THE MAGAZINES.

THE most interesting paper in the new Nineteenth Century is that by Sir Harry Johnston on " The German War and its Con-

sequences." Writing as one with many German friends, he sets forth the reasons why his love for Germany has changed to righteous anger. They are, briefly, that Germany, ruled by the Hohenzollerns and inflamed by Prussian Professors, though Great Britain and France had made all reasonable concessions to her colonial and commercial aspirations, has, on the pretext of the Austro-Servian quarrel, violated the neutrality of an unoffending country and conducted the war in Belgium and France with a barbarity hitherto associated with Oriental savages. Sir Harry Johnston maintains that it is the middle class throughout the United Kingdom that will suffer most from the terrible ambition that has maddened the German people, and caused them to force on us a war which we could not avoid without descending to the rank of a second-rate Power. Down to August 3rd Sir Harry Johnston was proud to be reckoned as a Pro- German, but the White Paper has convinced him that by standing out we should have made ourselves humble accomplices in the establishment of Teutonic supremacy, and bartered our nationhood for a position of precarious dependence on Germany's goodwilL The words of the Kaiser and his

Ministers " threaten us with a Prussian dominion as intoler- able as any of the noted tyrannies in history" ; we have to fight Germany now as our forefathers fought Napoleon a hundred years ago, and the challenge she has thrown down must be driven back to her heart until she is deprived of the means of attacking Europe for at least half a century. Mr. Brailsford's misgivings in the Contemporary as to the substitu- tion of a Russian for a German hegemony are well answered :- " An alliance with Russia has been viewed with apprehension by many minds in England because it suggested the condonation of persecution and a reaction in freedom of thought and belief. But let us hope—we have historical grounds for hoping—that a victorious Russia may be generous, may—with the great fear removed of Germany coming between her and the warm seas—be more forbearing with Persia, less suspicious of Jewish inter- nationalism, less arrogant about the orthodoxy of her own form of Christianity, less eager to Russianize all people coming within her sphere."

Sir Harry Johnston might have strengthened his argument by insisting on the liberalizing influence exerted on Russia by her alliance with the two greatest democratic States in Europe.—Dr. G. de Swietochowski contributes a candid "psycho-political" study of the English, Teuton, and Slav as seen through Polish eyes. He contrasts the universal orderli- ness and discipline of German life with the go-as-you-please habits of the English, but tempers his criticism by observing that German discipline is mostly external and formal, unlike the self-restraint and internal discipline of the English. He is, however, equally frank in dealing with his own race:— "Endowed with unusual gifts in an exceptionally high degree, the average Pole lacks discipline of any kind, and is thus s prey to his fancies or to circumstances. In this respect the Russian with all his shortcomings is decidedly superior, and collectively is capable of achieving more. I believe that there is some morbid defect in the psychic organization of the Poles which makes them hate the idea of any authority above them, a condition which has often proved disastrous in its effects."

The great failure of the Russians, he maintains, is in their inability to make any practical application of their high ideals; yet he think the Poles have reasonable grounds for hoping that Russia's enthusiasm for their well-being is genuine, and will outlast the present period of stress. A curious fact mentioned by the writer is this—that whilst nearly every ruler of Russia has died a death of violence, only one Polish King died from other than natural causes.

Captain W. Cecil Price gives gratifying evidences of the practical utility of the Boy Scouts in war time, with special references to Belgium ; while the Abbe Dimnet describes a tour in France just before the war, and analyses the characteristics of the rising generation in France.—The editor reprints

Mr. Harold Wyatt's article " God's Test by War," originally published in April, 1911, with a postscript by the author. The main contention is that God tests a nation's soul by efficiency for war—i.e., victory in war is the method by which, in the economy of God's providence, the sound nation succeeds the unsound, the higher efficiency being the logical outcome of the higher moral. The argument is somewhat weakened by the writer's admission that history affords no evidence that a just cause brings inevitable victory.

The National Review is mainly occupied with an article of ninety-three pages, headed "The Fight against Pan- Germanism," by the editor. He has no doubt as to the responsibility of Germany for plunging Europe into war, but be is equally convinced that it was precipitated by the attitude of what he calls the Potsdam Party, and that it might have been averted by firm action on our part. The article accordingly resolves itself into an attack on the diplomacy of Sir Edward Grey, whom at best he allows to have "struggled feebly, hesitatingly, and unavailingly against the blind prejudices

of his colleagues " ; on the sinister influence of Lord Haldane; on the pacifist Radical Press ; and on the Jews. The key- note of the article is struck in the words which occur in

the editorial " Episodes of the Month " : " We need hardly say that, had we any confidence in the ability of the Asquith Cabinet to turn over a new leaf and do its duty by the country, we should not at this juncture dwell upon their past deficiencies." But, as the editor has none, he devotes his energies to raking up everything that may be said to their dis- credit up to the declaration of war. The only member of the Cabinet, curious to relate, who enjoys an immunity from this obloquy is Mr. Winston Churchill, who until very recently was the especial bete noire of the National Review. Whatever may be thought of the good fortune of the present Govern- ment in being able to count on the unanimous support of a patriotic Opposition, it is futile as well as mischievous to go on " rubbing it in" at this juncture. The war has united the nation and obliterated the barriers of party. The editor of the National Review would substitute discord and suspicion for this unity, and by implication condemns not only Lord Kitchener, but Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Bonar Law, and Mr. Austen Chamberlain for co-operating with a Cabinet which, in his view, is neither capable nor trustworthy. In the future it will be the task of the historian to judge how far this war was due to the credulity, the unpreparedness, and the incom- petence of British statesmanship. But in the hour of our peril indulgence in recrimination is a wanton luxury. The man of all others who might have taken the "I told you so" Pane is Lord Roberts, but he has not allowed a word of this sort to escape him.

In the Contemporary Review the Bishop of Winchester, writing on "The War and Conscience," insists on the need (which he believes that the nation already realizes) of abstaining from recriminations. We are confronted not with a change but a catastrophe, and it seems to him " quite the first duty for us to steady ourselves with the remembrance that catastrophe has been historically one of the means in the hand of Providence for growth." If it be possible to shape the thoughts of hope,

it is that an international system based on a condition of universal armament must yield to some better way of

living together; and that if Europe or Britain is to win through to any really better state, it must be by a genuine revival of the higher moral faiths. The pith of the article is to be found in the following paragraph :-

" What a difference, for example, it has made to England in the last weeks to have a good conscience, to believe that she has a good cause; that she could not honourably do other than she has done ; that she is really standing for peace and for the freedom of the weak. A good conscience does not in a bad world dispense with Dreadnoughts. But we can feel that it is an even more precious asset. Take another instance. I have far more sympathy with the Stop-the-War party among our workers than I have with Prussian aggressive militarism. But I would ask its members to look carefully to it lest they may not be inviting us to embrace in homespun the same policy which they repudiate in armour—a policy, I mean, of sheer national selfishness. Let England, they say, make no account of these broils, but keep her own people secure and well-fed and at work. God knows how that aim, in itself, appeals to one, and how one shrinks from any course which, though it may cost us all blood` and tears and money, must needs especially grind the poor. But to suffer is better than to do wrong, and to betray our honour. 'Ah I but,' men cry, `there is the old fatal, glad:2g, delusive word "honour," the synonym of prestige, or of to gloire, the moral will-o'-the-wisp which has beguiled men down so many fatal paths 1' It is vital, I reply, that we should distinguish between two senses of the word honour : the shoddy sense and the sterling sense: the sense in which it stands for the ideals of Chauvinism and national ambition or display ; and the sense in which it makes a man true to his plighted word, or responsive to the appeal of a drowning swimmer or an outraged woman."

—Dr. E. J. Dillon, discussing the causes of the war, quotes at great length passages from his articles in this review and the Daily Telegraph to show that his forecast of Germany's policy and his exposition of her aims and means have been correct all along. His great point is that, as the effect of causes which began to operate under Frederick the Great, the German people

of to-day are endowed with a mental and moral mechanism which differs widely from our own. "Their sense of truth, honour, and duty is warped by such a perverted conception of patriotism as constitutes psychological and moral disease. The Fatherland has usurped the place of ethical ideals and religious goals." Germany has written herself down as the outlaw among the nations, and only by her being beaten beyond recovery can Europe hope for salvation. The assassination of the Archduke was the pretext on which Germany seized for obliterating Servia,inflicting upon Russia an intolerable humilia- tion, giving a setback to Slavdom generally, and establishing the hegemony of the Teuton in Europe. Dr. Dillon allows that

a sharp distinction is rightly drawn by many well-meaning people in Great Britain between the German pcuple and their

Government. " One cannot indict a whole nation for the crimes of its chiefs. But these chiefs are much more numerous than the British public is apt to believe. They include University Professors, publicists, schoolmasters, the balk of the civil servants—in a word, the ' intellectuals." Here Dr. Dillon supports the view maintained in these columns by " Vigilans sed lEquus " several years ago. He sums up the ultimate issue very clearly when be says : " Germany has stated the problem : militarism and all the evils it connotes as against civilization and its ideals. And it behoves the Allies to solve it with finality. For a powerful German State there is no longer a place in New Europe."—Very different is the view of Mr. H. N. Brailaford. For him the broad fact of the general war of 1914 is that it is the postponed sequel of the Balkan War of 1912. He quotes this passage from the German White Paper as stating the German case with naked simplicity :-

"Had the Servians been allowed, with the help of Russia and France, to endanger the integrity of the neighbouring Monarchy much longer, the consequence must have been the gradual disrup- tion of Austria, and the subjection of the whole Slav world to the Russian sceptre, with the result that the position of the German race in central Europe would have become untenable."

To imagine that the war is primarily a struggle for the independence of Belgium and the future of France is "to take a parochial view of Armageddon. . . . The Germans are nearer the truth when they regard it as a Russo-German war. . . . A mechanical fatality has forced France into this struggle, and a comradeship, translated by secret commit- ments into a defensive alliance, has brought us into the war in her wake. It is no real concern of hers or ours. It is a war for the Empire of the East." Mr. Brailaford has not a word to say about treaties or treaty obligations ; he is possessed by the idea of what may happen if the Triple Entente win and the Balance of Power lurches violently to the side of "this most unscrupulous and incalculable Empire "—i.e., Russia. Hence his appeal to our statesmen to show their clear-sightedness by stopping the war before it has passed from a struggle for the defence of France and Belgium into a colossal wrangle for the dominion of the Balkans and the mastery of the Slave. It is enough to state this suggestion to prove its futility. But the whole article is a remarkable example of the distorting effect of prejudice on an able and disinterested mind. The implied contrast between German and Russian culture and civilization, to the prejudice of the latter, which underlies Mr. Brailsford's argument has been rendered grotesquely inappropriate by Germany's conduct of the war. By the destrnetion of Lousain she has set back her own clock a thousand years.—A curious comment on Mr. Brailsford's argument is to be found in Dr. Markoff's paper, "Why Russia has Gone to War with Germany," in which he maintains that the brutality of the Russian police and bureaucracy has been faithfully copied from the Prussian model, and did not represent the Russian people. "Up to the present the Germans have been called Kultuririiger (bearers of culture) in Russia, and everything German was copied. If Russians pointed out that this would not do for Russia, they were told by the Government : But this is so in the country

of the greatest cultured nation in Europe.' " During his boyhood and youth, Dr. Markoff adds, most Profes- sors of History in the Russian schools were Germans or Czechs, who taught their pupils to hate England and look on Germany as the modern Greece, the represen- tative of freedom, whose greatest enemy was England.—

Mr. Percy Alden, M.P., summarizes the measures taken by the Government to grapple with the economic problems raised by the war, to piece together our dislocated trade, and to relieve distress likely to arise from unemployment ; Mr.

Theodore Cooke Taylor, M.P., discusses the bearing of the war on industry and commerce, with special reference to the credit system ; while two more M.P.'s, Mr. Joseph King and Mr. W. H. Dickinson, are at one in deploring the shortness of the time available for negotiations before the outbreak of the war, and in expressing the view that the hope of civilization depends on the possibility of erecting a Temple of Peace on the desolation of Armageddon.—Mr. Ramsay MacDonald sends a cordial appreciation of the late M. Jaures, in which he remarks that Jaures "hoped, as we all hope, that the result of the war will be to break for ever the power of the Prussian in the German Empire."—We may also note the Rev. Alfred Fawkes's estimate of Pius X.: " a simple, kindly, pious man," whose unsought elevation was the mis- fortune of his life, since it left him at the mercy of the advisers who inspired and carried out the anti-Modernist crusade.

In the Fortnightly Mr. Sidney Whitman recalls an article published twenty-two years ago in the Contemporary Review, which was acknowledged at the time in Germany to have been written by a German and from inner knowledge. The gist of the study was that the Emperor William was a restless, vain, self-seeking despot, who, throwing over men like Bismarck, surrounded himself with sycophants and ambitious soldiers. Mr. Whitman points out that recent events have justified the view. But it is to be observed that the Emperor represents the modern German spirit, and his ideas are those of the leaders of thought and action to-day. Mr. Whitman says :—

" For instance, present developments would have been impossible in the lifetime of the Emperor Frederick. The readiness of the present generation to accept the initiative from above, to become infected with the ill-digested ideas which are characteristic of the German Emperor, is to be explained by the parvenu character of latter-day Germany, of which he is a faithful mirror and exponent ; an essentially modern man, as he was described by his instructor, Herr von Achenbach : one who imbibes and reflects the surface flotsam and jetsam with little thought or knowledge of the deeper impulses of the soul of a nation."

Mr. Whitman gives a report of a conversation he had last September with Professor Delbrfick, and says that it was "with amazement and alarm that I listened to the uncom- promising cocksureness of his views regarding the conditions under which Germany might allow England to retain her leadership in the world, the compensations Germany expected in Africa, in Turkey, if not in the solar system." And so it is with numberless organs of educated and moderate German thought. They have made up their minds that we are only to exist on sufferance :—

" No wonder that England, goaded at last beyond endurance by those who had come to imagine that there is no licence they need refrain from indulging in—outraged by a culmination of arrogance and treachery worthy of an Oriental—issued her ultimatum and declared war, almost re-echoing Lord Clive's famous words : 'Now is the time to undeceive Omichtuidl' —Mr. Archibald Hurd, in relating how England prepared for war, gives an account of the struggles which took place in the Cabinet in the critical year of 1909, when at one time the Admiralty resigned as the only way of forcing the Cabinet to build the required eight big ships. The battle against the people described by Mr. Hurd as "the idealists with their heads in the air and the pacificists with their hands in their pockets" was a long one, and there can be no doubt that the war which is now devastating Belgium and Northern France is largely due to the national indifference to the call for preparation.—Mr. Lawton, in summing np "The Errors

and Miscalculations of German Diplomacy," expresses his view that the war was brought about by the Germans' discovery of their diplomatic failure, coupled with the realization of the impossibility of keeping up both the Army and the Navy.— " Politicus " puts together all the available authentic informa- tion as to the immediate causes of the war. From his reasoned statement emerges the fact that the German Foreign Office did not know all that was being plotted by certain German Ambassadors with the connivance of the Emperor. Also it seems clear, as we have noted elsewhere, that Austria at the last moment was anxious to retreat, and that Russia was willing to consider a compromise as to the ultimatum to Servia. Germany would not wait, and the conflagration was lighted, as " Politicus " believes, because the Emperor William was afraid of being reproached by his subjects with another and crowning failure.

In turning the pages of Blackwood it is impossible not to feel bow different this magazine will be in the future. It has long been a treasure-house of records from the frontiers of our Empire in India and Africa, chronicled by the able pens of soldiers. Soon we shall have a deeper note sounded, when narratives of the titanic struggle now taking place begin to appear. An unsigned article in this number deals with the question of "Moral Qualities in War." We are told how care- fully the Japanese educated themselves, so that their spirit should be no less prepared than their bodies. How little we do in England in the way of teaching patriotism to the young, at least officially, and yet we count on this quality for saving the State, as in the present instance, when the Government call for half a million men !—Major Symons describes the exact process proposed for collecting the wounded from the firing line and passing them on through the various stations, till the final hospital in England is reached. The writer, while recognizing the voluntary efforts which are being made on so large a scale in England, wonders whether ordinary people at home understand how complete the official arrangements are. They probably do not, but they remember how often official provision has failed in the past. 'We are quite willing to risk that hospital beds should go unused rather than that they should not be there if they are wanted. —Mr. Ian Hay continues his acute and amusing analysis of boy character in " The Lighter Side of School Life." The attitude of the average boy towards education is well described :—

" am lazy and scatterbrained,' he says in effect. have not as yet developed the power of concentration, and I have no love of knowledge for its own sake. Still, I have no rooted objection to education as such, and I suppose I must learn something in order to earn a living. I am much too busy, as a growing animal, to have energy left for intellectual enterprise. It is the business of my teacher to teach me. To put the matter coarsely, he is paid for it. I shall not offer him effusive assistance in his labours, but if he succeeds in keeping me up to the collar against my will, I shall respect him for it. If be does not I shall take full advantage of the circumstance.'"

This attitude of mind is not confined to the young of one class, it is universal.—Mr. Noyes has had the happy idea

of discovering in a poem the blind ballad-singer Moone. From him Shakespeare heard the ballads, fragments of which he recorded in his plays. The conceit is a pleasant one and gracefully worked ont.—The unsigned article at the end of the magazine on the war retraces the now familiar steps of the diplomatic beginning of hostilities.