THE MAGAZINES.

SIR FRANCIS CHANNING in his paper on "Mr. Gladstone and the Crisis of 1909 " in the Nineteenth Century is chiefly concerned to prove that "the general principles of the Free-trade Budget of to-day have their natural and logical forerunners in the two great financial schemes of 1853 and 1860 just as much as in the great Finance Bill of Sir William Harcourt in 1894," and that Mr. Gladstone, as a loyal Constitutionalist, would have fought this Constitu- tional revolution to the death. We have not space to follow Sir Francis Channing's argument step by step, but may note that be discovers the nucleus of the Lloyd-Georgian gospel in Mr. Gladstone's master-stroke—in the Budget of 1853—of extending the principle of Legacy-duty on personal property to succession to landed property. At the same time, Sir Francis Charming, always a fair-minded and courteous disputant, as readers of the Spectator will readily acknowledge, admits that " you can take no man out of his own time and atmosphere and assume that under other conditions he would be exactly what he was." Mr. Glad- stone might have sanctioned Lloyd-Georgian theories. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that he could ever have sanctioned Lloyd-Georgian methods.—Sir Roper Lethbridge devotes fourteen pages to indicating the soundness of Lord Beaconsfield's position as a Tariff Reformer. We have searched the article in vain for any reference to or explana-. tion of Lord Beaconsfield's unfortunate remark that " Protection was not only dead but damned."—Colonel Pilkington, starting with the assumption that Irishmen of all parties have more confidence in the Conservatives than the Liberals, urges on the former, should they triumph at the polls, to seize the opportunity of settling the Irish question on the Devolutionist lines sketched by Lord

Macdonnell in a memorandum addressed to the executives of the Irish Reform Association and the Imperial Home-Rule Association. He admits the existence of two serious obstacles in the way of Irish reform : the power of the priests, and the domination of that " wholly immoral agency," the United Irish League. To counteract the latter, the more serious danger, the Irish character must be disciplined by the grant of Devolution. The article strikes us as well-meaning rather than convincing.

M. Adam Nowicki, writing from Vienna, traces a curious parallel between the policy of expansion pursued with disastrous consequences by Poland in the eighteenth century,

and that of Russia to-day. According to his view, Russia is likely to share Poland's fate unless she returns to a

European policy and resists the Drang each Osten. In the recent rapprochement with Italy he perceives signs of a more judicious tendency in Russia's foreign policy.—Mr. Archi- bald Hurd discusses the manning of the Fleet in an optimistic

spirit :—

"The truth is that the Navy is manned without difficulty, and the explanation is only in part due to the better food, higher pay, and improved prospects of promotion. One of the main causes of the elm ge must be found in the officers The phrase, 'a band of brothers,' has a wider and deeper significance to-day. The Navy is all one, as are the seas."

Mr. Hurd's pleasant picture of the perfect solidarity of the Navy is indeed most reassuring. But he is not only satisfied with the present ; he declares that there is no cause for anxiety as to the future manning of the Fleet. " The Admiralty can obtain as many men as Parliament votes."— The Bishop of Madras deals with the future of " the Out- Castes of India " in a remarkable article in which he maintains that the most potent influence in their elevation is, and will be increasingly in the future, their conversion to Christianity. " When the whole 50,000,000 of the out-castes are brought under the elevating influences of the Christian Church they will become a new force in Indian politics,—a valuable asset from a military point of view and a great force in the religious development of India."—We may also mention an opportune article on Leonardo da Vinci as a sculptor, and Mrs. Frederic Harrison's excellent paper on the progress of Feminism under the present Administration.

The National Review gives prominence to a caustic but, unhappily, not unmerited "study in deterioration" of the Prime Minister. Mr. Asquith, the writer contends, "plays the part of the heavy father almost to perfection" in the House of Commons. Throughout the Budget campaign "his role was to assume moderation and to minimise the facts," while without let or hindrance from him "members of his Ministry were allowed to preach class war and a general attack on property." There is only too much in the history of the past Session to justify the transference to Mr. Asquith of the phrase originally applied to Lord Salisbury by Bismarck, "a lath painted to look like steel."—Mr. Christopher Turnor writes on "A Constructive Agri- cultural Policy" from the point of view of a Tariff Reformer who holds that it is a fundamentally unsound theory to suppose that England cannot be a great agricultural as well as a great manufacturing country. We are glad, however, to observe that Mr. Tumor prescribes caution in regard to

creating peasant proprietors. "It is to be hoped that the principle of small ownership will not be pushed unreasonably, and without due care. There must be elasticity ; tenancy and ownership are both necessary." These and other salutary provisos are, however, seriously neutralised by his wide claim that "any system of Tariff Reform should be so framed as to grant the agricultural industry the advantages demanded for it."—Mr. Joseph Longford contributes some interesting reminiscences of Prince Ito, whom he knew for forty years. The most prominent feature in his character was indomitable courage, moral and physical. But he had other fine qualities, which are summed up in the concluding paragraph of the article :-

" He was honest, unselfish, and grateful. With unlimited opportunities of acquiring wealth he was comparatively a poor man. He never grudged to his subordinates their share in his own glory, and never forgot those who helped him. History may give him a place among the constructive statesmen of the world no less distinguished than those of Washington, Cavour, or Bismarck. He will be enshrined in the memories of his con- temporaries as a brave, modest, kind, and courteous gentleman."

Dr. Elizabeth S. Chesser's paper on the Lancashire

operatives is not agreeable reading, but we fear there is only too good ground for her indictment of their improvidence and extravagance :—

" The so-called poverty would be reduced 80 per cent. if all the money spent on unueeeqsgry luxuries were properly utilised. Football, music-halls and roller-skating, gambling and drink, dispose of a disproportionate amount of the worker's wage. Hundreds of thousands of pounds are squandered every year at holiday time by the operatives who leave home with all they can draw from the holiday fund with the intention of spending every penny before they get back. The money is paid into holiday clubs every week or deducted from their wages to be drawn at the beginning of the holiday season. It is typical of the improvidence and lack of foresight of the Lancashire operatives that a family will cheerfully spend forty or fifty pounds on their summer holiday, whilst owing a large doctor's bill, even when scarcity of work and poverty later in the year are almost certain to come."

Professor Hothouse's paper on " The Lords and the Con- stitution" in the new Contemporary is very much on the same lines as that of Sir Francis Channing in the Nineteenth. Century. He, also, lays special stress on the significance of

Mr. Gladstone's last speech in the Commons, and holds that by declining the conflict to which their leader summoned them the Liberal Party " sterilised " Liberalism for years to

come. Professor Hobhouse is a supporter of the Referendum, but he strongly demurs to its application to finance. " We have long enjoyed single-Chamber government in finance, and

we shall maintain it." We may note that Professor Hob- house observes that a stage will probably arise in the course of the present conflict when the creation of a sufficient number of Peers to secure a Ministerial majority will become necessary. No Liberal Govern- ment, he holds, can again take office without reasonable

security that they will be able to fulfil their legislative pledge. This involves the abolition of the absolute power of veto on legislation, for -which purpose a Bill will be necessary to which the consent of the Lords will be required. " To secure the passage of such a Bill, and of such a Bill only, the wholesale creation of new Peers would be justified." But such a creation will in practice never be necessary. "It will suffice, in accordance with the precedent of l833, that Ministers should have the power, and that this determina- tion to use it at need should be fully appreciated." What-

ever may be thought of Professor Hobhouse's views, he is never deflected by partisanship or acrimony into exaggeration or violence of expression.—M. Vandervelde, the well-known Socialist leader in the Belgian Chamber, who for ten years has been an unsparing and outspoken critic of the Leopoldian

regime, writes an instructive article on " Belgium and the Reforms on the Congo." He submits the proposals of M.

Renkin to a careful scrutiny, and while admitting that in some respects the declarations are satisfactory, in others finds them lamentably inadequate. To Mr. Morel and the Congo Reform Association he pays a handsome tribute of recognition :-

" What, indeed, strikes one in reading the correspondence on the subject of the Congo which passed between the Belgian and the British Goveinments, is the extreme cleverness with which, from the first, the Belgian diplomatists defended a position which it was difficult to defend, and on the contrary the want of precision, the softness, the evasions of English diplomacy, giving everyone the impression that the Government only acted because a strong public opinion obliged it to act. So that it is, above all, to this public opinion that the natives of the Congo owe any amelioration of their unhappy fate: and I would proclaim on the housetops that if Morel had not devoted ten years of his life to their defence, if the missionaries and the English or American Consuls had not declared to the world the abuses of which they were victims, we should not be where we are, and we should not have obtained from the Belgian Government the concessions it has just made."

In conclusion, M. Vandervelde strongly deprecates the injudicious attempt to excite prejudice against Belgium as a whole.—Herr Rudolf Eberstadt, the Berlin Professor of Town-planning, sends a paper on " The Problems of Town Development," to which the passage of the Town Planning Bill lends special opportuneness. He does well to warn people that the success of Port Sunlight, Bonrnville, &c., must not be regarded as establishing a precedent. "These plans were carried through on one estate by one owner for public utility, with a mind to exclude professional speculation and rise of land values. These examples cannot

be applied to town planning in general ; not to towns where the land belongs to several private ground-owners who look

onvard to a rise, and who wish decidedly to raise their land in value."—Mr. Frank Schloesser's article on " Siege Dinners " is based on extracts from the diary of a French

resident in Paris who kept a record of the menus at a Peters' restaurant in the Passage dee Princes. It is a most interesting record, redeemed from painfulness by the un-

conquerable gaiety of the French temperament, and Mr. Sebloesser's additions, notably the quotation from M. Dumon-

teil's " L'Apotheose de l'Ane," will render it specially engrossing to students of gastronomic curiosities.—Milton's tercentenary affords Mr. W. F. Alexander the occasion for an altogether admirable appreciation of the poet. His essay abounds in happy phrases, as when he speaks of the "gamineries of iconoclasm " indulged in by writers like Mr. Max Beerbohm, or accounts for the mood of disparagement by noting that the deeply rooted English habit of raising the great for what they are not leads necessarily to a reaction which decries them in spite of what they are." Mr. Alexander does not spare the shortcomings in Milton's character, but he has a lively sense of his transcendent qualities,—above all, his " secret of fundamental calm," which lived on with Words- worth, and may be said to have died out with Tennyson. The declining popularity of epic poetry, again, prompts a passage that is worth quoting :—

" In epic poetry those passages which have intensity and charm, the passages which we intuitively fasten upon and which we remember, are in reality thrown out on a background of narrative, which runs very likely in the same metre, but which is not in the same final and compelling way, poetry—which is, in fact, rather what in opera recitative is to song. In reading Milton, especially in the full illumination of the present day, we have always to remember this, and to perceive, if we have the grace to perceive, that in great art recitative makes the atmosphere for song. Mean- while, human nature, as we have it, craves for brevity and for that subjective sincerity which leaves off with the moods, ending perhaps at the fourth stanza. If one were perfectly courageous, perhaps one would say that the more intense effects of poetry really depend for us on their alternation with impressions of the kindly, commonplace things of life. It is wonderful, if one glances through Charles Lamb, to note with what jewel-like splendour his quotations from Milton flash out on a background of quite a different order, closely contiguous, in fact, to the ham and beef shop in Drury Lane. That Lamb admired Milton so profoundly is a curiously happy touch of completion to the nature, let us boldly say, of both."

In the Fortnightly Mr. William Archer gives an account of the publication of the first drafts of Ibsen's plays. The dramatist was during his lifetime very reticent about his writing, his wife even not knowing what was in hand when he was composing his plays. All the same, be seems to have preserved carefully his various notes and drafts, and to have left no instructions showing that he did not want them published. The difference between the first and final form of a play was sometimes considerable. For instance, Little Eyolf was not originally a cripple, and that haunting and apparently essential touch about the " vine leaves in his hair " in Ifedda Gabler was an afterthought. Mr. Archer considers that to the student of the technique of dramatic writing these studies of the master will be of the utmost value.—" Ezeubitor " describes " The Renaissance of the

French Fleet" under Admiral Boue de Lapeyrere. We are given an insight into what is possible under thoroughly bad administrative methods by means of a table comparing

the money spent on their Navies by France and Germany during the last ten years. France has spent one hundred and twenty-nine millions and Germany only one hundred and twenty-one, although the latter has so greatly increased her strength over the former.—The description written by " Eulenspiegel " of the German Emperor's theatrical activities is amusing. Especially so is the account of the mounting of the ballet of Sardanapal. The Emperor bad his imagination fired by reading about some excavations at Nineveh, and determined to revive an old ballet, and in it to " make the museums live." The Opera House at Berlin was closed to ordinary performances so that rehearsals might be numerous. Professor Delitzsch, with a staff of archaeologists, arranged the scenery, dresses, postures, and dances. " The Kaiser himself presided over all. He attended no fewer than four- teen rehearsals, bringing with him stacks of portfolios laden with sketches and notes with which his work-table in the parquet was strewn." But, alas after such efforts the result was a failure, and the public refused to be loyally bored. Indeed, the grumbling was considerable, for "the mounting (scenery and dresses) is said to have cost from £175,000 to £185,000, and to this enormous sum must be added about another £15,000 which represents the estimated takings of the evenings when the opera remained closed for urgent rehearsals of the new ballet." To make good the deficit the prices of seats at unim- peHally engineered performances were raised.—Sir Gilbert Parker writes on " Small Ownership, Land Banks, and Co- operation." It is the union of these three forces which is required for the development of English agriculture. Here are two examples of the advantages of Co-operative Societies. First as to buying :—" A manufacturer of oilcake, whose consignment of 1,000 tons had been rejected by a private combination of farmers, when asked what he would do with the condemned stuff, replied : Send it to some place where they know nothing of analysis." Then as to selling :—In Herefordshire "a man who received from the Society 28s. per cwt. for some pears, came to the office to ask if there was not some mistake, as he had previously been selling the same pears at 2s. fid. to 3s. a cwt." In 1907 there were one hundred and sixty-seven societies affiliated to the Agricultural OrganisatiOn Society; in France there are nearly sixteen thousand like institutions.—Mr. Sydney Brooks recapitulates the terrible failure of America to produce decent civic government. At the same time, he regards the position in New 'York as rather more hopeful. The forces of good government have gained a victory at a time when Tammany had not exposed itself by any particularly scandalous proceeding.—Mr. H. M. Paull's modern morality play in two acts is decidedly refreshing in the plainness and directness of its moral. It is called The Painter and the Millionaire. The conversation between the abstract characters —Poverty, Conscience, Good Luck, and Pleasure—and the two real men is extremely well managed.

The story from the outer marches of the Empire which we rarely seek in vain in Blackwood comes this month from the wild country along the North-West Frontier of India. A cattle raid and its punishment by the local Militia are the occasion of the narrative, but the interest is chiefly centred in the study of the character of the Subandar Haider, withhis strange mixture of ferocity, cunning, and fidelity.—Sir Robert Anderson continues the reminiscences of the lighter side of his official life. We cannot avoid the thought of bow much greater the interest of these papers would have been if the author had taken us a little more into his confidence. It is no doubt delightful to the writer to record his pleasant intercourse with acquaintances and friends, but this pleasure sometimes seems rather tame to the reader. Incidentally there are some good stories, as, for instance, that relating the circumstances which led to Sir Robert Anderson obtaining a highly desirable set of rooms. A house-agent offered these to him, and they were taken at once. The puzzle was why any one who lived in so excellent a house should -wish to let lodgings. It turned out that the landlord in question was Charles Riede. The novelist, to escape from the threatened visit of importunate relations, put his spare rooms into the bands of a house- agent. Lodger and landlord eventually became friends on account of the capacity of the former for making buttered eggs over an Etna.

Professor Gilbert Murray's article in the English Review, "A Pagan Creed," is an interesting study. He begins by pointing out how little we know of Greek or Roman religion as it affected the daily lives of men. Our chief knowledge hitherto has been derived from the poets, who naturally dwelt on the mythological element. But there is great difficulty in estimating the effects of spiritual forces in ordinary life from dramatic and poetic, and even philosophical, sources. Professor Murray thinks that one of the most helpful documents available for this purpose is the treatise written by Sallustius, About the Gods and the World, for the Enieror Julian. Here we get a highly spiritualised form of the older paganism. Comparing the Christians of the fourth century and the party of Julian, Professor Murray says that the latter "were a little like cultivated and ultra-devout Catholics, whose lives were full of mystic ceremonies and observances; the Christians, like some fierce early Protestants, who despised all Popish superstition, and did, from time to time, see the Devil with horns and tail, and stick pitchforks into him."—M. Leo Mechelin, the late Finnish Premier, writes a scrupulously moderate statement of the case for his country, " Les Interets de la Russie et lea Droits de la Finlande." He only claims that the fundamental laws of the Constitution should be observed.—Professor J. N. Renter writes on the same subject, with the aim of showing how entirely irrelevant as regards Finland is M. Stolypin's statement that "Might cannot dominate Right in Russia."—" Histoire de la

Princesse Zulkais et du Prince Kalilah " is a hitherto un- published story by William Beckford. In it we have a good deal of description of Oriental magnificence and mystery. An Emir who seeks to penetrate into the secret arts of the ancient Egyptians is the theme.

The United Service Magazine for this month might almost be called a canal number. It begins by an interesting article on " Static Aids to Strategy," and incidentally points out how greatly our strategic strength would be increased were the proposed canal for connecting the Clyde and Forth in exist- ence.— Another article, " The Navy's New Canal," is a strong plea for the making of the Clyde and Forth Canal, and points out not only the great amount of public support that has been obtained for the project, but how the Government, if they made the canal, would be able to save a great deal of money at Rosyth. if the canal were in existence they would, it is urged, only want docking accommodation at the new naval base for making repairs to ships so greatly damaged as to need instant attention. Other ships in need of help could be sent on through the canal to Greenock. In a word, the canal would for military purposes bring the East Coast in touch with the great repairing plant of the Western port. We cannot on this occasion pronounce any definite view, but we are bound to say that, granted the considerations we have just noticed are true, and that the canal would save a great deal of expenditure at Rosyth, a very important factor is introduced. Strategically the ability of the Government to send ships of war by so short a route from East to West, a route which could not be used by our enemies, is un- questionably a matter of importance. The advantage of bringing so considerable a piece of inland Scotland to the coast, which is, in fact, what the canal would do, pleads strongly for the project. Again, the convenience of ordinary mercantile shipping being able to proceed East or West without having to go round by the Channel or by the North of Scotland would be very great. As our readers know, we have no great love of Government works, but in a case like the present it seems to us that the Government might very well calculate what amount of use they would be likely to make of the canal, supposing it were constructed, and then to undertake to use not less than that amount each year, and therefore to pay a fixed annual sum as a canal-rent. This promise to pay a fixed sum every year for the use of the canal ought greatly to facilitate the financing of the proposal. The matter at any rate is one so important that we sincerely trust it will be more fully examined by a competent authority.