SOME OF THE MAGAZINES.

THERE are three or four highly instructive articles in the March number of the Contemporary Review. We wish we could class among them Mr. Lawson Walton's defence of Imperialism, because we agree with so much of it; but he goes too far for us. We fully admit many of the advantages of expansion, but we cannot admit that our energy and our strength will necessarily grow as we expand. It has been so hitherto to a great extent, though Mr. Walton should have quoted our great failure, the loss of the American Colonies, but we do not believe that in our instance'" capacity grows with bulk." We are bound to garrison our dependant pos- sessions, and to our capacity of garrisoning there is certainly a limit, unless we trust entirely to mercenary armies, which is most dangerous. There never was a better or a more leniently governed force of mercenaries than the old Sepoy Army, and in 1857 it sprang straight at our throats.—Nor are we greatly impressed with Mr. Stillman's view of the way to produce peace in Europe. He attributes too much import- ance to the Papacy and the Jesuits, and feels too strongly the old jealousy of Russia, which is to a world Power like England less dangerous than Germany, with whom Mr. Stillman would have us make a strong defensive alliance. Nor do we agree with him as to the uselessness of America as an ally, more especially in maintaining an Empire that -nuat be maintained, if at all, by sea. —" The Lost Noticu of War," by Mr. T. Gibson Bowles, is worth reading carefuliy. Substantially it is an argument for making war, if we make it at all, on the old principle of doing as much harm to the enemy as we can. He doubts, if we under. stand him aright, even the value of the Geneva Convention, repudiates the notion of Governments fighting while their people are at peace, and would destroy the wealth of an antagonist as the quickest method of forcing him to make peace. He even quotes without reproof the sentence he ascribes to General Sheridan, when he said he "would leave the people nothing but their eyes to weep with over the war." The paper is most ably written, and should be read by every one who advocates or opposes war, but it seems to us that its logical conclusion is that war should be without quarter. The effect of that un- Christian formula is that every soldier fights as desperately as an escaped convict. What is wanted in war is surrender, not destruction.—The most remarkable paper of the number is one by Mr. H. W. Macrosty, a gentleman, we are ashamed to say, to us unknown. It is a most lucid and interesting account of the rapid growth of monopolies in England owing to comparatively silent combinations by which the whole eapital of many trades is brought into what is virtually

a single concern. The new name for such combinations is "amalgamations." One firm, to give a single instance,

now boasts that it is the only one which can turn out a battleship complete. We have, however, said enough

of this paper elsewhere.—All interested in the poor will read Mr. J. A. Dyche's very able defence of the Jew immigrant with keen interest. His main thesis is that the Jew workman is a keenly intellectual being who, far from underselling the British workman, usually, or indeed always,

relies on his " smoother " work to obtain the best rate of wages going. Mr. Dyehe gives masses of detail, and enlivens them by characterisations of his compatriots, who, he maintains, so far from being combined, are excessively individual, each household wanting to push, and so far from being unusually thrifty, are extravagant both in food and dress. The Jewish immigrant detests trade rules, and is always longing to be an employer,—perhaps one reason why his rivals so dislike him. Another and more reasonable one is his tireless industry,

which in English estimation leaves him no time for anything but work. Pages 387-89 will, we think, make a good many readers:open their eyes, for they contain an unhesitating asser- tion that the Jewish artisan is the superior of the English, being much less of a machine. Certainly we believe, after reading it, with Mr. Dyche, that the Jewish immigrant does not undervalue himself, and is not disposed to be a "donkey," a beast which he despises, not, as the English do, because it is supposed to be stupid—an absurd illusion, by the way— but because it is a beast that does not resent its burden.

The Nineteenth Century yields the posts of honour to twc articles on "The Crisis in the Church," but neither of then

adds much to enlightenment. Dr. Guinness Rogers onl: thunders that Ritualism is not Protestant, that the Church

was intended to be Protestant, " that the Anglican Church is rapidly drifting towards Romanism," and that the only remedy is Disestablishdient ; while Mr. Bosworth Smith is mainly occupied with warning the clergy of the gravity of the crisis,

and especially of the certainty that the laity will not endure auricular confession. We agree most heartily; but we seem to wish, from laymen of Mr. Bosworth Smith's gravity and experience, rather for counsel as to the way out than a restate- ment of the grievance, however eloquently worded.—Earl Carrington publishes a really remarkable account of his

experience with allotments and minute holdings. He has granted them in great numbers, and with entire success, the labourers taking them readily, paying rent regularly, and,

what is most frequently questioned, improving the land. To our mind, the most interesting paragraph in his paper, and

the most important in this number of the magazine, is the following :— " The parish of Humberstone, in Lincolnshire, is part of the Carrington estate, and consists of 2,700 acres. The custom in this village has always been that three or more acres of land go with most of the cottages. These are called cow cottages.' If a cottage has no land the farmer sometimes allows his labourer the run and feed for a cow at a small weekly payment. Wages at 2s. 6d. a day; there is no public-house in the village ; and when some years ago I took my children down there for sea air, nothing was asked for or wanted on this property except a few railings to repair the churchyard fence. In Humberstone the labourers' children are healthy and well-fed, and the labourers are industrious, steady, hardy working men, who have for them- selves solved the problem of Old Age Pensions by their own savings from their little pieces of land and cows, and instead of about £150 to £200 a year going from the village public-house to a brewer living elsewhere, most of it is saved in the parish. Con- sequently there are no poor, and I do not know of an instance of any one of this parish going to the workhouse or receiving out- door relief for years."

—Everybody will read the account of the Nordrach cure for consumption, which is attracting so much medical attention in this country, by Mr. J. A. Gibson. The treatment is said to cure the disease, it can be tried anywhere, and it consists, briefly, in living in the open air, the windows being all unclosed, in exercise in the open air without fatigue, and in eating, eating, eating, whether the

patient likes eating or not. It is rather a shock to hear that a consumptive patient may get wet with impunity, but that is Mr. Gibson's assertion, and he has facts behind him. Whether he may also breathe fog at discretion we are not informed.—

Readers, we think, will pass over the first half of Prince Krapotkine's paper on "Recent Science," to fasten on what he says as to meteorology. He holds out hopes that through the laborious calculations of the Continental men of science who are studying all the facts as to periodicity, we shall at last be able to predict the type of weather some months beforehand, with something like accuracy. We wish a few of them would concentrate their attention on a very small point, viz., the likelihood of rain within the next twenty-four hours. That is the Briton's preoccupation, and the man who will tell him that will make a fortune.—The best article in the number is the brilliant sketch of the great Trimmer, Lord Halifax, by Mr. Herbert Paul; and the most novel, "The Menelek Myth," by the Vicomte de Poncins, a French gentleman who has travelled much in Abyssinia. He describes Menelek as an able savage negro who has bound together many great feudatories, but whose power will not survive himself. Even his military force is exaggerated, the Abyssinians being incapable of discipline, and the Italian army having been lost at Adowa because it got entangled in a series of defiles divided from one another. Menelek hates all Europeans, but was greatly flattered and struck by the English Embassy. We should add that the impression of our own Intelligence Department as to Menelek's knowledge and ability is far more favourable, and that the fighting power of Abyssinians is no new thing, they having defeated succes- sive Arab invasions from Mohammed's time to the present. The Vicomte's account, however, will correct some prevalent errors. By the way, is hie own ethnology correct P He says the Hubshee is a true negro. We had been accustomed to believe that he is a Semite crossed with negro blood.—There is a carious and most ghastly account of the sack of Yangchow in 1644 by the Mantchous, written at the time by one of the Chinese sufferers. The frightful barbarity of the Tartar and the hopeless cowardice of the Chinese stand out in equal relief, the cowardice being strangely mixed with com- plete readiness to meet death by suicide.

The most attractive paper in the Fortnightly is the picturesque account given by Mr. H. H. Lewis of the work done by General Wood, who assumed the government of Santiago at the end of last July, and has since rescued the population from starvation, reduced the death-rate from 200 per diem to 10 by the drastic enforcement of the elementary principles of sanita- tion, reorganised the Custom House, gaols, hospitals, and Courts of Justice, freed the Press, and restored business confidence. It is a splendid record, rendered all the more remarkable by the fact that General Wood was a volunteer, a stranger to the place and people, embarked on the work at a moment's notice with no special administrative training—he was a doctor by profession, and had served in Roosevelt's Rough- riders as a Colonel—and had for his immediate aids "only a few fellow Army officers, some of whom had been out of West Point less than two years, and all of whom were as new to the situation as himself." General Wood, in short, has realised the responsibilities of the "white man's burden" in the self-sacrificing spirit indicated in Mr. Kipling's poem.— The anonymous author of "Lord Carnarvon and Home-rule" takes for his text the chapter contributed to Mr. Barry O'Brien's Life of Parnell by Sir Charles Ga.van Daffy. The article resolves itself into a vindication both of Lord Carnarvon and of Mr. Parnell, an impeachment of the Tory party, and a challenge to Lord Salisbury to publish the correspondence between himself and Lord Carnarvon. But having made a serious insinuation against the Premier, the writer pro- ceeds to invent excuses in advance. There is some- thing to us extremely unpleaeing in half-hearted attacks of this sort.—Major Spilsbury's apologia for the 'Tourma- line' expedition makes lively reading. He contends that our policy in Morocco has impaired our prestige and sacrificed our trade interests, and vigorously defends himself against Lord Salisbury's charge of having made a "premeditated and deliberate attempt to raise a rebellion against the Sultan of Morocco." Major Spiisbury's arguments are more candid than convincing.—Mr. William Archer in " Pessi- mism and Tragedy" makes out a good case for his contention that "tragedy is not necessarily an expression of personal gloom any more than comedy is necessarily an ebullition of personal gaiety, and that a work of imagination makes for optimism or pessimism in the reader, not in virtue of the gaiety or gloom of its story, but rather in virtue of its inherent vitality or lack of vitality, the bracing or ' lowering ' quality of the spirit which dominates it." He is less success- ful, however, in claiming this bracing quality for the concrete

examples which he has chosen to illustrate his thesis. To us Sudermann's Regina is a far less arbitrary, and therefore more "cathartic," tragedy than The Open Question, which Mr. Archer finds "invigorating in virtue of the intense vitality of its two leading personages."—Mr. W. Ashton Ellis fairly clears Wagner from Nietzsche's charge that the libretto of the Ring in its ultimate form was in- fluenced from end to end by the study of Schopenhauer. He also reproduces, for the first time, Schopenhauer's m.rginal annotations on the copy of the poem presented to him by Wagner in 1853, which reveal the "Frank- fort sage" in the character of a whole-souled adherent of Mrs. Grundy. Here, for example, is his comment on the passion of Siegmund for Sieglinde "One may forget morals for once in a way, but one must not slap them in the face. It is infamous !" It is amusing to be reminded that Schopen- hauer passed an hour each day for years playing through the operas of Rossini on the flute !—Mr. Demetrius C.

Boulger takes up the cudgels for the Congo State with charac- teristic fervour, pays a glowing tribute to the "marvellous combination of dexterity, courage, and foresight" displayed by King Leopold, and sums up the achievement of the Belgian administrators as the "complete suppression of slave trade, partial suppression of cannibalism, effective exclusion of alcohol, and general establishment of internal peace."

The article concludes with the strange suggestion that Mr. Rhodes should abandon his "positively useless" Cape to Cairo railway scheme, and transfer the scene of his labours from Rhodesia to China. Perhaps he would find the Dowager-Empress quite as hard a nut to crack as President Kruger.—The author of " Life in Our Villages," proceeding on the assumption that "old-age pensions for everybody" are necessary, and that twenty- five millions of money are required to carry out the scheme, does not enhance his reputation as a practical economist by suggesting as the best means of raising the requisite funds the bringing of the application of the penny receipt-stamp down to the level of twenty shillings instead of forty.—Mr. Wilfrid Ward in "Vatican and Quirinal" contends that the action of the Italian Catholics in going "agin the Government" is the inevitable outcome of long years of exasperating persecution; while " Oujda " in a series of extracts from the Liberte Economzgue en Italie of the Marchese Vilfredo Pareto, who is Professor of Political Economy at Lausanne, supplies a lurid commentary on the Italian Ambassador's recent rose-coloured speech on Italy's commercial resurrection.

Mr. Manse has, for the time being, bidden farewell to literature in the National Review, but we cannot blame him in view of the special claims on his space of actualities far stranger than fiction. The Dreyfus affair is once more dealt with under three heads,—Sir Godfrey Lushington treating of the intervention of M de Beaurepaire and the Government Bill, Mr. Conybeare hammering the Jesuits, and the editor exposing the absurd attacks made on the imaginary Syndicate.

Sir Godfrey's admirably clear summary of recent develop- ments sets the action of M. Dupny in its true light when he

says :—" His Bill is essentially a measure of bad faith. He declares the Judges exonerated, but acts as if they had been all but convicted He professes to seek a better and more perfect and more impartial Revision ; but what he really aims at is that there should be a Political Revision or none at all." As for the truth which the Anti-Revisionists suppress, and wish to keep suppressed, that is summarised by Sir Godfrey Lushington as follows :—

" According to this consensus of opinion, the truth, which is suppressed by the Anti-Revisionists, and would be manifested by Revision, is something to the following effect :-1. That Dreyfus is innocent. He was not the author of the bordereau. At his trial the evidence of the experts could not be relied on, and he was really convicted for other supposed acts of treason on docu- ments shown to the Court behind his back by the Minister of War —such documents being, some forged, others irrelevant. Afterwards, overwhelmingly clear evidence came to light that it was Esterhazy who had written the bordereau; but, in spite of this, the Staff uphold the condemnation of Dreyfus by means of similar documents, some irrelevant, others forged within the War Office, and of vamped-up confessions which Dreyfus never made; and rather than have their own misdeeds laid bare, they prefer that Dreyfus should remain branded as a traitor and imprisoned for life on the desolate Ile du Diable. 2. That Esterhazy was the real author of the bordereau. His acquittal was a shameless piece of business, now proved to have been cor- ruptly manipulated by the War Office. 3. That Zola has been sentenced to imprisonment for telling the truth. His conviction, too, was procured iniquitously. The prosecuting War Minister closed the mouths of offieial witnesses, whose evidence must have established the defence of justification, and the jury was imposed upon by General de Pellieux producing what was, in fact, a forged document, purporting to be the absolute proof of Dreyfus' guilt. 4. That Picquart, for upholding the honour of the Army and refusing to connive at the doings of his Chiefs who were disgracing it. has been relentlessly persecuted by the War Office, and has now been for months in a military prison on a charge of forgery, a charge trumped up after the lapse of two years, and which is as absurd as it is false, for Picquart is supposed to have forged in order to support a false accusation against a man whom he had never seen or heard of. This, then, or something like this, is what all civilised Europe (except France) believes. Germany knows it."

Mr. Conybe are's article on "The Jesuit View" is largely made up of extracts from the eivilM Cattolica, the official exponent of Jesuit opinion. We have only space to quote one sentence,—" The brand of treason to his country was thus for ever stamped on the forehead of this misbegotten Hebrew," e., Dreyfus. Even more shocking than this is the extract from

a work edited by M. Cad'ene, domestic prelate of the Pope, gloating over the tortures and burnings of the Inquisition, and concluding with the words, "How glorious is the memory of

Torquemada! "—The editor's paper handles in a lighter vein the preposterous charges levelled against "the Syndi- cate" and England by the organs of the Itat-Major. In

his "Episodes of the Month" Mr. Maxse does well to quote the last election address of M. Lebret, the present Minister of Justice. This precious appeal rune as follows :—" I am neither a Jew nor a Freemason. I am the friend neither of M. Trarieux nor of M. Reinach. Dreyfus was justly con- demned, and I am energetically opposed to all agitation aiming at the Revision of his case. With all patriots, I highly reprobate the infamous campaign conducted in favour of the traitor by a Syndicate of Sans-patrie." We are not surprised that Mr. Maxse takes a gloomy view of the chances of Dreyfus and Picquart, but as he finely puts it, "there is no ground for being hopeful. Let us continue to hope."

The place of honour in Blackwood's is given to a paper of reminiscences by Mrs. Charles Bagot, daughter of a cadet of the house of Percy who served under Nelson on the Victory.'

The paper is full of interesting anecdotes of Nelson, Welling- ton, and Junot, and contains a curious account of the marriage,

death, and burial of Princess Charlotte, from the diary of Lord Charles Percy.—At the other end of the programme

we have in "An Unwritten Chapter of History" a lucid account of the final phase in the struggle for Borgu, which

began with Commandant Tontee's expedition in 1894, and ended, when hostilities were within an ace of breaking out, by the timely arrival in Lieutenant Loissn's camp of the news of

the Convention. The writer sums up the matter by saying that "European war was prevented by the tact of those on the spot, though there was no flinching or hesitation on the part of our officers, who carried out their difficult orders and forced the crisis which resulted in the Convention." The article, which is furnished with a map, concludes with a satisfactory account of what is being done at Jebba and

Lokoja to render life less uncomfortable for the troops stationed there.—" The Sins of Education" is one of those slashing articles in which Maya has always excelled. It

deals with the creation of the new reading public by the Act of 1870, and the emergence of "the worst periodic press that Europe has ever known." But the writer is not altogether pessimistic. "The public one day will discover the truth that it has not time to read rubbish. It is interesting to note," he adds, "that intelligence or refinement (call it what you will) seems to be a fixed quantity. The more you spread it, the thinner it becomes. And it is this truth that the

champions of popular education forgot. They hoped to raise the people, and they abased themselves."—The anonymous author of a very readable paper on " Hodson " defends the sorely assailed reputation of that officer, not only wish devotion, but discretion. It has always been a source of regret to us that Mr. Kipling never made Hodson's historic ride the sub- ject of a ballad.—The accuracy and impartiality of Sir George Trevelyan's recent work on the American Revolution are vigorously, and in some cases effectively, impugned in another unsigned article; and General Braokenbury contd.

butes some charming personal recollections of Sir George Pomeroy-Colley.