THE MAGAZINES.

THERE is plenty of instruction in the Contemporary Review this month, if there is little entertainment. Mr. Demetrius Boulger on " The Scramble for China " is worth reading. We do not agree with his ideas, but they are at least definite and intelligible. ' He contends that the end of the present imbroglio must be that the Powers will agree as to trade, and will settle the Chinese "debts in common, but that for the rest China will be divided off into " spheres of influence," Russia getting the North, Great Britain the Valley of the Yangtse, and Germany Shantung and its Hinterland. In order, however, to make sure that Great Britain should have her share, Mr. Boulger advises her, while joining the other Powers in an occupation of Pekin, to seize Chusan, which dominates the mouth of the Yangtse, and which he describes as an admirable place of arms with abundant supplies. He would then raise ten regi- ments of Chinese, and organise throughout the Valley depen- dent native Governments, aiding and protecting them with a fleet of armed river steamers. We should then, he contends, be masters of the most valuable portion of China. As to carry out this plan we must maintain an army in order to prevent any " Boxer " movement against ourselves, and must, therefore, tax the people, this is a scheme of annexation which would add at least a hundred millions of subjects to our dominion. Apart from the morality of the transaction as nakedly a conquest for gain, we do not believe that we have the strength for it even with a conscription, and without it the effort would be an adventure only to be risked under the pressure of necessity. We have more to do already than we can manage without a great increase of our taxation.—Lord Avebury (Sir John Lubbock) sends a most solid paper pleading against the .present tendency to promote municipal trading. He maintains that it will rapidly increase the total of municipal debt, which is already £250,000,000; will act as a check on private enterprise, no capitalist or association being able to contend with managers who have the rates behind them ; will lead to jobbery, two hundred municipalities having already neglected to use their power of electric lighting, obviously, thinks Lord Avebury, because they are interested in gasworks ; and will overweight the brain-power at disposal for municipal work. He is also of opinion that there will on many projects be ultimate loss, as there has been in many attempts at rehousing, while in many others there will be mismanagement, there being no one to control elective bodies. Suppose the water supplied by the London County Council were inferior, who is to scourge the Council ? He does not discuss the possibilities of corruption, which are great, as supervision is so difficult, but it is evident that he regards the entire movement with grave alarm.

Mr. P. A. Bruce writes a most readable paper on " The Social and Economic Revolution in the Southern States," which he thinks will end in assimilating them to the Northern ; but his views, though most interesting, do not 'completely persuade us. He says too little of the black problem, and of the decided tendency in the South, with its abundant supply of cheap labour, to embark in manufactures. So pronounced is this tendency that the influence of Southern millowners will probably be one great force predisposing the American Government to inter- fere in China, the great market there being indispensable to Southern prosperity.—In " An Unwritten Chapter in Ameri- can Diplomacy" Mr. Maurice Low, if he is rightly informed, really does reveal important secrets. He affirms that the British Government in the Spanish difficulty three times extricated America from an embarrassing position. Just before the war Russia wished England to acquire Cuba, but England refused. Then the whole Continent was willing to warn the States that they must not conquer the island, but England stood aloof, and when Spain offered to give the Philippines to Germany England intimated that such an . arrangement seemed to her unjust to the United States. The statement is most important, and, we have little doubt, 'substantially correct, but it requires the support of documents -which Wilt -? not be published for many years.—We doubt whether many. persons care one straw whether the 'Heralds'. College is reformed " or not, but those who do will be interested • in Mr. A. W. Hutton's account of its deficiencies, -the- first of which, in his judgment, is that the College -is by prescription a peculium of the Duke of Norfolk. He pos- sesses its entire patronage, and as a consequence nearly all the officials are Roman Catholics who might be ordered by the Pope not to attend a Royal funeral. Such an order, the writer says, was given to the Catholic nobility not to attend the Jubilee Service in Westminster Abbey.—Mr. G. F. Millin's scheme for the future of London railways is a large one ; large to dreaminess, but not impossible. He wants to unite all railways entering London in one underground centre, and so to arrange underground communication that no train will ever have to "back out" of the great stations. It is an enticing prospect, but belongs, we fancy, to the great by. and-by.

Mr. Knowles has not been as successful as usual with this number of the Nineteenth Century. The papers are all rather. too much of the average kind. Perhaps an exception should be made in favour of Mr. Lyttelton Gell's " Administrative Reform in the Public Service," which is suggestive, though we fear impracticable. He wishes to increase largely the number of highly paid posts in the Civil Service, to import into them experienced men from outside, and to shift men from depart. meat to department so as to give them wider experience. The proposal sounds well, and Mr. Gell pleads for it with ability, but we doubt if it would permanently work. The introduction of outsiders would end in political jobbery, and the shifting of men in the creation of a class with wide views and imperfect experience who would not assist Ministers half as well as the existing Service does. The final suggestion that "a Board of Administrative Control" should be appointed with powers of promotion and removal, would be fatal to Ministerial re- sponsibility. What seems to be wanted is that marked ability should be more fully recognised as a claim to promotion, and even that opens a wide door to favouritism.—Mr. Norman's paper on China gives us little fresh light. He thinks Russia wishes to master China and the whole world from the Equator to the Poles, but does not give us much advice upon the best method of resistance, while in his practical suggestion that the Emperor of China shoUld be controlled by a Council of- representatives of the Powers we are wholly unable to believe. It would end either in international quarrels, or more prob- ably as it has ended just now, in an order from the Emperor to exterminate the intolerable Europeans. Constitutional government is hard enough to work, but constitutional government under a Cabinet of foreigners is unthinkable. —Mr. MacDonagh believes that life " in the byways of rural Ireland" has greatly improved in the last half- - century. He mentions two curious facts: the excessive over-consumption of over-boiled tea, and the enormous circulation in Ireland of the cheaper English weekly journals. This has quadrupled in the last few years, and, among other results, tends greatly to increase the distaste of the rural communities for the loneliness and dreariness of coml.

fly life.—The Rev. Andrew Drew thinks that" Hooliganism" has its origin in truancy, and wants truant schools made less comfortable, and all existing " Hooligans " persuaded to enter the Army and Navy. We suppose the first piece of advice is sound, though we doubt the reformatory effect of short periods of worry, but the latter would tend to strengthen the impres- sion that any young ruffians will do for the Army,—the precise impression of which we wish to be rid.—Mr. Galton, in " Identification Offices in India and Egypt," publishes some

curious testimony to the utility of his system of identification by finger-prints. It seems to be fully successful in both

countries. It, in fact, enables the Government to keep a kind of dossier of all in their employ or in their prisons, and thus to prevent all undesirable, or rather all convicted, persons from obtaining public employ.

With the majority of the propositions laid down by Mr. Edward Dicey in his paper on ".The Policy of Peace," which stands first in the July Fortnightly, we find .oUrselves accord. The tone of the article is, 'in the main, most con- ciliatory ; he would not go beyond the lines laid down by Mr.

Schreiner for the rearrangement of the franchise; be is strongly against any -wholesale confiscation, of the lands of the Boer farmers-; and he is all for encouraging Reservists to

• settle. But heis on- much more disputable ground when he

&dares that "the time has come to put aside the prejudices caused by the Raid, and to avail ourselves freely of the ser- vim of the British party, of which, in fact, if not in name, Mr. Oecil Rhodes still remainwthe leader. We have a hard task before us, and we need the help of all South African statesmen, who, whatever errors they may be deemed to have committed,:lisve.always been loyal in their allegiance to the Mother Country." To predicate unswerving " loyalty " of this sort of Mr,"-Rhodes involves a singularly trustful dis- position.—Mr..Beckles Willson gives a clear and interest- ing sketch of the history and organisation of the Colonial Office, and pays a generous tribute to the skill and success with which Mr. Chamberlain has grappled with his huge task. He holds, however, that no man, however able, can cope single- handed with the wide-reaching and intricate responsibilities of the office, and suggests that the burden should be lightened by the creation . of .an additional Secretary of State to preside over the affairs of the Crown Colonies, as well as by ' the establishment of a Secretary of State for each of the great Federations of Colonies—Canada, Australia, and South Africa —each with a seat in the House of Lords and in the Cabinet. —Judge Parry. .writes on the Workmen's Compensation Act, which he pronounces " anaasterpiece of unskilful legisla- tion and the fruitful parent 'of much painful "legislation," although he credits both Government and Opposition with a strong and sincere desire for reform. -This untoward result he attributes to finicking drafting, by which the intention to disregard the old principle of contributory negligence has been frustrated. . The true method of dealing with the problem he.-finds in the German Sickness Insurance Act and Accident Insurance Act. He.-would like to see the present Act abolished, the whole machinery taken away from the Law Courts, and freed from the paralysing effect of departmental rules :-- "What is wanted is a scheme rather than an Act of Parliament. A scheme in which, if the County Court machinery is used, it is only to be used for the purpose of fixina compensation, and then calling in the Post Office to aid in dists:buting the funds. A scheme in which.the appeals, if any, are to be to some body like the Railway Commissioners, businesslike as well as techilical. The employer wants to know what he has to pay ; the workman wants 'to know what he has to get; the insurance company wants to know on what to base its rates. Every. one cries out for certainty. Other countries have this, but at present Parliament has.failed.to give it us. And the failure is due to a touching liereditacy faith in Departments and Law Courts, when what is wanted is business."

—Mr. Holt. Schooling's elaborate series of tables to illus- trate the naval ,strength of the seven sea Powers are based on a scale of depreciation for age. Thus ships launched before 1880 are valued at 20 per cent. of their nominal fighting weight, between 1880-84 at 40. per cent., between 1885-89 at 60 per cent., between 1890-94 at 80 per cent., and between 1895-99 and later at their full value. The results of the inquiry are decidedly reassuring to our national self-esteem, but of course they need to be revised and checked by tables comparing the strength of the Powers in guns, armour, engines, and men. These no doubt will he supPlied in the continuation of the present article.

" DiplOrnaticni," dealing with the crisis in the Far East, accuses our diplomacy of being unsympathetic to the reforiaers and apathetic in regard to our interests. Cer- tainly the warnings and the appeals which appeared months ago in the, North China Herald lend colour to this view. The following passage appeared in that journal last February " Widannot too strongly insist that, unless this is done, it is morally. certain that the opening spring will witness a rising =eh as foreigners in China have never seen before. The whole country from the Yellow River to the great Wall and beyond will be a. blaze -of insurrection, which will not only annihilate every foreign interest .of every sort in the interior, but will drive every foreigner out of Peking and Tientsin under conditions which it is not difnult to foresee. There has been more or less danger of such an uprising for a long time. Unless strong and united efforts are now put forth, it is as certain to take place as any future event can well be. Those who are interested in pre-

venting.it accordingly."

--ri`irc 'article' tin the military operations in South Africa contains' ioii!e'interesting observations. on Lord Robvts's• taareli- fromInciernfontein to Elandsfontein, in compal.reia •

with that of the !woad German Army from Metz to the Loire and Napoleon's famous advance from the Channel to the Rhine in .1805.—Mr. Vandam's paper on " Poets as Legislators" ia , a good specimen of an essay in the otiose. One might as well discuss.the merits of Bishops as sculptors or Cabinet Ministers as composers.

The " Conservative M.P." who writes in the National .Reciew on "A Khaki Dissolution"—we sincerely trust that this hard-worked word will ere long be relegated to its proper use--contends that outside the House of Commons no genuine demand for an immediate Dissolution has made itself beard; furthermore, that a General Election, if held at a time of war-fever, would not produce a strong Government. Huge majorities, he holds, demoralise Governments and dispirit Oppositions, and he concludes that it will be better for the permanent interests even of the Unionist party that it should find itself faced by an active and not an impotent Opposition, a general political view that has been more than once expressed in , these columns.—The pith of Mr. Conybeare's paper on " The Conspiracy against the French Republic " is to be found in the statement that " for the last five years the Civil Government has been engaged in a death-duel with a mili- tarism of which the inner heart and core is jesuitry," a thesis which he supports by copious citations from the Croix and other official sources in illustraticin of the political and electoral activity of the Assumptionists. Incidentally he observes that during the darkest moments of the Transvaal War the only party in Germany and France disposed to be sober and reasonable in their attitude to England were the Socialists. Mr. Conybeare writes • with his usual ability and incisiveness, but we deeply regret the acrimony and violence of some of his personal references, and cannot but think he underestimates the services and the strength of MM. Loubet and Waldeck-Rousseau.—Mr. Maurice Low's American article contains a handsome and well-deserved tribute to Governor Roosevelt. " In addition to his personal popu- larity," writes Mr. Low, " which will be worth many thoudand votes, he will have the support of every man who fought in Cuba, for Roosevelt is the one picturesque figure of the war. He is a man to charm men,—straightforward, honest, direct, impulsive at times, but, always sincere; as courageous in politics as on the field of battle, a success in whatever he has undertaken." Other points of interest in a very interesting paper .are the account of the Ice Trust Scandal, and a thoughtful forecast of the policy of Mr. Bryan, if he should be elected, which Mr. Low regards as not probable, but yet not an utter improbability.—Mr. Oman's " Plea for Military History" is both timely and impressive. His main contention, that "the directing classes of any State should be as well instructed in the history of the art of war as they are in economic or constitutional history " is supported' by much cogent reasoning, and we are inclined to agree with him when he says that " the most discomposing incident of the last autumn was not Nicholson's Nek or Magersfontein, but that astounding message sent from London to Australia, which told our willing Colonists that if they wished to supply men for the war ' infantry would be preferable.' "—Captain Gage contributes a very pleasant account of his trip from Uganda to Khartoum, giving a vivid description of two efforts to penetrate the " Sudd " region. In the second and successful effort Captain Gage was accompanied by Lieutenant de Tonquedec, a French officer of the Infanterie de Marine, who with a small band of Senegalese had marched all the way from the West Coast to Shambe. Of the gallantry, endur- ance, sportsmanship, and personal charm of this officer Captain Gage speaks in the warmest terms.—We may also• notice Mr. Coulton's instructive article on the Swiss Army ; Mr. Wilson's " Story of the Boer War," which forms a Supplement to the number ; and Mr. Horace Hutchinson's sensible and genial essay on the present " Parlous Condition of Cricket."

Blackwood is unusually strong in descriptive articles this month, of which the best is the intensely interesting account ' by a " Linesman " of the informal armistice on Pieter's Hill in Natal on Sunday, February 25th. The Boers and English

officers met and conversed freely, and the writer gives a most enkaging pirture of Commandant Pristoins, "a son of Ahak

by delimit, and a gallant, golden-bearded fighting-man by present occupation," though by profession a lawyer at Middelburg.—Mr. Edward Irving's paper on the Mai Daiat or " Upland People," a gentle tribe of diminutive stature who inhabit the highlands of the Malay Peninsula—" primitive Socialists" he calls them—and of the benevolent Italian gentle. man who has won their confidence, is also wonderfully well done. —The article on Our Officers " is a courageous rather than convincing vindication of our present system of training and education. The author commits himself to a rather dangerous position by tracing our failures in the field to evil for- tune as much as anything else. " Before giving a man an appointment, Napoleon asked Est-il heureux ' He at least recognised that fate has more to do with success that many people are willing to believe." Yet the late Sir George Colley was regarded as a singularly lucky man up to the time of his last campaign ; while Wolfe only achieved success on the last day of his life.—Mr. Walter Harris writes in a tranquillising strain about " The Morocco Scare." He admits there has been a crisis, but anticipates good results from the emancipation of the young Sultan from his tutelage, and acquits France of all intention to bring about a crisis in Morocco. At the same time, he holds that " geographically and ethnologically, Morocco is an extension of the French colony of Algeria, and as such France has certainly pre- dominating rights." He goes on to contend that " provided neutrality of the Straits of Gibraltar was strictly guaranteed, and a commercial treaty allowing a certain freedom of trade to all nations entered on, there is no possible reason why France should not possess the country."