethis. ThePowers could notbutbeinert in the circumstances; though I am inclined to think that parties. It their lethargy has been beneficial to all was evident that it would be a very difficult matter to coerce theBalkannations in theirmegalomaniac condition; so the Powers were at least discreet to let them alone. Again,the effects of thefurtherfightinghave so greatly weakened the Allies that peace, although far from permanent, is practically assured for a generation. Military Notes. By Romney. * * + The Powers havestill to decide what territory shall behandedover to thebelligerents.Theyregard it a s impossible thatTurkeyshallbeallowedto remain in possession of Adrianople; huttheTurk will probably get what he expected a s a result of thiscoup, viz., a “rectification” of the Enos-Midia frontier line in his of too great an favour. refuses Italy to approve extension o Greek territory, and has directly intimated f to the Hellenic Government that if the Greek claims to certain ,ol the islands and to the Salonika-Kavala coastline a r e persisted the in, advisers of King Victor Emmanuel will have to reconsider their viewson the division of theEpirusandonthe Albanianboundary lines. Janina, as Imentioneda longtimeago, is the lever which c a n be here. used Greece will secure Janina only if she shows herself “reasonable” in other ‘directions. As always, the most stubborn struggle will be between Russia and Austria, the former supporting Servia and the latter Bulgaria; and these small States will gain or lose exactly in proportion to the diplomatic victories o two great Powers. And diplomatic victories, f a s we should all know now, are based on the amount .of force a t the disposal o the respective parties to the f negotiation. * * 4 WE arrivenextattheprinciple o degree. I t istrue f of any spiritual or material thing you care to name that its usefulness for your purpose corresponds its degree to orquantity.Inother words,itisnot a question o f whether we want discipline or guns, but of how much discipline andhowmany guns-a fact generallylost sightof.Yourmodernisttakesrefugeinlong,mystic words, which he separates in his mind into categories of goodand evil, like thecharacters in a third-rate melodrama. Thus to acertaintype o mind“liberty” f is wholly good, “militarism” and “bureaucracy” wholly bad ; whilst the opposing edict sees the world a good principle called Disclearly divided between cipline, and a bad principle, called, indifferently, Socialism or Anarchy. This error strikes at the very roots o f reason. I t denies the very principle of degree and order f which determines t,he value o everything in the world. I t s victims lose all capacity judgment for upon any subject. Nothing is possible to thembeyond the gabbling of catalogues of abstractnouns,thewaging of limitless logomachies,, in which great shadowy terms wrestle with o n e another without the hope o a decision. f * * * Chinaand Mexico are still troublesomefeatures of internationalaffairs. The dangers of theChineseoutbreak I referred to last week; and since then the news to hand reassuring. concern is not More is being caused by Yuan-Shi-Kai’sposition,than would appear from the newspaper comments. The wily old President ‘is being hard pressed. That would not matter so much to us if it were not that interests the of so many Europeanfinanciers are being hardpressedwithhim, and Japan, that an ally of ours, is supporting his enemies. Theabsence of no fewer thansixrepresentatives of EuropeanPowers from the Chinese capital (Pekinforthetimebeing) is undoubtedly a piece of gross carelessness, and more will be heard of it by the be done to help parties concerned; but all that can Yuan is being done. 8 -* * I start with an example from civil disputation. Some a dramatist (of whom months ago one Bernard Shaw, of Byron that“as soon as he it is even truerthan begins to think he is a fool”) disputed upon .the public platform with Mr. Hilaire Belloc. The subject was Socialism, the and size of the audience proved that London contains quite a number of persons with a historic interest in that subject. Anyhow, in the course of his argument Mr. Belloc raised the objectiont,o the proposals of the Socialists that, if theyhadbeenexecuted,they would haveresulted in thetyranny of a soulless bureaucracy words that (or to effect). Upon rising to reply thegiftedIrishmanextractedfrom his rival by laborious cross-examination, the admission that bureaucracy andbureaucratsmustexistinanystate, and Mr. Belloc’s ideal state among them. “How, then,” said, he “can you object to bureaucracy? You admit its necessity in your own ideal conditions.” I am of opinion that t h e percentage of sane persons in that gathering (which was run under the auspices f theFabianSociety),cannothave exceeded four ; but even !on that estimate there must have beena dozen persons in the room who perceived that to the mind of Shaw bureaucracy was an entity like the French Republic, one indivisible. and The idea that Mr. Belloc might conceivably approve of x measures of bureaucracy (as plannedforhisownidealstate), and disapprove heartily of x + y measures (as provided in the proposals of t h e Socialists)apparently foundnoplace in the Shavian mind. * * * Mexico raises the bugbear of the Monroe doctrine.one would have thought that the United States might Such misconceptions have caused untold confusion in military literature. A man goes to a public school ...I 384 andthence,viaSandhurst,to‘the Army. If God is more than usually unkind t,o him he replaces Sandhurst by the university, in which case his doom (like that of Mr. L. S. Amery) is sealed for ever. Towards a National Railway * * * Guild.-11. At school his infant mind is debauched by sentiments such, asthe following be (to found in every history book) : “Discipline always is superior t.0 numbers.” This is instilled into him as one of “history’s lessons.” I t seems all right, and anyhow he knows nothing to the contrary, so that he takes it in andrepeatsitlike a parrot. At Sandhurst he meets a considerable number, all of whom have read the same books of history, and all of whom arerepeatingitlikeparrots.Whenhe finds 800 men,all of them arrives at hisregimenthe bent upon inflaming one another’s ignorance by repeating the aphorism which they learnt at school in loud and confident tones like parrots. Others of his kind attend theuniversityand become themilitary correspondents of the daily Press, where they confirm and extend th,e school-book’s error by repeatingit in“specialcorrespondent” articles-like parrots. At lengththe whole of the military world becomes a mass of screaming parrots, where Reason seeks in vain to find a hearing. If Reason does contrive to get a word in edgeways, she suggests that the aphorism should be amended to read : “ x measures of discipline canovercome y numbers.” The statement that superior numbers can never in any circumstances up make for inferior discipline is a s thoughone should say that penniescan neverin any circumstances make for up shillings. Of course they can-provided thatthereareenough of them. If anybody disbelieves this obvious fact let him take a company of Grenadiers try conquer and to China. The survivors might contribute their experiences to the daily Press under the title of “Discipline v. Numbers. ” * * + Thus the problem of the Territorial Force not is whether numbers can ever vanquish discipline, as Mr. L. S. Amery and his fellow-parrots do assert (counting upon theautomaticresponse of a well-trained public that they cannot-parrot calling to parrot. 0 Lord, all Balliol isgone over us). The questioniswhether a force possessing, for argument’s sake, 4 measures of discipline and 8 of numberscanstandupto aforce possessing 7 of discipline and 3 of numbers. Whether a matter of opinion, but there is it can or can not is no excuse for omitting tso state the case correctly. Such are the lamentable results of neglect of the principles of degree. I t only remains to besaidthattherearefew traces of such negIect in French, or even German, militaryliterature : butthenFranceandGermanyhave neither o them our public schools and universities. f * * * Well, well, let them rest in peace. The dead may burytheirdead. We do not care so long as the work is efficiently performed and our nostrils are not offended by the decomposition. Of the fifth principle-that of growth-it is unnecessaryspeak to at length. The modern world, so far from neglecting it, is f a r too fond of dwelling on it, and particularlyon its more unpleasant parts. “Altered conditions,” the “march of progress,’’ and all the rest of It are the stock-in-trade of journalists and politicians, which is, generally speaking, about the lowest strata to which an idea can percolate. * * * Such the are principles underlying the Science of Organisation. Most of us have instinctive an grasp of some of them-a few of all. I will conclude as I commenced, with saying that, whilst theory mastery does produce not an organiser any more the than mastery o the principlesperspective f of produces a painter, yet they are indispensable to a comprehension o military f affairs. They provide someguaranteefor clear thinking, or, at least, of understanding of the clear thoughts of others. future development of railway administration in this country is in the direction o unification o managef f ment of the numerous privately-ownedlines. Whether thisistobedoneunderprivateenterprise, by State ownership, or through guildisation must be settled sooner or later. From interests, separate commercial the the and travelling have public exacted facilities and concessions advance in which only should have been given concurrently with unified organisation. Faced by ever growing demands,hampered and by Parliamentary restrictions (the illogical effects of many of which a r e easily demonstrable), the separate railways have had imposed upon them an intricate system of interchange workings, the wonder of which isthatithasnotbecomecumbersometothe point of impracticability. From illustrations of the complexity of railway management to-day, the reader may see what problems GuildSocialismwouldsolve,whilst leaving men who have the technical training of a lifetime free to anticipate and solvethelesserdifficultiesto be expected in thebuildingup of a NationalRailway Guild. A passenger books a first or third-class ticket from a south of London station to a destination in Scotland ; it ma?. be ordinary “excursion” or “tourist” ; it is improbable that itwouldbe a “season” ticket. He might possibly travel in a south of London company’s carriage all the way and the train be hauled by one, two, or even three different companies’ engines. Consequently, although the fare is paid in one amount, each company must receive something for its work proportionate to the service given. The divisionbetween thecompanies of an ordinary fare differs from that#of an excursion fare, and a tourist‘farefromboth.Themileage travelledover each company’s line varies, and the allowancepaid to acompanyforproviding afirst,third, or composite carriageforthejourneyisnotthesame.Theownership of the engine or engines which haul the train has also to be taken into account. Notwithstanding all this, a fair share of the amount paid for the ticket is given to each company. Take another case : A fortnight’s specimen copies of new novels have accumulated and sent are to Mr. Randall for review. The sender consigns the books by goodstrain,carriagetopay. As most of theproductions will consist of Iurid sex novels, andthetotal weight be about five tons,theyshouldbe loadedina gunpowder van; but as the companies decide what are inflammable goods bychemical analysis only, and not by literary examination, they are actually loaded in a n open wagon, sheeted and roped and labelled. On theirarrival,becausethey are not worth a paragraph in THENEW AGE they are refused, sender is wired for disposal instructions, but disappeared, the has and goods are sold to defray expenses realising waste paper prices. The charges are divided amongst companies. ihe having regard to a few small details such as the miles of line of eachcompanypassedoveraftercrediting o specially f expensive extra amounts in the case bridges, viaducts, tunnels, London lines, and short lines which have cost morethantheaverage t cono struct; carting the done at the stations of thetwo different terminus companies; thestationsprovided by the terminus two companies; station the work done (loading discharging), and credit to the company furnishing the wagon (according tso its description and dimensions) andtarpaulin;credittothecompany for delay to thestock at destination. We will leave out sea freight, Customs port duty, charges, boatage, lightrerage,andwarehousing.Intheendthecarriage charges are treated as a bad debt, and the waste paper proceeds divided. The wagon, tarpaulin, and ropes are sent back, and a record is kept of the dates and hours THE 385 these passed arc from company one to another,iorwarded fromsendingstation,andreceived a t destinalion. ,411 this is done on both journeys. These divisions of receipts occur the by hundred thousand. To say they arranged how are would be more tedious than it is to describe the need for it. The genius that has evolved and made possible the smooth working of such arrangements could if released from the solving of these and similar complex problems as successful initiate a National Railway Guild and be in overcomingdifficultiesyetunforeseen,but of a far less difficult character. The time is ripe now, but once let rot set in through t h e physical and moral decadence which would assuredly follow permeation by the sabotage so glibly spoken of by one o yourcorrespondentsuponsyndicalism,and f :he opportunity will have gone in this country for ever --the men would be past spiritual redemption. HENRY LASCELLES. therewouldcertainlyrebel.Itneednotbediscussed; no such glaring inhumanity likely ever to is be attempted. A S to non-compulsorysegregation,fromthenative point of view, this can be welcomed, but it will be of very doubtful value the t,o whites. It is a question whether it is not better to allow natives to go on buying ground as at present (at its worst it is a small thing) rather than that large tracts of land should be set apart or not as they forthemuponwhichtheymaysettle please. W h a t class of ground would be set aside for active occupation?It is certainthatthestrongestobjection would be raised by the farmers here against the cutting off of any big stretches of fertilewell-wateredground in healthy parts of the country. Scarcity of goodrunof the curses o South f Africa. ning water is one Natives, excepting those already in Iocations, would stronglyobject to goingt,odrypartsor to thelow, unhealthy veld. ‘The result will probably be thatthe Government will b,e asked undertake large tmo very irrigation works in certain parts of the country as far from the neighbourhood ,of white people a s possible; in such parts Namaqualand, as Griqualand West, Bechuanaland,theProtectorate, and-if termscanbe arranged-parts o Rhodesia. f When ground the has been demarked irrigation and works completed, the trouble will commence. The greatest tact will be required i n dealing with the different tribes wh,o will be anxious to settle on the new ground. I t is certain that if the land is fertile and water sufficient selected the tracts will bc occupied quite voluntarily,but it will be just as certainlyfoundthat no relief will be felt in regard to black pressure in our towns. The applicants for ground will be mainly young chiefs with their followings, wh,o already occupy native territory, but wish for more room. Neither natives nor coloured people at present domiciledtowns in and of theinvitation villages will takethesmallestnotice to move away from their present places; only brute force could make them do so, and this will not be resorted t.0. \;\‘hat is it that is hoped to be gained by segregation? Forthenative : freedomfrom w h i t e ” influence and interference sa thattheycandevelopalongtheirown lines-guided fromthetop by a representative ‘of the Government doubtless, and, by white missionaries. For the white man : relief from economic pressure, and removal of the possibility ,of socially intermixing. Is it likely- thattheseends will be attained under non-compulsory segregation ? I t is perfectly plain that the). will not ! Th’e advantage to the whites will he nil ~vhile at very great expense to thecountry (flor apart from ttie outlay for reclaiming the land, irrigation, and so on, the Native Affairs Department will require to be increased, several and highly posts paid created) a certainnumber of locations will bemadewhich will place th30se natives occupying them in a better position than before as far as coming out to-work is concerned. Thereis a largenumber of peopleinthiscountry verygenuinelyconcernedto find that the native, as a man, generally loses tone both morally and physically, when he comes under the influence of our civilisation. These people are not usually those who would allow the economic factor to rule them in coming to adecision, b u t t h e r e is a far greater number to whom the economic question appeals first, second, and nearly all the time. But although these may argue on different lines an,d fromtotallydifferentpoints of’view,they eventually agreement in deciding total that arrive at a perfect compulsorysegregation of whiteandblackwould b’e the situation. ideal Therea (though is class small) which holds that it is possible for black and white to moke about and work together while remaining racially and socially entirely apart. These invariably are nice people good. and There class is a (powerful also though not numerous) which contends that, this being a sub-tropical country,white cannot the man be expected to d o hard,roughlabourhere, and t h a t we must depend the upon native if works are to be In South Africa. of askpardonfortouchingagainonthesubject segregation.Itisstillverymuchtotheforehere. General Hertzog he when was Minister Native for Affairsgaveitashisopinionthatouronlyhope of maintainingwhite predominance lay in separating the nativesfromthewhites,buthewent no further than this. He g a v e us no idea of how he proposed to carry his ideaout.However,hestatedquitetrulythatthe question was one requiring much time for consideration, and I think it likely that in time he would have evolved some more o r lessworkablescheme. Where angels feared General to tread Hertzog’s successorhassteppedin with a forced “ Nativesand Land Bill.” This Bill is a milk-and-wateryattemptto bring about‘ segregation, and the best thing that can be said o it is that it is not likely to become law, and is f probably very not seriously meant. There been has somelittleoutcryabouttheextent t.0 whichnatives have been buying up ground, and thee main provisions of t h i s Bill are to th,e ‘effect that neither natives nor whites shall be permitted to buy or rent ground excepting in theirownrespectiveareas,whicharetobedefined. Chapter ‘I‘ of the Bill alsorendersillegaltheacquisition of land by natives for communal tenure. I t is possible the Bill may have had some value of a provocative nature had not Mr. Sauer (one of the wily oldpoliticiansbeforementioned)insertedaclauseto the effect that no restrictions against the acquiring of land in the Cape province have shall effect if such restrictionshouldpreventanypersonfromqualifying as a Parliamentaryvoter.Thisclause would serveto place the natives of the rest of South Africa under an additionaldisadvantage as against those of the Cape; it savestheMinister’sface in hisowncountry,and kills a not otherwise very valuable Bill. But as a gooddeal of time xvill bewasted in the a discussionandthenativeaffairsdepartmentputto good deal of extra work, w e may as well give this subject of segregation further consideration before finally rubbing it off the slate. Any genuine native policy which to adopted is be should he uniform for the whole of the Union ! Surely thisneeds no emphasising. Is SouthAfrica,which is now a unity as far .as its government goes, t o m a k e o f itsnatives,simplyonaccount o locality, fish of one f and fowl o another? Union inherited f The has a different native policy with each <ofits provinces just as found it differing in laws regard to mining and many other matters, and one of the chief incentives t o Union was thedesire,mostparticularlyinregard to native affairs, to ee s one law running through the wholecountry. While compulsory segregation be might .almost possible of accomplishment (with a good deal of hardening of heart) in the three other provinces, ,in Cape Colonycould be it only carried with out the extremest injustice. natives coloured The and people 1 MUST 386 the People ignored th,e advice o the clerics on this f advised t h e people t o occasion. In ’48 the clerics stand quietly by and watch the food whichthey themselves had raised being carried away rent for while advice they were left to die of hunger. But Davitt’s let rent be the last and not the first consideration-was now being observed. 5, 1850, the When Parliament on met February IrishMembers moved anamendmentto th,eAddress, condemning the Government flor not having taken adequate steps to alleviate the .existing distress. Government protested it had a plan; in fact it had two plans,which,when put in’ contrast, will exhibit as no othermeasurescan,whatwasthe real nature of the thing called English government in Ireland. First, Government the proposed that if a tenant having paid his rent and exhausted all his resources in the effort, should subsequently find himself and his family dying of hunger in consequence, the local authority could borrowmoney on the security of its ownratesforthepurpose of feeding him. Inother my words, when you find the dog isdyingowingto having sneaked his food,. prolong his agony by feeding himwithhisowntail,Jointby joint. Contrast with the above the provisions made by their A million of money was friends the for landlords. advanced co them from the Irish Church Fund, repayable twenty-seven in years. The first two year‘s was totally free (of interest, and only one per cent. interest was to be paid for the remainder of the term. Nothing that I know o could conveybetter f a idea of what English Government in Ireland meant to th,e Irish than By Peter Fanning. items. the above 9 Having passed the above measures Lord Beaconsfield, ALTHOUGH Governmentwereaware,thatthecrop the to the ,astonishment of the country, suddenly resigned, of 1879 in its principal articles was ten milliion pounds’ ,and announced the end of his wretched government in worth below the average; the that potato crop, the an electioneering address in the form of a letter to the principal food of the people, had dropped from Lord Lieutenant. The Irish replied to this manifesto of 60,652,000 cwts. to 22,2~3,000 cwts., ,they took no Disraeli’s, declaring it nothing less than a declaration measures to meet the situation, and merely ridiculed th,e of war on Ireland, and called upon the Irish electors to popularagitation. Before going to America,however, vote against Disraeli as th,e mortal enemy of their race Parnell ha,d addressed a series of publicmeetings a t and country, and the common enemy of the peace and which he had enunciated a doctrine which at last forced concord of IrelandandGreatBritain. them 60 realise that the policy of the ostrich would not At the General Election Mr. Gladstone swept the pay in the present instance. At New ROSS Parnell country, .and the new Parliamentopenedon May 20. declared : “Eitherthe landlord ortenanthadtogo; In the Queen’s Speech it was announced that coercion they would giveth,elandlord a fair rent for a settled in Ireland would b.e dropped. This was all right as f a r term of years and then all rent should cease.” as it went, but the Irish wanted more than that. Give On the appearance lof this pronouncement that illusUS a Bill dealing with th,e land question, th,ey demanded. trous “Castle Hack,” Cardinal McCabe, Archbishop of I haven’t time, Gladstone replied. I t really is impossible Dublin,a manwhospent his. lifeinrunningupand a shortSession,he to handlesuchasubjectinsuch down the back stairs of Dublin Castle for the purpose whimpered. Well, the said Irish, if you can’t deal of betrayinghis town people, came forth and publicly withthe h d , 1,et us have an interim Bill in order to denounced this declaration !of Parnell’s as “An immoral stop evictions-such a Bill as this-and John O’Connordoctrine which would receive thereprobation of holy Power tabled his “ Compensation for Disturbance Bill.’’ Church.” No one in Ireland, however, paid any The Government hummed and hawed for a time, and particular attentiontotheeminenttoady;theyknew then Buckshot Forster said “he would do something in him of old. Davitt was touring the Western province, that direction.” Tbe something, as mightbeexpected, forming branches of the “Land League,” and advising would have proved more beneficial to the landlords than thse people to look to their own future and not concern the tenants, so the rejected Irish his proposals, and themselves about the landlords.ThentheGovernment O’Connor-Power’s Bill held the field, andth’eGovernstruckwhattheythoughtwas a crushing blow. They ment were forced to take it up. The necessity for such arrested Davitt some and of his comrades; this but a measure was beyond dispute, as proved by the only added fuel to th,e fire. Then arrested they the eviction returns. Th.e number of ‘evictions were in secretary of th,e “League” only to discover they had to 1878, 1,745; 1879, 1,098, and in the first six months of releasehim again without prosecution, which brought 1880, 1,073. The landlords, in fact, were a t their on themthecontempt of landlordsandtenants alike. ancient game of wholesale clearances. O’ConnorThey then gave th’e tip t,o the Duchess of Marlborough Power’s Bill was carried in the Commons by a majority to form a distress The Mayor fund. Lord formed of seventy-eight. IntheLordsit received itsquietus. another, and they set to work to accuse .and abuse each you contain “Abandon all hope ye who enter here-if other, all in t h e name of holy charity. anything beneficial to the Irish people,” was ,the motto In the meantime the Irish in England had not been of the Lords. Said Lansdowne : “ I t is a Bill which idle. Concerts, bazaars, raffles and drawings were got appealed tothe mostsordidinstincts of the people.” upfrom lone end of thekingdom totheother. SubMy Lord ,of Salisbury characterised it “As a thing for scriptionlistswere opened to which people of every feeding wild beasts, which theGovernment could not class and creed contributed. Music-hall theatre and tame.” The wild beasts, of course, the were Irish managers gave special performances, “ the whole people. But even thesegems ‘of wit and wisdomwere proceeds to be devoted to the relief o,f Irish distress.” a few months outshone by tl,e degenerate who Jew This, surely, was an advance on ’48; but then, there : “The befor,e had thrown up the sponge. Said Disraeli was n80chance of denying this famine as there had be,en Bill was likely t<oexcitethemindsofanimaginative of th,eearlierone.Butwhatismoresignificantstill, advanced, industries established, and so on. This class is composed mostly of wealthy, selfish hypocrites. Naturally both these classes latter a r e opposed to segregation.. There are also other points of view fairly represented in the country which I cannot give here. It can be taken that most of these views are held somewhere in theHouse of Assembly. I cannot say whether Mr. Sauerhasany conviction onthematter a t all, but one knows that, whether he has or not, and with every desire t.o rule autocratically, he will trim his sails to suit the wind which may be blowing strongest at the time. The question calls for a biggermanthan any one of our Ministers has yet shown himself to be. SEVOTA. P.S.-Since writing the above, the report of the speech made byMr. Sauer in introducing his Bill has cometlohand,andI would add that the Government apparently feels itself compelled (by circumstances which have nothing whatever to do with native affairs) to push on with this precious piece 0.f legislation. Ministers may have to face the country soon, and expect to have a pretty rough time. Nothing has been done, but they will now a t least be able to say that something is being attempted. W e pay for the fun of the thing. The “dodge’’ in the Bill is thatnatives will nlot be permitted to buy or rent more land until a delimitation Commission has b,een appointed and has completed its work. Thisisatthe pleasure of Ministers. The Irish in England. 387 people. I t would occasion conflicts and involve them ! The verythings introubleanddisaster.”Dearme which Disraeli declared he dreaded were the very things which arose out of its rejection. But they threw it out all the same by a majority of 231. It was about th;s time that the man withwhom. I lived, a n old friend and political comrade of my father’s, said to me one Sunday afternoon : “ I want you to g o with me this evening, Peter.” night That I accomWe found panied him to a tavernon Hockley Hill. three friends already there, and after a while two more dropped in. One of the last comers invited us upstairs to a privateroom,and when we hadassembledthere he was “moved to take th’e chair.’’ Th’e chairman,’ Mr. William Hogan,addressedthecompanyand reviewed the present condition of affairs in Ireland, and thought itwastimetheIrishinBirminghamwerebestirring themselves in the matter. He ended his remarks by moving “that this meeting resolve dto itself into a branch of th,e National Irish Land League.” The motion was readily seconded, put, carried. and Mr. Hogan was elected president; a treasurer and secretary were appointed, and thus-by six men and a boy, was of th.e Land League in founded the first branch England, an organisation which, from that day to this, undervariousnames, has played an important part in English politics. Suchhumble beginningsgave no indicationof our future importance, we but were soon a power. In a fsew weeks our numbers had so increased that we found it necessary to move to the Athenaeum Hall to hold our weekly meetings. Later on Father Sherlock, the parish priest of St. Joseph’s, in Moor Street, invited us t o his school rooms in Catch-ems-Corner, a n invitation which we readily accepted. And now there opened a chapter in the history of the Irish in England, which, those engaged on thse one side at least would rather have left unmentioned. Those feelings, however, are the last thing I am going to consider in thesepapers.HardlyhadtheLeaguebegun to hold its meetings ,in the schoolroom than the Bishop o Birmingham,theRev.Dr. f Ullathorne, intimated to FatherSherlockthat h,e objected tothe schoolrooms being used for such a purpose. Father Sherlock replied that the schools had been built by the Irish, were being maintained by the Irish, and could be used by the Irish f,or any purpose Irish the desired. Th’e Bishop then declared he would use his authority to close the schools to Irishpoliticalmeetings. The patriot priest told the Bishop he had no authority in th’e matter, neither ov’er himself nor schools. his If the Bishop hadany complaintstomakeabout him let him makethem to his (Father Sherlock’s) ‘own Bishop, John of Tuam, who he had doubt no would give him his .answer. The inner meaning of this quarrel, whichI hav’e no doubt has soundedsomewhatextraordinary T English ears, o I will now (explain. To enable those Catholics Irish who came to England at or after the famine to go to their religious duties (Confession) priests with a knowledge o theIrishlanguagewere f “ borrowed” from Ireland. Before the Irish famine the Roman Catholic Church in England was nearly extinct.Butwiththe coming o the f Irish, churches, chapels, schools and began to appear wherever the Irish had found a refuge, and the yet bitterest hostility shown totheIrish in England from came English Catholics. Never did Mussulman hate the Giaour with a morewhole-souled hatred than this holy Catholic Bishop hated the Irish, although they probablyformedninety-fivepercent. of his flock. H,econsidered the whole duty of tbeIrish in Englandwastopay,pray, hold theirtongues,and do as the English bishops directed. Neither Father Sherlock nor the Irish in Birmingham were prepared to any take such orders their from enemy, bishops though might they be. AS might be expected, greaternumbersthanever joined thse Land League,and ‘every Sundayeveningpatrioticspeeches were made, patriotic songs were sung, subscriptions were collected to aid the national cause, and resolutions carried condemning th’e Government. Business Jinks. By Charles Brookfarmer. SCENE : ThBe private office of Mr. EustaceStratford, managing director of Eustace Stratford and CQ., Ltd., nail and screw manufacturers. Time : Early any morning. The door is opened and a shrill voice announces Mr. ManninghamPendleton,seniorpartner of the firm of Pendleton Sons. and (After greetings have been exchanged) : You want to speak to me particularly? Mr. EustaceStratford : Yes,do. I It’saboutthis contract of yours. I don’t see hlow I’m. going to carry it Our out. men threaten strike to unless they get trade union wages, and of coursethat’sout o the f question. W h a t with expenses and thie rise in the cost of living it’s hard to know how- to make endsmeet now. M. P. : Just so--just so. W h a t would th,e total extra amount be if you gave them trade union wages? E. S. : I t would mean an extra A15,ooo per annum, and of coursethat’s impossible. Why,we only paid out a 35 per cent. dividend last year, and it would mean reducing it by about 5 per cent.-and what would the shareholders say if I were to :offer them that? M. P. : Oh, of coursethat’squite impossible. Do you thinkthey really will strike? E. S. : Yes,I’mcertainthey would. They’rebeing backed up by one ortwo other unions besides their own, and it woulad mean shutting up for a t least three months, which would mean a very serious loss to th’e company. Notthat it’s thatthat’sworrying us. Whatweare of the general really anxious about the is position public and such also people as yourselves, old and friendly customers. It’s not so much the loss to us as th’e inconvenience to yourselves and the public. quite appreciate your point. M. P. : Oh, of course. I Have a cigar? E. S. : Thanks. Match? light (They up.) Of course the whole thing is done by these agitators-the well ‘men at thehead of the unions, who know quite that unlessthey can show something for their money they stand a chance of clearing out. They’re a miserable,lazy lot of skunks,and bite th4e handthat feedsthem,andannoythose who provide them with bread. M. P. : Quite so. E. S. : They walk ab’out and draw their salary, which theywringfromthe members’ funds, and they forget all the time that if it had not been for us, who employ them, the men would ,nothave had any money to pay intothe unionfunds.Theydon’tthink o that. And f here we have to slave away morning, noon, and night, on behalf o the public, while agitators do all they can f to dissatisfy those who should be most grateful to us. (Telephone bell rings.)Excuseme a minute. . . . . . Yes. . . Mr. Derwentwishes to speakto me on an him importantmatter? . . . . . Yes . . . . Yes, ask in. (Hangs up telephone receiver.) My son wishes to speakto me. Perhapshe’sgotsome news. (Enter Mr. Derwent Stratford, secretary private to Mr. EustaceStratford,andalsotreasurer.) Good morning . . . . Youdon’tknow my son. . . . Mr. Pendleton . . . . . My son. . . . (‘1‘0 his son) : Any news? D. S. : Yes, I’vebought it. E. S. : Bought what? D. S. : Boughtthecar.It’scostingjust a shade over -&1,200. The man wanted to sell me a more expensive butthought draw one, I I’d the rein you know Anyhow, come I’ve for thecheque,asIwant to drive the thing this afternoon. . 388 E. S . : Oh, all right ! Bring it round and let’s have a look a t it. (To Mr. Pendleton) : Y,ou’ll excuse me while Iwritethecheque, won’t you?. . . . . There ! Mere you are. Don’t smash thing the up. D. S. : Thanks. Good morning. M. P. : Very nice young fellow. E. S. : Yes, a good chap. He’s some got sound commonsense.None o thesenewfangled ideas. . . . f Well, about these men.don’t I know whatto do. I don’t want the public to suffer on account ‘of the ravings of a few agitators. And, besides, booked you your contract at 38s. and the price is now 38s. 3d., and, of course, it would he a pity if you could not take advantage of the rise in the market. M. P. : Oh, I wasn’t thinking o that. f E. S. : Of course not, but still it would be a pity all the same. M . P. : But the main point is the public. E. S. : And in a slightly less degree thse shareholders. M. P. : O h , but they’re, not so important as the public, you know. The public’s the thing that counts. E. S. : Oh, of course. W e musn’t consider ourselves in this matter at all. M. P. : Certainlynot. E. S. : Now it comes to this. TKe work of the world on. These ingrates, their with has to be carried material view o life and lack of ideals, want to stop f the work %ofthe world. We must find a way out. (Seeks inspiration in the other’s face). . . . . We must find a way out. M. P. (dully) : Yes, we must find a way out. We must carry on the work of the world. E. S. : If we allow th,e working-classes to believe they are our masters, industry will be paralysed. M . P. : There are n’o non-union men round here? E. S. : There were eight. F0ur of themwereburied during the strike. last They died martyrs in the interests of the world. M. P. : We can’t get any from some other town? E. S. : No . . . . I d,on’tlike to . . . As a matter of fact I’ve found that non-unionmen are not good workers as a rule. M. P. : I quite agree with you there. E. S. : That wouldn’t matter if there was a tremendous discrepancy between their wages, but there isn’t. 1 don’t mind unskilled labour if its cheap. You see everything’s done by machinery. What I want is cheap labour. M P. : Ah ! E. S. : E h ? M . P. : I’ye got it. E. S. : Well? M. P. : How far are you from Liverpool? E. S. : Three and a half miles. M. P. : Good ! Employ Chinese labour. It’s dirt cheap. E. S. : W h a t ? . . . .(doubtfully). Somehow or other I don’t like to. M. P. : Why not? E. S. (rather disgusted) : I don’t know. Doesn’t seem nice to me, though, to employ Chinamen in place of Lancashire fellows. M. P. : It’seitherthat ,or shuttingup for a few months. Besides, it’ll teachthe men a lesson. E. S. : I don’t like it. M. P. : Oh, all right. them Let strike. Of course I shall want my contract carried out. E. S. : I suppose I shall have to do it. M. P. : Of course. Whatharm is there in i t ? A Chinaman’s as good as a whitemanany day.Surely you aren’t so narrow-minded as all that? E. S. (stung) : Oh,no ! All right . . I’ll send for to-morrow over them . . . So that’s settled. M P. : Good. Now I vote we g o out to lunch. . The Restoration of the Guild System. I. AMONGtheschemes which have been put forward as solutions of the social problem, Collectivism, by reason of its close relationship to current problems, has alone The By Arthur J. Penty Collectivist Formula. . .... .. . . secured any measure of popularity. Having discovered a printhat“unfetteredindividualcompetitionisnot ciple to which theregulation of industrymaybeentrusted,” political philosophers rush to opposite the extreme, and propose to remedy the defect, first by the f regulation,and finally by thenationalisation o land, o productionandexchange f ; capital,andthemeans which measures, we are told, by changing the basis of society fromacompetitive to aco-operative one, will, every by providing thenecessaryconditions,eradicate disease from the .body politic. Sucharemedywouldbeperfectlyreasonable if the is evil to be combated Were that of competition. But it not. I t istruethatcompetition, as itmanifests itself in modern society, isaforce o social disintegration. f But this is not because it is necessarily an evil thing ; but because the conditions under which it is to-day, pursued are intrinsicallybad. That the competition of today differs from that of the past, we unconsciously recognise when we speak of commercial competition. Competition as it existed under the Guild System, when hours and conditions ,of labour, prices, etc., were fixed, was necessarily a matter of quality ; for when no producerwas allowed to compete onthe lowerplane of cheapness,competitiontookthe form of arivalry in respect to the greater usefulness .or beauty of the thing produced. Wfth the passing of the control of industry from the hands of the craft-masters into those of the financier and the abolition of the regulations of the Guilds, the era of commercial competition was inaugurated, and what was formerly a healthy and stimulating factor became a dangerous disintegrating and reactionary force; for competition between financiers means a competition cheapness, for to which all other considerations must be sacrificed. of clearness,therefore, we will define Forthesake the terms competition and commercialism, a s follows : C0mmercialism meansthecontrol o industry by the f financier (as opposed tothemastercraftsman) while competition means the rivalry of producers. Viewing Collectivism in this light, we find thatit seeks to eliminate, not commercialism, but competition. In so doing it establishes more securely than ever the worst features of the present system. The mere transference of thecontrol of industryfromthehands of the capitalist into thoseof the State, can makeno essential difference to the nature of the industry affected. In Belgium, example, for where the bread-making and shirt-making industries havebeen nationalised, it has been found impossible to abolish sweating, or to introduceshorter a working day.* This abandonment o f the principle ,of social justice attheoutsetdoubtless for ever; since, as Colforeshadowsitsabandonment lectivists ‘become more and more concerned with practical politics, the difficulties of asserting their ideals, together the with establishment of their system o f organisation, will likewise be more and more increased. Moreover, its after establishment, the difficulties of reforming any State Department are well known : and how shall society be prevented from acquiescing in the present commercial abuses, under a collectivist regime, and treating them as inevitable evils? This questionisaverypertinentone,since, acmrdingtothe economics of Collectivism, every industry nationalised must be made to pay, and a Government charged with tfie administration of any industry would * ‘‘ The Social Unrest ; Studies in Labour and Socialist Movements.’’ By John Graham Brooks. 389 become interested in its continuance as a business, quite apart from its usefulness or otherwise, o r whether or no ithad been called intoexistence by some temporaryand artificialneed of moderncivilisation. Thus the Government at the present time, having nationalised thetelegraphs, becomesinterestedin the continuance o gambling, the use of-the system in connection with f the turf and the markets being its real basis of support, and notthecomparativelyinsignificantpercentage of work undertaken in respect to the more human agencies which Again, require it. were existing railways nationalised, Government would become interested in the continuance of wasteful cross distribution, called into existence by the competition of traders. Similarly, the gradual development of municipal trading and ,manufacture would tend to militate against the depopulation of towns. And thisconservativetendencyis inevitable, since Collectivism can only maintain its ground as a national system so long as it justifies the claims of its advocates to financial soundness. Co-operationinitsinceptionaimed at the establishment of an idealcommonwealth,buttheco-operative ideal has long since departed from the .movement, and little but a scramble for dividends remains. In like manneritisnotunreasonabletosupposethat Collectivism, having made its appeal for popular support on the grounds of its capacity to earn profits for the public, would suffer a similardegeneration. The electorate, in their profit-making zeal, would certainly remedy not abuses if theirdividendswere to be lowered, for they would still retain the superstition that only by producing dividends could their finances be kept in a healthy condition. Inasmuch asthe ultimate control of industry would rest in the hands of the financier, production for profit and not for use would continue. For what other test can there be of a financier’s skill except his ability to produce profits? In a word, Collectivism means State Commercialism. So long as the people are attached to their present habits of life andthought,andpossessthesame illregulated tastes, a State Department, charged with the administration of industry, would hejustas much a t the mercy of supply anddemand as at present, while the fluctuations of taste would be just as disturbing to them as thefluctuations of publicopinion aretothe politician. Thisbrings us to thegreat politicalfallacy of the Collectivist doctrine-namely, the assumption that Government should be conducted solely in the interests of man in his capacity as consumer-a superstition which has survived the Manchester School ; for a little consideration will convince us that in a true social systemthe aim of Government would not be to exalt either producer or consumer at the expenseof the other, but to maintain a balance of power between the two. The policy of exaltingtheconsumer at the expense of theproducer would be perfectly sound, if the evils of the present day were caused by the tyranny of the producer. But is it so3 I t is true that trade is insuch a hopeless condition that the consumer is very much at the mercy of unscrupulous producers. The cause of this,however,isnot to be foundinthepreference of producers generally for crooked ways, but in the tyranny of consumers which forces the majority of producers to adopt malpractices in self-defence. Doubtless all trade abuses have in their origin been the work of individual producers. They grow, in the first place, because withoutprivilegesthemorehonourableproducersarepowerlesstosuppressthem,and secondly, so wanting in loyalty because consumers generally are to honestproducers,andare so ready to believe that they can get sixpennyworth of stuff for threepence, that they deliberately themselves place in the hands of the worst type of producer. In every department of life the successful man is he who can lead the public to believe that they are getting something for nothing, and generally speaking, if consumers are defrauded by producers,it is becausetheydeserveto be. The truth of this statement will be attested by all who, in any department of industry,made have efforts to its raise tone. Everywhere the is it tyranny of the consumer blocks that the way. For example, anybody who has followed the history of the Arts and Crafts movement and noted the efforts which have been made to raise the quality of English production must be of the difficulty. If the convinced that this is the root public were capable of a tenth part of the sacrifice which others have undertaken on their behalf, we might see our way out of the industrial quagmire. This evil would not be remedied by bringing industry under State control. Rather would it be intensified. Art in the past had its private patrons, and while these continuesomegoodworkmaystillbe done. Butthe artist is powerless when face to face with a public body whose taste recognises no ultimate standard, but taken collectively is always the reflection of the vulgarity its As we assume may that members around see them. private patrons would cease under Collectivism, so Art’s support last would disappear also. Whatever good work has been done for the public during the past centuryhas been in themaintheresult of accident. Collective control foreshadows, the not abolition of poverty in our midst, by the direction or industry passing into the hands of wise administrators, but the final abandonment of all standards o f quality in production, owing to the complete subjection of all producers to the demoralising tyranny o€ an uninstructed majority-. The Document of Words. By M,B. Oxon. A FRIEND asked me lately what was the derivation of the word“Luck.” H e said that Skeat’s account of itdid not seem to him satisfactory. This appeared to me very probable,but I turnedthewordup in thatauthority and found : “Luck, fortune (Du-M.H.G.), M.E. lukke (15th Not C.). found in A.S. andFries, luk is late. DerivedfromDu. luk. FromM.H.G., ge=Zucke, good fortune; G. gluck (for geluck). TheFries. luk, Swed. lycka, Dan. lykke (like Du. luk) are borrowed from G. (Kluge). Perhaps to akin G. locken, to entice, allure. ” This did not take one far, and the final suggestion of locken was so clearly a refuge for the destitute only that its introduction seemed almost an insult. The Century Dictionary, apparently, thought so too, but said in more politelanguagethatit“seemedimprobable,owingto the differencein meaning.” As, however, itgaveno of knowfurther help I nextappliedtothattreasury ledge,theSanskritdictionary.There I wasfortunate enough“to comeacrossit”atonce : ‘‘Lagnu, point of intersection of two lines, where the sun and planets rise, a lucky moment” ; and closeby, “Lakshmi, the goddess o luck,”“whence,” f I presume,cameGreek lachein, to obtain, and Lachesis (the Second Fate). S o much for locken. According to the manuscripts, the word luck is not found till the fifteenth century. Beforethat, hap was the word in use. But w-e find in the Gaelecdictionary thesamescheme o letters, riach, suggesting a very f similar idea, t o graze surface. the Ithas been suggested-apparently one of the foolish suggestions-that this word is derived from the E. streak, but I think no one couldhave suggested itiftheyhadlookedin the Sanskritdictionaryandtherefoundtheactualcorrepondent word, rechha, a scratch. If we now look at h a p , going rather deeper than the etymological dictionaries go, we find : Lappish, Happet e t , to swiftlyseize a chance ; as well exemplifiedin H a p i g , a hawk. This ideais rathersimilartothatof riach. I n “Celto-Sanskrit” one was chosen to bear the meaning“luck,” while in “Scandinavian”itwasthe other. Whether present our word “luck” “rewas flected” to us byway of lachein, orwhether it continued to exist here as a non-literary word, it may perhaps be possible to decide historically : but, clearly, suggestions like locken serve no good purpose-, are only 390 the result of a restricted outlook, and themselves result insuggestingtheerroneous idea that etymologycan work in a restrictedarea. As a matterof fact, there aremanywords in English which are obviously the same as the Sanskrit, likewise and not apparently ,derived from it through the Mediterranean languages. The only likely explanation of this is that they existed before the families two separated. eventually This brings u s by various roads to “Atlantis.” The idea of a submerged Atlantic continent is still looked on as a foolish one, but to my mind it is far otherwise, and in to clear u p very factthe only postulate whichhelps many of the difficulties of myth, history, race, and language. Donellyproducedmany arguments of more or less value in its favour, but the argument of language seems to me as cogent as any. If wecan find words in Gaelec and English which are so old as to be identical with the Sanskrit, why not admit that these words are a t least as truly British as they are Middle High German o r Swedish dialect? Or if the object of a philologist is to trace the actual occurrence of words in the written book, why introduce the quite imaginary ones marked with an asterisk, as they so frequently do? as an have I seen it stated, Andrew with Lang authority, that the same carved symbols are to be found on the coast o Spain, the isthmus of Panama, and the f Firth of Forth. If so, this, too, seems in favour of old Atlantis,and I would suggest that anything, whether word, god, or myth, which can be found in Britain and also in distant Southern lands without any direct connection between them may better be considered aboriginalBritishthanimportedfromCentralEurope I t is highly possible that there is a group of Northern roots-probably the Finno-Ugrian-which is as old as anything we know, and some of these are to be found mixed withothers in theScandinavianandTeutonic languages.Butthattheselattershouldbeconsidered t o so farantedateBritish as to beacceptable as the source from which it was derived seems to me almost ,demonstrably untrue. If speak I thus evilly o the f etymologists it is not because I do not realise the very valuablework,which theyhavedone in bringingthe science of words within a scope which permits even a n ignoramus to make some show. My accusation is that, in common with many other sciences, etymology has let itself become bound by rules and the authority of great names, is and wasting time quite its on immaterial details. Max Muller and Skeat, who I suppose exercise more influence in this country than any others, were both men of great erudition, but entire lack of insight.Curtius had insight, but worked over a restricted area. Kluge apparently had none. Men like Gesenius, who had both theknowledgeandtheinsight,areneglectedbecause they prefer to accept an obvious retationship which may notagree with any“law,”ratherthan follow a rule which produces dry only dust. this In connection I would mention Fox Talbot. Though too, he, limits himself chiefly to Latin and Greek, he emphasises that there was a continual and mutual exchange between the classic and the surrounding barbarian languages. The result of the erudite workers has been to crush the life out of etymology by laws only locally true, and to give false a impression of the completeness of its deductions by ignoring the smallness of the area over which they work. Thedesireto derive wordswithin a circumscribed area of space and time leads the professional etymologists many into mistakes. for Take, example, the words gate (a road), gate (a door), gait, and go. Skeat thinks they mayallberelated. N.C.D. says the only connection is between “gait” and “gate,” a road. Gate (I), a road, is always spelt with a “ g ” ; gate ( 2 ) , a door, used t o be spelt with a “y.” If we look, in the Sanskritdictionarywe find gati, which means a road and gait. Though I should be sorry to differ from Mr. Whitney, there seems no reason for thinking it is not connectedwith ,sa, to go. Since gate, a door, is spelt with a modification of “g,” we look under the modified gutturals (palatals) and find chut, a scratch ; chhid, to make a hole. So, that,apparently,theconnection between words that our is gate ( I ) andgate (2) are entirely separate ; gait is identical with gate ( I ) ; and both of them are connected with “go.” If wefind thewordsinSanskritandEnglishwith identicalmeaningsandalmostidenticalspellingsthey must either have come North-Westerly without paying any attention to Grimm, or they existed before the time that Sanskrit separated from, let us say, “Celto-Scandinavian,” and went South-East. There many are similar examples. Takethe word Hie,saidtomeantohasten.Whetherthehistorical balanceinfavour of thismeaning isoverwhelming I do not know, but I would note that many of the examples containing this word which are given by Murray contain also the word quickly,which would suggest a priori that the word hie by itself had not this meaning. I f we look at Manx we find that Hie is the past tense of goll to go, the two tenses in the subjunctive of which are jagh and jem. Looking attheSanskrit dictionarywe find iuci, to bound away, depart, to leave behind, to quit; Ja(m)h isthefrequentative of ha; ga i st o go. So that in Manx we seem to have a verb built up of various scraps which correspond letter for letter with Sanskrit. Of the verbs collected from various sources, Be, Am, Shall, Was, is perhaps the most interesting, and this for a reason which I have never seen noticed. The interest centres round Am. and Be. Am, as is well known, comes from a widespread root, As, or Es, from which also comes our word Essence, a word which thoroughly conveys meaning the of the root. B e , on other the hand, means to be born-witness phusis=natura. The importance of this distinction has been forgotten in the West, and is still further obscured by our dictionaries, which equate both “am” and “be” with exist, which really only corresponds to be. The Sanskrit writers understood the differencebetween us and bhu, as, for example, in Bhagavad Gita 11, 16, where“being”is said to be “non-essence,” and “essence” “non-being.” Rut nothing but Dutch and such-like languages will do. For example,Skeat, when treating of thewords Zop and lib, meaning to castrate, says that lop is from Middle Dutch, and that lib “answers to an A.S. type lybban (whichisneverfound [ As a matter of fact, the Sanskrit dictionary shows us the original word to be lop, to cut off, derived from lup (lumpa), the same word as rup and rumpere, to break. So why bother with Middle Dutch ? For even if the manuscripts should show that we have an earlierexample of it in Dutch than English it proves very little as regards even the language of literature, and nothing as regards the language of the folk. I am glad to say that since Skeat’s time people have begun to pay more attention other to languages than Teutonic, Scandinavian,andLatin, especially Whitney in the N.C.D., who, being,I believe,a Sanskrit scholar (which I am not), has made good use of his knowledge. I am not merely advocating a return to Max Miller’s Indo-Aryanroots,forthere are no Indo-Aryanroots. By the time that what we call the “Aryan” language had come into existence the roots from which it sprang had put out a verbiage almost as complete as that which wehave atthepresent day. W e have to go further than this, it seems to me, and acknowledge a common origin of Sanskrit and Gaelec. To prove it is, of course, difficult, but there are many things that point this way. Any wordwhich appears both in Latin and Irish is always claimed a s derived from the former, and though in many cases there points are which may well be argued against the claim, the simplest thing to do is to take words which are not found in Latin : for example, the followingseries :-Gaelic, gar; Sanskrit, gharma; Greek, thermos ; Latin, formus ; English, warm. Formus-warm is quite natural ; thermos-formus is possible ; gharma-thermos is not impossible; but formusgar orthermos-gararebothquite unlikely,especially !I).” 391 as we have a t hand gar-gharma. Moreover, the etymologistswhoquestionthederivation of thermosformus-warmfrom gharma mayquite well beright, for Samoyed has Po, warm, which would suggest that thermos-formus-warmmaybeconnectedwith pa and fovea, of which I shall speak a t length later on. Further examples are riach-rechha, mentioned previously, and retch (said to be “derived from” A.S. hraca, spittle), against which in the Sanskrit dictionary we find rechaka, “emission of breath, evacuation.” To extend the list to almost any length is only a matter of time and labour. A few other examples which I happen to have at hand are : Skt., sna., tobathe ; 0. Irish, Snaim, to swim ; Pak, bake ; l Vrika, plough(fork) ; ]ani, wife (jenny wren) ; Gribha, handle (grip) ; Grish, grind(grist) ; Guda, entrails(guts) ; Hardi, heart’ ; Manu, man ; Ara, ore ; Ri, to run ; Stob, to fix a stake (stab)4;Stamba, the stem of a tree, also to stop5; Vecas, a vassal ; Varkas, energy(work) ; Vara, best(very) ; with these and many more examples before us it seems thattheidea of a commonCeltic-Sanskritorigincan hardly be ignored. I t may seem a fairly long flight of the imagination to suggest that many of the words which we now use, and have always been taught to look on as a gift from the NormansortheDutchortheSaxonsorthe Middle High Germans, have really been “on the ground” here since thedays before SanskritwentSouth.Butlong flight though i t maybe,we have much farther to go yet. I t seems strangethatno one hassuggestedthe trip, but as I have not met with the suggestion I will make it, for I venture to think that when etymologists have got over the absurd belief that Latin (or for very daring minds Sanskrit) is the beginning of all, they will begin to findsome curiousresults,andprobablyvery far-reaching-both in history, ethnoIogy, mythoand logy. I have never with met theideathatthereare some words which have a world-wide meaning, but that these exist I will now try to show. I t was theword Pit whichfirst startedmeonthe right track. the Pit, etymologists tell us, derived is from Latin Puteus, a well. A s usual, the cart is before the horse. Clearly the man who first dug a pit did not do it expecting to find water ; he did it for some other reason, and when water came in he called it a puteus, as asecondname.But why did hedig a pit? I chanced somewhere on the statement that of the tw7o or three old Pictish words which remain to us one is pit, apparently meaning a farm. Here is our key : the first use of a pit was a s a shelter, a very natural and obvious ideawhenoncewe have seen it. Do thevarious languages bear this out? I think they do. Starting from English Pit let u s make a list of words with a similar collection of letters and a similar meaning -taking them roughly in geographical order from West to East :English : Pit, and probably B e d . Welsh :Bwth, a hut. Basque : Pa, a brasier or fire pit. Lappish : Bodtze, a bottom, Hungarian : Putri, a flock shelter. Samoyed : P e d , a nest. Latin : Puteus, a well. Greek : Bothros, a pit. Egyptian : Pa (or per), an enclosure ; Pet, thesky (drawn as a pot-lid). Hebrew : Beth, a house. Sanskrit : Pa, to shelter ; PataEa, a covering. Japanese : Ba, an arena. *The contents of these lists are not the result of great hunting and sifting. The languages were chosen to a certain extent as representing various possible divisions, hut chiefly because I could easily get at these dictionaries. P think that all the Ianguages at which I looked are included in the lists, with the exception o a West African f dialect which I omitted, as there was some suspicion that it had prefixes like Zulu, and so might be misleading. It is, therefore, most probable that if twice the number of ‘languages had been iooked at, the lists would have been kwice as long. Maori : Pa, a stockade ; Pataka, a n enclosure. Quiche. Putina, a flock shelter ; Puytu, a well ; 6 Putu, a calabash. Herewehavetwoideas closelyinterlocked, Pa, to protect,and pet, toshelter,orcover,both of which appear again in a more modern form in Latin as foveo and perhaps fodio. Treading very closeon thesewehave a numberof other pets and buds, meaning to spread, whether it be the wings in flight, or the petals in opening. This is by no means an isolated case. Here is another quite as widespread :The letters kb, or gb, seem to suggest what may be called, as a primitive idea, “ a humpbacked stump” ; a very useful article before the introduction of nails and mortising chisels. It is representedinEnglish by such words as gable, gibbet, and coop. Gaelec : Caob, a bough ; Ceapan, a stump ; Cabar, a beam ; Cub, a coop. Basque : Gupi, a curve, humpback. Lappish : Gabos, deformed ; Gubbo, a stump ; Gable, a top-beam. Latin : Gibbus, humpbacked. Greek :Kuphos, hollow. Hebrew : Gb, humpbacked. Egyptian : K b , an angle. Swaheli : Komba, to hollow. Zulu : Geba, to incline, a s a bough ; I-gumbi, an angle ; Isicfumba, humpbacked. Sanskrit : K u b h , hollow. Japanese : Kwbu, a stump ; Kabuti, a lintel ; Kubo, a hollow place. Maori : Kopa, an angle, crippled. Hereagainwehavetwo associatedmeanings,the roof, and the hollow which it encloses, for example :Japanese : Kubo, a hollow place. Basque : Kubel, a copper ; Kubzt, a bottle. Rut these are not so clearly to be separated as pa and pet. The etymologists have gone wrong again on the root, pa, this time through mere carelessness. To quote Skeat’s “Select list” :“ P a s c e r e( p a - p a s ct o feed-pabulum, pannage (M.E. pasnage), pastel, pastern, pastille, pastor, pasture, pester, repast. (dPA, to feed.)” But unfortunately thesewordshave a root pas or pasc, which is as different from pa as is pet. It is far from improbable that we should add yet another similar root, pak, whence our word Bake. I t is almost as widely spread as theothers,andfinishesupwith its modification to f in Latin as focus. So that long before Romuluswasthought of therewere,surroundingthe word pa, to protect ; p e t , to cover ; pas, to feed ; pak, to warm ; and all of them go backthrough such unin the known ages that perhaps the Giants who were land in the days before Adam used them too. A PRAYER. 0 Lord (if one there bewhose high control Can guide my wand’ring feet o’er crevass’d ground), From endless hell I will not save my soul And leave unplumb’d life’s deeps of joy. Unbound 1’11 let my hot heart go. But, Lord, I pray (If mortals’ pray’r can pierce thy star-paved floor) That thou my reckless hand wilt ever stay From doling alms out to the luckless poor! LOUISSORDELL. ____ Root PHOG, CJ. + O ~ < I , V . ’ ’ “Derived from A.S. g e o t m topour. Root GHEU.” s This is an interesting word, for its root is hrid, and t h e Irish for heart is cridd h e. 4 “ Apparently from Swed. dialect stabbe, a thick stump.”.-Skeat. But why go to a Swedish dialect? Thisis an extraordinarily interesting word, for we see t h a t the two languages agree even to the extent of a secondary meaning, and one notvery obvious at that. G Strangely like , $ ~ t t , no doubt, but had it been a Latin word, it would pretty certainly have’ come thronyh t h e Spanish, which is peso. 1“ 2 J 392 English Pronunciation. IT has beenpointed out to us that our paragraphs on not statedtohave been concerned theletter u were solely with the pure sound of this letter. Of course we were dealing with the true letter throughout, the inflection a s in but seeming to have perplexed none of our In fact, frequentlypure most the correspondents. vowel sounds set a man conscientiously considering his speech. I t is not well to be discovered uttering coarse vowel sounds among people who enunciate them finely, for the power of money to divide people is, to say the least, no more inimical to friendship than a course pronunciation;howbeit,the will to equalityworks more surely and swiftly in the latter than in the former case. Most of us might maintain existence more easily in the company of a yokel than of a cockney. The yokel’s vowels will be in many districts pure enough, only too prolonged, suiting his slow tongue; the c o c k n e y a r e coarse and too rapid, a repulsive combination. We note that Professor Rippmann is now busily confusing linguistic the notions of the “Daily Citizen.” Among his more casual remarks occurs the following : ‘‘Mr. Asquith rhymes mornwithdawn, as wedo in Southern England.” Who we? hesitates are One to believe that even a Georgian poet would be allowed to rhymemornwithdawn in public, a t least mo,re than once. Mr. Asquith might his use position, as we all know, to force anything upon us ; but even he has not yet ventured to publish his unofficial reforms. Professor Rippmann would havethereaders of the “DailyCitizen”supposethatthe world is verymuch agitated about the correct stress upon syllables, quoting decorous, illustrate, remonstrate, sojourn, adjourn a s awfulexamples o ourabsurdandspirit-wastinglanf guage. But whether a man give the stress to the first or the second syllable is no great matter compared with his coarsening or hismincing of pure sounds. On the subject of stress, we may be certain that the smoother pronunciation will tend to prevail. Personally, we have never heard de-cbr-ous or il-14s-tmte or sojourn among educated men ; we have heard re-m6n-strate, and very pugnacious it sounded ;but the speaker was proving his knowledge of old china, and perhaps must not be taken too rigidly. Our really serioushandicap in combating theassaults of the new spellersandotherphonetical innovators is that we cannot come across any well-conditioned persons who speakas badly asthesegreat reformers would have u s believe. W e know? notthe folk who say, “My dorter iz ded : whot a lot 0%-langwij we duhavetulurn n o w a d a !” ProfessorRippmann makes a statement which very much suits our purpose in this article, a s we intend to notice a word whose derivation survived has in speech even a universal misspelling,whereastheprofessor would like to believe that “usage cares not a straw for derivations,” a point to note, so he writes. Last week we invited readerstotestthediffering sounds of s and u” a s used respectively in business and buzz. It is theword business we are now to consider, but we may remark in passing that of the comparatively few words we use containing the letter 3 almost every of them are one has a foreignderivation,andmost technical terms or names of things, and have been taken over with no change at all. The words which end with z are comic ones-buzz, fzmz, whiz, quiz ; there are only about half a dozen all told. W e have a fewcorruptions of the Anglo-Saxon s, as haze = Itasu; dizzy= d y s i g ; blaze = blaese. W e do take not kindly to z and have reluctantly allowed it to domesticatehere ; yet this very unpalatable sound is selected by the unhappy new spellers to show US how to pronounce if we would besound-hearted Englishmen ! The hard s, as in civilise, is as gruff a sound a s we care for, and if it were not for the mispronunciation offered in the dictionaries, we should probably find no one to-day writing z where all the world enunciateshard s. Coming toourwbrd business, we stigmatiseitas one of the rare freakish English spellings. Regretfully we admitthattheunfortunateEnglishchild,doomed to learn to spell his own language, must waste his precioustimeincommittingthis _spelling to memory. with no possibility of help from his well-spoken teacher unless general practice come to spell the word with an i or a y . The Anglo-Saxonwas bysig= busy : and w-e offer this example, which we cannot be accused of going out of our way to seek, as an instance of what we might do with Professor Rippmann’s dictum. A grandfatherlyperson assures the present writer that he has formerly. seen business spelled buisiness ; this form would be borneout in common usage by such companions as build, which comes from the Anglo-Saxon byldan; guilt from gylt. If, instead of clamouring shorten to the child’sstudy of English,ourprofessorsweretoinsist onhisbeing allowedmuch more time forthis,there would be no market for the flood of quack publications of this and that system of new spelling. One is goaded to the worst suspicions regarding persons who, like o u r phoneticians, quote Chaucer in the original while offeri n g us a kind of spelling which makes Chaucer’s script by comparison as simple as an epistle one7+ from veteran uncle. correspondent, ‘‘c.E. l;.,’’writes for advice upon a subject to whichwe address ourselves with the best will in world. inquiry .the His is regarding. what literature there may be for the legitimate entertamment of persons who do not care for the best. The question us all,butespeciallythose otus verymuchconcerns whoaware the minor are thattrue standard in literature, which is honourably allied to the major, is in danger of beingaltogetherlost.Themajorstandard to no single nation, can never be lost,foritbelongs whereas minor work is always local. So long as a nation keeps together, it is always free for descent the of the spirit of genius, though this spirittaketheawfulandwarningform of anAristnof the supreme phanes ‘or a Juvenal; after the advent satirist there is no more hope for the nation that breeds him.Butbetween theperiods of men of genius in X!T uprising nation, there is a period o art. f In such x time appear men of very great talent who instinctively t.0 genius by their service in ally themselves formulating, practising, and passing on the laws o the f creators. It 1s thecommonestthing in thistin a g e of ours t,o find little persons startingwith up some wretched novelty they which believe, and are by ignorant applause confirmed in believing, to be a veritable discovery of creative law. When their poor notion is neglected after a day or two for some other they attribute their neglected position to the proverbial neglect o the great; but, in fact, the great are f never neglected even in their own lifetime. Was Homer neglected? Impossible-if it is true that his works were only orally preserved. Was Chaucer neglected? Not of English civilisation. When even atthebeginning we come to other names-Pindar, Sophocles, Virgil, Shakespeare,Goethe--inliterature ; Phidias, Michaelangelo, in sculpture; Beethoven in music; Da Vinci, in painting-to mention only those that come uppermost in memory--we may reassure ourselves that the creators do not incarnate for neglect. The instances, moreover, o f temporary during disfavour lifetime usually have a political .explanation as in the cases of Dante, and of Racine, who was, as it is said, driven into contemptuous silence for half a century the after prearrangedfailure of his “ Phaedre.” Inthe firstrank is less than genius-the failures duringof art-which lifetime are many, and among these men you will find there has often been much wastage of emotional force, culpableorotherwise.Butamongthem,also,arethe artists,devotedtothegreatstandards,and only less in power gift the and than creators. ,Tothese we would sendsuch as are appalled toretreatingbefore of genius. “ W h o m Jove hates the hate the works Muses,” said Pindar. But less than may Jove not be quite so severe. Our all-to-human selves are sometimesaccused of this mightyloathing for people OUR Present-Day Criticism. 393 who darenotapproachthesublimecreators,but we humbly protest thatthisaccusation comes from misunderstanding. LZ’e have never attacked writers, those humanly honourable artists, who have upheld the traditions of the creators. We have attacked the decadents of our day, diseased and conceited fools with their notions of having surpassedthegreattradition. W e would destroysuch men not in the least because they are dangerous to this tradition,butbecausetheirrevoltingimitation of art, their misuse and misplacement of the beautiful has the chance of decoying the present generation from its real hope, the hope of preserving the minor tradition. When we find the author of “Hilda Lessways” decrying the author of “David Copperfield” we saythathere is a bad influence in power, and as critics we make it our business todowhatwe can to moderatethisbad influence. When, however, we find a Georgian poet exalti n g aGeorgianpoetabove Milton, we only laugha silent but tremendousguffawaad s a y that here 1 a s bauble. The major tradition is beyond any assault; but the minor is not. NOW us. name the best hundred of let thfese minors, or as many of them as space permits. But first let us object to our correspondent’s suggestion that the average boy will not read the Iliad if he getsthe chance. He does not getthe chance. Heis made to plough through a little of Homer in the Greek ; but the English translation of the Iliad still costs twelve shillings, and we dare swear that not one English boy in forty thousand has ever seen it. Try him with it and see if your pleasing experience is not the same as ours. I t is well known that a child will make its way through enormousvolumes,themere bulk of whichterrifiesa of the semi-educated adult. In pleasantest the time youth of the present writer we read through with neverand tiring interest the whole of Dickens Thackeray, mostofScott, all of CharlesKingsleyandtheZend Avesta of Zoroaster. W e do notrecommend thelastas an innamed as a gift to youth, but only mention it stance of what youth will cheerfully undertake. To parody one of the now almost forgotten dithyrambs of women suffragists-“There are no heights too steep for reading youth to scale if adults will only point the way by leaving books the about.” Give your boy Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, Lytton, KingsIey, Mayne Reid, Kinglake, Creasy, Marryat, Besant, Walter Dumas, Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper ; give ; “Robinson him “The Swiss Robinson” Family Crusoe” ; “MastermanReady” ; “ArabianNights” ; “Don Quixote” ; “Morte D’Arthur” ; “Pilgrim’s Progress” ; “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” ; “Midshipman Easy” ; “IngoldsbyLegends” ; give him anybook of travels !’ou can lay your hands on, no matter what it may behe will probably read every word, even the introduction -Mungo Livingstone, Park, Speke, Burton, Lane, Neufeld, Slatin Pasha. (ah ! do not give him Stanley ; let him learn trickiness from others,if he must), Nansen, Mary Kingsley, Froude (Oceana) ; but there is no end to the thoroughly sound books w might name. Take e offer your youth one of Messrs. Dent’s catalogues and m y twenty books he cares to select for a beginning : and pray heaven he does not select any that you do not yourself know at least by name, for so he will be safe from Messrs. Dent’s editor, a gentleman of the feeblest possible taste where is this unguarded by tradition. Give your son, your nephew, your ward, your friend, all the wide range of this list, and then, iFhe likes none of it, give him up,donotplague him any furtherwhen J ~ O U see him devouring “Tit-Bits,”PennyDreadfuls, Do not, we repeat, suppose that or the“DailyMail.” because you are too old or too busy to read what you ought to have read in youth that a boy will find time and energy similarly in need of economy. Whatever ideas you may have, doubtless gathered from the busy pedagogues of the present day, of preparing the child for “life,” remember he that will not share. H e is living while you are troubling his life with your interference. Childhood is a life,boyhoodis a life : letthese lives alone as much as you can-for this is the way to ensure ;L slow developing but a manly EngIand. Readers and Writers. ITis by no meansthecase, as a correspondent suggestedlast week, that I should sorry be to find 1114. obiter dicta endorsed by every one of my readers. The prospect, of course, is centuries off, but it is none the less pleasing to contemplate. The supposition that there is anything necessarily stimulating in variety of opinion is merely a survival of the laissez-faire days of criticism. is nothing It rests on the sceptical doctrine that there exact and absolute in the region of taste ; de gustibus, etc. But there are, if we can only accept them, cancns of taste as fixed as the canons of mathematics.Their appreciation depends, however, upon a capacity for measuring quality in terms of quality, a capacity almost wholly undeveloped in these days. * * * Quite a number of correspondents have asked me to confirm orcorrecttheirguessastothename of the work of art I had in mind a fortnight ago in referring to the “purest work of genius produced within the last five years.” I am happy to say that they are all, withoutexception,correct in theirguess. W h a t Ishould now like to know is why, during the last four or five a neglected master-. years,thesecorrespondentswith piece in their hands done have nothing make to it known? Some of them doubtless are prepared to grow indignantoverthestories of deadneglectedgeniuses and to believe that had they been alive when Keats w a s dying in obscurity., or Chatterton was starving, or Blake was eking out a living by engraving, they would have moved heaven and earth to compass their recognition. Well,here is no‘cv theiropportunity,forthewriter is still alii-e and still unknown, and the book is still ianguishing on the market. By the way, a conclusive proof thattheworkbreaks new groundandismarked by genius is in the fact that the “Times” reviewed it indig-. nantly and the “Spectator” refused to review it at all. Both these journals have a natural hatred o genius ; one f attacks genius and the other ignores it. * * * All publishers, sheep, like aregoingastray i n the production of series of handbooks on this, that and the other. The lastest is the firm of Constable, which has projected a shilling series under the title of “The Threshold of Science.” I do notseesuch a seriesselling in a market that is a t once crowded and overcrowded with similar booklets. Science, too, is atits very dullest to-day. Thereare no good popular scientific writers, and the state of the wholesubjectisprofoundlyunattractive.Iamnotsaying, of course,thatdiscoveries are not being made ; they But are. their character arouses none of the hopes associated with the scientific work of the nineteenth century.those the In days scientist was somethingof a prophet and had a message of hopeformankind.Butthemessagehasprovedto be empty of inspiration ; and all that science has done is to improvemachineryand to depress man. Save to specialists and workmen on the make Science is to-dayof noimportance. In last week’s “Sphere” Mr. Clement Shorter comments on my note on the absence of advertisements from THE NEW AGE. It was notmyexplanation, as he assumes, that absencedue the this is to ‘‘dangerous character of the journal”; it was the explanation offered by the editor of the“Advertisers’Weekly,”who, of course, less knows of advertising does than Mr. Shorter ! Mr. Shorter, however, continues that THE NEW AGE is not“dangerous,but onlyoffensive.’’ Is there really much difference in these terms in the mind of the editor of the “Sphere”? To be dangerous to him is, of course, to be offensive to him ; and several of my colleagues have been that, and probably will be again. His explanation that THENEW AGE has no advertisementsbecauseit is “offensive” is,moreover,absurd. Plentyofinoffensive journals fail to obtainadvertisements. On the other hand, the most offensive journals are often full of advertisements. But it is characteristic of the men of commercial letters that their first thought * * * 394 when a contemporary journal fails to make a commercial success is always that the fault is with the journal. That there can be anything wrong with “business” is nevertheirsupposition.Imaynow say,perhaps, that THE NEW AGE does seek not advertisements and employs nobody to look for them. Advertisers may come to us if they like; but we shall not go, as other journalists go, cap and lie and bribe in hand, to them. A wealthy lady, aunt the of Professor Gollancz, the honorary secretary of the Academy, has lately died and Of left to this body thesum of sixthousandpounds. this, Az,ooo istoprovideanannuallectureoressay on a philosophical subject ; another 62,000 is to provide ~ I , O O O is to provideaprize an annual essay on Art; ; andthe for an annual essay on some “mastermind” ;GI,OOO isgiven to be interest remaining on the annually to the author of some philosophical work published o r in manuscript. I am quite certain, of course, that the good lady was not. aware of what she was doing and had no intentionof creating obstacles to her avowed benewishes.At the same time I dare swear that her factions will reach the wrong people every time, barring the accidents which happen even in the best-regulated Academies. For it is like asking a Government to vote itself out of office t o expect an Academy o paying ref putations to endow predestined their subvertors. By the instinct of self-preservation they will usually divine thedangerto themselveslurkinginthe work of unknown men of any power ; and, in the same spirit, they will do anything advertise but it. To secure Miss Hertz’s annuities candidates must be able to prove that they are not only now inoffensive to the vested literary interests of the Academy, butcan neverbeanything else. In short, their mediocrity is their qualification. Now if I had or should hereafter have, the disposal of a sum fortheendowment of literature I shouldselect mysuccessorandgive himfreedom to spend andto select his successor in turn. He’s an unfortunate plutocrat who knows -no person more trustworthy than any Academy in the world. * * * America is extreme even in the matter o literature. f Most of the literature of America is extremeIy bad, but some of it is just a s extremely good. I recall now one of the most illuminating works on the origins of poetry ever written-“The Beginnings of Poetry,” by Professor Gummere. W h o Professor Gummere is, or what other works he has written, I dso not know, but this particular treatise, which I read eight years ago and still remember,isworthreviving. It was shockingly reviewed, of course, in this country, both as coming from America and as dealing seriously with an interesting subject. The“Spectator” coolly dismissed it inadozen or so lines a s “beyond them” to appraise; and that was the last the world heard of it. An American writer of less simplicity, but of equal seriousness and thoroughness, is Mr. PaulElmoreMore,author of the“ShelburneEssays,”theeighthvolume of which appeared last week withConstable’s (“TheDrift of RomanticAgnes Repplier, whose ism.” 5s. net). H e isnotan essays were the joke of English critics some years ago, nor a Mr. Huneker, who touches nothing that he cannot vulgarise by smartness. belongsthe He to critical school of Coleridge and De Quincey, that is to say, to a school whose tendency is rather labour to to than neglectthedeeperquestions of literarycriticism. For instance,inhislatest volume we find him describing Romanticism as“the illusory substitute of themere limitless expansion of our impulsive nature the for true infinite within the heart of man.” The description is fairly accurate and leads Mr. More to sound conclusions in regard to writers likeBeckford,Pater,Fiona Macleod and Nietzsche. But many how readers can follow the description to its application? Mr. More has also, it appears to me, the defect of orthodoxy-he failst,orealise the inevitability of heterodoxyandthe consequent necessity of paradoxy. The classic is for him, as itisfor me, the perfect literary form; all form, in fact, is classic. Eut the romantic should be recognised, when itarises, as a challenge to form, as an impulse demanding severer forms to contain it. * * * * * * The retirement of Mr. Harold Hodge from the editor-ship o the “Saturday Review” afier fourteen years ref minds us again of theexistence of that journal.But ‘for little events of this kind, the reading public would scarcely beaware of its existence. Informer days‘before hqr. Frank Harris began to edit it-the “Saturday Review” was the sole journal in England that could damn an author with a single review. The complementary test, however, resulted in failure ; for I never heard that the “Saturday Review’’ could make the reputation of anauthor in anynumber of reviews. Theprestige -thuscreatedlastedduringtheinterval of Mr. Harris’ editorship,.andwas even a littleenhancedunderhis control; but his innovations proved to be incompatible withthe old traditionsandwhenthelatterwere rew m e d under Mr. Hodge they were found to have faded almost to nothing-. During the last fourteen years, indeed, nobody has openedhis “Saturday Review” with -the pleasurableapprehension of anintellectual shock. Mr. Hodge, we are told, “desires to devote himself to social reform and political work in which he has always takenanactiveinterest.” Ah, now we know why his ‘‘Review” has been so dull. I t issimplealmost vailingvacuity of modernDrama. to the point of platitude : there is at present no dramatic movement in life ! Ishallbetold that events like the rise of China,theBalkan War, the discovery of the Poles, and the invention of the aeroplane, not to mention modern the social movements of Labour and Capital, as are great as any that ever inspired a dramatist. But I shall reply that is there not a shadow of hopeful wonder, of awe, of grandeur, of beauty, o mystery, f or even of human intelligent power in one of them. Go into the wilds of Africa be and out of reach of newspapers a for monthortwo,andthe whole cosmic showfadesinto trivialgossip.Butnotonlyistherenomovementtowards any Promised Land that the heartmay desire, but the tendency for some generations has been to elevate commonplace and men to obscure heroes. the Playwrights, like novelists, have been looking for inspiration i n the flatsandslums of civilisation wherethe only heroism possible is mere passive endurance. Active and aggressive heroism on behalf of ideas they hate with all the ignorant hatred of the lower middle classes. But to have a dramaourplaywrightsmust feel enthusiastic about either ideas or some man. As there are at present n o ideas worth enthusiasm, and no men visiblewhose lives are dramatic, the drama which necessarily lives on life, is also of necessity dull and undramatic. I promised last week to offer my explanation of the pre- + * + * * * The gang little of duffers calling themselves the British Academy are having the usual luck of the stupid ‘in England, where, as Hood said :Only propose to blow a bubble, And, Lord ! what hundreds will subscribe for soap ! The‘‘EveningStandardand St. James’s Gazette” [what a title !] notes my disparagement last week of the novel in comparison with the play, but hesitates to take sides it lestshould be committed anything. to T h u s we balanceourselves onthe fenceuntil the cat appears !T h e novel, the writer thinks, is not necessarily a “tale of love” ; and instances several of Balzac’s to of the contrary. Nor are plays debarred from treating sex-love-witness several of Shakespeare’s. Exceptions, however, do constitute not a rule. I amcontent to abid,e by thesuffrages of myreadersinthis matter. Would they not expect a novel to contain a love affair as itsmotive?Ontheother hand, would walk they a play which had no other acrossthestreettosee motive?Thewriteradmits my firstcontention in the following remark : “If sex-love is almost still the only subject of the modern noveI the reason may be that f by the female thetrend o themarketisdetermined 395 novel reader.” accept I the admission, the but explanationisnotcorrect. The female novel readerhas not determined the “subject” of the novel, for that is fixed by natural definition for men as for women ; she determines only that the tales ofloveshall be written €orwomen ratherthanformen. My second, however, provokes the writer to say that the notion of “Fate,” whichinspirestruedramaasthenotion of sex-love inspires th,e true novel, is scarcely to befound nowadays.Why?Thereason is certainly not thatFate is less at war with Man to-day than formerly; nor is it that science hasmade us vulgarly familiar with th.e conflict of the with soul destiny. W e know less if anythingaboutthe soulto-daythan Aeschylus knew. In consequence there ought to be moremystery init and consequently an atmosphere in which drama might be a mystery all the grow.Butwedonotfeelitto same. Weareignorant, and conceited about it. You cannot imagine our playwrights brooding darkly on the ways of God to Man; they would in all probability laugh at you for raising the question. No re-discovery of Fate is, therefore, likely t o comefrom them-nor any drama. Many of my readers will recall the name of Mr. H. H. Champion. He was a picturesque figure in the early fighting days of the Socialist movement in England, when Mr. John Burns, Mr. CunninghameGraham, and others, weremore a€men than they are to-day. (Is offensive, that Mr. Shorter?) My last vision of Mr. Champion was of a top-hatted gentleman from seated in contemptuous ease upon a platform which his fellow speakers had been violently thrown by a provincialaudience. His top-hat, Iverilybelieve, made him invulnerable. At any he left rate,was unmolested, while the rest were receiving and binding up their wounds. Champion, Mr. I understand, now runs a book-shop in Melbourne, Australia; an and excellent book-shop I hear it is. He also edits a paper, “The Book Lover,” of whichIwishIcould say that it is excellent. Butitisnot;it ispoor. The opinions expressed are in mostinstances docile repetitions of theworstEnglishjudgments;theyhavenot even the merit, in beginners, o originality. For example, Miss f Elizabeth Robins’ “ W h e r e Are You Going To?” is f “powerful” and has “ stirred the hearts” o people; the sale of the Browning love-letters makes the writer “a little bit sick”-not that they should have been preserved, that should but they have been sold to a private purchaser; Professor Gilbert Murray’s translations of Euripides have “ thrilled the English-speaking people”; theWilliamsonsare“enjoyable”;and so on. I say this, I hope, without respect to the comments of Mr. Champion on THE NEW AGE. Indeed, they are mostly flattering. He speaks of its “caustic bitterness,” its “fearlessness,” its and “ malevolence.” The last named characteristic I forone would notattemptto deny or to disguise. I d o not pretend to be God almighty,andtoseenothingbutthegood ineverything.Moderntolerance is alwaysimpudentcontempt €or an enemy or cowardly fear of him; when, that is, it is even so positive a s t o bepreceded by any definite Mr. Champion professes to pity opinion at all ! “ Rhythm,” in particular, for my colleagues’ criticisms of that journal; most but, untutored like god Samaritans, he really adds to insult his victim’s injuries. “There is much,” he says, “that is good and earnest” in “Rhythm,” though it contains a great deal of “ tosh.” The worst writer on it, he thinks, is “one Murry,”whois“nothingshort oa f babbler and a penny-a-liner.” As Mr. waseditor Murry the of “Rhythm,” I canfancyhisgratitudeforthealeand ointmentprovided by hisantipodeanchampion. the school in a symbolicperson. Our ‘‘idea’’to-day is brilliant common-sense-a phrase,by th,eway, which the “Daily News’’ borrowed o me th,e other day-and f Put to a pooruse ! Onlythosewritersbelongtothe new age and have a future before them who can write sense. Iemphasiseboththewritingandthe sense. * * Y * * * Who is Ada Cambridge? In the “Times” of Thursday lastnearly a columnisdevoted toherfirst bookof Verse (Heinemann, 5s. net). Throughout the review she is referred to as Ada Cambridge, just Ada Cambridge. Such familiarity, however, I find offensivein a double and even a triple degree : it assumes that I know the lady-and I do not ; it assumes that the reviewer knows the lady-and he ought not to reveal the fact by such a means ; and it unwittingly does her the injury of unmerited notoriety. For if the specimens of verse quoted are fair-and the whole review might have been written by her agent-“ Ada Cambridge” had better never have published her work outside her native Australian bush. Ye who can see the case so clear, And scorn to cringe and moan, Who follow humbly,without fear, The soul’s behest alone ; Content to suffer for the sake Of faithful manhood, and to make A loftierstepping-stone, A straighter way, a smoother street, For tread of unborn children’s feet. This stanza from “oneof the best poems in her book” contains most of the qualities of the completely unpoetic. It is not quite so facile as doggerel, but it is more false than didactic platitude. the Yet “Times” hesitates whether to call it poetry, and inclines to the affirmative. W h o is editing the “Literary Supplement” nowadays? * + * I have been toooftencaught by theannouncement that a new edition of Mr. Shaw’s “Quintessence of Ibsenism” was about to appear, to confide in the latest repetition of thestake joke. I t isMessrs.Constable, however, announce this who it time. Inthe“QuintessenceofIbsenism” which appeared in itsfirstand onlyedition in 1891 Mr. Shaw wrote himself out. H e has added nothing since that is not an amplification of h i s first enthusiasm-or, should I say, a straining of his first affirmative faith through the superfine meshes of his wit. The doctrine extracted Ibsen of he from was, course, not Ibsen’s a t all ; the later plays of Ibsen prove that ; but it was a doctrine for the times, and Mr. Shaw took himself seriously asitsprophet.The“Quintessence of Ibsenism” has, I believe, had more effect upon the modern feminist fermentation than any other intellectualingredient. W e shallseewhetheranyvirtueis R. H. C. left in it. Views and Reviews.* THISlittlebook i,s interesting as being a synopsis of Catholic thought teaching and in relation to social affairs.Ithas oftenbeensaid thatthe last enemyof Socialism will be the Catholic Church ; and the reverend writer makesthatclear in thisprimer.TheCatholic SocialReformer,hesays,differsfromtheSocialist in this respect, that he does not consider the present economic condition to be bad in its essential principles, but on account of its deep-rooted andwidespreadabuses. He says ‘‘that elements this the of problem are mainly three : evils, their causes, and their remedies” ; and he reveals “four distinct sources of the evils which all deplore : error, vice, material conditions, and political action.” Lest enthusiastic any reader should suppose that Dr. Parkinson is advocating industrial action, I hasten to say that, according to his statement, all Catholics “agree in the adoption of such specific remedies as clubs for young people, temperance associations, thrift and friendlysocieties,and so forth.’’ He states religious and 1hp.t the evils of the time are “chiefly * * * in these pages, is, Ihear, to come to an end shortly. Its “idea” was, indeed,somewhatbelated, for it set out to repeat the officeof the “Yellow Book,” which was to collect contemporarydecadence and make a school of i’t. There is no life in decadence,however, nowadays; its future is past; and there is no genius like Beardsley to embody A monthly magazine, often mentioned * ‘‘ A Primer of Social Science.” By theRight Rev. Monsignor Henry Parkinson, D.D. (P. S. King and Son. 2s. net.) 390 moral,” and as “practical measures” he suggests (and tells us that the suggestions were approvedby Leo XIII) the formation of trade unions, the restriction of financial gambling, the granting of a living wage, the fixing o a maximum f day’s work by thetradeunions,and “the promotion of obligatory insurance, the regulation of women’s work, the prohibition of Sundaylabour, protection against distraint, establishment the of eooperative profit-sharing and enterprises. ” Practically all these things have been done, and the rest will follow quickly; with the possible exceptions of the restriction of financial gambling,andtheprohibition of Sunday labour. Practically these all things have been done, us. and the results are before It has also been said, with perhaps more justification, that fight supremacy the for in England will be between the Jews the and Catholics. As thingsareat present, the Catholics are losing in every respect; and for a very simple reason. The verymeans by which theJewsareobtainingthemastery of theworld,and whi’ch Mr. Arthur Kitson described in the last issue of THENEW AGE, are sanctioned by the Catholics. There to a lostcauseto be disis all thepathosattaching covered in the statement that “he [the Catholic Social Reformer] desires a return towards the ancient organic structure of society : family, county or district, and classes.” The effect of usury (I usetheword in the is same sense a s Mr. Kitson, “wherever payment exacted merely for use, that, properly speaking, is usury”) has been thatclassesaremetamorphosedand practicallyabolished, the county or district has ceased to exist except as a unit of government, and the family is being destroyed as quickly as possible. There is not an institution that stands in the way of the perfect working of economic law that is not in serious danger ; and s o long as reformers sanction cause, m the it is n gratuitousexercise ol compassiontobewailresults. Dr.Parkinsontells LIS : “The modern mind adopts thepractice of lendingmoney at interest as the most natural economic proceeding. This has arisen from the use of money for productive purposes, as under the form of capital in business. This condition, without excluding others, has justified the practice, and he would be a bold man wh.0 would condemn it. W e must nevertheless clearly separate from the this usury, practice of which, in either of theformsexplained, is always blameworthy. W e should remember also that the Church has given but a constructive approval to the whole financialsystem of interest, and much might be said to show how injurious in many of its applications itisatthepresenttime.”Thefactsremainthatthe Church has approved it, and that it is impossible to distinguish in practice between, usury and lending money a,t interest. The economic results the are same in both cases ; production is stimulated forthe benefit of a person other than the producer. But the effect ,of this stimulatedproduction is thatthe producerbecomes a slave to the money-lender, whoever he may be. It is true, of course, that “the modern mind adopts thepractice of lendingmoney at interest as themost natural economic proceeding” ; butthemodern mind never stops to think of theresults. Mr. Kitson, in his pamphlet “Industrial on Depression : Its Causeand Cure,” has given an example of them. “If you have a factory filled with machinery and tools, etc., at the end of your financial year, when you make up your balancesheet, you first allow fordepreciation, so as to maintain your originalcapitalintact,and you next allow yourself a certain interest-in this country five per cent. -on the capital before you commence to reckonyour profits ; and so it is universally. If an industry will not maintainthesetwoitems in regardtoitsowncapital it is notconsideredveryflourishing. What is the consequence of this system?It is this,that by farthe greater proportion of the annual produce of the world is swallowed up in interest charges. Under five per cent.interesttheprincipal doublesitselfevery twenty years. If you takethetotalcapitalofthiscountry, which is employed in production and on which interest charges are made, you will see that it amounts to about two-thirds of our entire annual income. Of course, I am including the rent of land in this statement, since it is a certainform of ‘usury. ’ And if youcarrythis on throughout the world, you will also see that the system is an impossible one for any length of time. And if five percent.wasactuallyappropriatedforevery form of capital,there would n.ot be sufficient left to maintain, the producers at even starvation wages. Wealth is not produced a t a sufficient nor rate continuously enough to keep pace witheven five percent.interest is that small capitalists are charges. And the result continually wiped and capital out their absorbed in interest charges on bigger capital.” of lendingmoney at There is another strange result interest; it is that money never lent can obtain interest just same the as money that has been lent. Mr. Chiozza Money in his “Riches and Poverty” (now republished by Methuen a t I S . net) says : “Many railway companieshaveenlargedtheirordinarycapital by the delightfully simple process of multiplying by twoLIOO originalstockhas been changedinto & r o o of of ‘preferred’ and LIOO ‘deferred’ . . . . As a of consequence it is made t.0 appear that the netreceipts of railways are only about 34 percent. of their ‘paid~p’ capitals. the But nominal capitals have not been paid up’; .and even in so far .astheoriginalcapital is: concerned, much of i t is unreal.” It draws dividends, just same. is the This only one instance; but Mr. Money says : “Anyonewho is interested in thispoint of companies regis-should examinetheyearlyreturn tered which now shows not only the amount of capital ‘considered as paid-up,’ ‘but the amount actual subscribed in cash and the payments f,or underwriting. In a recent return I find such items as this :Capital considered aspaid up ............... &76,683 Minimum subscription required ............ i Amount allotted before beginning business 16,729. and this : Capital considered as paid up ............... L25,@30 minimum subscription required .....:.. ....... 8,000 Commission for underwriting ......... 25 per cent Amount allotted before beginning business &8,oro That i s ho\v a great pari of ~ ~ ~ , ~ o o , o o oof oregis, oo tered joint-stock ‘paid up’ capital is made.” After paying everything, including wages, salaries, wages of ability to managers and managing directors, royalties to patentees, all rents exacted by owners of area, “there beingover I O per remained a profit of ~ 2 2 6 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 , cent. on all thetotalpaid-upcapital,wateredand unwatered, of all the joint-stockcompanies registered in the United Kingdom. ” These facts will make no difference to Dr. Parkinson and the rest of the Catholics. They are satisfied that the evils of the time are “chiefly religious and moral,” they do not agree with the Socialists that the present condi-. tion is “bad in its essential principles” ;and they intend to reform the “abuses” of these principles. W e g e t a very shrewd idea of the nature of the reform when we read : “In the event of anindustrynotbeingableto I. H e bear a living wage, what is the employer to do? is not bound to pay a wage which the business has failed to produce. 2. Neitherishebound in justice to pay a full remuneration toothers in preference to allowing himself ( a ) a moderate interest on capital employed, and ( b ) a moderaterecompenseforhis own industry.But ( c ) he may not set aside anything a s net profit until he has paid at least the minimum rate of the living wage. Profitsarise only after expenses all have been paid. Still ( d ) it would be greatly to the advantage of society if non-paying industries gradually disappeared, and gave place to others which can be worked a t a profit. Lastly, if society wishes for a particular article of manufacture, it should be willing to pay the price of its production, and disdain t,o live on the sweated toil o others.” f Really this is beyond comment ; but Dr. Parkinson ought to explain how that “return towards the ancient organic structure of society : family, county district, or and classes”istobe made if thepresentsystem is maintained as he desire.. ‘4. E. R. c 397 Drama. : drama entirely dependent on bad weather, and, although Byronsaid that the Englishwinterended in July and began in August, there is a conventional English summer which serves as an excuse to theatrical managerstotake a rest.Imight, in a cynicalmood, wish thattheconventionwere a n everlastingreality ; hutletus be charitable.Onemustlive,audiences as well a s producers ; and after such a season a s we have had, we all need a space for recuperation. I have touched my mother Earth by reading over my own articles on this subject ; and I have noticed one extraordinaryomission. I have neversaid a word in praise or blame of any actor in any of the plays that I have witnessed. By the“unitarians” in art,this will probably be accepted as a tacit proof of the excellence of modern play production ; but I am not merely punning when I say that itis only 011 a cloudy nightthatthe stars” are invisible. Fcr it is certain (and every interpretative artist knows it) that if the work to be interpretedhasany of the true qualities of art, interpretations should vary in excellence. The heat of composition is communicable : all actors want to play Shakespeare,. just a s all pianists want to play Chopin, the and desire the is spiritual equivalent of the “growing pains” of a child. I t is only In dealingwiththework of a creative artist that the interpretative artist canreachhisfullstature,can develop his utmost possibilities ; the art o f the actor, like that of any other interpretative artist, cannot thrive in an atmosphere of commonplace. Actors themselves are I rememberMissMarnot always aware of thisfact. garet Halstan being reported as saying that the triumph of the actor was i n not being recognised until the end of the first act. That is probably a sound maxim for the detective ; but its implications, a s it applies to the art of acting, are precisely those against which I am protesting in thisarticle.One implication isthatcharacters in modernplays are so stereotyped that the only way in which anactor can save himself fromgoing melancholymad by sheermonotonousrepetitionis by “individualising”preciselysimilarcharacters, so that theirresemblanceisunsuspected by theaudience. To state a case : SirGeorge Alexander has specialised in the“manofforty” type. Had headoptedMissHalstan’s idea, he might not ha-\-e gone melancholy mad, and become amember of the LondonCountyCouncil. He preferred ( a s I think, with the truer instinct of the artist) to playallthesesimilar characters in a similar fashion. He has, so t o speak, committed Chinese suicide on the doorstep of the dramatist, to whose accountmust be laid the present decline of acting. It was noted by Emerson as an English characteristic that “after running each tendency to an extreme, they try another tack with equal heat.” It is n’ot, therefore, surprising that the re-action against the “ star” system should have gone to the opposite extreme. I said some months ago the that “star” system did produce at least actor one in a company. Johnston Sir ForbesRobertson, one of the few actors now retiring from the stage, was a pupil of Phelps, and was reared in the tradition of the“star” system. I t is difficult towrite of his actingwithoutusing.superlatives; so I content myself with saying th.at, in this exemplary case, the ” star” system produced acting incomparably finer than anything t’o be seen on the “advanced” stage. No’r was the general level ‘of acting below the standard of these more perfectly “produced” modern plays; although I always rejoiced when I saw him, as Othello,smother his wife playing for Desdemona. The“star”system, because it made great successespossible, was obliged to tolerate apparent failures, which probably seemed worse than th,ey were by contrast with their anti-types. But the modern method has eliminated apparent incompetence. I do not remember seeing one actor, during the time that I havebeen visitingtheatresprofessionally, whose performance could be called inadequate. They By John Francis Hope. THERE are no plays to write about this week jn England is a. were all S O damably adequate that I knewthatthere were no realdifficulties in their parts, that they were not creating characters, a s the “stars” did, but simply exercising a certain degree of technical skill. Technique is the end of art., I t is the triumph of Apollo while a r t is theeverlastingstruggle between is simply themeans Apollo and Dionysos.Technique of expression, and without the impulse and the matter to express, it is a thing. dead ,4s Browning’s “Del Sarto” said :? can (io with my pencil what I know M’l~atI see, what at bottom of my heart I \vish for, if I ever wish so deepDo easily, too-when i say perfectly T do n o t boast, perhaps ; yourself are judge W h o listened to t h e Legate’s talk Iast week And just as much they used to say in France, At any rate, ’tis easy, all of it. It is precisely because technique can he taught, becauseimplies heaven it no beyond, that acting is ceasing be art to an and is becoming a profession. Plays are written now which are “actor-proof,” which call for nothing from actor the but a little self-confidence and ordinary mimicry; sometimes not even mimicry, fcor the actor has only to be himself to be the character.Thecharacters,too,are types selected not for their dramatic value, but for the opportunities they afford of exercising actor’s the skill in reproduction. a s played by Mr. Lionel Watts Thesuburban“nut,” in “Fanny’s First Play,” and Mr. Jeans’ “Thie Cage,” is an example. Here is a character without any dramaticwhose value, comedic possibilities are exhausted in thestreets;andtherepresentation of it callsfornothingfromth,eactorbut a lack of all the spiritualqualities o f the artist. It would beimpossible to givc a had performance of such a character, and it to give a goodone; th,e would ,be equallyimpossible character belongs to th,e unhappymeanofmediocrity, and could not be legitimately conceived by an artist. The fault, as I have said before, liesoriginallywith thedramatists.Thosewhohaveanythingtosayare as bad as thosewho have nothingtosay;theyhave simply created another dramatic convention, which calls fortheexercise of aslightlydifferenttechnique. The repertory system has really only substituted the short “run” forthelong “run” ; ithasnot provided of parts,forits plays actorswithanygreaterrange are as stereotyped as those of themoreunsuccessful as I have “commercial”theatres.Itspre-occupations, said in thecourse of thescarticles,arethesame as those of the “commercial” drama ; and the only obvious difference is one of degree. On the stages of the repertory theatre and its subsidiary societies, plays are seen that deal with the ordinary difficulties of life from the point of view of people who claim and obtain rebate on income tax ; on the stage of the commercial theatre the same difficulties are dealt with from the point of view of the payers of super-tax,Theeffectontheactorsis much the same. The upper classes do not act, and the middle classes only imitate the upper ; with the consequence that the actor gets nothing to do in either case. The middle class brings its greater skill in “organisation” to the production of its drama ; and the actor is therebydeniedthefreedom todonothing in hisown way. What the end of it will be, I cannot predict; but Iamquitesurethat wecannothaveactingwithout drama, and that it is useless to argue, as Shaw did, that there c a n be no new drama without a new philosophy. Wherever there is the artistic impulse, there, sooner or later, will be art ; and while I hope for nothing from the presentset of playwrights,Ithink.it possible that a younger school will arise which has forgotten the advice of the modern writers not to read the works of a dead author, and will at least be acquainted with the classics of our own literature.Itisnot,Ithink,tooextreme to say that the man who has’ never read poetry cannot write prose ; and the reading of poetry for any purpose other than that of artistic enjoyment will render impossible the communication the of artistic impulse. We want playwrights not only cultured, but inspired ; and that they cannot be if they have one eye on th,e theatre. 398 The Art. London Salon. By Anthony M. Ludovici. IT has been said that every man, if he could express him- self fairly well, would beabletowrite a novel. I t i s assumed that everybody has vicissitudes and moments of triumph,obstaclesovercomeorcircumvented,thrilling adventures and hairbreadth escapes in his life, and that these strung together in narrative form could not fail to interest if not to instruct. Personally, I doubt this very much. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if every man could write a novel of mere incident, much fewer novelswould be read. And for the simple reason that as the general one does not want to read about “life,” novel-reader understands it, if one is living, or has lived, it. As a matter o fact, it is probable that, as mere inf cident,a record ‘of the every-day urban dweller’s life would boreeveryone to insanity. Not onlywould the events be drab and ordinary, but also the character with which they were faced would be as good as a sleeping draught to all save, perhaps, th,e scientific statistician. Even the loveromancein it would besuchasordid story of the lust-trap with the fatal church or registry office shutter, that people would close up the book with afeeling of giddynausea. I t is absurd to assume that everybody has t,he character or quality in him to turn every event of human life I t is into a sceneworth-reconstructingandrepeating. experiences. absurd to suppose that everyone can have The Allied Artists Association, however, a take slightlydifferent view. “The keynote of thisconstitution isinclusion, notexclusion.” It takes for granted a box of paints and a that everyone who can purchase few brushes, and, I suppose, pay the necessary subscription fee as well, can paint something worth exhibiting at the Albert Hall. Beneath this view of things, there is a liberal, generous and good-natured estimate of human nature, the full charm of which, I, for one, would be the last to underrate.ThereisoptimismandChristiancharity in it. And where would optimism be nowadays if it were scrupulously discriminating ? Where, indeed, would Christian charity be either? “Unscrupulous,” which was theepithetSchopenhauerapplied to optimismin general, certainly applies to kind the of optimism which believes that by merely making things “easy enough” you will turn the world into a revolving globe of high culture. However, let that be, and let us walkinside. Let us enter into this atmosphere in whicheverybody’sexperiencebecomes of value ; in which everybody, in fact, canexperience thingsworthexperiencing. Itmust be entrancing ! Asort of haven or heaven des refusesasort of Paradise in which thelimitationsand constraints of this earthly shell are cast away by magic as soon as you cross the threshold. For never anything can be amiss When simpleness and duty tender it. Yes, that’s all very well !-I had just seen simpleness and duty down the Exhibition Road, at the South Kensington Art School, whichshall I discussnext time. But is this London Salon an example of simpleness and duty?Is it simple to allow subscriber each t,o show threeworkswithoutsubmittingthem t’o anyselecting dutiful “to preserve liberty the of the jury? Is it artist,’’ when it is obvious that what most of the allied artists most sorely need islittle a severe discipline, schooling,limiting, placing, eliminating,etc., etc. ?not to speak of more drastic and harsher treatment. Really this is a foolish age ! On my way down to the Albert HallfromNotting Hill GateIpassedasmall plot open of land, withfence round a all it. I t was covered with weeds and wild flowers, and matted grass. was And was I informed that this plot of ground acquired some time ago by a benevolent society which turned it into an allotment garden for the unemployeda place where they might rear their own cabbages and potatoes-and that this expanse of tangled weeds was all that was left. Atleast,Ihope I am notwronging the societyin question,andthat myinformation was correct. In any case, the idea struck me as being very ridiculous. N’est jardinier veut. pas qui Certain virtues and ,certain gifts of perseverance,patience,andindus-. try,besidesskillandknowledge, are necessary,even for market gardening. Why should it be supposed that a poor unfortunate modern British workman, out of a job which wasprobably nevercalculated torear any virtues in him a t all, should be fit for gardening ! But this chance view of the waste plot of ground gave me an excellent simile for the Albert Hall. For not a similar idea been behind. both ; butthe only had results, also, were very similar. Inside huge your nostrils that hall, very became of tares and of weeds, aware cf the luxuriant growth o I am andeven of fungi. Go yourself, and see whether over-stating case.never the I consciously over-state; on the contrary.! Perhaps it were best for all concerned not to be too particular about mentioning names, this time. I t is the institutionthat is a mistake. These unfortunate individualsthemselves arenotresponsible,anymorethan thosejardiniers malgre: eux were. Nevertheless,there are a few painters, here and there, in thisshow, who help to carry the whole thing off with a semblance o a f decent swing, to and these, the public who stagger along those vast galleries should be deeply grateful. who Jean D. McIntyreis a serious,heartypainter, islearningtomaster a difficult medium. Nos. 18 and 19, “ Landscapes,” are pleasing Janning works. Gangoolypresentsanoldthemein“Kinchingangaat Sunrise” (No. 36), it not but is worse its than predecessors in the tradition; there is a wonderful serenity intheskyand in the silent ring o the hills. Mervyn f Lawrence is “ habile” in the extreme. “Underground” (No. 57), and “ Stepney” (No. 58) show a command o f colourandarrangementworthy of abetterpurpose. Eric Forbes-Robertson think, is, better I in the “ Portrait ,of Sidney Buchanan” (No. 1,032) than in “Adam and Eve” (No. 109). Indeed, the former shows such promise-if .the gentleman in question will excuse to be used thisexpression;itis really only th,e one here-that I would warn him not to indulge too much in the all too facile style ,of No. 109. Gerald Leigha more feasible, a more Hunt ought surely to try possible reconciliation between his two techniques, than he does in Nos. I 1 1 and I 12. It is disturbing to hearrag-time in the middle of aballad. And yet Mr. Leigh-Hunt approaches perilously near to thissort o f Combination in “ A Pathway the over Sea,” and “Outward Bound.’’ I believe that in both cases a better effect could have obtained been if he had attempted techniques. merge to the tw.0 more harmoniouslyintoone.Thisisespecially noticeable in No. I I I. Mr. Leigh-Hunt callsit “ APathwayover the Sea,” but is he aware that, through his heavy and “impasto” technique in the bright reflection, he has actually turned it into a sort of solid pathway of chalk cobbles on the surface of the water? F. Caley Robinson showsdainty a taste in “ T h e (No. 116). I should liked have it Outward Bound” better had he repeated the note of the boatman’s lantern in theportholes of the steamer---or would thathave beenimpossible ? EdithHungerford in I 42, “In the Roarofthe Sea,” shows h’ow excessive attentionto detail arrest can movement, and how perfectly foam may be turned into snow, and water into glass, by an artist’s excessive pains. Like Harold Gilman’s work, itis by nmomeans highart,butitishightechnique, conscientiously studied. Nos. 190, 191, 192, are examples :of good craftsmanship. Beryl Hight has surely given picture, her No. 206, thewrongtitle. I askedthesecretary of theexhibition to show me the label behind the picture, and he kindly did so; but it was There was “ Cyrano de Bergerac” not his mistake. written on the label itself ! The picture, however, cannotbe“CyranodeBergerac.”Itisby nomeans 399 the best work I have seen by this artist. Her modelling is a little scamped; but, of course, it is infinitely above most of neighbours. its Malcolm Drummond possessespowers o observation,but, I should think, f littleimagination. Nos. 324 325, 326, are good workmansnip.FinallyCharles Ginner deservesnotice as an honest, upright painter, striving, for the moment, simply at excelling in a weirdly strikingand forcible technique. Pastiche. SOME REFLECTIONS OF SHOULD-BE LAUREATES. MR. W. H. DAVIES. I s’pose me pension done me in the eye ! How could a fly Bloke like me, What’s travelled the States from Maine to Tennessee, Play such a silly game As hook a pension When laureateships was waitin’ men of fame, With seventy per ann., not to mention A butt of Malmsey ! Jinks, a bloomin’ caskAnd I’ve missed that ! But what’s the use to ask Why I was such a fresh cat ?I draws me singin’ rags about me shame. MR. MAURICE HEWLETT. Nobody mentioned me, Nobody mentioned me ! Yet a little while aback I had quite a vogue-alack ! How doth the busy world, my masters, wag ! One said. I was the Lord of Song ! A second-of rhyme I was King ! Thereallylast 0’ the Greeks-yet another! Oh, for a sword, Or sack to smother Some ruinous,ruinousthing! MORE DISILLUSION. I t is not often that the despair which civilisation breeds i n thehearts of men becomesfearlesslyarticulate.Yet, to-day, I have heard the voice. I was looking into the shop-window of a newly-opened tObacCOniSt’S atthetime,andthesearethedistressing sounds which I heard :Jee’h’suew-lov-ver-of-my-s-w-wl Let-me-to-thy-bussom-fly.” The voice ruse in a crescendo above the noise of the street, and its quavering tone gave an added melancholy to the sordidthoroughfare. I didnot turntoseewhat sort of a person the voice belonged to ; I guessed, and stared more intentlyintothe shop-window.; indeed, so deeplydid I gaze, that phantom-like,thereappeared in it, the dim figure of a very old man, with one boot upon the kerb. In the reflection, he seemed to ha,ve one foot suspended in the air, as though he were afraid t o put it down. Then, I discovered that In tke window, I could see the whole old man raised his voice panorama of thestreet.The again,and cried out withsuchpassion, as emptiedhis lungs upon each word of the hymn. His face, during this exertion, was drawnlike amask into an expression of fixed agony, and to judge by the extreme rigidity of his neck, his vertebrae might have been petrified. Slung in 2 piece of old tape dangled a paralysed arm, and, in his right hand, he clutched a tin-cup for contributions. His upturned eyes,devoutaswith the ecstasy of religious insanity, suggested that in some obscure fashion perhaps Jesus really did love his soul. A passer-by clinked a coin into the extended cup, and hurried on. As the coin fell it gave forth a hollow metallic sound, which reminded me of a cemetery bell. Now came the fearful voice againwith accumulated forcet c Jee’h’suew-lov-ver-of-my-s-ow--owl.” “ But burnish, Trumpets ! Let the cymballed skies Reek with the wrack when the hot and passionate Embers of Poets’ outraged destiny Flit like the winged bat with succinct curse ! Blaze ! Likea woman frailingly resolved, The world shall sit in ashes ! Wow ! Evo ! MR. JOHNMASEFIELD. Gor bli ! That bally fool to get the job ! Well, you could knock me into next week’s middle, And still I couldn’t solve th’ ’mazing riddleWhy Bridges gets it. Bridges ! S’elp me bob ! And me writ “ Pompey,” “ Nan,” “ Saul Kane,” “ The Widder.” Oh, H. H. Fyfe, how art thou proved a kidder! As true as hell, I dreamed the “ Daily Mail ” Came out with “ Laureate John Masefield, Hail !” 0 pretty little bloody flowers, I sob ! MR. W. B. YEATS. Kathleen. Sure, it’s yourself has gotleft. William. it’s Sure, yourself. Kathleen. Sure, it’s meseli always has been yourself’s meself, an’ niver meself at all, so sure it’s yourself has got left. William. Sure, it’s yourself was nothing without meself; so sure it’s meself has got left. MRS. ALICEMEYNELL. When rosy-fingered Dawn, in sandals shod, Tips with her chariot wheels the tardy East, And lights like gems the stone, the moss, the clod, And crimsons o’er the cow at matin feast, And goldens all my locks-last, but not least : Then do I deem it no such Ichabod To be a lady-poet, not elect For laureateships and other posts select. But when the tremulous twilight hems me thick With mine own ecstasies, and Dian’s smile Brings dreams of votes for Woman as for Man, Then to my head leap thoughts with rapture quick, That Our Great Cause was represented while I ran, I ran, I ran, I also ran. BEATRICE HASTINGS. The old man cast his eyes artfully from right to left, butwithoutalteringthe fixed position o his head, or f bending his neck. The pavement appeared to be deserted, a fewspots of rain begantofall. The old man ceased wailing,andtransferred thepenny from the tin-cup to his pocket.Butnot before spitting upon it ferociously. I then saw two people approaching from the Broadway; a man and woman. The woman carrieda large net bag which bulged with vegetables. Theman,herhusband, I could see apparently,laggedbyherside.Fromwhat he appeared to have no eyes : but this was due, probably, to the diffused reflection in the window. No word passed between them ; the woman peered straight ahead ; her face, like that of the man’s, was expressionless. The old beggar, who hadalso caughtsight of them from the corner of his eye, prepared to become articulate. He gauged their approachwith great skill. “Jee’h’suew lov-Frer-of-m~-s--ow-owl. ” As the last word wailed out, the couple passed slowly by, unconscious, it seemed, of the old beggar’s existence. Then the expression o fixed agony upon the old man’s f countenancerelaxed. His eyebrows descended from their unnatural height, andsettled in a frown over his eyes, which became fierce. He shot the receding couple a spiteful glance sideways, and muttered something angrily to himself. By this time I was thoroughly interested. It is seldom that one has the pleasure of meeting an expressive face. And it is even more rare that one can observe it intently without the fear of appearing vulgar. That the old man I hadnodoubt.The more was ashamelesshypocrite, I studiedthevarying emotions which flitted across his countenance, the more I became convinced that the inaudible words which he muttered sc angrily when anyone passed himbywithoutcharity, were blasphemous. The fixed position of his head emphasised the expressions of piety, misery, rage, hate, and cunning which came rapidly one after another upon his elastic face. I was puzzled such a ma’n should upon rely a somewhat as to why Christianhymntoextractcoppers from obviously antiChristian people. Was this aged parasite himself the His perfect and unconscious symbol of Christianity? destitute condition andthe necessity for hypocrisy its logical outcome?He was at oddswith the people from whom he begged subsistence. It was not for them. that he acted so cleverly, but for the pennies in their pockets. I suddenly grew disgusted.Thepanorama of thestreet faded from the window. I became absorbed in the possibilities of a “ Special ” brand of tobacco which was adrertised extensively upon bright, pink cards. It was the 4m invention of the new tobacconist. ‘C‘ery cheap, too-fourpence an ounce-“ City Mixture,” he called it. I entered “I guarantee the shop, and purchased an Ounce packet. you’ll find it every bit as go0.d as what you’re a’ smokin’ now, sir,” said the tobacconist. ‘‘ A for every fifty coupons you collect, sir, we g ~ v e you, absolutely free, a ‘‘ Dillon” Patent Safety Razor, with six Sheffield blades -value, twenty-one shillings.” . . . But I was “ had,” the all same; the tobacco turned out to be stinking stuff. If I ha.d known as much about ‘‘ City Mixture ” at the time of purchase, as 1 did yesterday, after my first pipeful o i t , I should have f given it away to the old Jesus man. ARTHuR F. THORN. A MOMENT O F whip-hand, and that some damage is being done to property, and that the blackguards of the reef and town are taking advantage of the situation, etc., etc., the rights or wrongs o the case are forgotten f and the miners are damned without further hearing. Butmatters of importance are not being decided in this country now, according to public opinion as public opinion is reckoned here. The papersthat have theguiding of it are capitalistic, and liars of the finest grade, and the public, almost entirely, outside of the man who actually works with his hands, is dependent upon the heads of the big houses for its living. SUNDAY AFTERNOON. Since writing the above, quite a number of people have been shot down in the streets, and there is murder o f tl1e blackest in the air. When I came into town yesterday, 1 found little crowds sticking away in doorways and behind corners, and the reason I found to be that soldiers were lying down across certain streets looking along their guns. I crossed a street and went down towards the Rand Club, which was strongly guarded by the First Royal Dragoons. On the pavement near the club were two bodies stretched o u t and the ambulance was busy taking corpses a1:tl wounded away. As far as 1 have been able to gather, no blank charges were fired as a warming ; the crowd, with the usual hooligansand stiffs amongstthem, of course, booing and making a fuss, and, no doubt, meaning Inischief to the swell club property, was simply fired into en masse This was not theonly place where this ha;>pend, but there are so many stories about, with the usual exaggerations,that I don’t care to repeat any of then?. The night promised tu be full of events, as the men have. cowardly their blood fairly roused by thisghastlyand business. However, it, seems that Ministers have now realised where their folly in using- troops was leading an them,andthe town was informed a littlelaterthat agreement had been arrived at on terms such as the miner-; wished, a n d thatthestrike was atanend. I wondered when I heard this ; it seemed to me that things had gone morning-, too f a r to find any such easysettlement.This trams were running as usual, and one hoped that all was as calm as it appeared, although a reckoning would have to come some time, but, soon enough, ugly r n o u r s began to fly about; the red flag was streaming out from motor-. bicycles tearing through town, the and the tram-cars two suddenly stopped running. I had heard explosions about midnight, and wondered what meant, they and havelearned that an attempt was made to blow u p the store of aprominentcitizen, who, so the crowd have it, shot a woman, from a window o€ the Rand Club, who was in a crowd demonstrating outside. This has apparently upset everything- again, and the strike leaders can no longer control their people. That man’s blood is called for, and he will be mise to take horse, or what he can,andgetaway, if he has not already done so, and never come back, that is, if he is guilty. I came in in a cab with four others, two of whom were young Dutchmen, a n d the talk was blank revolution. They went on t o the Trade Hall, where a lot of men were assembled, and, as I came along, a man on a motor-bicycle, with red ensigns flying, called out as he went, “ Meeting on the square a t two o’clock ”-and that is where we are now. ,?the troops are out lining the streets again-more especially about the Rand Club-and the meeting- map not be held; but it is likelythatthenight will see some ugly doings. It is possible that the leaders will get their men in hand again, and there has been no liquor obtainable for two days, but I expect that a section at least of them will refuse to be ruled-which is not in any way to be wondered at. One of the young Dutchmen in the cab, who was present during the shooting the near Corner House (EcksteinWernher-Beit) mentioned a‘n incident ; during a lull a man stepped out from his hiding-place with his hands in his pockets and called out tu the troops-“ Now, shoot me.” He got three bullets on the instant, one through his jaw, and fell dead. Very, very bad, if true, and I see no reason to doubt it. The First Royal Dragoons ill beproud of themselves now. I had to do with them a bit during the war, when they were known as the Sick Regiment, and were put to some outside spot where there mas no likeliThey may have hood of the enemy driving themaway. E done things later on, but I never heard o them shining. The regiment was chiefly remarkableon account of the number of gold-safety pins and pretty nic-nacs which the weeklymail used tobring to theyoung officers. NOW, that is all wiped out ; they have seen active service ; the regiment has drawn blood here in Africa.--and the Kaiser is their Colonel-in-Chief. Hoch ! The Royal Dragoons. Well, it is a had business ; bad for everybody in this illAs the book says : Itis easier for a starredcountry. FORGETFULNESS. Faint whisperings of immortal lutes Wake softly my imprisoned. soul ; I rise to Beauty’s sanctuary, A treasured goal. To liquid notes of viols sweet 1 tread God’s aisles to Beauty’s tone -%fara golden city lies, I walk alone. : O’er paths well paved in lovely pearl, Where sparkling fountains shower and play, Youth’smyriadchoirs come forthtogreet, In bright array. Resplendent is the atmosphere JVith sweets of rose and eglantine. Enriching tones o colour Iun, f Like ruby wine. ’Phe sound o great orchestral notes f Comes, o’er the heavenly crystal air. And psalms of joy to Beauty’s life, -4nd no despair. My revered soul reveals to me A giant gate, yet closed withal. I may nut enter but to still Another’s call. Back, back t o earth and shadows dark, For no one calls my earthly name. But sweeter was that moment fair Than wealth or fame. THOMAS FLEMING. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. THE RAND STRIKE. Sir,-’l’he miners aTe out on strike, and some of the other trades are out it: sympathy. Our fool Ministers could think. of no better way of meeting the situation than by hurrying soldiers to the Rand and draftingpolice from all parts. Of course, thishas exasperated the mengreatly, and spoilt any chance there might have been of quickly coming to an agreement. We have a rare ,lot of stiffs and blackguards in the town, and theyareintheirglory. They have broken windows and looted, and generally played up hell already, and, of course, it is all charged t o thestrikers.Phthisisisthemain cause of the recklessness of the miners now. What does anything much matter to men who know that as surely as they are underground miners they are doomed to end their lives miserably in two or three years, or, at best, drag on a wretched for a few existencewith the spectrealwaysoverthem, has been some shooting, but, of years longer ? There course, the wrong men have been shot. Not one magnate fallen yet, as far as I have heard. As usual, everyone i n the place will suffer but those who are responsible for the whole thing. Utterly callous greed ! Let 11s get the gold, don’t talk aboutliveslost, people must die some time, and it can’t be helped. Public sympathy was to a’ large extent with the miners when the business started,but now thatthe public is feeling the discomfort and recognises that the strike may last some time, and there will be considerable loss in trade, and that the mining houses apparently hold the 401 camel to pass through the eye country to find peace. of a needle than for a rich MONDAY. There are still crowds about talking all kinds of ways, but I fancy things will simmer down now. A paper has been issued by the Trades‘ Federation, and is being read with much dissatisfaction by the men about the streets-I haveheardtheleadersopenly called traitors, which, being an interfering ass, I, as openly disputed-but which I think will have asobering effect aslayingtorest a p e a t many exaggerated stories, and bringing matters I think labour forwardforargumentagain.Personally, all through country the ha’s strengthened its position enormously by the strike if it has the wit to see it. The railways arelikely to be thenextthorninthe official flesh. State ownershipmakes little difference--although State ownership of the mines would be bound to result I have not read the paper in better health conditions. which is out,but will obtain a copy for you. Your old friend, Gladstone, got has himself much disliked here over this business. We have no reason to thank the Home Government for sending us a man they could not trust in England. The cables have probably given you has the creeps, and will have made theminersoutto he fair devils; on the whole, they are probably the best class of miners in the world. LATEMEMBERJOHANNESBURG TOWNCOUNCIL * * * merely confirms my “imagination” of July 17, and, incidentally, a cable previously received privately by myfrom my cable (which did self. The relevant passage not come from a “well-known solicitor,” but from a NEW AGE reader of very high standing in South Africa) is as second strike follows : “Mininggroupsafterprovoking intend, Government assisting, finally crush Labour and Democracy South Africa forcibly. Eight thousandmilitary and police now aboutJohannesburg.Arrangements made burghers come out, natives sent home, moratorium was some declared.” Mr. Hare, I remember, sceptical months ago G f my contention that the maintenance and He extension of capitalismaredueto a“conspiracy.” lives, it appears, in such a sugary world of sentimentality f that he cannot believe that plutocrats are capable o conor of provoking a strike spiring against the proletariat when the circumstances are favourable. Of the good intentions of thecapitalists,infact,he can believe anything. only The people whose honesty appears he to of The NEW AGE. Well, I will suspectarethewriters tellhimandhislike(andtheirname is legion in the “ Christian ” Socialist ranks) that I am sick of their f mawkish defence of capitalistsand o their hypocritical pretence of being Socialists. Let them go and pray with their financial saintsand leave us totellthe devilish truth to people with a little more knowledge of the world. THE WRITER OF “ NOTESOF THE WEEK.” * * * Sir,-We are going through troublous times in the Transvaal at, the present time. The workers are in a state of revolt. Imperial troops have been firing indiscriminately on the people in the streets of Johannesburg, and to-day, Monday, July 7, will be held the funeral of sixteen of the victims of this legalised murder, including a girl. Thenumber of wounded are woman andalittle many, but we have no certain details yet. detail long Of all this you bare possibly heard full ago. My object is not togive youinformation,but to seek it, and what I and many more wish to know (should nothing come to light) is the fate of a cable dispatched tothe Home Government from a monster meeting of Pretoriacitizens, to the number of about 2,000, held i n the Grand Theatre, Pretoria, on Sunday morning, July 6 , demanding the recall of Lord Gladstone for his brutality in using Imperial troops against strikers, and hisabsolute incompetency to deal with the situation i n a humane and just manner. Needless to say, we distrust the Government in every sense. This cable mayhave reached its destinationand been published; but, in our opinion, it is just as likely it will be either that it neverleft this country or that suppressed in England. At the present moment the strike is officially supposed to be settled, but the “ terms o peace ” arefar from f agreeable to the workers, and treachery on the part of some of the strike leaders is suspected; and as the means of communication areinthehands of the Government, whom we have proved to have sent false reports to Pretoria, we do not know how things are really going. The railway workers are all out in sympathy with the strikers and to show their respect for the dead, and this means that all railway traffic is stopped in and around Johannesthe and burg capital. G. M. H. “ THENEWAGE”ANDTHEPRESS. * * * EXPLANATION ANDPROTEST. Sir,-When I wrote my “Notes” of July 17, charging the South African mine-owners with deliberately provoking a strike while the military were present, I had ample knowledge that this was the truth, but I had no direct evidence to prove it that I could publish.Consequently I enumerated the circumstances known to everybody which supportedmyexplanation,andthen went on : “Whether the foregoing is true in fact, or an exercise in imagination, the practical conclusions to be drawn from it are the same.” Mr. Hare in your last issue now accuses me of dishonesty. surely But a little overhonesty if anything should have been credited to me for stating that my charge might be regarded as an exercise in imagination when, in fact, I knew but could not publish my evidence that it was true. However, your correspondent may confirm for himself the reliability of my “imagination.” In the “Daily News” of Wednesday was published the following cable“well-known from a solicitor in theTransvaal” : “Financiers are apparently of the resolved to cause ageneral strike.Theattitude Government is doubtful.Military forces are increasing. Scheme involves closing down of the mines, the grant of a moratorium, and the sending away of the natives. The situation is serious.” This cable, I may now say perhaps, Sir,-A colleague of mine, unaware of my identity with my present signature, confided to me the other day that THE NEW AGE would be muchmoreoftendiscussed in the Fleet Street Press if that “ damned ‘ Press-Cutter ’ ” didnotdrawattention to their remarks and hold them up to ridicule. I protest, sir, thatmy intentions were and are honourable; I desired simply to acquaint you with what was being said of THE NEWAGE, and to make a bow on your behalf to the journals that mentioned you. If, however, my conduct is so forbidding that, like a hawk over a field of sparrows, my appearance isthe signal for the silence of Fleet Street twitterings, I must ask you to disguise me as a mere parrot-a bird, I understand, that reports the sayings of others, and only adds accounts. remarks like ‘‘ Pretty Polly ” to its verbatim My present collection, therefore, is very meagre, being derived from no more than four or five journals, and one of these in America. The American “Review of Reviews” reproduces, with acknowledgments, your caricaturist’s mewing its drawing of Mr. H. G. Wells asaninfant tootsies (is that the correct phrase ?). Pretty Mr. Polly ! “ Justice,’’ the week before last, was inspired to be clever atthe expense of its own creed. THE NEW AGE wrote that “ economic analysis precedes political synthesis exactly as economic power precedespolitical power ’,an aphoristic statement of the case of the S.D.P. which I have seen never equalled in terseness or truth. “Justice,” however, calls the sentence “very clever nonsense” ; from which remark we ought to conclude that I “Justice” is now the organ of the I.L.P.Themotive, believe, of the denial is to be found in the next sentence. “Justice” remarks that THE NEW AGE should “stop posing” and go down and help them to “do something.” Ah, that doing something-how much easier it is than thinking something. The comrades have been doing something and thinking nothing for thirty years, with the reis whereandwhat it is. Afterall, sultthatEngland somebody, even in amovement, must do thethinking, the however detested he becomes. “C. K. S.,” in “Sphere”-an organ, know, you that publishes photographs and things, and lies in barbers’ shops-has a note on the “Advertisers’ Weekly’s” explanation of the “C. K. S.” absence of advertisements from yourpages. (it’s that dearman, thehusband of Mrs. Shorter, I bclieve) remarks that THE NEWAGEis not ‘‘ dangerous, but not to only offensive”-and “I have told my newsagent send me another copy’’ ! Exit “C. K. S.” with a cambric handkerchief to h i s eyes! Rut THE NEW AGE, I believe, is never offensive except intentionally ; whereas Mr. Shorter can never be anything but inoffensive, try as he of recent issues has several may. The “DailyHerald” To Mr. G . K. Chesterton’s dispute commentstomake. with you THE NEWAGEhas already referred ; but he has subsequently been in controversy with his readers on his feminine views which coincide with your own apparently. Your common view was said b y one correspondent to be the “farmyard” view of sex-a compliment which Mr. G . K. Chestertondidnotfail to accept. Othercorrespondents alsorefer toTHE NEW AGE comments onthe Suffrage Movement, but they add no humour or point in my opinion. Your discussion with Mr. Chesterton on the 402 subject of Mr. Lansbury has been a little more fruitful. For one thing, the “Daily Herald” must needs dub your pages “cultured”-a word which is, it appears, their last term of abuse. You “drag in” the“Daily Herald’’ and “identify them with opinions do they not recognise.” How could you do it ? But I have looked up the offending passage and find no reference to the “Daily Herald’s” quoted Mr. Chesterton opinions whatever. You simply and named the “Daily Herald” as your source. However, they must be allowed to have been involved somehow or other in every fight. I believe they are at the bottom of the Balkan “rebels’ ” mess ! Mr. Chesterton, I conclude from his last reference to the topic, now objects that THE NEW AGE is lesspopularly-minded than Mr. Lansbury. Y o u think that clear thinking is enough without reckless action. But .do you really? Not beinga controversialist 1 imagined that you believed that clear thinking should precede action ; in other words, that action without direcas I say, I am no tion or purpose is merely bustle. But, controversialist, I car, never fly above common sense. * * * PRESS-CUTTER. ASTORYAPPLIED. Sir,-The attempt of the Labour M.P.’s to escape responsibility €or jobbing by blaming their local caucuses reminds me of a story recentlypopular in America. A father informed a friend that he thought of putting his son into the public service. Has he shown any aptitude? asked the friend. Well, said the father, the little beggar finished a stolen pot of jamtheotherdayand while smearing the cat’s face with remains the said : “I’m sorry, Tom, to have to do this; but I can’t let the old folks suspect me.” T. WILSON. mitted in the past, some thin s in which it is beneficial. You deny women those benefits until your dream comes true. Your desire to get women out of industry is little stronger, I fancy, than their desire to be out; but where are your men to get them out ? 1 quote from your n o t e s “Whether women must remain inindustry, willy-nilly, against their own nature and inclination, and against the natureandinclination of the men of their class is, we suggest, a question for both sexes, but primarily of men wage-slaves.” ’The, by italicised me, words, forced a smile; if you would know why, go amongst those men. I quote again-“From the whips of their husbands and brothers they will fly to the scorpions of capitalists and factory inspectors.” They will? They have, have and been helped in the flight by those whips, plus their own folly. But the chief spur has been poverty, and they who criticise with bitterness have heads of stone. It is not for you to set yourself up as arbiter of what the people shall know and do. The people must learn the value of things, votes included, by experience; all other That argument teachersarenot worth a tinker’scurse. -is sufficient i f there were not another in the whole realm of reason. “ I am railing along the river ; let him grasp me who can ! Your crutch, however, T am not.” I would like to conclude by askingDr.Ethel Smyth not to worry about little things. I she doesn’t like the f word “cant,” let her cross it out, and write in its place all in the game. She tan the word “ wisdom.” It’s safely wager her last dollar that you are not an enemy ; only a critic. H. L. BROOKE. * * * * * * TELEGRAPHISTS AND THE GUILD SYSTEM. MORE CRITICISM. Sir,-Thank you ! In your “ Notes ” of July 3, you clear away much fogginess in a way I hare been espect-ing for many weeks past. I do not wish to flatter you in the fulsome manner of others, for I am sure you prefer honest criticism, but let those who have vainly imagined you ta be with them in their fanaticism now clean their pens. I also But 1 am still in the mood tocriticise,though dream your ideals ; for you are a dreamer, at present, through the whole twenty-four hours. Your dream is Guild-Socialism ; slices of State-Socialism. Your Guilds are miniature Socialist states, and those units-poor bricks they are-who are not fit material for the socialised nation, f are the material for thebuilding o the Guilds. ’Tis a vain dream. Theseheavenlyvisions of the future ! how they shine in their youth. In the first place, how will the proletariat capture the capitalists’citadel? I t will not be given to them : they cannot buy it, nor build one of thelr own ; and if they attempt to confiscate it, resultant the catastrophe will f bring it in ruinsabout their ears. Why, some o the very sons and brothers you look to for women’s freedom would shoot, as they have done in Africa, for a shilling a dayAnd “or, isit fourteenpence?-when ordered to do so. that brings forth a’ thought that may give the coup-degrace toournotion that the vote is practically useless. The shooters shoot to order, and the authority to give the order lies in the vote ; does it not? Ergo, those who ought not to be shot must have that authority. Your reasoningabout Guild-Socialism depends for its value on the sense and power of action of the proletariat ; and it would not be idealisticenough if the proletariat ‘had sufficient wisdom to form Guilds even to the extentof purelymaterialrequirements. If thereis salvationfor the people, it lies in freeing the land, and not over-peopling it ; real freedom follows automatically. Economic power precedes political power, maybe, but land power precedes both. To parody 0 mybrethren, ‘Nietzsche-“ Remain true to the earth, ’for in it lies your only hope.” I am here reminded of a little doggerel, a mighty contrast to Nietzsche’s style,butcontaining somewhat the same thought. Mother, may I go out to swim? Yes, m y dearest daughter; But mind, when you go out to swim, You don’t go near the water. Room for the ladies! Your reason is surely at fault when you say that the hold of the capitalist is independent of the vote, and yet declare, in the same breath, that the giving of the vote to women will strengthen her claims. Let us take it as granted that the vote is useless from the economic standpoint, and there still remains, as, I believe, you have ad- Sir,-“ Presscutter,” who watches,withsuchanxious care, the reputation of TEE NEW AGE abroad, will, doubtless, be immenselygratified to know that the organ o f the Cable Room Socialist Society considers his favourite journal a‘ “ brilliant contemporary,” and has been pleased to signify its approval of THE NEW AGE GuildSystem. I enclose a cutting from “ T h e Cable Room Monthly.” DAITANTAR. THE ONLY WAY. Those of our readers who are interested in their Trade Union as something more than a twopenny automatic machine for the wholesale issue of memorials will see in the Edinburgh Conference a most portentous sign of the us when we say times.They will hardlydisagreewith that its adoption, however half-hearted, of a policy directed to the attainment of a reasonableideal, marks thebeginning of a new epoch in the history of Postal pride, that the agitation. We observe, with tempered P.T.C.A. is the first of the Service unions to discover the inadequacy of what ma be called a bread-and-butter snatching campaign, a n 8 to turn for satisfaction to the pursuit o a more f worthy ideal. We do not, for one moment, deny the value of all that has been accomplished under the old regime, but it is increasingly apparent that there are things even more important and reforms even farther-reaching than casualandfallaciousincreases of pay, the or institution of cycle accommodation; man cannot live by bread alone, not though it be departmental manna. Across this somewhat sordid, or, at least, material, struggle for little more than ahand-to-mouthexistence now shines the inspiring gleam of an idea. The interested will know to what we refer. For the benefit of honorary members of the Association, we will explain the that subject of our remarks is the Hull resolution, affirming f the principle of the control o the Service by those ev.to surprise, we ployed in it, which was adopted, our confess, but also to our delight, by a substantial majority. The P.T.C.A. at last shows signs of becoming a movement which does move, with a principle as well a’s a programme. Its obsolete methods and paucity of ideas have been the subject of so muchunfavourable comment a t our hands in the past that we should be mean indeed if we withheld our meed of appreciation in the day of its awakening. Rut also we should be more than foolish if we imagined the P.T.C.A. to have justified itself by .faith alone; faith withoutworks is dead.Suddenconversionsare always suspect, and we may he forgiven if a sense of proportion 1 leads 1 s to enthuse over the idea itself, rather than over the organisation which has foster-mothered it, and which, by its general clumsiness and ignorance of such delicate progeny, may yet succeed in killing it in itsinfancy. It may be objected, in fact, it has been, that the resolution is too vague-that “ popular control ” might mean anything or nothing. The phrasing does leave something to be desired, but we me hopeful above all things, and 403 certainly not hyper-critical. nebulous The and elusive idea to which the present gives birth to-morrow will see fashioned, caught, held and fast. That mnch accomplished, the day after mayeasily see it in full application. The growth of suchideas would not be so sure were it not SO slow; it might almost be said that the length of time they require to shape themselves is the measure of their importance; humanity itself is still in the making. It must not be overlooked that Edinburgh this development is infinitely more important say, than, a National Campaign for Long Lockers, or a series of amiable conversazioni wlththe P.M.G. on the Disposal of Waste Slipandthe Disinfecting of Floors. I t is the first move along the only way of safety, for we are convmed that the future of Trade Unionism is not assured until it has applied itself to the achievement of the complete control of industry. Conference, greatly daring, has ventured on the first step ; it may not take us far, but after all, “ ce n’est que le premier pas qui coute.” Our brilliant contemporary, THE NEW AGE, is naturally gratified at this early acceptance of the doctrine it preaches S O assiduously. Time again and it has indicated h01~7 peculiarly adapted the Postal Service is to the revival of what it calls the Guild System, and lo! here is the fruit of its words. This Guild System i s briefly such an organisation of industry by guilds, that each branch of industry would bc controlled bv those employed in it.Thus,thetransport industry would be managed by the dockers, railwaymen, carmen, and so on, federated in one comprehensive Transport Guild. Similarly,as members of the Postal Guild, we should share with sorters, the postmen, other and Service bodies theresponsibilityfor the whole working of the Postal system. The meanS of production and distributton would be held by the various guilds on a sort of lease from the State, which would nominaIly own !hem a supervisory all.Thenationalexecutive,byexercising control on behalf of the community, as a whole, over the activities of each separate guild, would prevent that possione industry of bility of brow-beating andextortionby another, which is the peculiardanger of Syndicalism. Obviously, such aa roughlyoutlined scheme cannot be properly expounded in a* paragraph,but we hzvesaid enough to show whither the Hull resolution, pursued logically, will lead us. We hope at some future date to enlargeupon this subject, and to indicate all its possibilities. For the present, we are content to enjoy the amazing and respectable P.T.C.A. spectacle of $he once staid evolving into a real revolutionary organisation after our own heart. It may not yet have unfurled the red flag, or gone forthto do battle,but it has at leastfoundits inspiration and seen a new- vision, and that means much, for ‘‘ without a vision the people perish.” to know that byholding up the Jew astheuniversal of the reader financialoctopus hedivertstheattention from the iniquities of the system, and directs his hatred to the Jew. Moreover, whilst the rich Jew snaps his fingers a t anti-Semitism, the poor Jew receives the blowsWe will now turntoMr. Kitson’s financial theory. Every logical thinker on the subject of money will agree curse t o with Mr. Kitsonthatthe gold standard is a every country. By its means the owners of gold have the advantage over the owners of all other commodities. The lattermust first sell their commodities-i-e., exchange them for money-before they can derive any personal use from them; whereas the owners of gold, as soon as that article is extracted from the mines, turn it into money by merelysending it uptothemint.Theythussave themselves the expense and anxiety connected with selli n g ; besides, the ownership of gold gives one the monopoly of money. A papercurrencyissuedby the State (not by private bankers, as Mr. Kitson often advocates) is certainly preferable to a precious metal currency; but, after all, only certain struggling tradespeople would benefit by it. The fallacy of Mr. Kitson is the same as that 01 the single a hobby of the single tax taxer. latter The makes reform, and that makes him so shortsighted that he sees nothing beyond it. Mr. Fels, for instance, undertakes to cure all social evils (even wars, according to a letter secrewhich I received some timeagofromhisprivate tary) by taxing land values; and Mr. Kitson promises to make a paradise of this world by cheap money. Mr. Kitson’s object is to assist competition in its death-struggle with monopoly, andhe believes the former could come out from the struggle the victor. Whether such a result would be good for the world is a point with which I will I only ask : Is it possible to beat deal after. At present monopoly? Assuming that credit would become so easy, on loans so low, that any petty trader and the interest would be able to obtain either from the State or a private banker aloan,say, of onethousandpounds at 15per cent. interest, what could he do with the money? Could he assist in building a new railway system so as to break the presentmonopoly? Could he enter into competition with the shipping monopoly, the oil, sugar, steel, banking,andother monopolies? Mr. Kitson himself admits that alltheleadingindustries of the United States are already monopolised. Is he really so intoxicated with his cheap money idea to think that the few remaining miserable trades which monopoly has not seen fit to swallow, and therefore left to stew inthe pot of competition, would, with the aid of cheap money, be able to destroy monopoly? If he believes that, he then is incurable. Anysober thinker who observes the march of economic evolution must come to the following conclusions :-That monopoly came to stay; that it has practically conquered competition, and not by mere chance, but as an inevitable result of competition. Monopoly is the child of competition, and the mother is bound to die after the child has been born. All the medicine of Mr. Kitson or of any other doctor will not bring her to life again. Competition cannever be apermanentstate (Mr. Kitson believes it can), because theaim of competitors is not to keep on fighting, but to beat one another. The stronger conquers, and becomes a monopolist. W e observe theworking of that process more strikingly in new countries. The settlers in the United States and Australia started with free competition, but did not keep on the fight as a permanent state. By various means some beat theothers am1 established monopoly. Mr. Kitson might reply : ‘‘ Ues, because they did not know which means to employ to prevent the creation of monopoly.” argument’s For it is all over. What sake we will grant himthat,but has been done cannot be undone. I God hadaskedmy f advice before creating the world and man, I might have shown him how the world could have been made a parabut it is too late, and we must dise and man an angel; It is unwise dealwith the world andman as they are. we ought to look for means to revive competition. What to do is this :-To compel the monopolists to share with the people the greater profits which they obtain by means of monopoly; to help the monopolists to swallow up the lastremnants of competition. To teachthe monopolists how to organise the world’s work, that they could without loss or hurtto themselves provide the industrial classes permanent with work, short hours, high and Mr. Kitson’s auger seems to have been aroused, not much because the principal industries have been monopolised by a few trusts, but because some financiers control those trusts. What matters it to the millions of workers and to the thousands of small traders who have been pushed out of everythingimportant,and to whom so * * * MR. KITSON’S NAPOLEON. sir,-Mr. Kitson’s article in THE NEW AGE deserves not only criticism but also a littlebit of admonition. What relationship can there be between political economy and antisemitism ? Apparently none whatever. Still, Mr. Kitsonmanaged to combine the two in his article. Hebeginsbydescribing theuniversallypredominating power of finance, how it conquered the world without the sword, etc. Then he pulls aside the curtain, and permits US to give a look at the personages themselves ; “ they are conspicuous by their noses.” To still further convince US of their machinations,relates he to US the late Morgan’s manoeuvres and financial operations. He omits, however, to point out that Morgan, Rockefeller, and their crew are not menwith the peculiar “ noses.” ~ f r .Kitson then proceeds to speak about the evils which the goldstandardhas produced, andendswith the remarkable discovery that the “ Jew moneylenders ” are responsible for the gold standard, thatthey have fastened it upon the world. It is well that the article appeared in THE NEWAGE, whose readers areintellectual people andknow how to separate the grain from the chaff. But if such an article were to be read by people who do not know, they would form an idea that, if the few Jewish financiers (the greatest of them are mere beggars in comparison with a Morgan, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and other Christian multimillionaires) were ousted from the financial world, then allthe evils arising from capitalism would disappear. That is really what the Continental anti-Semites nre advocating, and Mr. Kitson’s article implies the same thing. The Talmud says : ‘‘ Wise men, be careful with your words Mr. Kitson, in comparison with some orthodox authorities on finance, is a wise man ; he ought, therefore, wages. 404. is only left to open a candy shop, to sell cats’-meat, or to deal in old clothes, whether the chief industries are owned by many capitalists or by a few financiers ? I n conclusion I will point out that financial operations, creditbanking, etc., are the result of asystem of comluerce carried on by individuals nations the and with object of makingprofitsfrom thesale of commodities. When commerce will cease owing totheamalgamation of all the manufacturers of commodities into international syndicates,profiteeringwill then cease. Goods will not be purchased to sell, but will be produced for the direct use of the owners of the means of productionand thehealth. R. producers. Money will then become superfluous, and ipso facto all financial operations would become impossible. JOSEPHFINS. has ahygienicclaim, while pessimismhas the reverse. But what conduces more to optimism than a belief in an intelligentandresponsibleGod?Onthissubject, however, it is easy to arousemisunderstanding. I certainly have myself no belief inany theologynor inany God everyetnamed or conceived. In relationtothe world’s is somepantheon I am an atheist.Nevertheless,there thing to be said for the hypothesis that a wiser power than man’s existsinthe world. Theworry of the sole responsibility for the direction of life on the planet is too great for the most intellectual of us to bear without ruining our M. * * * * * + THEECONOMICS OF JESUS. HEALTH FOR INTELLECTUALS. &-,-I hoped that some correspondent would widen the treatment accorded by Lister Mr. to this subject, for, while thematerial dietis, of course, important,theintellectual diet is for intellectuals of much greater importance. This class of creature corresponds somewhat to the old symbol of the lotus, whose roots are in mud, whose stalks are in water,but whose blossoms are in the air. It follows that the element of the sun or, in intellectual language, of the “atmosphere” in which the intellectual lives, is decisive in regard to“work.” No atmosphere, no work ! What produces or maintains an “atmosphere” proper to intellectual work is, however, a delicate matter to ascertain. Speaking last week to a distinguished artist who for some years has been working obscurely on a new style, he informed me that for all that period he has been “off colour.” A few weeks ago, however,’’ hesaid, “I got my first word of real appreciation; a judge whom I respected, turned up an$ .not only praised ~y work but I have proved his praise by giving me a commission. been walking o n air eTer since.” It appears from this that appreciation is part of the atmosphereessential to theartist. Otheringredients, if I mayuse theterm, of good intellectual are diet, self-confidence, constant association withworks of intelligence(books,etc.),intellectualcompany,and,asa base, a stimulatingworking philosophy. Not allthese, I an1 aware,can be had for the mere asking; but the best available ought to be diligently sought and employed by the thinker who desires to keephismindhealthy. Self-confidence, for example, It can to a certain extent be deliberately cultivated. grows, as anyone can test for himself, out of the experience of mastery. A man who sets himself a too difficult task andfails is disposed to blame himselfand to lose self-confidence in consequence. Under these circumstances he should recuperate by setting himself an easier task in which he is almost certain to succeed. The little success in this mill restore his faith in himself. Associationtion with works of intelligence is a simpler regimen ; but the selection offers some room for idiosyncracy. Intellectually speaking, a man may be sufferingfrom too little music, too little concentratedthought, too little classic reading ; a surfeit of newspapers may be the cause of his intellectualmalaise.Only close observationandexperiment can say what is wrong in any given instance and what the remedy is. That there are intellectual remedies for all intellectual diseases is a good working postulate; and once the search is thus directed, discoveries of vast importance await us. Too great value can scarcely be attached to the beneficent work of intellectualcompany uponintellectualhealth.Rut,unfortunately, thisisthe very condition that dependsmostupon chance-and in these days, an off-chance at that. Unintellectual comill effects on health ; pany, on the otherhand,hasno it is the pseudo-intellectual that is so disastrous as the real intellectual is so vivifying. With certain people you may talk all night andyetwakerefreshed. An hour of other people leaves you irritable and depressed for a whole day afterwards. Why ? Without generalising, the reason is probably that, for you, the first person is positive, while the second is negative;thefirsthas a fair exchange to make, the second either has nothing to give or is too selfish to give it. Many people, of course, imagine that they can obtain “ideas” for nothing; they cannot. What, however, they can do is to rob theintellectualby violence, and this results in the feeling of vital loss thelatter feels after conversing with one of these incubi. Cast your mind round, they as say,and ask yourself which of your friends leaves you braced a,nd nerved and which depressed.Theformer should always be sought when you are in need of stimulus and the latter avoided. There is much more to be said on this topic, hut I conclude with a brief note on the “philosophy.” It is well known that optimism, whatever its logical claim, Sir,-Mr. Alfred E. Randallmay be a great authority uponSocialism, buthis acquaintancewithChristianity (judging from his article on the Economics of Jesus) appears to be somewhat limited. His errors may be c assified under two heads-first, an utter misunderstanding of the passages from the Gospels which he quotes, and, secondly, a wilful neglect of other passages. Let me take one or two of his points. 1. He writes : “When Christ said to the soldiers, ‘ Be content pith your wages ’ (Luke iii., 14), I contend that, for all practical purposes for which the Gospels are quoted, he meant that the wages system was just.” Well, to beginwith, if Mr. Randallhadreadthe passagehe would have found thatthe words above were used by John the Baptist and not by Christ. Mr. Randall’s “practicalpurpose for which the gospels are quoted,” seems to be to misrepresent them-when he does not misquote them. 2. But even if Christ had used these words, they would not necessarily implied have approval of the wage system. When Paul admonished slaves to be obedient to their masters, he did notmean to say that slavery was admirable.As a matter of actualfactChristianity was the force that destroyedit. 3. Christianity was not then,andneither is it now, concerned with economics, but with the saving of souls. It has, however, accepted thecurrent economics (even as i t accepted and absorbed all the popular philosophies it met with in its history), until those economics were discarded or modified by the common consent of Christendom. 4. Whenever Christ spoke by way of parable-concernand such ing dishonest stewards, unmerciful judges, people-it was not to praise them bnt merely to find in themillustrationseasily recognised bythe crowd. But following Mr. Randall’s extraordinary reasoning, one would imagine that Christ trotted about Palestine setting the price of sparrows at five for two farthings, and advising people to fall among thieves or to knock up sleepy but respectable fathers of families at midnight. 5. Though it is perfectly true that Christ praised the poor, He did not praise poverty, and as for His words concerning the rich, they sting even after the lapse of two thousand years. Remarks such as, ‘rYou cannot serve “ Woe unto you . . . for you God and Mammon,;’ devour widows’ houses,” ‘‘ It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of God”-hardly can be reckoned among the maxims of modern capitalism. 6. I myself am a Catholic, and do not see in Protestantism anything else but a great heresy. From an economic f point o view only, surely it is an historic fact that in the Middle Ages something unlike not NAtional Guilds” obtained, and that these were destroyed bp the incoming the religion of England to be Protestantism. I admit capitalistic, can and understand that if Mr. Randall thinks that religion Christianity is he is against Christianity. Inthinking so, however, he is wrong. THEODORE MAYNARD. [Mr. Randallreplies : A s I didnotpretend to be an I am not authority onChristianity,thesuggestionthat one leaves me unmoved. I deliberately stated in the article the grounds on which I based my argument; and the carelessness that attributed to Christ a saying of John the Baptist does not diminish to anyextentthe If I can find economics in the force of thatargument. Gospels (and I contend that I have done so) it is useless totell me that“Christianity was notthen,andisnot now, concerned with economics.” I contend that I have not misunderstood the passages quoted, although I do not pretend to haveexhaustedtheir possible meanings; I have taken them simply as meaning what they said, as indeed therest of the world has done. Besides, we are told (Matt. 13, 11) that “the disciples came and said unto him, Why speakest unto thou them in parables? ~e answeredandsaid unto them, Because it is givenunto 405 toknow the mysteries o the Kingdom of Heaven, f but to them it is not given. . . Therefore, I speak to them in parables : because they seeing not; see and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.” The parables have served their purpose; to this day, it is not understood by the working classes that Christ was preachingthe wage system,althoughthe disciples have not been i n doubt about it. As for my wilful neglect of other passages, it is not my business when writing of economics, to drag in irrelevant matters of morals, miracles, or eschatology. If the one does notsquarewiththeother, it is not my fault; and before Mr. Maynard accuses me again of wilfully neglecting other passages, he had better reconsider the text quoted i n myarticle : “ And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, theymay receive you into everlasting habitations” : and square that, if he can, with any idealist conception of Christ. I do not intend to argue the question of the relation op l Christianity to slavery. It is notgermane to my argument, and the actual fact is that there were Christians on both sides in the fight for abolition. But Christ, we are told, spoke in parables “merely to find illustrations easily recognised by the crowd.” I prefer Christ’s own explanation,previouslyquoted,to Mr. Maynard’s. But, following my reasoning, one does not arrive at the result that “Christ trotted about Palestine setting the price of : sparrows at five for two farthings.”Christneversaid “The Kingdom of Heaven is likeunto a place where sparrows are sold at five for two farthings.” He did say : “The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto a man that is an householder,” etc. By no process of reasoncan the two statements be brought to a parity. Christ came to preach the Kingdom of God, and his parablesare,presumably, illustrations of it ; and only the disciples and himself, in that age,knew themeaningthatheattachedto those parables. As for his words concerning the rich, they may sting; but they do not alter the fact that wealth is more unequallydistributedthan ever, in aChristiancivilisation. Nor do I intend to arguethecase of Catholicism 7 . Protestantism. It is a fact, revealed, for example, in “A Primer of Social Science,” by the Right Rev. Monsignor Henry Parkinson, that the Catholic, no less than the Protestant, Church asserts the essential righteousness of rent, interest, profits, and wages. I mention this book, not because it is more authoritative than others, but because it is more recent, is cheaper, and, therefore, more accessible, and because, being a primer, it states elementary propositions. It is not an historic fact that “in the Middle Ages somethingnotunlike‘National Guilds’obtained.” The number of Guilds was legion, and th$r organisation strictlylocal;for example, Professor Ashley says : “In many of the parishes of Somerset, which we have no reason to suppose differed in this respect from parishes elsewhere, there were from six to a dozen Gildsor Fraternities, each for the purpose of separate ‘devotion,’ with its own ‘store,’ andaudits,and feastdays. And in the single county of Norfolk, a list, which is manifestly imperfect,returns as many as 909 Gilds.” That is a state of affairs totally unlike the National Guilds System. The suggestion that the Guild idea is, in some way, indebted to Catholicism is unsupported by any facts known to me. It is probable, at least, that ourGuilds were descended fromthe Old Roman Collegia, which existed before the Roman Catholic Church;andthroughoutthe world, id India and China, for example, Guilds have existed from ageto age. Everywhere theyare bodies of greatantiquity, with a tradition history and extending beyond, Christianity; and they owe no more tu t h e Catholic than to the Protestant Church. The matter is not germane to my argument,and I shall not returnto it during this discussion. A “Wesleyan Methodist” seems to think that it is my business to reconcile the statements of Christ. I deny any such responsibility. It is generallyadmitted,since Huxley,thatthe Gospels reveal more than oneChrist. “IS he the kindly, peaceful Christ depicted in the Catawho combs?” asked Huxley. “Or is he the stern judge frowns upon the altar of SS. Cosmas and Damianus ? Or can he be rightly represented by the bleeding ascetic, broken down byphysicalpain, of toomany mediaeval pictures? Are we to accept theJesus of the second, or the Jesus of thefourth Gospel, asthetrue Jesus ?” I claim only to have disentangled the economic Christ from the mass of legend and mysticism called the Gospels ; and if it cannot be reconciled with anyother conception of Christ, I mustdisclaim all responsibility for that. My article was obviously based on the difficult passages of the Gospels, those that can only be reconciled with the conventional conception bywhatMatthew Arnold called YOU . “one of those processes which are the opprobrium of our Bible-criticism, and by which, as Bishop Butler says, anything can be made to mean anything.’’ The question is not whether Christ said anything contradictory to what 1 quoted (I contend thattheman who could utterthe 9) quoted in my article double-dealing text(Lukexvi. and in this letter referred to Mr. Maynard, could say anything) ; but whether he did say what I said that he said, whether he meant what 1: have supposed him to mean, or whetherhemeantwhathesaid at all. The reasonhe himself gave for speaking in parables, and already quoted in this letter, is sufficiently indicative, to my mind, of a is usually supposed tohave subtlermindthanChrist possessed. It reminds me of Bismarck deceiving the diplomatists by telling them the truth. Least of all ought I to be called upon to interpret the Acts of the Apostles; and the phrase quoted proves nothing against my argument. I never said that the wage system was not revo; lutionaryin a state that was basedonchattel-slavery nor have I ever denied that the early Christian Church contnirled as fine 2, collection of cranksasthat which the transcendental movement in America attracted, and that was so splendidly satirised by Russell Lowell in his essay on Thoreau. But the fact thatthey were regarded as revolutionaries does not prove that Christ did not invent a slave-morality : revolutions are possible only to slaves. Thorold Rogers has told us, for example, that the Black Death in England “almost emancipated the surviving serfs.” That is to say, that serfdom became converted itltn n:hxt we call mag-e-slavery; for the serfs commuted labour-rents into money payments, and not infrequently: threw up their own holdings to go to work for wages. This was considered a revolution, and Parliament passed laws prohibiting- it. It was no less a revolution when the question of emancipating the chattel-slaves of Africa and these facts do not America had to be considered. But prove that wage-slavery is not based on a slave-morality, or that Christ did not invent a slave-morality. A “Wesread Nietzsche : I have not the leyan Methodist” should space to quote him here. P.S.-I havealso received letters from Mr. J. Crombie Christie, Mr. Arthur Hood, Mr. Emile Hess, and Mr. Coopland; all of whom, I think, are sufficiently answered by the foregoing. If they have anything to say after reading this letter, I shall be pleased to hear it and to reply to it if I can. But I must say that mere protests against the article, mere assertions without a tittle of proof that I have travestied distorted or the passages quoted, or mere reiterations of the conventional idea of Christ, will not be considered by me. Before I can be proved to have maligned Christ, the identity of the Christ maligned must be established ; and then it will be discovered that I have toldthetruth about theotherChrist.The Gospels are whole diffifull of Christs, and it seems to me that the culty of Christians arises from the fact that they accept the four Gospels as a picture of one man. The contradictions are not created by me, although I map have intensified them by the simple process of narrative; they are in the Gospels, and I rest my claims for the authenticity of the economic Christ on the same grounds as my opponents claim for the authenticity of the Saviour of the World. I I amobliged to accept theirChrist,theyare f equally obliged to accept mine; and the spirit of division that Christ announced will continue to do its work amongst us.] * * * “JOHN MITCHEL.” Sir,--In reply to Mr. H. B. Dodds I may say that, being familiar with all the controversial subjects connected with’ Mitchel’s sojourn in America, I purposely avoided them, because they formed no part of my narrative. All that I desired to do regarding Mitchel was to pay him the personal debt which I considered I owed him and treat him i n his characteras anIrishNationalistonly. Although it is new to me, I think estimate the of Mitchel’s character,as a whole, quotedby Mr. Dodds, is avery fair one, and goes to confirm a conclusion I arrived at frompersonalexperience thirty yearsago, that is, that Irishmen are not fit for exportation, much less transportation, such as Mitchel was subjected to. A case in point, I remember some thirty years ago how the whole Irish race were elated at the action o Mr. “Willie” Redmond f stormingDerry atthe head of a host of Nationalists. Who could have imagined at that day that we should live to see thesame“Willie” Redmond acting thepart of dog-holder for the Jews at the Marconi Committee, and stickinghisname to the report of Mr. Handy-HandleBooth ? “The combination of the native soil and the native race is necessary to command” the best efforts of Irishmen. I agree. PETER FANNING. 406 ART CRITICISM. * Sir,-I asked your art critic, M . Ludovici, a plain r question and one calculated, as I thought, to elicit a plain answer. As, however, the manner of my question appears I beg for some unfathomable reason to have upset him, insinuations of any kind. I am to repeat it without anxious to learn and he assures me he is able to teach. Why should an unfortunate turn of myphrase deprive advantage? My question, apropos of Mr. me of the Bishop’s pictures and Mr. Ludovici’s comments on them, is this : What “message” ought a painted sky to contain and why should it require an “etat de l’ame” to make it more than “trite” ? I hope my face has been sufficiently to Mr. washed before presenting it a second time Ludovici. HENRY JEVONS. *+e* fountain, dog-trough, pillar-post, and sunrise clock on the village green here, and those who care to do so can leading milkman and a make use of it. Already the fewtradespeoplehave been brought to heel,andothers are expected. When the “ craze ” spreads (voluntarily !) until it embraces a quarter to a third of the population, Mr. Bradshaw will supply me gratis with monthly copies of his immortal work, because back numbers will cease to have any market value. S o I am told. But this depends upon whether the railway companies have more sense than Mr. Gattie of the New Transport Company gives them credit for. Butallthese ramifications arerather bewildering to the simple mind of the inventor of the sunrise clock. WORDSWORTH DONISTHORPE. * * * “ T H EN E WW E E K L Y . ” FEMINISM AND COMMON SENSE. Sir,-As they in say Devonshire, “ You do loike a smack at oi,” but do try andgetyourfacts right. In your issue of July 17, ‘‘ R. H. C.” refers to “ the prospect of a colossal penny weekly edition of the English Review ’ ” and “ the come down to a penny journal.” Such statements are apt to convey to your readers an erroneous idea that the “Review ” is about to be made a weekly I believe, would be and sold at a penny (inter alia, this, consistent with your idea of its value). The “ Review ” is not coming out as a weekly, nor will its present price be reduced. With the consent of your advertising department, may I say it’s doing too well for that ? Mr. AustinHarrisonandmyself hope tobringout a new weekly in the autumn which will in no way affect As regards Mr. Wells and Tory the “ Review.” Democracy, I thank yousincerely for a most excellent suggestion, hitherto unthought of. We should be exceedingly proud to have Mr. H. G. Wells as a contributor “ New Weekly.” F. CHALMERS DIXON. the to ( * * * THE SUNRISECLOCK. Sir,-I should like talk to to you and your readers it : aboutmysunrise clock. I am notgoingtopatent it is an ordinary grandfather’s clock, and I wound it up and regulated it lastSaturday,June 21. On that day, at four o’clock in the morning, it sounded the ‘‘A l’arme,” andanhourlater it struck one. Hitherto it had been gaining eighty seconds a day, but I now regulated it so as to lose eighty seconds (one and a third minutes) each day. That is the only odd thing about it. The conit will sequence is that in a calendar month and a half rouse us at five, and inthree calendar months at six ; at the end of six calendarmonths it will announce the Anyone good at sumscan rising of thesunateight. prove thatthis is so. Now, on June 21, thesun does rise at four, or within sixteen minutes of four ; on September 21 it rises at six or thereabouts, and on December 21 it rises at eight, or eightminuteslater. De nzi?zimis wow curat su@iem-that is to say, the practical man On that day I shall again regulate it, but this time so as to So that the at spring gaIN eighty seconds per day. equinox it will again call us up at six, and on the following summer solstice at four, as it did last Saturday. This being so, when the sunrise clock strikes one, my household gets astir; coffee androlls are on the table. Six hours later, lunch is served; and six hours after that of comes dinner. After having- enjoyed sixteen hours daylight in summer, and asmuch asNature allows in winter, I retire to rest-in other words, go to bed. Theother clocks in the house behave justlikeother train and keep people’s clocks. By them I catch the if anybody is good enough todine appointments;but with me in summer, he has to call it lunch-that is all. own household need take the Nobody outside my slightest notice of my sunrise clock, and I hare no wish to Impose mysystemuponothers. Surely, now, this is a harmless clock enough ; and yet --would you believe it ?-I am being pursued with rancour Here and fury by all Bastiat’s ancient “ petitioners.” they come-the manufacturers of candles, lamps, candle; the producers of oil, sticks, snuffers, extinguishers tallow, rosin, and generally of everything connected with lighting. True, the makers of snuffers and extinguishers have become nearly extinct,the butranks of the “ petitioners ” are now swelled by the whole army of “ We don’t for care Mr. electric-light shareholders. “ Twenty minutes not will hurt Pearce,” they shout. US, one way or the other; but your sunrise clock threatens to shakethe veryfoundations of society.” Why? And who is Mr. Pearce? Meanwhile a friends few of like up a combined mindwith myself havearrangedtoset %,-There must be many others who, like myself, read Beatrice Hastings withpleasure,and were gladto. see hernamereappear in THE NEW AGE. Somewhat to my surprise, however, I find myself this week disagreeing with her quite hard. I n fact, there is a certain adjective in her last sentence that almost tempts one to say, “ Tu It seems tomethatshehasfallenintothe quoque.” graveerror of confusing theletterwiththespirit,and of the comrade woman is surely wrong. hertreatment It is the comrade proper who would “ crouch and load ” ; it is the comrade who would walk, ride, talk, study, and be a vital part of her husband’s life as well as an ornamental adjunct. I know, and everyone knows, many kind, true, good women who would make splendid wives andmothers,but who areunmarried (I ammarried, so I speak without bias). As a matter of fact, men seem very often to choose the worst instead of the best type of woman. And the men ! Are there no “ calculating faces,” ‘(thick noses ” amongstthemthatthey should it is better to look be so desirable asmates?Surely straight into a face and see that the nature shown there is mean and poor than to have these traits so hidden that they are known only when it is too late? Again, the whole tone of THENEW AGE indicates that sex love is the weakest “ and most transitory of illuis better to remain sions.” That being so, surely it up so soon, for a to single than marry to and wake woman the loss of illusions is an appalling and hardening process. There is one fact that should be noticed, for it certainly has a great deal to do with the type of human being that is being produced to-day, and that is that so many mothers bear on them bequeath and to their childrenthe “ stigma of anunwillingmaternity,”that so manylittle babies come intothe world notwanted. Man .is too poor, living is too dear,to-day, to admit of marriage. I do not seem to have made as clear as I could wish the point that Mrs. Hastingsappearsto havemistaken the false for the true, and so judges the true by the false, Butperhapsshewillcatchtheidea. C. BERTHA MORLEY. * * * Sir,-Some people have objected, and more may object, that while I profess to be denouncing the Puritans, my advice to women is of a Puritanical nature. ‘ am further I women’s morals in the charged with being anxious about true Puritan fashion, and with denying the to many I privileges I claim for the few. My replyis,first,that am not inthe least anxiousabout women’s morals 3 s such. Women are naturally unmoral, and this is the reason ~ 7 h y they must always remain under control. They have nothing t o fight with against the everlastingpressure of morality--and, indeed, their whole comprehension of morality scarcely ever gets beyond something to do with sex. The very word morality has been degraded by their use of it, until it now conveys only the meaning of m e of its disciplines, namely, sexual temperance. Xot i n the least do 1 care about women’s “morals”-except in so far as the assumption by a certain class of women of responsibility for what is really their umorality, is going to deprive them of maintenance, and to let 11s all in for a tedioustime. Add them tothe resourceless women and the women living by their own never, never, never-to-bemitigated efforts, andthereis a congregationpresently tc strike us all melancholy. I proceed on my opinion that, with so few exceptions as (10 not matter, every woman not onlywants,but needs, the support of aman. I see that many women who have been led away by their own misunderstanding of their limits, by their craving for money to do absolutely what theylikewith, hg lofty literature of the “Votes for Women ” and “Twelve Pound Look” order, and, lastly, by the example crf gifted women 407 who do what they choose. I see that these women, strict and loose alike, are all coming to grief, and are dragging So our fair sex into an abyss of neglect and contempt. far as there may be any morality i n not wanting to be one of a neglected and hatefully despised sex, 1 am anxious about this. W e have-certainly gone down. 1 hear, for instance, tram-conductors, and so on,address women in a manner which, if it had been used to us even ten years ago, would have set us calling for the policewe should have believed our assailants to be either mad or dangerously drunk. And the majority of females just ; note if they simperapologeticallyundersuchaddress do not nexttimeyouare on a ’bus or acar.This is one of theexternalsigns of thegeneral drop in men’s opinion of US. I hate It; I hate to see women scrambling all over the place and being chivied about by men. presently we may be thrown about-what-presently ? Why, that has come already to some women. We have ranted about despising chivalry, and, by everything, e no longer w get it ! Where chivalry does not prevail, women Come to be considered no more favourably than brigands or pirates. m Here is a instance : Eighty girlswere brought from kieff in Russia to compete against men in some adjacent beetfields. The men burned the whole eighty to death ! You will find the news of thison Reuter’s file,though no English newspaper thought fit to print the cable. We live a long way from such methods of putting us in our place. But who would have dreamed of the Cat and Mouse Bill ? The battle between nlen and women i n England is only beginning, for men of all classes are only now beginning to regard us as enemies. If men are prepared to use force against us, we shallnot win. Are theynot thus prep a r d ? They are ! They are still pretending otherwise : but look at realities ! If Mrs. Pankhurst died to-morrow, a sigh of relief would be her only epitaph from the mass of men.TheHouse of Commons .and the electorate are upholding Mr. McKenna. These men will not forsake him for the howls of the suffragedom. It is, so I think, a most ghastly fact for women to contemplate. And the poor fools are walking to London thinking to beguile men mho know very well thatthey themselves would like much to be free from work to take a picnic. If the pilgrims claim thatthey havehadto suffer and to offer personal violence in defence of themselves, what is such zt claim but a confession thattheir appearance on the streetshas aroused men’s hatred?Thereisnothingto boast aboutortotellmen by way of securingfavour! Theirleast precarious adventuresare still discreditable. I live in a villagefartoo well-mannered {beingmostly employed on one large estate) to throw eggs or even openly to abuse the pilgrims ; but the general tone, after they had passed through, was one of the most astounding self-conceit I ever saw even in females. The men sneered, th,e boys laughed, butthe women took themselves up three pegs to see l a d i e s ” on the trot with weather-heaten faces and cajoling smiles for surly men and rude children. This sort of exhibition is no good to us, and, again, I say that i f here is any question of morality, I am anxious about women’s “morals,” knowing that women cannot suffer contempt as women for long without being deIf, even,these women graded or goingmentallywrong. who are now making all the trouble can escape degradation or imbecility, they are leaving behind them for the next generation an heritage no gentlewoman would willingly accept, an heritage of inconsideration from men and from common women. It is very hard to be one of an inferior caste-but to be one of a caste where all the internalrules have. been broken will be something of a curse for delicate-minded women. The caste of women can never conceivably become democratic, for we trade on our personality-do, because we can King Cophetua may marry the beggar-maid andmaintainher as queen before his applauding courtiers, but a queen may have no more than a private liason with a commoner, unless everyone knows she intends to kill him very soon ; the women would exile her and scramble for the heir-apparent, while the men assassinated the effeminate trader on personality. To return to less thrilling adventures, practically every woman wantsand needs ahusband.Forwholly selfish reasons I would like to see almost all women married : S o we are agreed at least on one point. I persist in warning even those that scornfully chargeme with Puritanism, not on any account to be “pals”with a manthey hope to capture for good. Fair reader, this is not Puritanism-it is feminine common sense. I speak my with eye on several wrecks of suchideal voyages to nowhere. You will only waste your youth-your chief, perhaps your only, asset; and any woman your junior will cheerfully see YOU go down while she sails away with the man. If YOU grow annoyed at my appearance of “talking down” t o YOU, YOU must; I shallnot be hurt! I care nothing for your “morals” ; your only morality is to get married whileyou may. There are plenty of men, and all as charming and well-off as they used to be.Be amiable and have no fads, be disagreeableasa fury to would-be “pals ” ; if you take the subject of marriage seriously they will be only too pleased to secure a wife who reasonably may be relied on. To another kind of woman, the ranting kind,. I say-you imaginethat you are playing for marriage; but what a way you go about the game ! Do you really suppose that a man worth marrying may be stunned into the holy state by your assertions o female independence f and superiority ? Go to, you are making us all ridiculous ! Men require from women’s intelligencea recognition of superior force. Without this recognition you appear merely as a tedious little threat, a drag, a perpetual despoiler of life’s drama. All superior force, intellectual or physical, must be respected in the end. When you cannot hope to win,give it all u p ; instead of opposing, ally yourself ! BEATRICE HASTINGS. + * * Sir,-Recently, Mr. C. H. Norman’s new book, “Essays and Letters on Public Affairs,” was reviewed in your pagesby “A. E. R.,” andlast week therewas a correspondence published on this criticism. Among the articles which Mr. Norman has republished in h i s book, is one that he wrote for THE NEW AGE i n 1908, on the Gilbert I Islands scandal, entitled, Story “A of the Pacific.” thank “A. E. R.” for expressing his appreciation of my efforts to bring the disgraceful robbery and misrule in the Gilberts to public notice, but, through not knowing the real reason for my name not being mentioned by Mr. Norman in this article of his, “A. E. R.” has inadvertently done Mr. Norman an injustice, and I think it is only fair I shouldmentionthe facts. Mr. Norto the latter that man, who had seen copies of my letters to theGovernment and the petition to His Gracious Majesty King Edward VII., proposed that I should meet him and talk the matter over. We met,and it was agreed that heshouldwrite an article on the financial side of the question ; the procuring of evidence on which had this advantage, it could be obtained here in England, and it seemed the better course that Mr. Norman should collect this evidence for himself. To do this he took all the trouble to go into the: matter at Somerset House, and even visited the Colonial Office, and corresponded with the Chairman of the Pacific Phosphate Company, Lord Stanmore, so as t o l e a n all they had to say on the case. Then he wrote his article, going into the financial details more minutely than I had ever done. He showed me the proof, I saw mv name appeared, and I begged him to take it out. For‘ he had got together this financial evidence himself, and an article which more than was founded on corroborated what I hadsaid,andyet evidence obtainedquiteindependent of me, would have more effect in helping us to obtain justice in this Gilbert case. I may state in conclusion that I thank Mr. Norman for all the trouble hetook in writing this article, S o y “A t r of the Pacific,” andthank you, Mr. Editor,forhaving published it. T.C. T. POTTS. A CORRECTION. LIST 396 of Publishers’ Remainders POST FREER E M A I N D E R A N D DISCOUNT BOOKSELLERS, 265, HIGH HOLBORN, LONDON, W.C. Croydon Branch ... ... 14, George Street. NOW READY. WILLIAM GLAISHER, Ltd., ... ... THE NEW AGE. Vol. XII. of THE NEW AGE is Now Ready, Bound in Linen, with Index. Price 8s. 6d. ; post free, 9s. Abroad, 10s. - miscellaneous advertisements 408 MR. HERBERT J. LEE.