THE MAGAZINES.

Ihipzu the heading "A Great Democratic Reform" Mr.

Harold Cox contributes a really illuminating paper on the Referendum to the January Nineteenth. Century. The con- version of the Unionist Party may have been sudden, but, as Mr. Cox truly says, the causes which have given rise to the conversion are continuing causes. The Referendum, which is the best means of reconciling Conservatism with Democracy, is on the whole a conservative instrument in the countries where it is habitually employed ; but its peculiar value to the Unionist Party is that it prevents a combination of political groups from forcing on the country a series of measures which independently would be unable to command a majority.

It is, in short, "the only instrument sufficiently powerful to put a stop to a well-organised scheme of legislation by log-rolling," and precisely for that reason it is as objectionable to the extreme Tariff Reformer as to the extreme Radical. The Swiss Radicals dislike the Referendum ; but even they do not venture to demand its abolition. After dealing effectively with the argument that the conditions in Switzerland are wholly different, Mr. Cox proceeds to show how the evils of our party organisation—the sale of titles, the "freezing out" of independent Members, the growth of political dishonesty, the tyranny of the caucus—can be more effectually cured, or at least checked, by the Referendum than by any other means. He dismisses Mr. Lloyd George's extravagant estimate of the expense of applying the Refer- endum as fanciful ; but, indeed, Mr. Lloyd George is not a

good judge of extravagance. Very effective, again, is his reply to Mr. Austen e'Chamberlain's contention that the

Referendum could not be applied to the ordinary Budget of the year, and therefore is inapplicable to the question of Tariff Reform,—because Customs-duties imposed by the Budget of the year must come into operation on the night they are pro- posed by the House of Commons. This reason, Mr. Cox admits, is perfectly valid when applied to a Free-trade Budget :—

"But the willingness of the Legislature provisionally to consent to new taxes without any discussion arises from the knowledge that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will only propose taxes which in his judgment are the most suitable for the purpose of raising the necessary revenue of the year, and which are proposed for no other purpose than to raise revenue. These considerations can never apply to a Tariff Reform Budget, for the essence of what is called Tariff Reform is that Customs Duties are to be imposed not primarily to raise revenue, but to give preferences or protection to particular industries. No Parliament would consent to give the Chancellor of the Exchequer the power of bringing into force at once any protective duties which he chooses to propose in his Budget."

Any Tariff Bill, therefore, which goes beyond the strict

necessities of revenue will have to be separated froni the rest of the Budget, so that it may be fully and publicly discussed before c:oming into operation, and there is not the slightest practical inconvenience in providing that final approval to

this Bill must be given by a Poll of the People Amongst the questions which ought obviously to be submitted to the Referendum Mr. Cox specially singles out Home-rule and payment of Members. He also notes the points in which the Swiss practice is capable of improvement—e.g., by allowing one-third of the House of Commons the right of demanding the Referendum, and permitting it to be used as a final means of settling disputes between the two Houses—and maintains

that, if coupled with a courageous reform of the House of Lords, the Referendum "would make our Constitution firmly democratic, and thus prevent the habitual misrepresentation

of our people by groups of log-rolling politidans."—Lord Ribblesdale discusses "The General Election and After" from the standpoint of a semi-detached Liberal with a somewhat cynical sense of humour. On one point, however, he speaks seriously and strongly,—the "stifling of debate," the "con- certed action to burke discussion" of the Parliament Bill in the House of Lords. As for Home-rule, Lord Ribblesdale is of opinion that "Mr. Redmond for the moment will be preambled, like the reformed Second Chamber," and he adds : "Mr. Asquith is not so afraid of Mr. Redmond or so obedient to the Irish section of his majority as people think." His reading of the failure of the Conference is at least ingenious, if not altogether convincing :—

"Our leaders may well have arrived at a compromise which they knew their followers would not accept without another appeal to arms. They therefore reported failure. The fact, how- ever, that the decision of the electorate has left matters much where they were before the Conference suet, alters the situation in one vital respect. A feeling of lassitude comes over the com- batants, and the public mind is prepared for the kind of solution by compromise which the Conference leaders may have been holding in reserve all the time."

Lord Dunraven's article on "The Moral of an Immoral Election" is chiefly interesting for its forecast of the Govern- ment programme and the insuperable difficulties that will block the way of Home-rule. He, like Lord Ribblesdale, hopes for a Conference on the Constitutional issue. The moral of the Election, in his view, is that we must reform, but not destroy, the House of Lords, and relieve the House of Commons by Devolution.—Sir Edward Clayton, late Inspector of Prisons, discusses the Home Secretary's schemes of prison reform with respect and appreciation, but in a judicial spirit. Mr. Winston Churchill has been lavishly praised for the imagination which inspires his proposals. Sir Edward Clayton sets himself to show that in many respects imagination has been indulged by the surrender of knowledge and experience, and deals faithfully with the sentimental incursions of Mr. Galsworthy into the field of prison reform.

The editor of the National Review in his "Episodes of the Month" deals almost entirely with the elections. In his view, the Unionists were heading straight for victory when they

were thrown out of their stride by Mr. Balfour's "Albert Hall blunder,"—viz., the announcement that he was prepared to

submit the principle of Tariff Reform to the Referendum. The editor disclaims hostility towards the Referendum, but con- siders that Mr. Balfour's method of meeting the Premier's challenge was feeble and ineffectual, as well as disastrous in its consequences. Mr. Balfour's concession, we are given to understand, was made to please "the diminutive and diminishing army of Free Fooders," who failed to materialise when the battle was really joined. This theme is developed in an article on "Two Elections and a Moral" signed by "Politicns," who declares that "once again the minority led the Party. The enthusiasts were sacrificed to the doubters," and the Unionist Party "has sacrificed the enthusiasm and the zeal of its best troops to win back a few deserters and to recruit a few waverers." The editor, indeed, goes further, and roundly declares that he has long been of opinion that "under Mr. Balfour there is little or no hope of the Unionist Party regaining its influence in the State."—Mr. H. W. Wilson deals with the new code of naval war laid down by the Declaration of London much on the lines of Mr. Gibson Bowles in his book on Sea Law and Sea Power. He lays special stress on the suicidal nature from Great Britain's point of view—of the provisions defining the conditions under which food-stuffs become contraband of war. Against these provisions not only have many Chambers of Commerce already protested, but they were condemned in advance by

Lord Granville in 1885 in a despatch to the French Govern- ment. Mr. Wilson also quotes the opinion of Dr. Lawrence, one of the Admiralty Lecturers ou International Law, on the

conditions required by our circumstances and established by the previously recognised laws of war. After noting that Colonial supplies in Colonial ships could be confiscated by our adversary without his troubling to decide whether they were contraband or not, Dr. Lawrence continues :—

" It follows that we cannot be satisfied with less than a quasi- legislative enactment of freedom for food-stuffs when brought in time of war to belligerent ports in neutral vessels We hold the rule we advocate to be already law by custom. But if we are to assist in the creation of an International Prize Court we must first make sure that it has no opportunity of deciding in a contrary sense."

Not only have we failed to secure this freedom for our own food-stuffs, but we have assured it for our enemy's food- supplies by another clause of the Declaration, which declares that food cannot be contraband where it is consigned to a neutral port. Mr. Wilson also deals with the dangers involved in the abandonment of our position with regard to the destruction of neutral prizes, in the new regulations governing blockades, and finally in the constitution of the International Prize Court.—" Lloyd Georgeism on the Platform" is a verbatim reprint of the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Mile End speech, with useful annotations by the editor. This speech has been enthusiastically praised by extreme Radicals for its brilliance and humour, but none of Mr. Lloyd George's colleagues has ventured to call it statesmanlike.—" Lloyd Georgeism in Practice" is a lurid picture of the new Portuguese Republican Government, of which the writer, an Englishman in Portugal, asserts that it has carried out no reforms of any value, but has only aggravated the disorder that formerly prevailed in all departments of public life. Certainly the new Divorce-kw is a most incoherent and inconsistent document.

The Election article in the Contemporary is by Mr. E. T.

Cook, who interprets the "no change" result as indicating the staunchness of the electors in their resolve to attain the policy of restricting the veto. The Election, in his view, is decisive. "There is only one possible Government in the new Parliament, and there is only one possible policy for it." He is equally uncompromising in his rejection of any resumption of the Conference :—" To suggest that the parties should resume the Conference is simply another way of saying that the election ought not to count." As for compromise, "the door will only be opened to possible adjustment and agree- ment on the day upon which the Lords shall accept loyally, frankly, and unreservedly the main lines which the Govern- ment have framed and the country has approved for the curtailment of the veto of the present Upper House." He admits, however, that the Constitutional question will not be settled on the day when the Lords either consent or are com- pelled to accept the Parliament Bill : "the preamble of the Bill contains the promise of reform in the constitution of the

-Upper House." The question of Home-rule is not even mentioned from beginning to end of the article.—Mr.

Foxcroft describes the working of the Initiative-Referendum in the United States, and pronounces it unsatisfactory on the grounds of (1) the crude form which measures thus sub- mitted are likely to take ; (2) the confusion caused by the simultaneous presentation of conflicting proposals; (3) the absence of facilities for adequate discussion ; (4) the invariable disadvantage which such a system imposes on the Conservatives. As we are not aware that it is proposed by any of the advocates of the Referendum to introduce it in this form in this country, Mr. Foxeroft's article, though interesting, is somewhat otiose.—Mr. Hogarth in "Turkey after Two Years" describes the achievements of the new regime and its prospects of stability in a fairly optimistic spirit. Education in the theory and practice of free social life, he notes, is what the Ottoman Empire will need most for many years to come; but he maintains that the Young Turks not only know this necessity well, but have taken all sorts of measures to meet it. He finds considerable improvement in both the character and discipline of the police force, and concludes by remarking that "if Turkey can avoid war or serious financial embarrassment for a few years," he does not see why she should come to grief, "supposing her administration to be willing and able to conduct her firmly on liberal lines, not in the interest of one rase only or of one creed." Crete and the Bulgarian frontier are the two danger-spots ; internally the hardest task is the unifying of all the Moslem elements with the Christian ones. We may add that Mr. Hogarth attributes the recent decline of British influence at Constantinople to the force of circumstances rather than the incompetence of our diplomatists.--Pro- fessor L. P. Jacks writes on "William James and his

Message." The opening part of his paper is devoted to a candid account of the difficulties under which pragmatists

labour,—in especial the fact that "they are using an instru- ment of expression which is all ready to the hands of their opponents and all unready to their own, and which actually breaks under the use they are compelled to make of it"

"No one can catch the spirit of their argument unless he approaches it in an attitude of complete detachment from the power of mere words, and with his imagination awake and on the stretch for that 'more' of meaning which lies hidden behind such terms as working," verification," satisfaction,' truth.'"

The philosophy of William James, in short, "has encountered the not uncommon lot of being criticised before it has been understood" ; but there is no doubt in Professor Jacks's mind that "beneath the temporary defects of James's presentation, Pragmatism embodies a living force of human conviction and experience, which in the long run will succumb to no gain- saying."—Dr. Charles Sarolea proves to his own satisfaction the essential unity of Tolstoy's life and work. The "con- version" of 1878 was not a new birth ; it was, "on the one hand, the inevitable biological reaction and exhaustion after fifteen years of Titanic production ; and, on the other hand, it was the recurrence and culmination of the moral anguish and spiritual malady from which the writer suffered from his youth."

In the Fortnightly Mr. Belloo laments "The Change in Politics." The change is the disappearance of the independent Member of the House of Commons and the growth of the

worship of party. Great issues now are debated, not with a view of deciding what is best for the country, but what will bolster up the party machine. The only thing to "purify the game and the machine," Mr. Belloe considers, is a military disaster; but even he is not ready to pray for so drastic a. remedy.—Captain Battine discusses Turkey's position with regard to the Triple Alliance ; but his argument really is that England must have what be calls adequate land forces capable of dealing with at least one Continental Power. Only in this way shall we escape from the dangerous position of diplomatically playing off one country against another. He blames both our Government and Press for their wantonly hostile attitude towards Austria in the Bosnian affair. As regards ordinary public opinion in England, the hostility no doubt arose from disgust at the cynical tearing up of Treaties by the Dual Monarchy. It may be inconvenient for the magazine strategist, but in large international questions the sensitiveness of English opinion has to be reckoned with.—Colonel Pollock sees great dangers in our system of entirely separate control of the Army and Navy. He would have a single War Minister for both Services, who should not be a party politician, but responsible to the Prime Minister. This great official's Staff would have on it both soldiers and sailors. In expeditions where "naval and military forces are given a definite task to

perform in combination, the Admiral should hold the chief command." As showing the need for such a course, the

muddles and. mistakes of the dual American command in the operations against Santiago de Cuba are instanced. Colonel Pollock considers that the stores common to both Services should be supplied from one source, and believes that efficiency and economy would be gained by

the establishment of a national Army and Navy Stores. The impression which Mr. Sydney Brooks gives of the

American Congress is startling to the Englishman accus- tomed to the ritual of our Parliament. We are told not only of the unrestricted approach by outsiders, but of the absence of ceremony among the Members themselves. Imagine the horror of Mr. Speaker at Westminster if he saw before him, as he might at Washington, "a phalanx of small boys, the sons of Congressmen, who sat on their fathers' knees during the debates and one urchin, I was enraptured to see, came up with his father to be sworn in, held up his little fist, and took the oath of allegiance. Isn't that just the cunningest, cutest thing you ever saw ? ' said the ladies in the galleries." We also have glimpses of the legislators being shaved in a room separated from the floor of the House by a glass door, which is left open so that the negro barber max

come and listen to the debates when his business is slack. We are then given an edifying picture of the messenger boys, who "loll about by the table in front of the Speaker's chair and play surreptitious games beneath its shadow with a watchful eye on the Serjeant-at-Arms." These boys some.. times join in the applause which comes from the galleries. Smoking is prohibited in the House, but this does not prevent the chewing of unlighted cigars. Mr. Sydney Brooks draws a veil over the dire results which follow this substitution of chewing for smoking.

Sir Mortimer Durand gives us in Blackwood a further instalment of his impressions of South Africa, in which are many shrewd observations. The following reflection regard- ing white labour is made after a visit to some gold mines in Johannesburg :—" No miner, whatever be has done at home, will touch unskilled work here. That is Kafir's work.' So they never learn their business from the bottom, and many of the natives and Chinese, who do learn it, are becoming skilled workmen." The writer discusses the question of the inertia which seems to overtake so many farmers, whether of English or Dutch origin. One explanation which used to be given to account for this fact was that it was so easy to make a liveli- hood that full energy was never called out. Sir Mortimer inclines towards the view that the climate is answerable, and that really the country is not a true white man's land as far as climatic conditions are concerned.—Colonel Callwell discusses in some detail Sir Ian Hamilton's Memorandum against compulsory service. Complaint is made that the work, which is official, makes no attempt to be judicial, but is a piece of apecial pleading. The whole controversy of course turns on the point whether, if we have compulsory training, we shall get enough recruits for the Regular Army, owing to those who were trained being tired of soldiering. Colonel Callwell in analysing Sir Ian Hamilton's arguments declares that in dealing with the recruits coming from the Special Reserve he has made some important omissions. This body of men receives a training half as long again as that proposed by the National Service League. "But not a refer- ence is made to the fact—a fact which is common knowledge in the Service—that the majority of young recruits who join this category of the forces volunteer for the regulars. Sir Ian Hamilton tells us at one point that he is trying to write impartially. His laudable efforts in that direction have not been crowned with unqualified success."—" Ole Lulc-Oie " gives us one of his delightful stories of the Boer War full of humour and character. This time we have the adventures of an American mining engineer who served in our army and helped to repair a bridge. The great difficulty was to get materials through by train. How the engineer managed to masquerade as a Staff officer by means of the red flannel off a chest-protector is told by the engineer himself to his superior officer with infinite gusto.

Mr. Bernard Shaw's short play, The Dark Lady of the Sonnets, is printed in the English Review. The little joke of Shakespeare making notes for further use of the phrases either of the Beefeater or of Queen Elizabeth is quite entertaining at first, but is hardly good enough to bear repeating seven times. There is little or no dramatic characterisation in either the Queen or the dramatist. As we should expect, they merely give forth Mr. Bernard Shaw's ideas clothed in that peculiar dialect of Wardour Street English which Stevenson called " Tushery."—Mr. Swift MacNeill states "The Irish Demand," which, he says, has not varied since Butt defined a constitutionally governed country as a place where "the Sovereign carries on the government of the country by advisers controlled by a representative assembly of the people." Mr. MacNeill does not seem to think that there are any difficulties in the way of establishing the state of things he desires, or at any rate he will not let us know that he has any doubts of the simplicity of the proposal. But the historical outline that he gives of Irish Parliaments in the past will make the average Englishman feel that the problem is at least a complicated one. Indeed, this survey of Irish government forces on our minds very strongly the feeling that of all the difficulties the Union is by far the least.—Mr. Temperley writes most moderately and without heat about the Referendum. He is, on the whole, against the proposal, but he endeavours to give full weight to all the arguments in its favour. His objection to the plan seems to arise from a fear of the brute force of a majority which will know, no compromise. At the same time, the writer thinks that by means of the Referendum a sense of responsibility would be developed in the voter. Evidently the chief objection, in Hr. Temperley's view, is that legislators and Ministers will degenerate, and that parties will not flourish so well as before. The weakness of this argument is that it supposes an ideal condition of things in which parties think only of the good of the nation and not of their own existence. It is refreshing, however, to read a political article where the writer, without making any secret of his own view, tries to state fairly the case of the other side.

In the January number of the United Service Magazine the controversy over "The Rifle versus the Anne Blanche" is continued by "Kismet." The paper is short, and has nothing very new or important in it, but it is interesting to see how writers are beginning to understand that " shock " tactics and the use of the sword are by no means necessarily combined. " Shock " tactics may be abandoned, and yet the case for the sword remain as strong as ever.—A very striking paper is "The Strategical Value of Territorial Cyclists for Home Defence." We are heartily with the writer in his statement of the facts and in his conclusions. Not only do we want to see the number of cyclist battalions largely increased, but we hold it absolutely necessary that each Territorial battalion should have an adequate contingent of cyclists. A battalion without cyclists under modern war conditions is like an ant which has had its antennae cut off. Imagine the position of a commanding officer whose only messengers— scouts and collectors of information—move at the rate of three miles an hour, and can only cover at the most fifteen miles in the day. A good cyclist can, unless conditions are very unfavourable, manage eighty.