NOTES OF THE WEEK . FOREIGNAFFAIRS. By S. Verdad . FIAT Lux-11. By Verax . A VISIT TO THEFRONT-I. By Ramiro de Maeztu SOCIAL ORGANISATION FOR THE WAR-I. By Professor Edward V. Arnold . THE EMANCIPATION THE JEWS. By Dr. Angelo OF S. Rappoport . INDUSTRIAL NOTES, By Henry J. Northbrook . READERS AND WRITERS. By R. H. C. . A MODERN DOCUMENT. Edited by Herbert Lawrence . ANCIENTHISTORY. By M. B. Oxon . LETTERS FROM FRANCE-VII. By Huntly Carter. TALES OF TO-DAY-XXI. THE EDUCATION OF HERBERT. By C. E. Bechhofer . VIEWS AND REVIEWS : THE NEW JOB. By A. E. R. REVIEWS . GERMANSOLDIERS’ LETTERS HOME . LETTERS TO THE EDITOR from F. W. Dalley, H. S. Fernau, T. C., David Irvine, Fred H. Gorle, C. K., G. O. Kaye, C. S. D., Wm. Magrie, Jun. . A CARTOON. By Will Dyson . not relevant to Labour’s interests ; but the President of the strongest Trade Union in the world, the National Union of Railwaymen, and a man, in consequence, whose practical judgment of the Congress may be regarded as beyond appeal. It is all the more gratifying, therefore, that he should agree with us and not with the “New Witness” that the recent Congress deserves to live in history for anything but independence or intelligence. Nor does his agreement with us stop at this point. For he likewise agrees that the Labour movement-even the professedly organised Labour movement-iswithout any kind of organ of government, and is, in fact, a creature of vast body and many tails, but without a head. He adds, it is true, a consolatory postscript in the form of a note upon the wonderful things some other organisation than that of the Trade Union Congress is doing. The report, he tells us, of the War Emergency Workers’ National Committee will prove “that Labour leaders are not SO blind as THE NEW AGE suggests, or so insensitive to suggestions as some of our middle-class critics try to make out.” But as to this we can only offer an opinion in the absence of the promised revelation. First we confess to some doubt from our knowledge of the composition of the wonderful Committee whether, in fact, anything remarkable can come out of it-Mr. Sidney Webb, we believe, is a member of it ! And, secondly, we deprecate every attempt to set up a rival authority to that of the Trade Union Congress itself. The Trade Union Congress is the designate and predestined head of the Labour movement ; and every lesser organ is, in a sense, a usurper of its functions. And it is no excuse, we submit, that these lesser bodies may plead the negligence of the Congress and its role of roi faineant ; for the truth is that it is their business to compel the Congress to rule. * * *Having, however, been driven to agree with us, Mr. Wardle then proceeds to attack THE NEW AGE. This, we must say, is paradoxical, to say the least of it. We, it is well known, attack those with whom we happen to disagree; but Mr. Wardle who disapproves of our manners in this respect, attacks us with whom he agrees ! And the reasons he offers are no less strange. ‘Though right in his opinion upon many matters in NOTES OF THE WEEK. WE are surprised to find the “New Witness” writing of the recent Trade Union Congress that “it deserves to live in history for its spirit of independence and patriotism.” What was there among the proceedings of the Congress we had missed? For, as our readers know, we came ourselves to a very different conclusion. It appears, however, that the “New Witness” was not counting among the achievements of the Congress any resolution or action concerning Labour in particular, but upon resolutions referring to matters in which the “New Witness” is itself more interested: the holding of a Peace Conference and the subject of Protection. Upon these, we now remember, the Trade Union Congress did, it is true, pass resolutions of one sort or another, repudiating, we are told, the proposal to hold an international Labour Conference during the peace negotiations, and welcoming a particular kind of Protection. But what of it? Even if the resolutions taken were as wise as they were foolish; or carried with them one half of the meaning read into them by the “New Witness,’’ their significance would be small, since the Trade Union Congress is not yet an executive body even of its own resolutions. And what value attaches to the criticism or what importance to the praise of a journal that eulogises a Labour Congress for dealing with matters irrelevant to its own business and at the expense of its own business? We are accustomed to suffragists and others passing judgment upon movements for their occasional references to their shibboleths ; but it is something unexpected to find the “New Witness” admiring a Labour Conference for minding everybody’s business but its own. *** In contrast with the opinion of the ‘‘New Witness” was the judgment formed by Mr. Wardle who attended the Congress as a friendly spectator-friendly, we mean, to Labour, and not to some hobby of his own. For him the Congress was “in the main tame and uninteresting; it seldom gripped a question, and most of the speeches were remarkable neither for insight nor guidance. ” Mr. Warde is not, it goes without saying, what we of THE New AGE are, incompetent to form a just opinion of what is or is not an independent spirit, what is or is which he is concerned, we are, it appears, offensively “superior” in manner and, above all, members of the ‘‘middle class.” And these things it is, he insinuates, that explain and excuse the hostility of men like himselftowards us, even when they are compelled to agree with us. “The claim of the superior person,” he says, “loses much of its force because of this constant assertion of superiority. All the wisdom of the world does not reside in the editorial sanctum of THE NEW AGE, nor all the knowledge in the brain of the middle classes. The Trade Union movement has been built up by the patient, plodding efforts of numberless workers who did not possess the advantages of education which the middle classes have enjoyed. It has been built up without their help, and often against their bitter opposition and scorn.” How unfortunate we are to have incurred this criticism can be estimated when it is recalled that for precisely the opposite reasons we have likewise incurred the criticism of the governing classes. What! are we to be refused a hearing by the "superior” classes because our manners are “inferior,” and by the other classes because our manners are “superior"? The truth, however, is that we despise these old distinctions, and set’ up the claim to be neither superior nor ,inferior, but equal citizens with anybody ; neither middle nor any other social class, but merely economists. How much longer, we wonder, will the old social distinctions (all based upon snobbery) rankle in the minds of intelligent workmen like Mr. Wardle? Middle class, we assure him, has no longer any meaning for us, either as a criticism or as a tribute. There are only economic classes. And as for assuming a "superiority”-is it to be superior to care more about the proletariat than they seem to care about themselves? We put it to Mr. Wardle that we should not trouble ourselves as much as we do with Labour affairs if our only purpose were to feel superior. That we might acquire by more comfortable means. However, let us get on with the business. *** It is obvious, we think, that in one form or another the dominant problem of Labour is Control. Everybody now is discussing it, and sooner or later we may expect practical proposals to be put forward. The question is : what kind and what degree of control of industry is Labour prepared to insist upon? And, again, how little of effective control is Capital prepared to concede and Labour to be satisfied with? That these are not academicquestions, shibboleths of THE NEW AGE, but questions of immediate practical importance, is evident, we think, both in the Press, and, still more clearly, in the present and prospective situation of national industry. In the Press, as we say-and, be it remembered, the Press is the last and not the first register of private intelligent discussion-the subject of the control to be exercised by Labour is everywhere being canvassed. And in the re-organisation of industry itself, which must certainly take place during and after the war, it is. obvious that the first practical difficulty that will present itself is the fixing of the price that Labour will demand for its co-operation .with the State. Two schools of thought (shall we say?) have already begun to appear in each of the two parties to the industrial future. On the one hand, there are capitalists who will deny to Labour any control whatever, as there are-to their honour, be it said-capitalists who would thrust equal control of industry upon Labour. And, on the other hand, there are Labour leaders, who, like Mr. Gosling, will disclaim any ambition towards Labour control, and, again, Labour leaders who, like-, will claim all industry as their province. What is to be the outcome of the attitude of these groups? For ourselves we frankly place ourselves with the extremes of both, and on the grounds of all the economics, all the democratic principles, and all the patriotism, we have ever learned. We say, in the first place, that economics requires that the thing Capital shall be subordinated to the Labourers who use it as a very first condition of its most fruitful employment. Next, we affirm that the condition of a successful democracy is the responsibility (which includes control) of every one of its citizens. And, finally, we assert that our nation is doomed to decay, relatively to competing nations, unless we can call into existence a new principle, namely, the devoted co-operation with the State of the hitherto irresponsible proletarian Trade Unions. But that, for the present, is our view alone; or, rather, for the present, we share it only with our readers and writers. In the meanwhile, as much reluctance as the more conservative capitalists show towards sharing control with Labour, the more conservative leaders of Labour show towards accepting, still more towards demanding, a share of control. And it is with the latter class that we shall have the most trouble. But what is their difficulty? Is it that they are too modest to claim a share in the control of their own industry ? That hypothesis, however, cannot be accepted ; for it is noteworthy that precisely the Labour leaders who disclaim the ability to control their industry claim the right and the ability to control the political and diplomatic destinies of this country. There’s a paradox for you ! The same Mr. Gosling who shrinks from sitting on a Board of Directors concerned with a score or so of boats thinks himself eminently qualified to sit in a Parliament concerned with the management of a good part of the whole world ! Are not the Labour leaders who disclaim industrial control while claiming political control as foolish and as inconsistent as capitalists who willingly trust Defence to the State but deny the State’s competence in Trade? As if the management or control of industry were more difficult than that of the activities of the whole of which industry is only a part ! Or is it that these Labour leaders do not see their way to control conceive of control as a Utopian notion, and are unable to visualise the practical steps to be taken to bring it about? But as to this, it is the first step that counts; or, rather, the demand that it shall be taken. We, for our part, undertake to say that if Labour asks for control, meaning to have it, the cry is not for the moon, but for an object within easy grasp. Far less organisation would be necessary to establish the whole scheme of National Guilds than has been (and still is) necessary to defeat Germany: A nation that can defeat Germany can do anything it has a mind to. *** With our renders’ patience we will briefly rehearse what has been our policy since the war began. And we intend to draw a moral from it. Reviewing the situation that was presented to us a couple of years ago, we see that two main facts concerning Labour emerged : first, that the nation would certainly not be able to pull through the gigantic war without the fullest support of Labour; and, second, .that Labour had the means to bargain with the State for its support. What was then the best policy to be pursued? On the one hand, there were counsellors who maintained that Labour should leave the State to get out of the mess as best it could and in the meanwhile cling to all the privileges it possessedbefore the war, and even add to them. On the other hand, there were counsellors who, with another kind of zeal, maintained that Labour should fly to the help of the State and strip itself of all its privileges without thought and without reserve. We, however, agreed with neither of them. For as unpatriotic as it appeared to us it would be to leave the Sate undefended while gathering fresh privileges €or Labour out of the State’s troubles, so unwise and unpatriotic did it appear to us it would be if Labour consented to sacrifice all its privileges without requiring of Capital an equal sacrifice in the interests, not of Labour, but of the State and the nation. The policy, in fact, that we decided after long reflection to adopt was to urge Labour to offer up its privileges to the State, but only on condition that as one by one its privileges should be offered up the corresponding privileges of Capital should be offered up to the nation in addition. Now what, we challenge anybody‘ to point out, was selfish in that? To have refused the State any support would have been short-sighted and selfish. To require of the State payment in any form for the privileges so sacrificed was no less selfish and narrow. But we were requiring that the concession of Labour’s privileges to the support of the State should be a lever for the extraction of Capital’s privileges as well. As well, therefore, as obtaining the support of Labour, the State, had our policy been adopted, would have obtained, by Labour’s help, the support of Capital. *** And what a field for bargaining then existed ! It is not too much to say that we could have had the nation completely organised by this time, and not for war alone, but for peace; not temporarily and for the duration the war, but permanently and for the life of the of nation. What were the privileges that Labour had to bring to market and to exchange against the offerings brought by Capital? There were, in the first place, all the plans and preparations Labour had made for strikes during the very autumn in which War broke out. If in the mere field of politics parties were to be compensated for forgoing their party aims during the war, what ought not to have been offered Labour for forgoing its industrial prospects ? Next, there were the privileges acquired by Trade Unions in defence of their standards and methods of Labour. ’Then there were the opportunities offered by the shortage of Labour for the exploitation of SuppIy and Demand in the interest of higher wages. Finally, there was the power to withhold military service. Examine each of these, individually and collectively, realising what they imply, and you must come to the conclusion that, with these powers in its hand, Labour might indeed be said to be master of But we have already said in the national situation. general terms how in our opinion these powers should have been employed. Let us now examine the question in particular. It was obvious enough, was it not, that as well as requiring the services of Labour the State required the services of Capital; and in these specific First, the State required Money to carry directions. on the war, and not merely in the form of loans at interest, but as out-and-out gifts. In other words, the Mobilisation of Wealth was called for. Next, Capital had it within its power to abolish profiteering, at any rate upon State services, during the whole of the war. Then there is no doubt that, in the main, the prices of goods of general consumption might have been left by Capital at their pre-war level. And, finally, by the frank association of the Trade Unions in the management of industry, Capital might have secured the doubling of production. Now what selfishness, we once more ask, or what “class-view” (for we are charged with having taken a class view throughout the war) was implied in our suggestion that for each of the sacrifices Labour Capital should make an equivalent sacrifice? of It is, on the contrary, clear that while we allowed the justice of the State’s demand upon Labour, we affirmed the equal justice of the’ State’s demand upon Capital; and, moreover, that we were prepared to use the first to extract the second. If, as we have been recently told, morality has two duties : one to perform it oneself, and the other to see that others perform it, we claim that our policy was moral in the complete sense. As well as Labour .discharging its own duty, Labour would have seen that Capital discharged its duty also. The result could only have been that the State and nation would have been doubly benefited. *** We forbear to comment upon what, in fact, has been brought about by the neglect of the policy we have It is useless to cry over spilt milk. On the sketched. other hand, we certainly should not trouble our readers with a mere apologia for ourselves, being, as we are, ready at any minute to become extinct without uttering a complaint. Only the fact that a similar situation will shortly be presented to Labour makes it the smallest use in our opinion to rehearse the past, and then only for the lesson that may be derived from it. For once again as the war comes to an end Labour, we believe, will find itself in a position to bargain its privileges for the good of the nation; and once again we offer our counsel in support of its bargaining to some real national purpose. What weapon, we ask, will Labour find in its hand at the close of the war? Setting aside as minor the other weapons above mentioned, it is clear that the great instrument that Labour will possess is the reiterated and solemn pledge of the State to restore the Trade Union regulations. Unless all promises are to go for naught and our governing classes are to descend into history as faithless liars, the rights of Trade Unions, as they existed before the war, are to be restored intact and in full. Very well, that is the promise; and, as everybody now agrees, it must be performed. But-! In the first place, it is impossible. Trade Union regulations are not rules to be dropped and taken up again : they are customs and traditions; and to attempt to restore these, as if they were mere matters of rules, will result in chaos and disaster. In the second place, it is from every national point of view undesirable in the highest degree. What the nation will need most after the war is the greatest production of which Labour is capable. Greater even than our need during- the war will be our need after it both to recuperate and to attain once more our old position in the world. Will it, therefore, be good national policy to restore to the Trade Unions their privileges of restricting production and at a moment when restriction is more than ever dangerous? Neither, we reply, will it be good national policy nor, in our opinion, will it be even good Trade Union, policy. And what is more, we will add, in the third place, that the Trade Unions themselves will be unable to resist the pressure of public opinion, but will assuredly surrender their claim to restoration, if not for something, then for nothing. *** But it is just that something or nothing that we would have our readers consider. Are the Trade Unions again to sacrifice their power without requiring an equivalent sacrifice on the part of Capital? Or are they on this occasion to make it a condition of benefiting the nation that Capital shall benefit the nation as well? Here, once more, the outlines of three parties of opinion can already be discerned. There are those who would surrender the last rights of Labour on demand of the State without a thought of return to itself or of still further advantage to the State. Such are servile sentimentalists, pets of the Capitalist Press, but of little use to the nation at large. There are those, again, who hope to bargain with the State for some advantage to Labour in particular. In return for forgoing the fulfilment of the State promise to restore Trade Union regulations, these will demand-what are we saying, they have already demanded-special considerations for Labour without a care for the welfare of industry as a whole. Read the last resolution passed by the recent Congress offering industrial peace oh the terms of a minimum wage of thirty shillings and a working-week of forty-eight hours. Suppose that it is not to the interest of industry (we are not speaking of Capitalists) to fix a minimum wage of this kind or to limit workinghours, what then? Are the Trade Unions to shirk the responsibility of making industry effective while only requiring that industry shall be easy for them? This, we may say, is servility without even sentiment, and of such a group of men the Servile State will easily be ’born. Finally, there is the school to which we think it an honour to belong. Like the nation at large we demand that there shall be no arbitrary restrictions placed upon industry, Trade Union or Capitalist. On the other hand, we refuse to remove Trade Union restrictions unless the restrictions of Capital are simultaneously withdrawn. What are these ? The restriction to a small class of the control and management of national industry-the oligarchy of industry in short. And in the name of Labour,‘ but on behalf of the nation, we demand joint control with the State as the price of surrendering Labour’s defences against Capitalism. Foreign Affairs. By S. Verdad. WHEN the conscription controversy was in progress last year it was dealt with in the columns of THE NEW AGE from an unbiased and reasoned point of view. Chiefly, we urged in protest, all of us, was conscription undesirable and unnecessary because the Derby scheme itself had gravely imperilled the industries of the country ; and if every man who attested under that scheme had been called up our manufactures would not have stood the shock. Rut it was easy to see that long before the demand for conscription had arisen in an acute form there were influences at work which had determined to bring about this change in our national traditions; and Mr. Lloyd George was a particularly active inspirer of the compulsion group. How many of us have forgotten that preface to his War Speeches, published in the middle of September, 1915, with its inept references to Russia? Let me quote one passage : Are we now straining every nerve to make up for lost time? Are we getting all the men we shall want to put into the fighting line next year to enable us even to hold our own? Does every man who can help, whether by fighting or by providing material, understand clearly that ruin awaits remissness? How many people in this country fully apprehend the full significance of the Russian retreat? For over twelve months Russia has, in spite of deficiencies in equipment, absorbed the energies of half the German and four-fifths of the Austrian forces. Is it realised that Russia has for the time being made her Contribution-and what a heroic contribution it is !-to the struggle for European freedom, and that we cannot for many months to come expect the same active help from the Russian armies that we have hitherto received? Who is to take the Russian place in the fight while those armies are re-equipping ? *** Why, England, of course; and Mr. Lloyd George proceeded to argue throughout the volume for military and industrial conscription. He got both. Trade Union output privileges were more than ever suspended, overtime was worked on a gigantic scale, and soldiers and workers were .interchanged with more than Prussian facility. And the result? Please listen to this : If Russia has not been able to take the offensive successfully on the whole of her front this year, we must put the fact down to the same cause that has prevented us hitherto from attacking on a very wide front in the West -namely, want of heavy guns and shells. We did not possess the heavy guns, and Russia had lost many of hers, while Germany had not only an immense accumulation of her own, but also the guns which she had captured-for example, 1,200 at Novo Georgievsk and 827 at Kovno. We had great leeway to make up, and though, in a country like Russia, men are to be found easily enough, it is different with rifles and guns and shells, and an army of men is of small service without all three. *** I said that myself in slightly different words several times last year. It is now being said by a highly important authority indeed ; for the quotation just given is taken from an article by the Military Correspondent of the “Times, ” Colonel Repington, which appeared in the issue of September 14. Colonel Repington goes on to quote from the interview given by General Kuropatkin to “Le Temps” quite recently. Now, Kuropatkin resigned the command of the Northern Russian armies only a few weeks ago, to make way for their original commander General Russky, who had really been suffering from ill-health. General Kuropatkin, who knows the position, said that Russia still had need of projectiles and heavy guns; and added that it was necessary for the Allies to combine the two elements-men and guns-better than they had hitherto done. Readers of THE NEW AGE will not be. unfamiliar with this argument, for it has been emphasised time and again. Colonel Repington says on this point : His remark is a word in season, and deserves our careful consideration. If, on the completion of our own orders, we turn over to Russian use our plant for the manufacture of heavy guns and shells, except such plant as we require for the current needs of our own armies, we can enable Russia next year and the year after to deploy such considerable and efficient armies that they will doininate the whole situation. But we can only do so if we limit the expansion of our own armies, and these alternatives suggest a number of considerations which must weigh with anyone who allows himself to dwell upon them. *** Is that, or is it not, a justification of THE NEW AGE attitude towards conscription ? We have pointed out over and over again that the undue expansion of the army here by means of conscription would necessarily affect industry; and at the present time, as has been the case since the spring of last year, the munition industry is the greatest we have. Our resources in men and endurance, let me say yet once more, are finite; and to treat them as if they were infinite is woefully to misuse one of our greatest advantages, namely, our ability to supply less advanced industrial nations with manufactured goods and with the credit which will enable them (if we wish) to supplement our efforts by purchases elsewhere. I am not inclined to say, as has been said, that the Kuropatkin interview was a “blind” to put the enemy off the scent. ’The German General Staff know quite well what the military resources of Russia are in guns and shells; and they rejoice, naturally,to observe how our own share in the defence of Russia has been neglected for the chimera of numbers of men. Now we see the chief organ of the conscriptionists compelled to admit, through its chosen expert, that Russia must be supplied with guns and shells and small-arms. but that our own armies must be limited in numbers if this is to be done properly. *** As every military expert realises, it is imperative that Russia should be supplied with all the equipment she needs; and it is a serious reflection on our Ministry of Munitions and our War Office that this important point should have to be laboured more than a year after industrial conscription has been in force and nine months after the introduction of compulsory military service. Mr. Lloyd George, though he grotesquely misunderstood the military situation, was conversant with at least this side of the problem so far back as September, 1915, when he was in charge of the Munition Department. What has he done to rectify errors of deficiency? Why did not he, instead of Colonel Repington, write or speak about Russia this month, on the anniversary of his notorious preface? Was it because he feared to give an account of his stewardship at the Ministry of Munitions, or what? *** Now let us go a little further. The Derby report showed an alleged total of “shirkers” unaccounted for-men who were neither starred nor otherwise exempt. It was not taken into account that large numbers of these unattested men had been medically rejected before the Derby census was compiled; and it has already been stated in some of the Liberal daily and weekly papers that the number of actual fighting men obtained as a result of the single-men Act was not more than a hundred thousand. The Act for conscripting married men yielded proportionately even poorer results. The question is whether the War Office authoritieshere undertook certain commitments before testing the accuracy of the figures set forth in the Derby report. It seems hardly credible that they should have committed the country to a definite number of men in the field without having made the most searching inquiries beforehand into the number of men the country could afford. Unfortunately, we are dealing with the War Office-the most anarchistic, ruthless, and illmanaged of all Government Departments. I will return to this point at a later date. In the meantime, I welcome Colonel Repington’s article, if only because it shows that the facts of the situation have become too strong even for the British Junkers, Fiat II. Lux. I SHOULD be the last man in the world to lament the so-called “Decay of Faith” (a better name for it is “the Decay of Credulity”). What I do deplore is the reluctance of English society to face the situation frankly : there lies the mischief. And that reluctance is not limited to; abstruse religious problems-it extends to matters concerning which society has a vital interest in knowing the truth-as real an interest as a mining company has in knowing the truth about its mine, or a shipping company about its ships. Business men know that ignorance about such matters means bankruptcy, that the road to ruin is paved with illusions, and that he only prospers who, not blinded by personal feeling, looks facts boldly in the face. To this category belong, pre-eminently, all questions regarding the health of a nation. No nation can afford to blink them on pain of death. A community guided by an enlightened sense of self-preservation would face these questions courageously and try to protect its children by letting them become acquainted with the realities of life in time. In England the realities of life are the very last subject a child is ever allowed to know anything about. What his or her body was made for, hour the laws that govern it are to be observed, what are the penalties with which Nature visits the violation of those laws-the most distant allusion to these horrid truths is banned as “shocking.” Other Western countries labour under a similar ban; but, I believe, only in England is it possible for a young woman-nay, even, sometimes, for a young man-of over twenty to marry in total ignorance of the true meaning of marriage. It is no part of my case to deny the obvious delicacy of these things. But is there no way by which parents or teachers could impart to boys and girls the necessary instruction without outraging modesty ? Surely, far more shocking than any publicity are the consequences of secrecy. Nevertheless, English people, blinded by a false sentiment of propriety, would much rather have their children incur those consequences than have them taught ; thereby entailing incalculable miseries upon individuals, families, and generations. This is what comes from obeying sentiment rather than common sense; and it is in accordance with the eternal irony of things that this extreme instance of suicidal sentimentality should be furnished by a people which prides itself on being practical and denounces the word "sentimental” un-English ! as The same national reluctance to face the truth must be held accountable for the appalling dimensions which the infamous trade of the procurer has attained in a community that affects to pity and scorn its Continental neighbours as immoral. The whole country, we are assured by those who know, is permeated with this pest. Month after month, and year after year, numbers of young girls are lured from their homes and sold to shame; and people who would have filled the world with shrieks of pious indignation if they heard that there was a revival of the black slave trade in Timbuktu tolerate the white slave traffic in London without a word of protest. As neither the police nor the private associationsfor the prevention of vice have, in the actual state of the English law, the power to interfere, the only hope of coping with the evil lies in publicity. By exposing the secrets of the trade the Press could warn both parents and their daughters to be on their guard. But, with very few exceptions, the Press which is so garrulous on the wiles of the ordinary swindler shrinks from laying bare the devices of the procurer, because its proprietors know that in England prudery is more mighty even than the love of sensation. If the world is horrid, argue English fathers and mothers, we would SO much rather our innocent girls did not find it out as long as possible; not till-they are ruined. Incredible as it might sound to a foreigner who knew the Englishman only from his shipbuilding, boot-making, cottonspinning, and such like capacities, where he communes with facts more or less frankly, the people of this country, taken as a whole, deliberately choose to let a plague rage by connivance rather than suppress it by declaration. ’To such lengths is this practical nation prepared to carry its horror of the truth. Reason and experience cry aloud with one voice : “If way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.’’ But this is too bold a method for the Englishman's timid soul. His temperament and his training are alike against it. “Bad taste !” is his stock reply whenever any abuse is brought to light. This attitude is so closely related to the general psychology of our country that it stands first on the list of national traits which every intelligent visitor from across the sea draws up. Continental nations have a nasty habit of washing their dirty linen in public. We would sooner live in dirt than own that we have any linen that need washing. Hence, scandals are hushed up, instead of being dealt with ; wounds are covered up, instead of being probed ; and, instead of being swept away, the rubbish is carefully hidden under the carpet. This habit of mind has the effect of rendering England powerless against the problems which modern communities have to solve. Superficially; there is a great air of social activity : a tremendous amount of talk about “Reform,” and, to use the phrase just now in vogue, “Reconstruction.” Leagues, committees, self-constituted -boards of inquiry, even Royal Commissions, are at the present moment busy researching and muck-raking. But what has the country to show for all this bustle? A chaotic mass of half-truths, veiled hints, timid insinuationsintelligible only to the initiated-such as we see employed every day in the newspapers. No other way commends itself to the English sense of decency. And by such a way English people hope to get the reconstructive ideas which they need to secure their place in the ranks of contemporary civilisation ! This unwholesome reticence, fostered by two nurses -puritanical tradition and psychological dispositionhas imbedded itself deeply in the national life and is mirrored in the national literature. A bishop the other day animadverted on the prevalence of sanctimonious hypocrisy in our midst. Thereupon, a member of the Athenaeum wrote to the papers to advise the bishops to look into their own hearts. I wondered whether the writer of that epistle had himself performed the operation he recommended to others. English men of letters sneer continually at the mental servility of their Germanrivals; but they themselves are essentially the very impersonation of mental servility. They grovel at the feet of Mrs. Grundy as abjectly as any slave ever grovelled at the feet of a capricious tyrant. No pilot takes more pains to acquaint himself with the state of the tides than your English author with the tastes of Mrs Grundy. What she considers right, what true, what fit-to find out her prejudices on each of these points and to pander to them, this is all his care, and no consideration of intellectual independence, of artistic pride, or of ordinary human self-respect will ever induce him to say as a writer what he feels as a man. The fear of the old woman is too firmly enthroned in his trembling heart. If a statue were to be raised in some future English Academy to this venerable patroness of letters, I could conceive no apter inscription for the monument than the following lines with which a shrewd bookseller recently headed an advertisement of his wares :Oh, take away these books that tell The hideous so-called truth of things, These little documents of hellBring us the book that dreams and sings And whispers, “ All is well !” That nothing might be wanting to the completeness of this process of self-deception, extreme care is taken to paint our actions abroad with the same flattering brush which is used to whitewash internal conditions. All foreign writers, irrespectively of nationality, agree in tracing England’s magnificent success in that struggle for supremacy which goes on age after age between the States of the world chiefly to the unswerving continuity of her political egoism : so much so that no Government is more distrusted even by its friends than the British. An unbiased examination of the events which make up the record of our international activity fully bears out that view. No historian worthy of the name could fail to admit the truth of that view. Unfortunately for him, John Bull has found among his own children more courtiers than historians. All that is ignoble in his career-all the ungenerous motives and unscrupulous methods, and the selfishness and the baseness,all the trickery and the treachery that from time to time stained his conduct-have been obliterated from the popular record, or so palliated by specious A representationas to appear mere accidental blemishes. legend has been produced to supply the place of true history : a legend in which he is depicted as a knighterrant always, or nearly always, fighting for the protection of the weak from the violence of the strong-a disinterested champion of freedom and justice-a saintly paladin, sans peur et sans reproche, free from sordid material ambitions, full of lofty, moral aspirations dedicated to the service of humanity. This, with all deference to modern English historians and journalists {I hope the reader will forgive the tautology), is the very sublime of absurdity, beyond which human dotage cannot advance. The portrait does not only flatter its subject; it makes him look ridiculous-more ridiculous than all the caricatures with which Continental wits have for generations been amusing the world at his cost. But John Bull, whose taste in these matters is none too delicate, likes it. He has been so often told that it is a true picture of himself that he has ended by believing it. VERAX. (To be concluded.) A Visit to the Front. By Ramiro de Maeztu. I.-TRAIN AND STEAMER. THESE last few weeks of silence I have spent in visiting the British front in France, and some of the military and naval bases and munition factories in Great Britain, accompanied by various South American journalists. The expedition was in charge of a Foreign Office official, Sir Horace Rumbold. Without his pilotage, I do not think I should ever have succeeded is getting the innumerable passports, stamps, counterstamps, and signatures required by the traveller in war time. There are men-and I am one of them-who suffer from the phobia of everything official. The great public buildings have been constructed expressly to fall down on their heads. Every one of the doorkeepers of a Ministry is for them a particularly keen-eyed inquisitor, who discovers in their minds all the secret crimes they have committed night and morning in the crises of their nightmares. English doorkeepers, like English policemen, are, as a rule, big men, with kind eyes and of completely harmless appearance. It does not matter, I am quite certain beforehand that they will not let me go in anywhere; and if by any chance they open the door for me I feel a desire to bow low before them. On the other hand, there are journalists from Honduras who go into the Government offices in London as if they were those of Tegucigalpa, and into those of Tegucigalpa, as if they were entering their own houses. Sir Horace Rumbold, in a department of the War Office, made us sign several series of papers in which we pledged ourselves, among other things, not to visit, during this war, the German Western front. And, thanks to his help, it does not take more than ten minutes to get the passports in the French Bureau in London. Up at six in the morning, we. find ourselves in Charing Cross Station. A Pullman car. The breakfast is strong, as is usual in England. Apart from ourselves, there are only officers and soldiers in the train. The officers belong to all the types of the English upper and middle classes. At our right is seated a good old, quiet gentleman, to whom the khaki does not give a military cut. There is in front of him a man who, even in civilian dress, would appear to be wearing a uniform. Strictly speaking, I do not know whether one can talk of born soldiers. All that has been witten about the born soldier is of no greater value that all that has been written about the born criminal, and that is worth nothing. As for psychologies of professions, I rather prefer La Bruyere to Lombroso. What I mean is that the born soldier is not a type that can be put together by a scientific apparatus, but is already made in our imagination. A born soldier ought to be like this one travelling in our carriage. Tall, but not too tall; thin but wiry; sharp but not contemplative; resolute but cautious. He has to carry practical and strong but not luxurious bags; he must eat enough, without stint or gluttony; he must look as fit to receive a bullet as to cheer a school friend whom he has not seen for twenty years. England had many types like this, broadly scattered over the seas. The war has brought them together. They it was who taught what they knew to the younger men, and learnt from the war itself what they did not know. Those two handsome boys who sit smiling, proud of their glittering uniforms, are probably two Bond Street elegants. They are perhaps rich. Probably not. You do not want much money to be elegant. All you have to do is to set your mind to it. Many do not even have to set their minds to it. It is enough if their mothers wish them to be elegant. The mother is at least the two-thirds of every man. She dreams what her sons will be like; and the sons turn out the shadow of her dreams. To one of the two Beau Brummels in khaki a modestly dressed woman throws a kiss from the platform. The poor wretch had got up at five in the morning to see her son off. And how pleased she was to see him so good-looking ! And what a beautiful effort gives the light of a smile to her eyes, which would rather dim themselves with tears! The boy is an infantry officer. Do you know what it is to be an infantry officer in England? When the order to charge is given the first man to leap over the trench parapet into the free air is the infantry officer-his revolver in his left hand, his yellow stick in his right. His sword is rarely used. The officer advances at the head of his company or platoon. Such is the custom of this Old England, where the superior is not called chief, but leader : he does not command; he leads. A friend of mine told me some time ago that the average life of an infantry officer is five days, counting from the time of his arrival in the firing-line. The figure is exaggerated, of course; but there is no doubt that the casualties among the infantry officers are much greater than among aviators; these are higher than the losses of the engineers, and these, again, are higher than those of the artillery. But the casualties of the aviators themselvesare, in proportion, not more than one-third of those of the infantry. The “Times” of, that morning published, as usual, short biographies of the officers killed in action. On this day there were twenty. Out of them six were only sons. I believe that this tragedy of the only son is the greatest of the war. Just imagine the love and care put into the upbringing and education of the only son ! In many cases the son is an only son because Gad has willed it so; in other, through well-meant generosity. The parents believe that they fulfil their duties better if they leave their son in a better position than theirs than if their fortune is distributed among a numerous progeny. In other cases the limited resources of the parents do not enable them to educate more than one son. These reasonings are usually false. The mere good fortune of having lived our infancy amid the tur- moil of a crowd of brothers sufficiently compensates for the disadvantages inherent in an extensive family. It is better to enter into the race of life poor but with brothers than alone and with money. But even in a case where the only son is the result of selfish calculation there always comes a day in which the parents cease to live for themselves and live only in the hope of the honours and happiness which their son shall enjoy. To widows who lose their husbands in the war there still remains the hope that time will soften their anguish and bring them a new love, a new companion, a new horizon. To the woman who loses her only son no pretext to go on living will be left. It is too late for love; too late for maternity. If she does go on living and devotes herself, for instance, to looking after the wounded, she will do so from a sense of duty merely, and above all from piety; for it is only to God, and not to the world, that she can look for consolation. When the train stops at a station we hear from a distance the singing of soldiers in one of the third-class carriages. All the soldiers of all armies are in the habit of singing when they are going to battle; but they do not sing always-only, as a rule, when they have eaten and drunk well, and generally in the evening. But it is now only half-past eight in the morning, and these soldiers have had nothing but tea or coffee at breakfast. That is characteristic. English soldiers always sing when they are together. We come to the port. There were ports from which, in peace time, people of the leisured and middle classes travelled from England France. Poorer people went from the ports to more to the south, and the four hours’ passage between Newhaven and Dieppe was by no means pleasant, while in the journey of an hour and a quarter or an hour and three-quarters from Folkestone or Dover to Calais and Boulogne the probabilities were against sea-sickness. Things have changed with the war. It is now the soldiers, the poor people, who take the shortest route, while millionaires, men able to face the searching investigations of baggage, clothes, and papers ordered by the authorities, must content themselves with setting out from ports which, two years ago, were used only by the needy. C’est la guerre. This, too, is war : the big hotels at fashionable resorts like Monte Carlo, Nice, Biarritz, Trouville and Deauville, Brighton and Eastbourne, have been turned into hospitals for soldiers. The ships and palaces of the rich have been turned over to the poor, together with chicken soup and the treasures of towns and the mild climates where the convalescents recover their strength. We embark without a hitch. The guidance of Sir Horace Rumbold permits us to wriggle through the innumerable examiners between the train and the boat. We sign two or three documents. Already in London we had signed a few others, pledging ourselves not to send anything to our papers until it had been passed beforehand, not only by the ordinary censorship, but by the particular department which granted us facilities: if the War Office, by the War Office censorship; if the Admiralty, by the Admiralty censorship; if the Ministry of Munitions, by that of the Ministry of Munitions. We go on board. ’The steamer is crammed with soldiers. Half of them at least are Australians, with the picturesque sombrero of the Southern Confederates which the cinema has popularised in the innumerable films inspired by the American Civil War. The other half are English; though there are few Scottish troops with their short kilts and robust legs. But the upper deck, on which we take our seats, is filled with the officers. Facing ours there is another transport, foredeck of which is also filled with officers, There must be not less than one officer for six soldiers. One effect of this war on England has been to turn the officers cannon-fodder. into “You should economise your officers a little more,” said one of the correspondents to a major. “We economise them as much as we can,” was the reply. “But you can’t restrain them. When the time comes to advance they must be the first.” And the major smiled proudly. All on board, with rare exceptions, had put on lifebelts, made of eight or ten pieces of cork the size of bricks, wrapped in cloth. The steamer was well equipped with lifeboats, for there was always the possibility of our being struck by a torpedo from a submarine.Up to the present not a single transport has been sunk in the Channel, in spite of the millions of men and the thousands of millions of shells and cartridgesand boxes of provisions which have been taken across. But anything is possible: Good God ! To die in a charge, to fall with a bullet in the breast, with head high and eyes fixed on the trench to be stormed-that cannot be hateful to a man of spirit. But to be hurled into the water, the cold waters of the North Sea, to fight with other men to reach a boat, to feel that the cold is turning to ice and numbing our hands and feet -that horror of modern warfare ! And we cannot complain; for if we are not soldiers we are voluntarily exposing. ourselves to their perils. So said one of the papers we signed, in order that there might be no posthumous claims. But the women and children of the ‘‘Lusitania” ; the travellers who went across the Channel on the “Sussex”! What harm had the best of Spanish musicians, Granados, ever done to anybody? -but just ahead of us we note the zigzag course of a destroyer which is guarding the way for us from one side to the other. Wherever there are destroyers the submarines do not venture to appear. With this tranquillising thought I look over the ship. Some of them, Most of the soldiers are singing. resigned, are silent. The officers have divided themselves up into small parties. The professional soldier has met other professional soldiers with whom he forms a little group. The two elegants of our carriage are surrounded by a dozen others. These men are distinguished from the others in that instead of wearing the ordinary cork lifebelt they have on waistcoats of rubber, with A a tube to fill them with air in case of shipwreck. nobleman owed his life in the Mediterranean to one of these-rubber waistcoats. And an elegant is an elegant always. It is the “thing” which has been altered in The “thing” in England at one time was England. peace; now it is war, and you must “play the game” in war and peace. But the merchant who is now an officer talks with other merchants who are now officers, too; the professional soldier with the professional soldier ; the aristocrat with the aristocrat : and the elegant with the elegant. The thing, the war, is common to them all. But, in war as in peace, each one of, them is in his place, and nowhere else. The subdivision of social classes, so frequently found in England, has not disappeared with the war. In addition to being a captain, an officer goes on being a member of the upper middle classes or of the middle middle classes or of the lower middle classes or of the middle upper classes, etc., etc., or he belongs to a sporting club. The soldiers say “sir” to the officers, as do the junior officers to their seniors, but they do not address them by their style of rank. But the thing, the war, is common to them all, and this community in the thing has reduced all other differences to mere accidental caprices. It happens that this lieutenant may come from the middle middle classes, and that captain from the lower middle classes. This distinction is maintained on board the steamer like some odd phenomenon. Be sure that it will be obliterated in trenches to-morrow. But it will never be blotted out entirely. And why should it be blotted out? For years I have dreamt of the ideal of equality. But that is an absurd dream. It is not just that unequal men should be treated as equal men. His own to each and respect to all : that is just. Here, in the army, the soldier is a soldier and the general is a general. But it must not be forgotten that the soldier of to-day will be the writer of to-morrow, and that the general will be one of his public. Social Organisation for the War. Professor Edward V. Arnold. I.-INTRODUCTION. ALL British journals are at the present time full of schemes for social reconstruction after the war. But if these schemes are good, why should they be postponed long? They all aim at more efficient production, so more equable distribution, and a reconciliation of classes. But these are the very things that we most need in order to be able to endure the strain of war; and it is just this strain which goes some way to balance the natural inertia which makes all reconstruction difficult. In short, the present is the time for new social organisation ; facts have to some extent produced it, men’s minds are open to listen to it, the needs of war demand it. The organisation which will best carry us through the war will also be best suited to carry us through any peace that may succeed it. That new organisation is being each day developed by sudden demands and by pressure from unexpected directions; but it would be better for us if it were more largely due to careful calculation and the study of history. It is true that best-laid plans “of men and mice” often miscarry; but action taken without plan miscarries still more often. The purpose of the present series of papers is to consider what changes in the order of our social life are needed to give us the best chance of success in the present war. We come, therefore, at once into conflict with the dominant public opinion which does not regard our success as a matter of doubt; which, after two years’ experience of war, still hugs the notion of “muddling through”; which prefers making plans for the enjoyment of victory rather than for winning it. The student of history cannot watch this buoyant public temper without some uneasy misgivings. Just so on the eve of the Battle of Pharsalia Pompey and his officers debated how they would distribute amongst themselves the magistracies and possessions of their opponents; and in the same spirit before the Battle of Hastings the Saxons held .wassail and allotted amongst ,themselves the lands of the Norman invader. It is at least the more prudent course not to count on victory before it is won. And, indeed, the course of the present war has brought the prophets no honour. Two years ago forecasts of every kind were made-by the General Staffs of every country, by publicists like Mr. Norman Angell, by newspaper experts, and by politicians-and (so far as is known) no one forecast has proved even approximately It was generally believed that Europe correct. could not bear the strain of a universal war for more than six months; that after that time famine and plague would incapacitate most (if not all) of the belligerents : but only in Servia, and there only to a limited extent, has this forecast been fulfilled. It was thought that in our own country business would be disorganised, and unemployment rife, but the exact contrary has come about. It was reckoned that new armies could not be formed under three years; they were successfully engaged within six months. There was confident talk on our side of stone-walls and steam-rollers; there have been such operations of war, but not altogether to our liking. Then a happy phrase was invented, and we put our trust in “economic pressure,” whatever that might be. The forecasts of our enemies were perhaps not less wide of the mark. Is there then a science of history, and can it claim to be “the herald of the future”? We must admit that this claim is, to say the least, exaggerated. Science deals with measurable facts: and in human society there are many facts that are unappreciated until after the event, and still more that are inaccurately measured. New forces arise which no man could have foreseen; blunders are made which no calculating mind could have reckoned upon. No one knows even to-day the limits of human endurance, or the possible extent of patriotic self-devotion. No one can say whether far-seeing By statesmen are guiding the destinies of each of the warring nations, or whether they are being swept along by the torrents of popular passion. We are encircled by the unknown and the immeasurable. But from this very fact we may draw certain sure conclusions, and of these the first is the folly of prophecy. To be sure of victory and to despair of it are equally contrary to reason. When the sun shines most brightly on us there is still something to fear; in the darkest days there is room for hope. Secondly, amongst the forces which will determine the final result knowledge is always one. We therefore propose to recount the history of the present war, first from the standpoint of Germany, then from that of England. The facts that we record will be familiar, and we shall endeavour to recall them without passion or disproportion. This attempt is in itself something new, and should be a corrective to that fever of the mind which is bred by the daily rush to the newspaper Press, always begun in the hope that some miracle has been worked for our salvation, always ending in disappointment as we learn that our greatest efforts have met with less than the expected success. We shall endeavour to replace this attitude of mind with a calm survey of our situation as a whole. From that survey there will result an appreciation of certain dangers which, if neglected, will sooner or later lead to catastrophes. To face these dangers we shall see the need in various directions of strengthening our social organisation; at the same time we shall take stock of the and resources from which that organisation can be more strongly built up. The task we propose is modest, but we trust that it is useful. At the outset we desire to lay stress upon its limitations, because we are well aware that we ourselves, no less than our readers, are constantly tempted to transgress them. Let us say, then, definitely, that we will not attempt to forecast the issue of the present war, nor of any of its phases. We will pass no judgment either on statesmen or on generals for what they have done in the Fast : only we will note their actions as a possible guide to what they will attempt in the future. We will propose no plans either for securing victory or for negotiating peace ; but we ,will endeavour to mark, out the limits within which it is reasonable to hope for the one or the other. Our direct aim will be to contribute towards the strengthening of the nation to maintain its corporate life, under whatever conditions the future may have in store for us. We shall, therefore, seek out the elements of its strength, and endeavour to encourage their growth and to perfect their organisation. Above all, we write for no class and for no party. Wherever there is a man possessed of brain-power, of capital, of skill, or of muscular strength, we see an element that may make for success, and we confidently reckon that it will be devoted to the country’s service. If we attack or criticise, we shall endeavour to direct our attack on the social inertia which resists all wholesome measures until they come too late : on the parrotlike repetition of party formulae when they have lost all meaning; and on the self-regarding caution of the man who leaves it to others to win the victory and looks only to securing his own share in the profits. Let us say it boldly : there are intellectual and moral sinners in this England of ours. There are hearts that have not been touched by the infinite self-sacrifice of our heroes: minds that have not realised the gravity of our situation to-day. There is ingenuity that has never been exercised to unravel our present perplexities. There are savings which are not offered unreservedly to the common purse; there are muscles that are not fully exercised to produce the instruments of self-defence. There is selfishness and there is waste. But we are engaged in a struggle for life and death, and in such a struggle there are no limited stakes. Everything must be risked in order that something may be rescued. The majority of the nation, we fully believe, have learnt this lesson; but their efforts will be vain until they secure, by whatever means, the full co- operation of the minority also. Our own appeal is to the reason alone. We shall endeavour to lay the broad facts before our readers, and these in turn will point out the path for future progress. Those who elect to walk on that path will be the men who will in the end win peace for England : and those who win peace will be the men who will rule when the peace comes. Reconstruct society for the war, and when peace comes you will find society already reconstructed. 11.-GERMAN POLICY IN THE GREAT WAR. After two years of war, we find much to correct in our estimate of the German State. We had thought of it as a docile nation directed by an all-powerful Government and an autocratic Kaiser. We now know that neither Kaiser nor Government are any longer able to control the nation over which they exercise a nominal authority. In the German politics of to-day we find two parties in sharp rivalry. They have taken respectively for their mottos ‘‘ruthless war” and “honourable peace.” We may call them shortly the “militarist” and the “pacifist” parties, but we must be careful to note that these terms are used only as they are understood in Germany itself. The kernel of the militarist party is found in the military profession. According to the theory of the Prussian State the soldier is called upon to fight his country’s battles, but the choice between peace and war rests with the civil government. The soldier is only concerned with diplomacy when the question is asked of him whether or not he is ready. But the facts have been otherwise. The German soldier has become possessed of a definite ideal, namely, the defeat and humiliation of England; and he conceives that this result is to be attained by waging war “without mercy,” that is to say, without any of those restrictions which international conventions and a regard for humanity have hitherto imposed upon combatants. From the soldiers this ideal has spread to large sections of the civilian population, more particularly amongst the commercialclasses. At the present moment this party is so strong that all public demonstrations are in its favour, and it is able easily to shout down its opponents in any part of the Empire. There is, however, another party which cherishes an ideal of peace, and which has the strong patronage not only of the Kaiser himself, but of his favourite divine, Professor von Harnack, and his Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg. The peace that the leaders desire is what is called a “German peace,” and is by no means attractive to the enemies of Germany. According to the official programme Belgium is to recover its independence; but the new Belgium is to be “a Belgium with which Germany can work,” and is to give “material guarantees” that it will work with her. This appears to mean that the chief fortresses of Belgium are to pass into German hands, and that the country is at all times to keep the road open for a German attack either upon France or upon England. Next Poland is to become a subject-ally of Germany; and other parts of Russia, such as Livonia and Courland, are “not to be given up.” Lastly, Germany’s “freedom upon the sea’‘ is in some undefined way to be secured, presumably by the destruction or surrender of the British Navy. This programme, in short, would roughly double the area of the German Empire in Europe, and in addition give it the control of the Atlantic Ocean. It might seem large enough to satisfy for a generation the ambitions of an Alexander. All the more notable is the fact that it does not satisfy modern Germany; that its promoters are held up to contempt as men who would betray the, “Fatherland” ; and that public meetings held in its favour, although addressed by many of the most eminent men in Germany,have completely failed to secure support for it. From these facts something may be gathered of the state of exaltation in which the German public moves, and of. the danger which it forebodes to the British Empire. What the German finds wrong in the proposed terms of peace is that they leave the British Empire still standing, though powerless; and the German does not want it to stand at all. There are certainly Germans who are not only peace-loving, but prepared for a peace much more generous to our Allies than the official terms allow. At some future time these Germans may again count for something as a political force : at the present they count for nothing. It is in the light of these proved facts that we should look back to the origins of the present war. The parties of to-day have not come into existence all at once: they must have existed, at least in embryo, before the outbreak of the war. Various incidents, to which it is not necessary here to refer in detail, confirmthe reconstruction of events which here follows. Before the war there existed in Germany a militarist party resolved upon the destruction of England. The discovery and development of the Zeppelin seemed to this party the means by which their aim could be accomplished; it only remained to obtain from the State authority to make the attempt. Both the Kaiser and his Chancellor were well-known friends of peace; and the diplomats of all countries had grown to power in a generation to which the very idea of a European war was detestable. The militarists therefore had to await or to plan their opportunity. The party then dominant in Germany and in the councils of the Kaiser was a peace party; but it inherited from bygone generations the fear of a Russian invasion, in which the fierce barbarian would ravage with fire and sword the peaceful homes of Germany. It was therefore necessary that the German army should be strong so as to preserve German Kultur from this barbarian onslaught. The aim, therefore, of the militarists was to stir up in their opponents this latent fear of Russia, and so gain assent to a declaration of war. For this the murder at Sarajevo and the danger apparently threatening the Austro-Hungarian monarchy provided the opportunity. The militarists raised the cry of “the Fatherland in danger,” and demanded, in the Kaiser’s absence, an immediate declaration of war. Very unwillingly, they at last consented to a delay of three days, to give Russia the opportunity to disarm. Russia refused, and the war began. Then took place that startling divergence between the deeds of Germany and her words which all the world has branded as hypocrisy. And yet it was not hypocrisy at all, but only the revelation of a divergence between two parties whose aims were totally distinct, but who were united as members of a single State. The soldiers, having obtained war, at once proceeded to direct it against England, their true objective. They marched into Belgium in order to bring England into the war. For this they needed no permission from any civilian authority, for the German State gives to its soldiers the sole direction of war. It was not obvious that the capture of Antwerp was a necessary step for the protection of Austria from Servian assassins. It did not need to be obvious; for the soldiers had to decide the point, and they cared nothing for Austria. No one believed that France was preparing to attack Germany by way of Namur or Liege, but if the soldiers chose to assert it, no one in Germany could question the theory. The German Chancellor and the peace party had in a moment lost all their power. The Chancellor endeavoured. ,to save his conscience by one weak protestagainst the “wrong” done to Belgium, and one futile promise to make it good at some future time. To the peace-loving section of Germany he repeated the arguments by which he had himself been overborne: the critical position of Germany’s ally, the danger to Germany’s Kultur, the imminence of the barbarian invasion. And now indeed the arguments were all true : even if the dangers had not existed before, they had all been called into existence by the German ultimatums. The ordinary German rose at the word of command to defend his home and his hearth, full of the spirit of self-sacrifice and patriotic devotion. But this was not enough for the militarists : it was necessary. that he should also be inspired by a mortal hatred of Englandwhich was altogether foreign to his nature. The first plot by which this was contrived was followed by a succession of coldly calculated acts, all aiming at producing deadly enmity between two nations which at heart were friendly. War offers many opportunities for engendering hatred, and the German militarists have neglected none. But if they have injured and outraged England, the direct aim has always been to deceive and In this purpose the exasperate the German pacifist. mischief-makers of Germany have been unconsciously seconded by the popular Press of Great Britain, which has never known how to distinguish between the two sections of German society. In the light of this analysis of German parties we propose to interpret the history of the war. The Emancipation of the Jews and the Conquest of Palestine. By Dr. Angelo S. Rappoport. I. THE present world contest, it is universally admitted, is a war of liberation, a war of emancipation, a war that is destined, with the victory of the Allies, to bring about an era of liberty to downtrodden and oppressed No one will deny that as a race the Jews nationalities. occupy a prominent place among these nationalities waiting for the day of liberty which is soon to dawn for humanity ! The hearts of Jewry are beating faster with the hope-and promises made in influential quarters seem to lend strength to this hope-that not only will the Jews of Russia and Roumania be granted equal rights, but that the establishment of a Jewish State in Palestine will be seriously entertained in diplomatic circles, Now I for one am and even -by Cabinet Ministers. anxious to see these expectations realised, to see the day when the hopes of those “who wept on Babel’s stream” no longer “are a dream.” And yet, without being a pessimist, I fail to see how both hopes, i.e., emancipation of the Jews all over the world and the establishment of a Jewish autonomous State in Palestine, can be realised at the same time, without contradicting clashing with each-other ! As a racial unit and the Jews have an undoubted right to claim either equal rights all over the world or a Jewish autonomous State in Palestine. In a lengthy article in the “Fortnightly Review’’ (March, 1911), I have proved the historic and legal right of the Jews in Russia to absolute emancipation. Their emancipation in the Empire of the Tsar would not be crumbs thrown to a .beggar, but mere justice meted out to them. As for Roumania, she has long ago-in 1878-promised such emancipation-and it is to be hoped that now that Roumania has joined the Allies and freed herself from Hohenzollern sway and methods she will respect the chiffon de papier as it is being respected among her Allies. I have also proved elsewhere that “Zionism or a Jewish State in Palestine is Judaism carried to its logical conclusion.” Otherwise Judaism has no raison d’etre. Whether, however, both these claims of the Jews can be easily granted at the same time by the Council of Nations is a different question; and I, for one, am afraid that it will be found almost impossible. The Jews will have to choose between the two alternatives, Now-why is it impossible? I shall be asked. Let me explain and argue the points, at issue, and throw some light upon a rather complicated question. As long as movements, political and social, are still in the phase of dreams, logic and coherence may be dispensed with : dreams are neither logical nor coherent. As soon, however, as such movements emerge from the dream-phase and are beginning to approach realisation clearness and logic become a sine qua non. Now it is evident that as long as there exist separate commonwealths, political units and associations, no one can be a member of two different commonwealths, a citizen of two distinct States. Suppose a Jewish autonmous State is established-the British Cabinet Minister, the Lord Chief Justice, the Judge at the American High Court and the American Ambassador cannot both occupy these high offices in Great Britain and Americaand yet be citizens of the Jewish State ! Such gentlemen will therefore either have to give up their offices or declare that they at least are not citizens of the new Jewish State. I go further. I am a naturalised British subject myself, have been so for the last eighteen years --and yet I have no right to enter the Civil Servicebecause I have committed the mistake not to have been born on the. shores of the British Isles. I may not even be employed to stick on stamps in a Post Office, much less watch others doing it. This is only logic made use of in the interest of the State. But it is equally logical that if by virtue of my British nationality I am enjoying all other rights which are the patrimony of the natural-born Briton-I cannot also remain a citizen of the State (Russia, in my case) to which I previously belonged. It therefore follows that not only can the British Cabinet Minister, the American Judge or Ambassador be subjects of the new Jewish State, but that also all other Jews, ordinary citizens in Great Britain, America, France or Italy must either be subjects of these States or citizens of the new Jewish Commonwealth. The Jews, however, who consider themselves Britons, Americans, Italians, and French, reply that they are claiming for a Jewish State not for themselves,but for the others, those who are anxious to maintain a separate Jewish national existence. The question will therefore arise, will, indeed, be asked by the Council of Nations, and rightly, too: “Who are the others?” “How many of them are there?” Those who are acquainted with the Zionist and Jewish national movement know that hitherto the Zionists in Western Europe have constantly urged for an autonomous JewishState not for themselves, but for “ces pauvres desherites:” the Jews of Russia and Roumania. As soon, therefore, as Russia grants equal rights to her Jews this argument falls to the ground eo ipso. The Jewish national movement will thus be deprived of its strongest argument. The emancipated Russian Jews, just as their co-religionists in the West, will no longer have the reason of persecution to support their Zionism and Jewish nationalism. As a matter of fact, very few emancipated Russian Jews will be ready to follow the call to Zion. The religious Jews will still continue to await the Messiah, whilst the non-religious will be glad to remain where they are. No doubt, there will still remain all over the world many enthusiasts-Jewish nationalists, but these mostly belong to the small coteries of leaders who are working not for themselves, but always altruisticaIly for others. The bulk of Jewry in Russia will no longer trouble about Jewish nationalism, although they will continue to-pray three times a day for the return to Zion. I knew Russian Jewry pretty well. “Nourri dans le serail, j‘en connais ses detours. ” We cannot, however, build a State with a few leaders, we cannot constitute an army with a couple of generals, a dozen of officers, an3 a few dozen second lieutenants; we must also have privates. But let us-ex hypothesi-grant the possibility that there are still hundreds of thousands out of the 13 millions of Jews, who, in spite of equal rights everywhere, still prefer a Jewish autonomous State in Palestine, one must beware of this fact being used as a pretext to jeopardise the rights of those who do not wish to become citizens of the new Jewish State. “Palestine,” wrote Mr. Zangwill in a letter to Mr. Wells, published in the “Daily Chronicle,’’ Nov., 1914, “could only receive and supportthe Jews in small instalments, and as the majority of the thirteen millions must long inhabit their present homes, an offer of ’Palestine, coupled with an aspiration, or worse! a policy for the clearance of other- countries of Jews-would be a trap from which I should do my best to dissuade my fellow-Jews! Nay, more! No bait of Palestine will lessen the insistence of our demand for equal rights in Russia, Roumania, or wherever anti-Semitism drags down civilisation. ” A trap and a bait ! that is exactly what I am afraid of. I can well imagine some members of the Council of Nations holding the following language : You Jews are going to have an autonomous State of your own, say, under British suzerainty, bat whilst this new house of yours is being built and fitted up, you are still here, not as foreigners but enjoying all the rights of citizens in Italy, France, America, Great Britain, Russia, etc., you have still a right to be Cabinet Ministers, members of the Duma, Judges in High Courts, etc. But where is the guarantee that the interests of the Jewish State will not one day, in some dim and distant future, clash with the interests of one State at least to which you actually belong and where you are citizens? To my humble mind it is clear that those who accept for themselves the boon of a Jewish State have eo ipso divested themselves of their present respective nationalities. Now, who are they? The answer can no longer be left in a vague and hazy state. We may be sure that although diplomatists are only human, and their judgment is sometimes warped and hazy, they are very clear-headed and clear-sighted when it is a questionof granting an important, far-reaching concession, a concession which they will look upon as an extremely generous one. But let us again admit that in a moment of extreme generosity the Council of Nations, without asking any questions, will heap gifts upon the Jews and give with both hands. It will endow the Jews at once with two costly gifts, and leave it to them to partake of whichever they choose. They will be offered equal rights all over the world and a State in Palestine: then I am afraid that the position of the Jews all over the world will become somewhat shaky, unless their attitude is indeed, hope clearly defined ab ovo. We are told-and, so-that Poland will be granted an autonomy. Now-what will be the position of the Polish members in the Duma? They cannot be both citizens of the Polish autonomous State and members of the Duma, or of the Council of the Empire. They will, I presume, have to choose between Russian or Polish nationality. And surely the Jews cannot expect to be treated more generously than the Poles or other oppressed nationalities. Consequently, if the Jews are granted both gifts, i.e., equal rights all over the world and a State in Palestine, every individual Jew out of the 13 millions will have to choose clearly and distinctly, if he is not to be constantly twitted with the accusation that he is only a bird of passage in the country of which he is a citizen, and which is only a night-asylum for him. I say that every individual Jew will sooner or later have to choose. He is either a citizen of the new Jewish State, or a subject of the country in which he is dwelling. The days when Zionists or Jewish Nationalists in the West could say-“,It is not for ourselves that we want Zion but for the others” can no longer be admitted, once the movement has emerged from the Ideal and is entering the domain of the Real. But Jest I me should be misunderstood by my fellow-Jews-let hasten to add that, personally, I do not see that the granting of equal rights to the Jews all over the world really excludes the establishment of a Jewish autonomous State on the historic soil of Palestine. For me the Jewish National Movement, the return to Zion, has never been a political but an intellectual, or, better, a cultural, question. Let me refer the reader to my articles on “The Jewish Renaissance,’’ published in the “Jewish World” in 1908. For me the great Jewish ideal, the ideal of the Prophets and of the early Christians, who were Jews walking in the footsteps of the Prophets, is an international ideal, the ideal of justice, mercy and loving kindness. Palestine for me is not to be a political, mighty State, waging wars of conquests and anxious to extend its boundaries, but a centre of Jewish life and culture. ’This spiritual genius of Israel could only be stimulated afresh if it is concentrated on a soil of its own, and in preference on the historic soil of Palestine, where once the cradle of its existence stood. I am glad to notice-and I hope that I understandhim rightly-that Mr. Zangwill expresses a similar view in his “War for the World.” (See pp. 337, 338 and 339.) But my own views concerning the Jewish ideal and the goal which Christian humanity should strive to attain are not being considered in this article. I am only deaIing with things as they are, and am envisaging the future settlement of the Jewish question from the angle of vision of others who do not share my views, and who look upon the political independence of smaller landed nationalities. as the final goal of humanity. In order, therefore, to define the Jewish position at once, give no loophole to wary politicians and diplomatists--and it would be idle to imagine that in the Council of Nations there wiIl be no opponents to a. generous settlement of the Jewish question-the choosing must be made at once. I think it was Mr. Lloyd George who said that “the claims of small nationalities cannot be considered unless they are unanimous. ” If unanimity is a sine qua non, clearness, logic and coherence are much more so. Before approaching the Council of Nations the representatives of the Jews must be able to produce thier mandates, prove that they are speaking in the name of so many of their co-religionists. Why not take the vote of every individual Jew? There would be a few million voters. Committees in all countries where Jews dwell could easily be instituted, and the votes of the Jews would be recorded. The representatives would then be able to come before the Council of Nations and submit their request in the name of so many voters. Some will have voted for a Jewish State and others €or citizenship and equal rights with the nations among whom they dwell. I am fully aware of the fact that many Zionist leaders will frown at such a suggestion, for then they will no longer be able to say vaguely : We claim it for the unknown others; the others will have, declared themselves. It will be a plebiscit, a vox populi, which could no longer be disregarded. It is high time to know clearly the claims of Jewry, of the masses, of the millions, and not consider the vox populi the utterances of a few individuals, as some of them would-be saviours of Jewry, not always in agreement with each other, and sometimes, I am sorry to say, onIy availing themselves of the national movement as a stepping-stone fur their own ambitions, rising by it to fame or notoriety. It is no longer permissible, in our democratic age, to play with the fate of a national unit without consulting all the individuals constituting this national unit. No doubt, allowing €or the bargaining spirit prevalent even in diplomacy, especially when the interests of nations are at stake, some Jewish leaders think that if they ask for two gifts they will at least be granted one, whilst if they only submit one request they may be granted none. This I admit. The Jews have a right to ask both for equal rights all over the worId, and for a separate autonomous Jewish State-but it must be made clear that the claims emanate from the individuals constituting this national group. It must also be made clear that no Jew intends to be at once a member of the new Jewish Commonwealth and enjoy all citizen rights in the country to which he now belongs. I say that the Jewish people all over the world must be consulted as to its wishes, if anything is to be obtained from the Council of Nations which will soon forgather to decide the fate of small nationalities. This idea of consulting the millions of the Jews, of recording their votes, of asking them to choose clearly and definitely brings me to another question, a side issue but intimately connectedwith it. It is the conquest of Palestine by Jewish regiments. This question, however, I shall deal with in a concluding article. Industrial Notes. As I was by no means satisfied with the result of the Congress-not, at any rate, as an expression of Labour opinion-I have been casting round for other utterances of Labour leaders in the hope of finding something of greater value. If I have not, unfortunately, found anything of value, I have at least found something of interest. is useless, by the way, looking for the opinion It of Labour leaders in the Labour Press. The workingclass organs, apparently, cannot afford to pay. In the Harmsworth “Weekly Dispatch” of Sunday, September 10, I find, on the front page, several Labour pronouncements-Mr. G. H. Roberts, M.P., Mr. Alexander Wilkie, M.P., Mr. Will Thorne, M.P., Mr. G. J. Wardle, M.P., Mr Stephen Walsh, M.P., and Mr. J. E Sutton, M.P. All the talents, surely ! They had been asked to give their opinion on the question of Labour after the war. Mr. G. H. Roberts is optimistic, and scorns “the gloomy predictions of the Social Democratic Party.” There is no political group of this name here, unless it has been born within the last fortnight: but the purpose of the remark is soon. clear-Mr. Roberts simply wants to get a few Socialists into trouble by bracketing them with the German party. And what do you think his remedy is? It is certain, he believes, that there will be some dislocation after demobilisation ; “but by carefully prepared arrangements and palliative measures such as insurance and schemes of State work it is ‘possible to get through this transitory period without serious privations to the people and congestion of unemployment.’’ No very brilliant inspiration in that. But Mr. Roberts does not stop there. He is solicitous all round: “The great essential is for the employing and working classes to meet together, with the State exercising watchful care, in order to make the best preparations possible to rehabilitate the State for the ravages wrought to all classes.” *** Now, I swear I have quoted the man’s words exactly as they appear, and if they make nonsense it is not my fault. I can only assume that the “State” which is to exercise “watchful care” is quite a different thing from that which has had “ravages wrought to all classes’’ in it. The former is an administrative entity; the latter is community: pure and simple. The former is distinctly under the control of the employing classes, as the war might have taught anybody with eyes and ears; and the latter simply does not count in comparison. Mr.. Roberts, having made what he doubtless regards as constructive proposals, concludes by saying that he “sees no reason to mistrust the future.” You don’t mistrust the future, of course, when you are a paid M.P. with a Government post into the bargain. But just think of that twaddle as a contribution to a weighty problem! Mr. Wilkie, however, is worse. He is in the ship building trade, he tells us (trade, he says, though he means industry, no doubt), and in that trade he foresees no after-war difficulties. Other trades may be worse off ; therefore : “If need for palliative measures does arise the Government have simply got to put into execution a number of Acts which were passed before the war, such as the Roads Act, under which immediate employment could be found for hundreds of thousands of men in the improvement of roads and dangerous corners, which,, in the past, have been responsible for a large numbers of motoring fatalities. ” It is truly gratifying know that when the Army is disbanded it is to to be set to work in order to make smooth the path of the rich, in more senses than one. I gather from the experiencesof friends of mine at the front that there have been many motoring fatalities in France. “Afforestation on a very extensive scale gabble-gabble-gabble, ’’ continues Mr. Wilkie, *** Mr. Thorne takes “a bright view.” There is to be pressure on our industrial resources in view of the work involved in the re-building of’ the ravished portions of France, Belgium, Russia, and Serbia . . . as if the rebuilding of Russia weren’t going to be done by an industrial country nearer by (when not by the Russians themselves). Walsh is an even greater fool, if that were Mr. possible. He thinks there will be little difficulty because demobilisation will be slow ; and again : “Before the war Labour had not reached its fullest point of productivity, and there cannot be the slightest doubt that the more productive and efficient Labour becomes, the greater the powers of absorption that will be developed. If at first the increase in the productive efficiency is not as great 3s to absorb all available labour, State-found employment will absorb any labour that is left over.” In short, the Labour leaders-there is no question of thiscontemplate the future with the terror we might expect from men who have no ideas and who have consequently no control over a difficult and dangerous situation. The great thing, they say in chorus, as Mr. Gosling insisted at the Congress, is to prevent unemployment-because that, they feel, will at least keep the workmen quiet. That is what Labour is “thinking,” and the spectacle is a sorry one. *** Capital is not acting thus. Lord Rhondda (Mr. D. A. Thomas ; remember him?) has just concluded negotiations whereby the control of the North’s. Navigation Collieries, Ltd., passes to the group of which he is the head. His Lordship spoke about it to the “Sunday Times” (September 10). “Our chief aim,” he said, “is the standardisation, so to speak, of policy, management, and administration Neither the public nor Labour has anything to fear from us.” Qui s’excuse, etc. Lord Rhondda added that he did not think that the growth of great trade combinations should be regarded with anxiety as inimical to the general interest. “On the contrary, it is a natural and healthy development which enables the application of scientific research and experiment to industrial operations on a far wider scale than heretofore, and thus opens the way to a large increase in output. The futility of attempting to arrest the development by legislative enactment was shown in America, where the Sherman Anti-Trust Law has been found very unsatisfactory in working. ” *** I am bound to say that the man who talks like that, and means what he says, is a much more satisfactory sort of person than the fool who suggests that the work of the Army after disbandment is to made roads for Lord Rhondda’s motor-car. Consider that definite threat to the State in the matter of anti-Trust measures. Of course, the Sherman Law failed in the United States, for the simple reason that the capitalists and industrialistswho wanted to throw it overboard proved, through bribery and other means, more powerful than the administrators of the State. Clearly, Lord Rhondda has More power in the English State than Mr. Wilkie or Mr. Will Thorne, and he knows it. It is equally clear that the Labour leaders are at least equally well equipped for making their influence felt on and through the State--that is to say, they have the force of Labour at the back of them, exactly as Lord Rhondda has the force of capital. Only, the capitalist is not usually a coward, and he has brains and shrewdness. What a poor figure the average Labour M.P. cuts incomparison ! We have heard of this coal combine, and the details of it are interesting-very !-but there are other combines of which the public has not heard yet. What is Labour doing? Labour, through its leaders, is doing nothing at all to counteract these moves on the part of capital. These men have not even come up to the Webb standard of State ownership-and “Vorwarts, ” as I shall show in a week or two, has got beyond that. HENRY NORTHBROOK. J. Readers and Writers. SEVERALrecent references to Cobbett sent me back the other day to his “Rural Rides,” which can now be obtained in the “Everyman” series in two volumes. He is quite as good as I left him last, though perhaps he does not deserve what Green says of him, that he was “the greatest tribune the English poor ever possessed.Cobbett had no sufficient appreciation of the ” real enemy of the English poor , and it is safe to say of his projects of reform, as of so many others, that if they could all have been carried, the English poor would have remained the English poor. A much- more lasting effect and testimony to his tribuneship, however, is to be found in his style, which is as near an approach to good spoken English as any writer is ever likely to make. Not, you will understand, to English as spoken by the educated classes; still less to English as spoken by the uneducated. It has, in other words, neither class distinction nor distinction of dialect; but it is what we call plain English. Look at these sentences, for example; and mark how closely they follow speech in both vocabulary and construction : The farmers here, as everywhere else, coinplain most bitterly; but they hang on, like sailors to the masts or hull of a wreck. It (the land system) is staggering about like a sheep with water in the head, turning its pate up on one side, seeming to listen, but it has no hearing; seeming to look, but it has no sight; one day it capers and dances; the next it mopes and seems ready to die. Old dread-death and dread-devil Johnson, that teacher of moping and melancholy! ’If the writings of this timeserving, mean, dastardly old pensioner had got a firm hold of the minds of the people at large, the people would have been bereft of their very souls. The qualities of such writing are hard to define for the very reason that they are so well concealed. There is no appearance of art; and I should fancy that Cobbett never saw the end of the sentence in writing, as we do not in speech, before beginning it. It is writ straight on as we talk straight on. But anybody who thinks it easy to imitate on that account will discover his mistakeupon trial. Cobbett’s style was Cobbett. On the other hand, it would be to fall into no less a mistake to suppose that the acquirement of his style was never any effort to Cobbett himself.. We are told that while in the army he read and got by heart an English grammar which he used to repeat while doing sentry. We know as well that he wrote one of the best English grammars even now in existence. His simplicity, in short, though natural,. had to be maintained and developed. For alas, it is just the natural and the simple that needs the greatest art. *** From “Cloud and Silver,” the new collection of essays by Mr. E. V. Lucas (Methuen, 5s. net), you will not expect more than you have hitherto received : that is to say, a mixture of the gravely and the cheerfully sentimental. In any deeper passion at either end of the scale Mr. Lucas would find himself out of his depth. In the passion of the tragic he is lost for words; and he can only assure us (as he does twice in this volume) that some feeling or other is so intense as to cause him “unbearable pain.” Likewise at the other end he is no less an amateur, as we realise when he tells us that he prefers the “gay nonsense” of Lamb to all the “brilliant bitternesses” in the world. But gay is too distinguished a word to apply to nonsense; and I must politely refuse the use of it for Lamb or Mr. Lucas. The brilliance of bitterness is the essence of gaiety; and not to know this is not to know what gaiety is. The sentimental region inhabited by Mr. Lucas is, however,congenial to some considerable coarseness as well as to some fine shades of feeling. On the one side, in what he calls the essays “designed to increase the homesickness of Englishmen away from home,” he comes perilously near falling under the charge of playing upon our feelings with malice. And on the other side, in essays upon life in the lately enemy-occupied Marne villages, he topples in one instance into sheer brutality or, let us say, into obliviousness of the fact that his readers have any feelings at all. The instance will be found on pp. 19, 20; and I do not think that the brilliantly bitter Swift would have narrated it. *** On the subject of “Laughter in the Trenches,” Mr. Lucas has one or two original ideas which are interesting if not, perhaps, true. Like all of us,-he has been puzzled to discover the cause of the amazing levity displayed by the British rank and file in “this most cruel and terrible of campaigns.” But the reasons he adventures are not to my mind satisfying. Fashion: is one of them. “There is,” he says, “a fashion for facetiousness to-day that did not exist a few years ago,” and its prevalence, he adds, is largely due to the music-hall and theatre. The cinema, I should say, is a more probable cause than the music-hall if the fashion, as Mr. Lucas thinks, is of recent growth. There are qualities in the cinema-notably the absence of any sound of pain and the cheerfulness under difficulties of the actors-that are more in keeping with the phenomenon of British recklessness than any qualities of the music-hall. But is it the fact that British “facetiousness” is of recent appearance? I rather think that it is one of the permanent qualities of the. race, and never more certain to appear than when least expected. Another of the reasons Mr. Lucas offers us qua German, is “the foe himself.” The German, remains, he says, a comic figure to the mind of the British soldier despite his menace; he is still in their But again I doubt whether opinion a sausage-eater. if not the this is really the case. The music-halls, soldiers themselves, bear witness to the fact that the German as a sausage-eater no longer exists; and that the Hun is by no means an object pour rire. Nor is it true, however it may be patriotic at this moment, to affirm that neither of our larger Allies could ever b become an object of ridicule to the British soldier. The Frenchman remains a comic figure upon the musichalland the cinema, even while elsewhere he is heroic. And as for the Rooshians, they are below- and not above the respect of comedy. Both reasons, in short, offered us by Mr. Lucas for the prevalent levity seem to me inadequate. To what, then, is the spirit due? I should say myself to the coincidence of three things : the English character, the sense of the justice of the national cause, and the peril of it. The English are gay in a right tight place. *** For depths and heights of personality unattainable by. our charivarious essayist we must turn to the greater artists. From them, again, for a more immediate approach, we must turn to the mystics. Artists mediate between the soul and God; but the mystic endeavours to make the communion without means, that is, immediately. Not things are the ladder between earth and heaven for the mystic, but mind is; and hence the discipline of contemplation and meditation in the mystic way. “By every good work, however small soever it be,” says Ruysbroek in “ The Adornment of Spiritual Marriage,” now admirably translated into English by C. A. Wynschenk Dom (Dent, 4s. 6d. net), “by every good work which is directed to God with love and with an upright and single intention, we earn a. greater likeness and eternal life in God. A single intention draws together the scattered powers into the unity of the spirit. . . . We rise up out of the grounds. of our single intention and pass through ourselves and go out to meet God without means, and rest in Him in the abyss of simplicity.” Very strange language, is it. not, and somewhat silly to the modern mind? But Ruysbroek was not the “ignorant monk” of Maeterlinck’s superficial essay upon him, but a shrewd as well as a learned man. Nothing could testify more conclusively to his wisdom than his reply to the two Paris priests who came to spy upon his holiness, pretending to inquire of him the means : “You are as holy as you wish to be.” R. H. c. another word. To these in their disapointment I shall seem merely puritanic and finnicky. They will suspect me of concealing my defects in general-and in the Edited by Herbert Lawrence. matter of love in particular-under a pretence of superior taste. All very well, they will say, to pretend that XII-From Acton Reed. men aren’t this and that, and that sex isn’t love, and Hotel -, Shaw isn’t Christ and what-not. The fact is she C--. couldn’t fall in love if she wanted to--And that’s what’s DEAR MR. LAWRENCE,-It is only a few hours since we the matter with her. Voila! a discontented woman, landed, but already I have received and read your letter, jealous of my happier sisters. Others will prepare to which, indeed, is the only pleasant thing I have yet welcome me as a fellow-rebel-Garden Citizen-manseen in a land flowing with gnats and natives. I answer hater-woman-despiser-Bohemian-iconoclast, and so it at once as we move on to-morrow., on; and after my first letter will put down red baize to receive me into their clique. They will look to see me I need not tell you that I am taken all aback by your suggestion. But since you say it would please you to breaking up the happy home and smashing household furniture at every sentence. Feminists in particular, get the letters printed I will say Yes at once without I should think, will expect a champion of votes and seeking about for the thousand and one objections which rights and equalities. How insipid, how spiritless, how certainly exist, and which would lead me to pray you old-fashioned I shall appear to them! How they will No ! long to shake me into love or a temper. She--extraOf course you do not yet know that you will find a home for them at all; and I doubt it, But should you ordinary? She-different from other women? Nonsense ! they will cry. She daren’t say Boo to a Cabinet have ambassadorial influence the editor of your choice Minister. To all these I shall be either not sufficiently will have my sympathy, for his hospitality must needs or not suitably advanced. There will be those, again, be its own reward. Such writing as my letters, it who will think me so far advanced, they will see seeds, seems to me, is bound to fall heavily between the two nay, the whole horrid harvest, of decadence in my very stools of popularity and abuse. They will not be popular; they will not create a succes de scandale. A shrug first letter. And my praise of the corrupt Ibsen will of the shoulders will be their chief reception. And I will be used as conclusive evidence against me. A decadent ,barn and bred ! Ugh ? Pass the fire-tongs,. please ! tell you why. To begin with, readers will not like the But even this class, I flatter myself, I shall disappoint general. assumption (or, rather, fact} on which the letters by being not quite up to its brimstone-level. The are based. They will not be flattered to hear me say fact is I shall disappoint people in print for much the that I think myself different from the rest of them. Of same reasons that I disappoint them in person. I can course no one is like anyone else, they will say-and never live either up or down tu the tests set me. quite properly, too, for of course we are all individuals, You will begin to accuse me of the sin of the novice and therefore different from each other. I never said who cannot imagine but that his writing will create a otherwise. What I also say, however, is that over and sensation of some sort or another, and whose wildest above differing from people in this way I differ from dream is to stand forth at once famous and infamousthem in others as well. And this, I know, will appear a libel action in one hand, a laurel-wreath in the other. in the light of a criticism of them, no matter how often But really you must nip your charge in the bud. For I may assure them of the contrary. It is allowable, of do I not well know that whosoever will be literally course, for a person to be extraordinary in ability, say, or saved must suffer under Pontius Harmsworth and kiss capacity or appearance, provided it is merely in degree. the Mailed fist daily? But seriously-you know I attach But to be extraordinary in kind is to be a freak-for a no value either to the writing or to the matter in my woman at any rate. Thus at the outset I shall be letters. Believe me, the fewer comments made the disqualified in their eyes from passing judgment on more pleased shall I be. So no doubt I shall have no ordinary people and things. Nothing I say will have any cause for displeasure! What, however, I have in fact significance. Why should it? You would not go to a been doing is, I confess, to forearm myself by a little chronic invalid for advice on how to keep well. I forewarning. It is no use denying it. While, for all recognise the strength of the prejudice but not of the I care, people may say what they like of me from some case; for to such as repudiate the criticism of a “freak’’ points of view,. I own I am ridiculously sensitive to I put the question whether they like any better the that particular kind of criticism to which, if any, these They know they do criticism of one of themselves. letters will expose me. The recollection of the fire is too not. What right has he to talk? they at once ask. recent for me not to dread it. He’s no better or wiser than we are! On the same Good-bye, again. You have the address of our grounds, however, I shall, on the other hand, be London offices, and the secretary there will always dismissed by many as a really very ordinary, but most pretentious, young person, assuming a difference in kind (D.V. !) forward letters to our moving address. I hope, however, that you will sat need to trouble yourself to Is it‘ in order to flatter myself with my superiority. write again. The letters are yours. Do precisely what not, they will say, the fashionable thing nowadays for you will with them. That is the feast return I can a woman to think herself extraordinary? Women are make to you for having read them at all. not content to be just women; they must be originals. And marriage will be ordered as a cure for all such Yours sincerely, follies as mine. Marriage would soon knock the ACTON REED. nonsense of her! Really, from the way it is spoken out about, one would think marriage was a sort of patent medicine or perhaps a reformatory-the marriage service a mere reading-over of the rules, I suppose. As By M.B. Oxon. everybody used to recommend boys a good thrashing, so now they recommend women marriage. No wonder PROBABLY Knossos will do more towards the liberation that marriage has become a by-word when the recalcitrants ofHistory fromthe bondage of preconceived ideas than of the family are ordered and bullied into it. ‘any archeological discovery yet made, and the observations Sir Arthur Evans on the ways of life in Chat of Then a number of little criticisms will certainly be ancient city with which fie has been so closely associated born from the contrast between what people will and his deductions therefrom are of very great expect after reading the first letter and what, in fact, they interest. will find. The anticipations will naturally vary with the persons. To enumerate only a few : There will be some The study of Egypt has steadily pushed back the limits of the “historic period,” in order to make room who, I think, will look for something rather piquant, for the recorded facts, to a date which would have especialIy on the subjects of men and women and Love. staggered our fathers, but Egypt differs much in some At least they would call it piquant. I should use A Modern Document. Ancient History. respects from Knossos The life recorded in the Egyptian, pictures is one which, partly by reason of the formal style of Egyptian drawings, and partly because of its “Eastern ” type, which we know changes SO slowly, does not carry on its face a label either of antiquity or modernity. The changes produced by time are so minute that time hardly seems to exist. In the same way, too, professor Petrie’s discoveries, showing as they do the extraordinary workmanship of which the Early Egyptians were capable, and the number of superposed eras, do not force on us the sense of time. For the art of the potter was so long ago crystallised that it needs a keen eye and much knowledge to tell whence any given pot comes, and often its date can only be estimated by knowing the conditions under which it was found. But the accompaniments of life in Knossos are so similar to those among which we now live, and so much in advance of those which prevailed hem 100 years ago, that they give food for thought. It is a very short time since the water supply of London was led through tree-trunk pipes, and drains did not exist, and now we have found that at least 6,000 years ago (for the scientific estimates are always conservative ones) glazed drainpipes were in use ! In fact, this old civilisation gives us material evidence, at any rate, that there was no absolute bar to any of the old civilisations having almost equalled this in which we live on fines which we are accustomed to look on as quite our own. Hence, if we find them showing evidence of very high acquirements in various directions, we should at least bear in mind, when criticising the matters on which they lavished their skill, that perhaps the objectives in what they did, or did not do, and how they did it, may have been different from those which we keep in view, and that our lack of appreciation for them may be in part our own fault, and due to our own lack of understanding of things the utility of which is not so obvious as is that of a drainpipe. The President also referred at length to the early wall paintings which have figured so largely in the discoveries of more recent years, noting that here, too, the time limits had been pushed back and back, and that even IO,OOO years before the most ancient monuments of Egypt and Chaldaea art was far from its infancy. As he said of the women in a rock painting, probably paleolithic: ‘‘We are already a long way from Eve !” And so we probably shall always be while we are taking as measures of antiquity the traits which we note in savage races, without recognising that these are degenerate remnants of civilisations as yet unknown to us, which may have been as great, in their own way, as was the Paleo-Neolithic one, if, indeed, this also was not a degenerate remnant of something earlier. Whether we shall find them when we recognise this is not so certain, for there is always the possibility of that locked cupboard of an Atlantic Continent to be reckoned with, to which so many finger-posts point, even if they are somewhat hard to read. The cautious attitude of Science in the question of dates, as in other matters, is such a valuable asset that it is perhaps foolish to wish for any change. nevertheless there sometimes seem to be incongruities which pass unobserved We admit that the Egyptians, Chaldeans and ancient inhabitants of India were in many ways competent astronomers, competent architects and builders, and possessed of writing which was, even in almost the earliest days with which we are acquainted, employed commonly in business ; many of their “fables” are being verified. Yet when it comes to accepting any of their chronologies we at once refuse. No doubt the periods demanded are often huge, but also, without doubt we are liable to misidentity the happenings referred to and so make their acceptance even more difficult. But it is also, I think, largely because these chronologies are closely connected with their religion, religion being for us in these days an unexact and unpracticalthing. In fact, we are more in touch with the architect who drains a house than me who builds a temple, for the simple reason, that we have no ideas whatever as to the requirements of a temple, except that the roof should be watertight. Our conception of a practical religion would be limited by purely utilitarian bounds; in fact, it would be an ethic not a religion. Hence the idea of a practical religion of which the constitution and life of cosmos, as recorded in astronomy and “history,” were integral and necessary parts, is so foreign as to be quite unacceptable. Therefore, those who did accept it were ignorant and childish, but these same ignorant children built pyramids and painted them with colours which have outlasted the ages. “Through the darkness,” said Sir Arthur, “the lighted torch was carried on.” But we are in danger of forgetting that the burning bough of ancient days has by successive stages passed its flame to an acetylene lamp, which, although it has its merits, has also its defects. Letters from France. VII.-THE DREAM OF GEDDES. In my last letter I left Professor Geddes looking hopefully towards the continuance of cities. I showed that he is a great believer in city-regionalism, which to him is the culmination and perfection of nature-regionalism. Perhaps I should explain that he is a nature-regionalist first. No wonder. For he was born a gardener, and Nature was his first inheritance. After looking at this inheritance for many years, with the piercing eyes of Dante as it were, and touching it with the diviningrod of Darwin the naturalist, he suddenly came into possession of his own and man’s second or civic inheritance. It appears that Ruskin turned his eyes from the one to the other. He led him to museums and great exhibitions, as to a great height overlooking the Promised Land, where, pointing to precious things, he whispered in his ears, “Are you aware what all this display of treasures means? Do you know it is man’s method of collecting and storing specimens of the wealth which his ancestors have buried in cities? Have you thought of what such wealth really consists? Has no one told you that it is the essence of human energy, call it spirit or soul, or what you like? So that in its best form a city is a record of disinterested and impersonal life, and in its worst form an immolation of self ; the suicide of self.” WelI, no sooner was this startling information imparted to the professor than he was off in search of facts to confirm it. Off he went, through all the old cities of Europe, and some of the new. Some of the cities produced evidence of man’s power to transmute energy into spirituality, and some, his ability to trample the soul under foot far the glory of Mammon; in all there lay the seed of individuality which here had blossomed through wisdom, and there had decayed through ignorant neglect. So it was true, then, a good city is the projection of the individualised soul of man. Here was a discovery! Why not make all cities similar projections and set men looking into them as into a mirror, thus to regain a glimpse of pure intelligence, and to lose the path to objective miseries? Hut sad dilemma! Should not the good citizen come first? If a good city is the projection of the citizen’s soul clearly the citizen must have a soul before be can project a good city. What if mankind have lost their sod? Terrible thought ! It cannot be as bad as that. Anyhow, there is everything to gain and nothing to lose by endeavouring to make civilised human beings aware of the existence of a soul, and in such a way that the continuance of good cities will be ensured. It may have been by reasoning in this fashion that professor Geddes arrived at his travelling exhibition, which is primarily an educational affair meant to teach men to copy the noble traditions of past ages rather than to dig things out of themselves. By employing truththe truth of Greek and Middle Age tradition-he fancied it might be possible to break through prevailing error. By so gaining men’s civic confidence while at the same time forcing them to think on civic lines, and enabling those minds which are at the cross-roads of change to perceive new civic ideas and ideals, he hoped to communicate to the human mind a means of attaining a summit not less lofty or spiritual than that reached by the city builders of old. This was one way of preparing citizens to create desirable cities; and not an easy or logical way. One would have thought the gardener and keen observer in Professor Geddes would have shown him how hard and difficult it was. It is always difficult to quicken the soul-stuff in men by tradition, especially tradition obscured by caprice. Ten times more difficult to do so by setting men wandering disconsolately among models where there is little soulstuff to be found, and this little only by the exercise of disciplined observation and judgment. As I may be said to have wandered through the Cities Exhibition forcibly held by the conviction that there had been a growing conspiracy from early times to leave the soul cut of cities, I was indeed conscious of a number of forms which merely served to caricature the finest ones of past ages, contracting under prolonged war and oppression, expanding narrowly under servile peace and their own mischievous force of attraction, and displaying merely our bestial degradation. And I was led naturally to inquire, what was the effect on the soul of the spectator (assuming he had a soul) of these soulless forms ; and whether they could. possibly transmit that quickening influence which they did not contain? So I could not avoid the conclusion that the proper way to prepare citizens to build soulful cities was to take them out of cities for a time and set them in surroundings where there was a great deal of soul-and soul of a self-communicating kind-to be found. Place them in the fields of Nature and then, after they are saturated by the purity, let them, if they desire, renew citybuilding. Squeeze out the world within them. If they desire? This question brings me to Professor Geddes’ most illogical position and a book, and back to my opinion that men are breaking away from cities in a new and illuminating way. The professor has recently written a book, “Cities in Evolution,” published by Williams and Norgate. It is a badly written and in some ways an incoherent book, but it serves its purposeof bringing the cities exhibition, theory up-to-date. And as thus seen, the theory follows the Bible story of the Fall and Redemption of Man. Cities begin (in the exhibition) in the Garden of Eden, and after passing through Hell and Purgatory, end (in the book) where they began. Looking at the exhibition views of Athens, Greece itself, one suspects, was greatly indebted to the Garden of Eden origin for the noblest of its civic manifestations on the Eden-Parnasso-Olympian heights. It contained an aristo-democratic race suited to these heights. Here, then, was the first of the series of significant human shell-growths over gardens which apparently, according to the Geddesian theory, must be for ever begun and re-begun, patched arid cobbled while mankind continues to labour at the Sisyphean rack of false experience; a series which increases in dismalness as the monotony of the rolling eats like a Promethean eagle into the vitals of the labourer. At this point of the explanation the exhibition retires. its place is taken by the book, which contains explanatory matter of sufficient importance to deserve a letter to itself. What it says with regard to the changing order of industrialism amounts, I feel certain, to a positive conception; and this is what is required by certain minds at this period of the world-growth upon which we are now entering. But this positive insight is not altogether new. It has belonged to THE NEW AGE for some time, and in what advanced stage I leave the readers of that paper to decide for themselves. It. is €or them to demonstrate whether psychic truth can only psychically be discerned. But though the matter of the book is not altogether new, its references to the coming economics, and especially the “ passage of money wages to Vital Budget,” are sufficient to satisfy sceptical inquirer that the game of dissipating energieson the lines of individual money gains is played out. If further excuse for this rather prolonged examinationof Professor Geddes’ civic theory is needed it may be found in the fact that the theory itself is occupying attention in France just ROW. So it becomes of importance to ascertain whether France is at the porch of a native idea likely to influence the rebuilding of Belgiumand elsewhere, or on the threshold of an alien one. Whether the Gallic Cock is rising from the theoretic ashes, or only a fully fledged Scotch professor. HUNTLY CARTER. a Tales By C. of Today. E. Bechhofer. XXI.-THE EDUCATION OF HERBERT. LORD CROMER has told us that after the war we shall be too poor to afford any improvement in our elementary educational system. Nevertheless, there will have to be some change in it for the better, that is, for the more efficient, or we shall find ourselves outstripped by the Germans in the race for wealth. The three Rs must go on; where would our industries be, without an assured supply of clerks and superintendents ? discipline, needless to say, must be inculcated into the young mind as diligently as now, though, be it admitted, this is the easiest task of all. No class of sixty or more boys can be maintained at all except by a stern and unrelaxed regimentation. So far, however, as an improvement in kind is concerned, there seems one means only -whereby this may come into being : not by an alteration in the existent and wellnigh perfect curriculum, but by way of a new educational instrument which has as yet received all too scant recognition-the cinema. Who got the shells and the men? The “Times” ! Who exposed the Food Rings and the hutting contracts? The “Daily Mail” ! Who conscribed capital and placed a moratorium on rent? The “Evening News” ! Who was, of course, the first to recognise the importance of the cinema as an educational instrument ? Naturally, Lord Northcliffe, director of the abovementioned popular literature and himself a daring and conventional journalist. We may say without fear of contradiction that it is the influence of Lord Northcliffe, exerted both through his papers and in private conferences, which has led to the newly acquired prestige of the cinema. With such recommendations, and with its undeniably unique opportunities, how can we wonder that the cinema is after the war to be called upon to undertake the higher education of the nation? It appeals to the eye, the mind, the imagination and the soul, all four at once. Could any other thing on earth do more? Herbert was an office-boy in a large and famous city. Life had flung its ripe clusters within his reach, and he had pressed them temperately. Security was his, and, unless he had the mischance to err from the traditional paths of duty, he might look upon the future without a fear of destitution or disgrace. In course of time he would become a junior clerk in the firm for which he worked; further in the mists of the future lay the vague outlines of a senior clerkship. With luck, care and diligence, Herbert might dream of becoming even cashier, or-0 vanity !-junior partner. Reader, do not chide Herbert for his ambitions. Things which seemed even more unlikely to be realised have come ere now to pass. Remember Carnegie ! Remember Wolsey ! Who, prithee, was Piers Adalfranc? What was it that led Herbert to throw up the career opening so rosily before him, to betray the love and trust of his benevolent employer, and to sacrifice a future of respectable striving to an overwhelming lust for excitement and romance ? Cinemas had always exercised a remarkable influence upon Herbert. Judge, then, of his gratification and surprise when, in reading the “Times,” the knowledge was communicated to him that the pictures, beside their functions of amusement and distraction, were henceforth to be valued as, an educative force also. Herbert was much intrigued by this bold suggestion. The more he considered the idea, the more he liked it, and the more he liked it, the more he determined to profit by it. “ By G-, by G-,” cried Herbert at last, “I will, yes, I will ! I will learn from the pictures. As they appoint, so let my future be! Grant me but the strength to abide by my determination !” And, with his twopence in his hand, off ran Herbert to the cinema. Strangely enough, the very first film pictured the life of a faithful clerk-the very type which Herbert aspired with all the warmth of his youthful ardour to become. But alas ! in the very face of retirement and pension, evil days fell upon the white-haired old man, and, falsely accused by his employer’s daughter’s young man’s blackmailing acquaintance, he pined away, fell into a decline and died. True, he was avenged in the end, and the villainous blackmailer received the due punishment of his crime, but what satisfaction was that to him? Herbert felt the scales dropping from his eyes ; his life in the office no longer opened up to him a boundless vista of delight; the thought of dying with a false accusation hanging darkly over his headHerbert burst into sobs and hid his face in his hands. The cinema had done its work only too well. Herbert determined never to return to his employer’s office again. The next picture showed the “Canals of Denmark.” It was followed by “Cowboy Cuthbert, the Pride of the Prairie. ” Cowboy Cuthbert, beside his own innate virtues and ability, was fortunate in the possession of extraordinary luck. When Red Joe, the wicked half-breed, gagged and bound fair Sally, and laid her senseless in the furnace of a momentarily idle locomotive, how on earth could he guess that Cowboy Cuthbert, chasing a runaway steer along the railroad, would be swept from his saddle by the rope of a passing balloon and, falling senseless to the ground, be tossed by the angry. steer straight over the heads of the arriving stokers into the furnace of the very engine wherein Sally lay face to face with an unusual and terrifying death? Herbert might perhaps have decided to become a cowboy, like Cuthbert, had he not an uncle in America whose commentson life there, and its difficulties, warned Herbert that, except for supernaturally fortuned beings like Cowboy Cuthbert, the Wild West has no future. The last film on the programme pictured the life and habits of a comic burglar. Many and curious were the plots of this audacious villain, and plentiful his spoils. Frequently he would be traced to his lair by a clever policeman, but he could always baffle this official by some masterpiece of cunning. At last, however, he was taken red-handed, and the picture ended with his removal to gaol. All through this last film, Herbert sat motionless, ecstatic, all eyes. He felt, nay, he knew that his destinywas being unveiled before him. When he left the theatre, his jaw was set firm; his eyes glistened, and he clenched his fists convulsively. His lot was cast, and he knew his fate ! The office knew him no more; crime became his sole pre-occupation. The next time I saw Herbert, he was standing in the felons’ court, bareheaded, listening dully to the judge’s homily. So much for the cinema as educator! Reading through the foregoing, I observe that readers may perhaps be led into a misunderstanding. Herbert did not become a burglar. No; he joined the police. Views and Reviews. THE NEW JOB. BEFORE the war began we were in the throes of an artistic revolution; and of the many ideas that the Futurists expounded, one, at least, was intelligible. Of the fatal fascination of masterpieces, much was said and may still be written’; and what really emerged from the discussion was the principle that masterpieces should be enjoyed, but not imitated. Unfortunately, the Futurists were the only people who could not be convinced of this conclusion; they wished to make so abrupt a breach with tradition that they could only despise other people’s masterpieces. Not only did they refuse to imitate, they also refused to enjoy, the works of their forbears ; indeed, they turned their backs so resolutely on the past, that it seemed that only those works that were yet to be produced were really admirable or capable of being enjoyed. But their perversity need not perplex us now ; no man who had ever enjoyed a masterpiece could be made less susceptible to its fascination, however widely he might: extend his power of enjoyment. For we sharpen our minds on new works only to look back and discover the new beauty in the old work. He was a mere cynic who said : “When a new book comes out, read an old one” : the proper course would be to read the new one first, and then to discover that what you have seen in it could have been seen in the old one if only you could have lent to it that part of your mind which you gave to the consideration of the new work. “Things are because we see them, and what we see, and how we see it, depends on the Arts that have influenced us. ” That only the trained modern mind can really enjoy the works of the ancients would probably be too violent a statement of the idea; but the fact remains that the judgment of posterity seldom agrees with that of a man’s contemporaries, that, for example, we see everything in “Hamlet,” while the Elizabethans thought “Timon of Athens” the better work. And the more masterpieces we enjoy,. the more surely shall we believe that everything is in everything. But the enjoyment of masterpieces by reading into them what we never got out of them is no justification for imitating them. The Book of Job, as translated in the Authorised Version of the Bible, remains one of the classics of the soul; criticism has played upon its various interpretations until, at last, we see the thing not, as Matthew Arnold would have it, “as in itself it really is,” but as we really see it. And we see the Book of Job, apart from its poetry, as a statement of the great enigma of existence; in the words of work: ArchdeaconLilley, who writes a preface to this “From the very heart of the ancient Hebrew scriptures, the cry of a life bruised by the fundamental injustice of the world-order rises in fearless accusation of the Pourer which directs that order. And that Power in personal presence blesses and approves his accuser, while he rebukes and rejects those who have appeared as the imperturbable apologists of his righteous rule. ” The God of Job would have made short work of Milton, who tried to justify the ways of God to man; and perhaps Milton had an inkling of this, for he called his poem “Paradise Lost.” That enigma remains to perplexus; in spite of Eve and her apple, we do not know right from wrong, we know only what we want or do not want. And the world-order, as we see it, is indifferent even to our challenges; Bradlaugh never called upon God to strike him dead, but Shaw did-but evidently the God to whom he appealed did not understand the eighteenth-century English which Shaw claims to speak. On the other hand, really good people who did not want to die have been killed while on their way to church. The enigma remains ; the conscientious objector, with all his virtues, is dragged to a labour camp, and there dies, while the Prussian criminal, with all the * “ A Modern Job : An Essay in the Problem of Evil.” By Etienne Giran. (The Open Court Co. 2s. 6d. net.) vices, goes to the front and commits every conceivable atrocity (if we may believe the usual interpretation of his nature and the reports of his activities), and is rewarded with the iron Cross. The fundamental injustice of the world-order remains, even in the trivial details of everyday life; and the problem of Job is the everlasting problem. But we may doubt the literary propriety of a restatement of the problem in modern terms but in the original form of dialogue. The thing is so like, and yet so unlike, that the effect produced is that of parody. With the ancient rendering still ringing in our ears, we can only exclaim : “Did Job say that?” when we read : “Rut if God never intervenes, the problem is even more terrible. In that case, we are dealing not with relative but with absolute powerlessness, or else with an irreducible abstention from all action. The dilemma remains unchanged : either God is never able and is utterly powerless, or else He is never willing and his hardness of heart is most revolting.” This language, even the meaningless “irreducible: abstention,’’ would be proper enough to any modern man, but not to a man named Job who is to supersede the poetic figure of the patriarch. A Job who talks of “relative” and absolute,”of “static’’ and “dynamic,” is not Job; and may fairly be told to “Curse God, and die.” Yet if the treatment is wrong, the idea is sound. We do really need at times these re-statements of the old problems, although they seem incapable of ,solution. It enables a writer to summarise the modern contributions to the “consolations of religion,” and to discover that, now as then, they have no power to console. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar in this volume state most of the modern theological ideas. Immanence and transcendence,omnipotence and benevolence, being and becoming, backwards and forwards goes the argument ; the nature of God is as variable as the mood of the interpreter. But none of them recognises that the whole argument is irrelevant, that there really is no consolation in the abstract. To a man who is beggared and bereaved, the real nature of God, even if it could be defined, is of no value; for the source of his grief is not the loss of faith in the idea of God, but the loss of his money and his family. There is no compensation for loss, and it is only in the infinite that there is no less; and all that affliction can teach was said by Nietzsche : “What does not kill me, strengthens me.’’ But the damage done is irreparable; the innocent trust in the goodness of the world-order can never be recovered, and the man usually learns to look more closely to his goods, and remembers that it is only the fool whose “eyes are in the ends of the earth.” M. Giran does not bring his Job to this conclusion, although apparently he recognises that grief is inconsolable argument. But, as Emerson said, “I will by take from you that which you cannot give meyourself”;and the real value of his friends to Job is their presence. He purges himself of his grief at their expense; if they cannot console him, he can curse their God, and feel easier for it. But it is to Zophar, who preaches what he calls “Christian stoicism,” and really asserts that men must make what they desire, that Job says : ‘‘Come and see me to-morrow.’’ I know not if is an intended irony, but when Elihu adds his appendix to their dissertations, and quotes his reading of the riddle of the universe : “Beloved, a new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another” : Job answers never a word. Certainly, the irony of M. Giran is more profound than is that of the author of the original; Job, in this rendering, is not tried by Satan to prove that God really had his allegiance, nor is he rewarded with ‘‘twice as much as he had before.” In this version, Job gets nothing but three debaters and a sunset; and it is the sunset that makes Jab wonder : “Was God, by opening his eyes to the beauty ,of His universe, already restoring to him the very treasures of life that blind circumstance had snatched from his grasp?” It is not likely : the God of this version is not the Lord who giveth and the Lord who taketh away, but “infinite substance,” “intra-atomic energy,’’ and so forth. But the beauty of the sunset was none the less more potent than: all the consolations of religion; and although the enigma of the universe is still an enigma, its beauty may be enjoyed by aIl who have eyes to set?. A. E. R. REVIEWS Hamlet and Macbeth Oppositely Interpretative, By Henry Woodall. (St. Catherine Press. 6d. net.) Mr. Henry Woodall has adopted the very dangerous method of antithesis for his interpretation, dangerous because it tends to over-emphasis and to a rather mechanical opposition of phrases. We get passages like this: “Hamlet is unimaginative. Macbeth is intensely imaginative. Hamlet degrades the loftiest sublimities. Macbeth spiritualises the meanest creatures. Hamlet leaves undone the thing that he ought to have done. Macbeth does the thing that he ought not to have done. And there is no health in either.” There really is no reason why an interpreter should put these two tragedies on a verbal see-saw of this kind, and his assumption that Shakespeare intended that they should be so regarded and placed is, of course, quite unwarrantable, for we should not still be arguing about Shakespeare if there were any definitetrend of tendency in his plays. ’And it is really too simple to suppose that Shakespeare wrote "Hamlet" show a Macbeth without resolution, and then to wrote “Macbeth” to show a Hamlet without restraint. They may thus be interpreted, of course, but Mr. Woodall offers no evidence for his assertion that “Shakespeare designed them to be opposities, and through them to illustrate the dangers that beset a swerving from the true course, whether on the one hand or the other. Macbeth dashes himself against Scylla, Hamlet drifts into Charybdis. ” The sources of artistic inspiration are more remote than the conscious ethical intention that Mr. Woodall discovers in these plays; and we are not justified in assuming that Shakespeare had any conscious intention beyond describing human conduct and human character exactly as he saw it. We can distinguish a contest between his dramatic realism and his verbal dexterity; the dramatic poet was always tending to lapse into lyric poetry, even Hotspur and Othello try to burst into song; but on the whole, his plays are truer tu life than to any intellectual interpretation of it. The fact that Shakespeare has been claimed for almost every profession, from law to medicine, suffices to show that no substantial claim can be made by ethics for an exclusive right to him. None the less, Mr. Woodall’s analysis of Hamlet is more thorough than is usual among critics; Macbeth is more cursorily treated. He does not see Hamlet with Ophelia’s eyes, he argues that “instead of being the exemplar of virtue, Hamlet becomes the prey of vice.” The theme of the play, he insists, is not the crimes of Claudius, but Hamlet’s disloyalty to duty and conscience. Directly the ghost has left him, the “word” that he sets down on his tablets “is not the loyal and energising word ‘Revenge,’ but the untrue, noncommitting ‘Remember me.’ The substitution was an act of moral cowardice, lowering to the high tone. of mind which he had previously evinced. We shall see how this little unworthy leaven that creeps in so unexpectedly, ‘mining all within,’ ‘corrupts the noble substance,’ and how the specious yoke of remembrance, which in a weak moment he had preferred to action, becomes an intolerable burden to Hamlet, who vainly tries to cast it off.” This is not quite a fair representation,for Hamlet does not attempt in the soliloquies to “cast off the voice of remembrance,” but to discover why he cannot do what he plainly wants to do. The problem really lies deeper than Mr. Woodall allows, and his demonstration of Hamlet’s drifting “stage by stage, through self-deceit, delay, and doubt” to denial of the reality of the spirit he has seen is, of course, only a description of the obvious process of degeneration of character. Still, it is truer to the play to show, as Mr. Woodall does, that Hamlet is against all the world than to lapse into Schlegel’s easy explanation that all the world was against Hamlet. He presses his judgment of Hamlet so hardly that, Act by Act, Hamletis seen becoming less and less admirable, until at last even Horatio is represented as being "preparedto make a statement [concerning the deaths in the last Act] about as free from affectionate bias as a constable’s version of a row.” He finds Macbeth a more sympathetic character than Hamlet, and concludes in his antithetical way: “Macbeth’s sin was error. Hamlet’s error was sin.” Germany v, Civilisation. By William Roscoe Thayer. (Canstable. 4s. 6d. net.) This is the usual “case against. Germany” adapted to American conditions. All the popular “atrocities” are here recounted, all the usual diatribes against “materialism, ” against “megalomania, ” against "militarism,”etc., receive here their four hundred millionth expression. Huns and Hohenzollerns, TreitschkeNietzsche-Bernhardi-Wagner, Odin and despotism, Christianity and Democracy, all the old and tried arguments or terms of abuse find here their customary expression. Scratch an American and you find an Allyif he is not a German. Mr. Thayer’s chief argument is that America ought not to thank God for bountiful harvests, or booming trade, or for Safety bulging both its pockets, but ought to abase itself before God and Teddy Roosevelt because President Wilson did not quickly protest against Germany, and has not even now protested in a manner satisfactory to Mr. Thayer. Germany is ‘ ‘Germanising America, ” the “hyphens” are actually taking every opportunity of stating the case for Germany (which is all lies, of course), as fast as America makes munitions the “hyphens” make seditions, and President Wilson stands by and does nothing ! Whereas Mr. Thayer would do unspeakable things if only he were President; he would borrow the Germans’ money and drink their beer, and do everything to convince them that they were a lowdown set of bounders. That is the only way to treat a population that does not live up to the high and pure American ideals of civilisation. Policy of the InternationaI. (Allen and Unwin. 6d. net.) Mr. Fred H. Gorle has here translated an address delivered to an Extraordinary Congress of the Social Democratic Party of Holland by Camille Huysman, the secretary of the International Socialist Bureau ; and also the report of an interview with him that was published in the “Petit Parisian.” M. Huysman denies that the International is dead, asserts that “the Centre has maintained its contact with all the groups.’’ He admits that a meeting of the Bureau is impossible at this moment; the Germans want it, but the French and English do not; and the only thing to be done is to wait until all the affiliated societies agree to meet, and meanwhile to maintain communication with them. Whether it will be possible to get the various societies to agree to reconciliation will depend largely on the terms of peace; it seems doubtful whether they will be able to agree on the terms of peace any more than they were on the question of the war credits; but M. Huysman thinks that the situation is at least hopeful, as the French Party has, for the first time, formulated conditions of a reconciliation with the German Socialist minority. He is convinced that the International is pursuingthe right policy, and insists that only patience and perseverance will bring about agreement between the Socialists of the world. Then they will be able to pass many violently-worded resolutions. The Home Letters from Soldiers. Translated by P. Selver. German [Note.-The following letters were originally published in various German papers. They are arranged here according to the particular aspect of the war with which they deal, and reference is given in each case to the source from which they are derived.] ANTWERP. (7) From an artillery officer to his relatives in Berlin (” Berliner Tageblatt,” October 14). . . . After we bad had nearly a fortnight’s rest from the last fighting, and were getting put out because the Belgian garrison at Antwerp showed so little desire to attack, we received orders on September 9 to set fire by cannonade to a railway bridge and a church spire, from which the Belgians were supposed to be continually observing the movements of our troops. I rode forward, as I had orders to let my squad, on its awn, give the church spire a good peppering. As I galloped out across the line of outposts, to find a suitable spot with a good range, I heard infantry firing at my flank. It was only weak, but, at any rate, it showed that the enemy seemed to be rousing himself from his sleep. As you never know whether a bit of outpost skirmishing may develop into regular fighting, I rode speedily back to the battery. While still a good way off, I could see that the battery was preparing for action. So something was in the wind at last. you may well imagine how glad I was. I was scarcely within hailing distance of the battery than the first lieutenant shouted to me as he hurried away that I was to superintend the firing operations, as he had to be off to his observation post. This, by the way, he had fitted up on a church spire at a distance of 3,000 metres, the top of which we had blown off. Soon came the command to open fire, and things grew lively. About II in the morning I changed over with my Brandenburgers to group firing. Then came a message from our observer : The shots were droppinginto the middle of the enemy’s columns, which were scattering apart and pressing over the railway embankment. Rapid decision: quick firing at a somewhat greater distance. I had previously shouted to the battery that the effects of our firing were god, and that quick adjustment must be made. When the order came for quick firing, you just ought to have seen our sturdy Brandenburgers at work. Like the very deuce! Almost like machine-gun firing, so quickly did the shrapnel burst from the mouthpieces. After ten minutes of this, a message came from the observer : Enemy in full flight, making for behind the railway embankment. A little more group firing at a greater distance, and then an interval. A Belgian volunteer, captured next day, asserted that the people were mown down rank upon rank. Many had thrown away knapsacks and rifles and made a bolt for it. But then the fun started. The enemy’s garrison artillery, which from their fort was in constant telephonic communication with the troops fighting in front of us, immediately opened their heavy fire once more against us. And this time they caught us properly. Straight in the direction for our guns, the enemy’s shells burst a few paces before and behind us, and the petards were roaring about our ears. Lying in a covering trench, we only needed to stretch out a hand to get hold of any petard that came along. I was the last to leave the firing post, and was just standing halfbent, when I heard a deafening crash, and in the same instant a heavy pressure in the neck, which immediately threw me to the ground. As I was tumbling over, I just saw how, ten paces in front of me, a shell hit the observation post of the battery. . . . At the same spot I saw two men fall backwards. I myself felt a dull buzzing in the head. When this unknown power dragged me to the ground, I thought it was all up with me. But after a few seconds my spirits were brisk again, and I scrambled out of the heap of sand which the enemy’s shell had kindly thrown over me as a winding-sheet. I joyfully ascertained that, with the exception of a slight pain in the head, all was well. But round about me things looked bad. The sand covering of our line of trenches had simply been swept away and flung into the trenches themselves by the two bull’s-eve shells which had fallen only ten paces away from each other. Everywhere saw Brandenburgers writhing and scrambling I out. Our first lieutenant, looking pretty upset, came up to me. He had lain beside the observation post. I had supposed him dead for certain. . . . Through the weight of the bursting shell, the heavy gun-carriage of the fifth cannon had been turned topsy-turvy, a wheel shattered to atoms, the shield dented in sideways. Gradually things became quiet again, and after everybody crawled out of the heap of sand we ascertained had that apparently there were no further losses. The enemy, of course, had seen that our battery was fairly and squarely hit, and now directed his whole artillery fire upon us. We were absolutely overwhelmed with howitzer and gun batteries. As soon as even one single man showed himself from behind the covering, the ,enemy’s fire became intenser, and we therefore had to wait till darkness came on. Fortunately that did not take long. But our position was getting more critical still, for suddenly an N.C.O. came running up breathless to tell us that through their severe losses the infantry were compelled to change their position in front of us. You can picture our state of mind! We could not doubt the accuracy of this message, as suddenly the infantry fire grew weaker and weaker, and finally ceased altogether. But the artillery went on potting us all the more attentively. We now had to reckon with the possibility that the enemy would push forward towards our position, and in that case our guns would be in the greatest danger. We cannot carry these heavy things across our shoulders, and, if the infantry deserts us at a critical point in the fighting, then there is only one thing for a German artilleryman to do--out with the revolver and die surely, but honourably. For no German soldier will desert his gun! So with the tail of the gun carriage on our shoulders . . . out of cover we went. It was hard work, doubly hard under the artillery fire, the shrapnel from which spat sheaves of flame over our heads as it burst, but which, thank Heaven, did not hit. And then the guns were dragged without cover, one by one, to the limbers. Only my good fifth gun carriage had to stay where it was. It had been mortally hit, and was incapable of movement. Quickly I had the closing apparatus and the panorama telescope removed, so that the secrets of its construction should not fall into the hands of the enemy, and then with heavy hearts we had to leave it, silently hoping that we should be able to fetch it next day. Meanwhile the infantry fire (artillery?) had also become weaker, and we therefore fetched our munition wagons back with the limbers. We effected our change of position in pouring rain, and early the following morning we went back 500 yards to a fresh firing position: Before that, I fetched away my battered gun carriage, which, with the help of a reserve wheel, we managed to make at least capable of transport. Of course, it is of no further use for fighting, and has long been replaced. The other guns were also repaired, and on the next afternoon all our guns were in fighting trim again. . . . The battery was congratulated on its smart performance by the brigadier and the regimental commander. Recommendations for distinctions have, of course, also been made. My own name has been given in for the Iron Cross. I hope something will come of it. (8) Account of the storming of Fort Wavres-St. Catherine (“ Frankfurter Zeitung,” October 16). Since yesterday, October 4, we have been in Malines, after we had captured the Fort du Chemin. We were again badly exposed to the enemy’s artillery fire, but our artillery also blazed away vigorously, and when and where an enemy battery was revealed, they soon got rid of it with well-aimed shots. The fort belongs to the first great belt of strongholds around Antwerp. The separate forts are then bound together by great wire entanglements. Here and there are fortified artillery stations and trenches, and whatever other means of fortification there are, such as mines, pitfalls, etc. Our job was to storm them. Of course, we were heavily shelled from the forts, but our artillery blazed away into them thoroughly. . . . On the in the evening, when we had stormed the first wire entanglement, a shell dropped about 15 metres in front of our group. We were just lying covered in a trench, and when we stood up we were plastered’ all over with filth. But nothing happened to us. The whole night we lay outsideand dug ourselves in as best we could, always under fire of the enemy. We broke through both wire entanglements and took possession of the village Wavres-St. Catherine on the railway line Malines-Antwerp. Then we went for the fort that lies 500 yards behind the village. With a rush we went on in front of the village to within 400 metres of the fort; there we took up a position and immediately started a large trench. Over us meanwhile our shells were continually roaring into the fort, often three or four at once, with a loud noise like thunder, so that the filth and water splashed up high in the air. A gruesome, horrible. spectacle, if you think as a human being while it lasts; but you don’t. You have rather an ardent feeling of joy and delight at having all that whistling, crashing, bellowing, and blazing going on around you. When the garrison of the fort had communicated our position to the Belgian artillery, Belgian shells and shrapnel came up like lightning. the The shells kept on dropping 50, 100, zoo yards before and behind us. None of us was hit, but of the infantry lying beside us three men were killed and a few wounded. Soon our artillery had picked out the enemy’s, and then we heard the German shells whistling above us, on to the enemy’s artillery station, and the firing stopped at once, for our. artillery shoots magnificently . . . . In the night we were to storm the fort, but it was postponed till the next morning. In this way we were saved the storming, for on the next morning the gang had cleared out. At 9.30 the German flag of war was fluttering from the fort. Since then we have returned to Malines, and are to have a few days’ rest; but probably we shall leave here again to-day. We shall certainly still remain in reserve, but closer behind the fighting troops. (9) Capture of Fort Koningshoyct (“ Berliner Anzeiger,” October 21). Lokal- Ever since the end of September, the latest Fort Koningshoyct, which was only completed in 1908, had been stubbornly attacked by us. But when, after a violent bombardment of the fort by the Austrian motor batteries (30.5 calibre), it became too hot for the Belgians, they attempted a sortie on October I, which, however, was splendidly repulsed by us. On October 2, the fort was fired on by Krupp’s latest 42-centimetre gun. Orders were given that the artillery fire was to cease from 5 to 7 in the evening. I was entrusted with the honourable task of taking a patrol during this period and finding out the state of things in the fort. From my squad I chose six volunteers, all good, brave, dare-devil fellows, and off we went. Until we had got past our front line of outposts nothing was to be feared, but it was then that our hardest work began. We went on through hedges, ditches, small patches of wood, up to the foremost edge of a little thicket. From there we had an open track of 800 yards to the fort. Through my glass I saw the armoured domes of the fort gleam in the evening sun; but that was no good to me. I had to go on farther if I was to report anything. So we crept forward again upon our stomachs along the level of the rising ground and through a wet ditch to within about 400 yards. On the way we destroyed seven range indicators, which consist of white discs with red stripes on them, b merely throwing them over. Through my glass I could observe the work our heavy artillery had done. Holes of huge size had been scraped up; they were simply indescribable. The whole fort, however, seemed as if deserted, but we did not like the look of the armoured domes. There was nothing for it-we had to keep on. So we crept farther on, till we reached a steep trench parapet. This trench in front of the fort is about 50 yards wide. Now we could perceive that there were no signs of movement in the fort. So they had shifted out of it! Of course, we now went round the fort, till we came to the entrance at the back. Very cautiously we went across the bridge into the interior. What we saw was horrible. A hundred and forty fallen soldiers, French as well, lay around. Everything else had disappeared. It is impossible to describe the sight. I shall never forget it. There was no time to stop and consider. I took a bicycle which had been left behind there, and rode at full speed back to the major, for at 7 o’clock the artillery fire was to begin again. I was greeted with cheers when I informed Major von Jacobi about it. Dear parents, I have not yet received the Iron Cross, but when these lines are in your hands you will be able to say that your son has honourably gained it, for I shall get it to-day or to-morrow. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. THE CONTROL OF INDUSTRY. Sir,-the writer of the “ Notes of the Week ” in your issue of the 14th instant rightly condemned the sort of control that Labour must exercise in industry, as set forth in the presidential address delivered at the Trade Union Congress, and it is difficult to understand how Mr. Robert Williams arrived at the conclusion that Mr. Gosling “ came suspiciously near to the espousal of Guild Socialism.” In view, however, of the statement of your contributor, Mr. Northbrook, that the Congress calmly accepted the principle thus enunciated, it is, I think, only fair to point out that the general secretary of the Railway Clerks’ Association protested against such limited control, and in advocating the claim of the workers to a share in the management of the railway system and a real voice in the control of the conditions of their life and work emphasised the fact that he did not know of anything right through the railway industry that did not affect the workers. Further, the resolution containing this claim was passed by the Congress. The Railway Clerks’ Association has not endorsed the full principles of National Guilds, although some of its members are ardent Guildsmen (a resolution in favour of National Guilds should have been moved at the last annual conference, but was not reached, owing to lack of time), but for several years it has insisted that no scheme of nationalisation will be satisfactory unless adequate representation on the board of management is given to the workers. It is, perhaps, only fitting that an association which, in the words of the secretary of one of the largest railway companies, is “ a trade union of the managing and clerical staff . . . an association which recruits its members alike from men whose duties are of a purely routine character and those who are engaged on higher-grade work or who occupy positions in managing offices,” should lay stress on the claim of the workers to a full share in the management of the railways. As a matter of fact, it is easier to convince railway clerks of the justice of this claim than of the necessity for forming a railway guild, or even linking up with the other railway trade unions. Certainly the idea of amalgamation with the National Union of Railwaymen is spreading, but there are still many lions in their path. The vote which the N.U.R. delegates at the Trade Union Congress gave in support of the attempt of the Yorkshire miners to prevent the Yorkshire deputies from affiliating to the Congress has not made the task of the advocates of industrial unionism any easier. If the deputies are part of the management (“ gaffers’ men ”), so are railway clerks, and the adverse rote given by the N.U.R. delegates indicates that they do not fully accept the principles of industrial unionisin for which they nominally stand. I do not presume to offer encouragement to the writers of THE NEW AGE, but I may at least say that many railway clerks look on the mission of the paper as something greater than merely enabling amateur gardeners like Mr. H. Richards to preserve their sanity. F. W. DALLEY. *** THE WAR DEBT. Sir,--I find amongst former Free Traders a rather general misapprehension as to the economic results of a generation of Free Trade and the political situation for which a development of materialism, due possibly to communal prosperity under a Free Trade regime, may or may not be responsible. I think the question is capable of being defined clearly and concisely, but I am not competentto do so in writing, and still less able to deal with the matter with the irrelevancies of conversational arguments. New formulae will have to be established to meet such a violent economic upheaval and its consequences. What will the war cost ? Ten thousand millions ? How are the countries to stand the doubling, or more, of their ante-war Budgets? It is difficult to foresee anything but starvation and repudiation ahead; but there are so many factors to consider and so many that are uncertain, and then, also, such absolute indifference to anything but the immediate present in the minds of most of us. that it seems that we are bound to muddle along in the dark. H. S. FERNAU. *** “THE NEW AGE.” sir,-I do not know who Mr. H. Richards is, but I strongly deplore his unfortunate amendment to your ‘‘Notes “ upon the odds against which. would-be emancipators of Labour must fight. He says. that Labour itself is the greatest obstacle, and thereby begs $he whole question. It is precisely the ‘‘ astounding, permanent, and ineradicable stupidity of the workers themselves about everything that concerns their own emancipation ” that makes it the difficult problem it is. But what Mr. Richards does not seem to realise at all is that, if Labour was not the simple, good-hearted, “ stupid ” thing it is, and spent its time in endeavouring to eradicate its stupidity instead of working incessantly, we superior gentry who now have time for ideas would probably starve. Mr. Richards must not blame Labour His thanks are largely due to Labour that he, and we, can enjoy “ the occasional whiffs of wisdom we obtain from a paper like yours..” I am glad to notice in last week’s “Notes” your attack is directed against the Labour leaders that Mr. Richards would like to ignore. They are precisely the ones who matter most, and who have proved themselves incompetent to make the best use of the leisure afforded them by their sweated brethren. I do not know if Mr. Richards, like myself, has ever belonged to the skilled salariat. If he has, he must have seen that this is the most potent factor in the emancipation of LabourI am of the opinion that, with few exceptions, the true leaders of Labour are not to be found in the ranks of Labour. It is to the skilled salariat that Labour must look for its natural leaders and win them over. Or, I would prefer to say, that the skilled salariat has got to realise that its real interest lies with Labour, and not with capitalistic employers of Labour. Unfortunately, the skilled salariat continues its kow-tow to the nationally incompetent wage-slave masters, and for the rest contents itself with ideas which it leaves to others to put into practice. No, Sir; the greatest obstacle in the emancipation of Labour lies, as you yourself are clearly aware, with the leaders of Labour. One could only wish that you would as clearly show that Mr. Richards is not the only one who little knows how much the establishment of National Guilds hangs upon this belated realisation of the skilled salariat, to come forward boldly and assume its definite and natural responsibility, in a practical manner. T. c. *** GERMANY AND CHRISTIANITY. Sir,-In your issue of June I, S. Verdad writes : “This Germany is the Germany that has deliberately cut herself from the classical tradition on which the rest of Europe has been built up; and until she submits to the common European tradition she will never be a settled member of the European family.” Again : “ German Christianity must be placed below the traditional Christianity of Europe. ” What this traditional Christianity is, S. Verdad will never attempt to explain without involving himself in greater contradictions than I myself in the course of the few following generalisations. I deny his statement, and substitute that the ruling and military caste of Germany has now cut itself off from Protestantism, which for the public benefit cut itself off from the “ traditional ” Christianity of Europe, understanding here by “ tradition ” that clericalism which by its inhumanity cut itself from Christianity by altering this religion of the heart to another of form and ritual. Christianity, no question, has its own tradition which began long before the Roman one. Its roots are in ancient India; it was carried on by the Neo-Platonists, Plotinus, the German mystics, by our own William Law, and in the latest instance by I,.’ Oliphant. It aims at an inner interpretation of what people so loosely call “God.” It ever was anti- Judaic and anti-formal. The achievement of German philosophy and art is a religion that does not constantly remind us of individual supremacy. Clericalism is always bound up with this. That the military power of Germany has taken its own way to depart from the democratic idealism fostered specially by German art and German philosophy, solely conformable with a true Protestantism, means to say that German power has developed on an opposite line to its own philosophy and to its own art. Really, this brings the military power more into harmony than into disagreement with European tradition. The same principle of external power at any cost to humanity underlies both. Everyone being individually the better of his own form of religion, S. Verdad may speak for himself, but I do not take in THE NEW AGE to be reminded that the future welfare of Britain is dependent on a reversion to European tradition, or, without mention of its name, to Roman Catholicism. What lies before the modern democrat is a development on the line of German philosophy and German art which does not aid and abet any form of religion out of conformity with the still untested power of objective reason. Were I, however, to make one single attempt to justify a theory of Protestantism in detail, I should involve myself in having to smooth over individual differences and shortcomings, because the most scrupulous thinker still remains at the small mercy of experience, so long, that is to say, as the fundamental psychological cleavage is not made and adhered to, which once and for all gives Protestantism its own ideal. That ever this ideal offers itself as similar to the clerical one can arise solely from the apparently irremediable misuse of language. This allows of a specific name, such as Christianity, being still identified with its disruptive qualifications, namely “ historical ” or “ traditional.” Pray, at what point of departure has the European history or tradition of Christianity finally supplanted the original religion ? The history may subsequently disallow of any moral or even logical claim to be associated with the original noun. A religion which started with its own antecedent history and tradition will require a most irrational force to bring it into line with a radically divergent history and tradition. Compare now Christianity’s own antecedent tradition with that subsequent European history which morally does not differ one bit from the horrors of German militarism. German philosophy and German art have so far developed the true Protestant Christianity, and any further development is dependent on the free intensification of consciousness devoid of religious hypocrisy. There must be a consistent theory for Protestantism and, if reason alone is identical with theory, clericalisin is abandoned to dogma. In this same issue you write of “ the damnable Press.” Well, it is deliberately hushing up that side of German thought which is antagonistic to all of this brutality, whose name is historically as much clericalism as military. The real fact, concealed by no hypocrisy, is that our own legal and capitalistic Protestantism acquiesces in this murderous policy, only from the side of British intellectual weakness, not froin that of German wilful strength. Let us rather emulate German intellectual strength, and abandon our intellectual weakness. DAVID IRVINE. *** Louvain Sir,-The literature upon the subject of Louvain is now so voluminous that there is small excuse for anyone to be ignorant about it. Yet the pacifist Press of this countryis so utterly biased and pro-German, it believes anythingfrom a German source, and disbelieves anything from an allied source, that I fear the letters of German soldiers will be quoted as extenuation of the inisdeeds of German militarism. Yet even these letters bear on them the impressofunreliability. The writer on the Louvain outrage tells us that “ witnesses came forward who had plainly seen the flash of firing from the surrounding buildings and windows.” Yet he goes on to say ‘‘ a dreadful rage seized the thousands of soldiers herded together in Louvain.” And then “ every house was occupied by disguised Belgian soldiers, and several hundreds were at once made fast.” This latter statement, as the former, is quite untrue. The outrage occurred on the night of August 25. Louvain had been in the occupation of the Germans since the 19th. Is it necessary to add much more ? One of the best accounts of the happenings at Louvain is given in “ The Germans at Louvain,” price 3d. (Hodder and Stoughton). The writer, who was through it all, says : ‘‘ We saw no hostile acts by any civilian against the hostile troops . . . we interrogated hundreds of our fellow-citizens ; like ourselves, hone of them had ever seen a civilian fire on the Germans. ‘‘ But German soldiers were seen to fire from houses in their occupation, or into which they had intruded. ‘‘ Groups of. German soldiers were also seen to fire upon each other, misled, no doubt, by the darkness in the streets and public places. “ Nowhere, neither in any house nor in any church, did the Germans find any deposit of arms. . . . Finally, for anyone who had seen Louvain between August 19 and 25, the idea that the population would risk an attack against the German army, whose formidable might had been displayed for eight days before the eyes of all, is mere folly.” One other extract is worth quoting, since it throws a vivid light on the German soldier’s letter : “ Belgians and Germans were fighting on the 25th on the outskirts of the city. Towards evening the alarm was given to the German garrison, and then soldiers and wagons returned in disorder froin the direction of Malines. At this moment it was already dark. Shots were heard. The German soldiers in the town imagined, some that the enemy was coining, others that the civilians were beginning an attack. The former fired at their own comrades, thinking they were Belgian or French soldiers ; the others riddled the fronts of the houses with bullets.” The letters are interesting to show how German public opinion is created, but as historical documents they are obviously almost worthless. According to the official Belgian report of the 210 civilians killed, 14 were under 18, 83 were 40 or over, 29 were 60 or over, and II were 70 or over. Of the 210, 24 were females, When the bodies were exhumed, the Dutch paper ‘‘ De Tyd ” reports that Colonel Lubbert said to the acting burgomaster, “Such an affair is incomprehensible, when one remembers how well our people are educated ’’ ; and another German officer remarked, ‘‘ I am glad I was not in Louvain.” The deeper the investigation the worse is Germany’s case. FRED H. GORLE. *** A NEW MOON. Sir,-It has been proved, I think, that the moon is our surest Zeppelin defence. Could not our scientists invent a perpetual moon by means of concentrating light on to a reflector? I am not an inventor, bowel-er, and do not myself pretend to have the answer to my question. Is it moonshine ? C. K. *** THE PURPOSE OF EDUCATION. Sir,-I have been reading “ R. H. C.” and ‘‘ A. E. R.” and Professor Emile Boutroux. How we gather at the river! May “ R. H. C.” forgive me if I, too, commend the latter to your readers’ attention. I do not hope to trespass; only, in a letter as a preface to a little book on “The Purpose of Education : An Examination of the Education Problem in the Light of Recent Psychological Research,” by St. George Lane Fox Pitt, Professor Boutroux has written : “Let us not fear, then, to affirm that the essential object of education, particularly at the present time, is the reconciliation of science, which makes us know the action of the environment or of things on the human consciousness, with religion which gives to our inner dispositions their highest and most beautiful form. Instinct and science are capable of themselves of contributing greatly to this reconciliation. But the work is the supreme and the essential function of reason, in whose regard whatever is, has, as Aristotle has said, its principlein the intimate unity of what is supreme, both as intelligible and as desirable. ” Men and Things! Science and the Soul! The Professor aparagraph! How we gather at the river ! in G. O. KAYE. *** THE ORGANISATION OF THE CINEMA. Sir,--Undoubtedly the Cinema is one of the greatest Capitalist productions of the age. And it is strange that, in view of the coining subjugation of wage-slaves and establishment of the Servile State in England, it has not been more profitably utilised or more methodically exploited. For certain it is that the Cinema is a tool of considerable importance; and it is destined to play a great part in the serf and Capitalist society of the future. Rut as it is necessary, in order to extract from any commodity the maximum profit at the minimum cost, that that commoditybe organised (as witness the commodity, labour), it is with this fact in mind that I venture to suggest the following scheme for the organisation of the Cinema. Primarily, the control of the Cinema must be transferred froin private to public Capitalists; in other words, the Cinema must be nationalised (consider, also, the psychological of such a step). The advantages of State effect ownership of--anything-must be so fresh in the minds of our rulers, from the examples offered by the recent nationalisation of railways, armaments, etc., as to need no reiteration. Principally, the element of competition is eliminated and overlapping is prevented. Further than that, the public is deluded into thinking that its money goes to the State. To the agenda and curricula already presented by our hyphenated producers I hare nothing to object. As the logical complement (or extension) of the Press, which thrives upon sensation and sentiment, it is only right that these same means be adopted pictorially-in the use of the Cinema-to appeal to the mob psychology. There are certain emendations in the curricula, however, which may be advantageously inserted when dealing with serfs, and which will appear more clearly from the following examples : “The Happy Miners” presents a picture of South Wales miners at work, exerting all their power to produce the maximum quantity of profits for their masters. Perspirationpouring from their brows, yet happy, contented smiles on their faces all the while. Here pathetic little drama may be interwoven in plot. (Attending picture palaces would, of course, be compulsory under Servile State.) The State appeals to the miners to work continuously day and night for three months, as our foreign market for Chewing Gum (the home production of which was only made possible at all through the introduction of Protection) is in imminent danger. Miners’ patriotic response to their country’s call. For the edification of the insolent, an incident may here be introduced portraying the patriot-workers flaying a dissenter. Finale. As a reward of their patriotism miners receive at end of three months tin buttons with the word PATRIOT engraved thereon in blue and gold letters. Film closes on miners, with picks in hand, singing the National Anthem. “ God’s Revenge ; or, The Destruction of Tartary,” shows the awful fruits of sedition, revolution, etc., exemplified the terrible history of Tartary. by How, when that country was in the throes of an industrial revolution in the year 1916, God punished the rebels with fire and brimstone (use Dante’s “Inferno,” which is already filmed for this part); and how Jesus appeared in a vision to the rulers and Capitalists of that land, and bade them follow Him to the East. These examples couId easily be multiplied, but they will suffice to show the further benefits accruing from the organisation of the Cinema. Again, the Cinema will be found useful (even in its present state, but much more so when organised) to the Capitalists’ henchmen. Mr. Selver, in his “ Short Cuts to Literary Success,” has shown, conclusively I should think., how an aspirant to literary fame (or boodle, which is much the same thing) may, without the least learning or knowledge, become an author. There are, however, difficulties which even his ingenious suggestions cannot wholly overcome, which by means of the Cinema can be overcome far more easily, and which through this medium cannot fail to produce better results. Thus, when our insular author wishes to describe the plains of Central America, the vineyards and orange groves of Spain, the Desert of Sahara, the veldts of South Africa (or any other region of the world outside ‘Grub Street), and the customs and modes of living of the various peoples inhabiting these places (and Mr. Selver cannot provide his aspirants with imagination), what could be more simple than to look up an official State Cinema Catalogue, with which he would, when he entered his profession, be provided, to note the number or locality of the picture palace in which the film he is interested in is being shown, and to visit that picture palace (thereby combining business and pleasure) with pencil and notebook. Again, if our author be a bantam, a scavenger, or a railway guard, and he has cause in his novel or “ memoirs ” to describe life among the aristocracy or the Lords of Creation (of which, being hut a promoted serf, he could have no idea), there is his remedy at hand. The drawing-room, the furniture, the lounge, the-lackeys, and every other detail his description may comprise. There are; of course, many other uses, moral, social, religious, and political, to which an Organised Cinema System could be put ; but the present must serve to show the expediency of such a measure, and (what cannot be done too much) to emphasise the value of organisation. (Rifleman) C. S. D. *** THE NEW DRAMA. Sir,-When I wrote in an evening paper, the other day, that my dramatic work-had been rejected a hundred times, doubtless the majority of readers thought I was the statement pulling the editor’s leg. Unfortunately was only too true. Getting a play of ideas produced in England is a bigger job than winning a European war. Originality is still the greatest crime in England. Yet I believe the time is ripe for a new dramatic renaissance, though the managers are not. I don’t say that theatrical managers are much more idea-proof than editors. Intellectually, England is asleep. It was before the war, and Armageddon has made no difference. The truest thing that Mr. Bernard Shaw ever wrote was that there can be no new drama without a new philosophy. My ‘dramatic philosophy is briefly this : I substitute the clash of groups for the clash of individuals. Instead of making two men quarrel over a woman, I make Hampstead and Islington fight for the supremacy of North London, Ramsgate and Margate for the supremacy of the coast, and Producers and Consumers for economic supremacy. The mathematical possibilities of dramatic sex combinations were exhausted long ago. But municipal and other group combinations are an entirely new field in England. In London you have 29 cities all jumbled up together, and mostly with artificial boundaries. Some are progressing; others are not. In short, London is a Little Europe, and its dramatic possibilities are boundless. A city provides the same sort of dramatic problem as a nation; but it is much safer to deal with cities than nations. I believe that Mr. G. K. Chesterton wrote a farcical book about the battle of London boroughs. But my plays are not Chestertonian farces. I use my head to think with, not to stand on. I’m the greatest revolutionary of modern times, because I make a speciality of sanity, whereas all recent Continental geniuses have had a screw loose somewhere. And we need not confine ourselves to London. I should like to see every town in Britain, from Inverness to Bournemouth, from Margate to Falmouth, self-conscious and proud of itself, and striving to become the top city of the world-a new Bethlehem, a new Jerusalem, a new Athens. This movement, which I call “ Civiculture,” is almost as good as a new religion. It has all the advantages of war without the disadvantages. Most socialistic Utopias ignore the elements of egotism and rivalry, and so they fail. Civiculture includes both. It stands for all the forces that go to make urban life picturesque and exhilarating. One of the fundamental causes of war is the dull grey monotony of town life. Civiculture would partly remedy this. It is really a form of Guild Socialism. There is a philosophic justification- for Guild Socialism which I have never yet seen expounded. Every normal man is a bit of an egotist; he likes to have a finger in the pie of government. As the United Kingdom is now practically ruled by the Cabinet, there is not much chance for the average man. But Civiculture and Guild Socialisin would allow practically every sane man and woman who-desired it to help run their own trade, profession, science, hobby, or art. Group Socialisin now holds the field in the world of ideas, and I have endeavoured to dramatise it. And, of course, all my work is saturated with Darwinism. Evolution was the biggest idea of the nineteenth century, but there is no evidence on the contemporary British stage that Darwin ever lived. But that is the supreme difference between Shakespeare and ourselves : he regarded the world as a static institution, while we regard it is a dynamic institution. So far, my reward has been snubs, ridicule and silent contempt. That is how England encourages men to do their best. That is how she is going to fight German scientific organisation. The only thing the State does for the drama is to pay an official a year to prevent playwrights thinking. Just as if there were any need for that! Every West End theatre ought to have written over its main portal, “Abandon thought, all ye who enter here.” The Incorporated Stage Society is even more conservative than the average commercial manager. It picks out all the morbid sexual stuff it can find, and calls it great art. It has always been dominated by Ibsen. But. Ibsen is already obsolete. “Ghosts” is as old as the Bible, which tells us that the children have to suffer for their parents’ sins. This is not always true. Dr. Stockmann is a credulous fool who believes that the shareholders of the Baths will be delighted to be ruined. Besides, in England, we no more believe in the infallibility of doctors than of parsons. Nora in the “ Doll’s House ” represents nobody but herself. The great problem for women after the war wilI be to capture men, not to run away from them. All Ibsen could do was to ask questions, and any fool can do that. Messrs. Bernard Shaw and William Archer overrated him almost as much as the average man overrates Shakespeare. Artistic movements are like political movements in one respect: if they do not attract the normal citizen, they are not very effective. Another twenty years of our presentbrainless amusements will ruin England by destroying all sense of reality, responsibility, and ambition in the masses. Three hundred years after Shakespeare’s death the most popular British dramatist is Charlie Chaplin. Poor old England! WM, MARGRIE,JUN. THE “ At least they cannot accuse CONTRACTOR. war attractive by making it cheap.” me of making