THE MAGAZINES.

THE new Nineteenth Century opens with a long article by Mr. J. Ellis Barker, formerly Mr. Eltzbacher, on "The Anti-British Policy of Germany." Mr. Ellis Barker deals trenchantly with the confiding optimism of Lord Eversley, and points out that, as regards the absorption of Holland by Germany, the material advantages of incorporation would weigh strongly with the Dutch merchants. Turning to Germany's policy towards Great Britain, be contends that the need of providing an outlet for the overspill of her population, though not urgent at the moment, is bound to become so before long, and that by irresistible logic the possession of a Colonial Empire involves the control of the sea and conflict with Great Britain. The adoption of an anti-British policy is the result of a sincere conviction that German ambitions and British interests are incompatible, and that the British Empire is an obstruction to Germany's national progress. It is a perfectly tenable line of argument that Germany is committed by force of circumstances to this particular line of Machtpolitik, but Mr. Ellis Barker is not always convincing in his illustrations; e.g., we demur to his view that the Kruger telegram was part of a deliberate scheme to encourage the Boer Republics before the war broke out, and that Germany's support cost this country twenty thousand lives and £250,000,000. Even more sensa- tional is his contention that the German Government have been importing half-starved British labourers as strike- breakers to give the German people an ocular demonstration of the blessings of Free-trade and to exasperate the German labouring masses against Great Britain. With regard to the German Navy, the writer holds that its actual strength is underestimated, and that there is strong evidence that the German Government intend, in spite of their declara- tions, to force the pace, and accelerate the completion of the ships already voted. The whole article is indirectly a glorifica- tion of the wealth, strength, and the policy of Germany. Against so formidable an antagonist it would seem to be useless for us to think of holding our own. We have neither a Bismarck nor a Bismarckian policy. There is, however, according to Mr. Ellis Barker, one way, but only one, out of our difficulties :—" If Great Britain is not rich enough or not strong enough to defend the Empire single-banded, she must call upon her sons to aid her, and they will come to their mother's assistance. The latent resources of the British Empire are greater than are the latent resources of the United States and Germany combined, but they must not

remain merely latent resources. They must be transformed from resources in posse into resources in esse. The great Imperial domain must be systematically developed, and be filled with white men, &c." Really, in view of the forlornness of this hope and the extreme vagueness of the remedy, would it not be much simpler and safer for Great Britain to-aim at incorporation in the German Empire ? The childish confidence of Lord Eversley is bad enough, but the Teutophobia of Mr. Ellis Barker—which is almost indistinguishable from Teutolatry—is worse.—Mr. Archibald Hurd, one of the whole-hearted supporters of the present regime at the Admiralty, writes nominally on Japan's naval development, but his paper practically resolves itself into a eulogy of the 'Dreadnought.' "The Dreadnought was an inevitable development, but the virtue of the British Admiralty lies in the fact that they seized and adopted the main lessons of the [Russo-Japanese] war before even the two combatants.

The British Admiralty took the lead in this matter of concentration of power in a single hull, and now all the nations of the world are following in their footsteps."—Some of the facts given in the sensational article, "The Moslem Menace," by Captain H. A. Wilson, have been forestalled by the letter on the Senoussi movement which appeared recently in our columns. We deal with the main bearings of the article elsewhere, but may note that Captain Wilson considerably impairs his claim to a serious hearing by the stress he lays on the evidence of the notorious Dr. Carl Peters.—Miss Florence Low's paper on "The Educational Ladder and the Girl" is chiefly remark- able for her frankness in asserting that with very few exceptions elementary-school teachers ought to come from a class which has not received its education in the elementary school. For the rest, we may note her belief in domestic work as offering an excellent field of remunerative labour for properly trained girls and women. But then the tenure and conditions of domestic work must be "radically altered," and "the last remnants of the old feudal idea of service must be swept away." The chief points of the new charter are to be fixed hours of work, a definite time for meals, and the option to live at home. It may mean higher wages, but with domestic workers—the term " servant " must clearly go—who have been trained in domestic Training Colleges, superior efficiency will lead to economy in other directions. Besides, as Miss Low sagely remarks, "as at present there is the greatest difficulty in getting domestic workers at all, many people will not mind the extra expense."

Sir Rowland Blennerhassett's article on "National Pur- blindness " in the National has very much the same aim as that of Mr. Ellis Barker in the Nineteenth Century,—to awaken British readers to the dangers of over-confidence in the good intentions of Germany. His method, however, is widely different. Instead of dwelling on the strength of Germany in the present, he draws his lessons from the trend of her policy in the past. His remedies, again, are rather more specific, notably his insistence on the need of a real "nation in arms." Then lie maintains that there is a clear call for England to take the lead in dealing with the situation in Macedonia, even though it involved sending a fleet to the Piraeus to coerce the Greek Government. But the great question is : "Will England, not alone as regards Macedonia, but in all international affairs, definitely renounce the sordid, selfish, and superficial creed of Cobden and return to the traditions of Palmerston and Chatham ? "—By way of contrast to Sir Rowland Blennerhassett's paper, it is amusing to read the complaint of "A Radical Stalwart" of "The Fatal Dominance of the Whigs" in the present Cabinet. According to this writer, the Whigs in office, "despising democracy and discouraging all strenuous agitation for change, have succeeded in twenty months in discrediting the strongest Government in modern times, and the country only waits for a General Election to express its want of con- fidence." It is not that they are wanting in ability—" in sheer brain power and force of intellect Mr. Asquith and Mr. Haldane have no match among their colleagues "—but that they have "betrayed the Radicals on the Land Question and the House of Lords, and have shown a contempt for national opinion in their treatment of the House of Commons, of finance, and of the Army." The offenders, besides those already named, are Lord Elgin and Mr. Herbert Gladstone.

Sir Edward Grey, whose conduct of our foreign policy has begun seriously to exercise the Radical Press, is not even mentioned.—In his monthly letter on American affairs Mr. Maurice Low finds himself in entire agreement with Mr. Roosevelt on the great issue of Federal power v. State rights. He has some acute remarks on Mr. Bryan's peculiar position. "That his popularity is very great no one can question, but unfortunately for him it is not great enough to follow him to the polls. But in defeating himself, Mr. Bryan defeats his party. The New York Sun truthfully but caustically remarks: 'But Hector in his tomb beneath the date grove of Mount Ida is a more beneficent quantity than the so far unburied Bryan of Nebraska. At least Hector can no longer harm his friends.' "—The editorial "Episodes of the Month" are as irresponsible and vivacious as usual We may content ourselves with one extract in which the editor declares that the new Australian tariff "gives us a substantial preference over the foreigner, which is as much as we can expect and more than some of us deserve It is an earnest of their enthusiasm for the Empire and of their confidence in the ultimate triumph of Preference in Great Britain." We wonder whether the bicycle-makers of Coventry are prepared to endorse this eulogy of Mr. Deakiu's "concession."

Professor H. Stanley Jevons sketches in the Contemporary the International Federal Government which he believes must arise in seventy or eighty years, "provided that judicious efforts are made by the friends of peace to hasten the natural rate of evolution." It will consist of three branches,—a legislative body, or Senate, electing by ballot the Prime Minister, who selects the other Ministers practically in accordance with its wishes; the Executive Government, con- trolled by a Cabinet of five members ; and the Judiciary. He pictures it established at the Hague, and proceeds to show bow its policy would affect existing problems, as well as to indicate how it would have dealt with the international difficulties and complications of the past fifteen years. As regards the former, he holds that the legislation of the Senate would bring about the separation of Finland and Poland from Russia, of Hungary and Bohemia from Austria, "but not that of India from English rule, owing to the absence of any promise of better government." As regards the latter, we may take his treatment of the South African War ;— " Had the International Court of Justice I have pictured been in existence it would no doubt have granted an application from the IIitlanders for complete enfranchisement on a basis of three years' residence. It would not have proceeded further until tho end of the Kruger regime came naturally with his death, when it would probably have sympathetically considered any application for the annexation of the two Boer republics by the British Empire, with a view to the federation of the South African States. Had a referendum shown the necessary sixty per cent. majority, the union would have taken place within, say, two years, whatever resistance might have been offered by a few irreconcilable Boers."

Professor Stanley Jevons admits that to secure compliance with its decrees his International Government will have to rely in certain cases on coercion applied by an International Army, so that the scheme is to this extent removed from the category of millennial forecasts.— Mr. Edward E. Lang traces in his interesting paper on "The All-India Moslem League" the gradual, and in his view inevitable, emergence of the Mohammedans of India into the political arena. This new departure, though apparently involving the abandonment of the purely educa- tional policy advocated by the late Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, was, according to Mr. Lang, distinctly foreshadowed in the later utterances of the great Mohammedan leader. "It has nothing whatever to do with Pan-Islamism," and as its object

is to uphold the just rule of the British Government, while maintaining the just rights of all Mohammedan citizens, it

is "to be welcomed as a loyal movement on the part of loyal British subjects milking for the solidity of the Empire and the preservation of peace."—The friction which has recently arisen between the United States and Japan prompts "Cruiser " to discuss the conditions under which a war between the two Powers would be entered into and carried on. Specu-

lations of this sort are generally to be deprecated, and the writer is hardly justified in assuming that the racial antipathy, which, in his opinion, is at the root of the trouble, is increasing.

Otherwise the subject is treated without sensationalism or partisanship. The writer holds that the Western Pacific would of necessity be the theatre of the operations, and that in regard to bases, experience of war, and discipline the advantage would lie with Japan. At the same time, lie shrinks from any confident predictions, and falls back on the safe but unimpressive conclusion that neither side is in a position to feel at all certain of ultimate suacess.--Mr.

A. de Biliuski discusses the disintegration of the Turkith

Army, a subject on which he is well qualified to speak. The raw material is splendid, but the general disorganisation of the Empire renders cohesion or efficiency impossible, and the disastrous campaign in Arabia prompts Mr. de Bilinski to doubt whether Turkey will be able to hold her own "in her unavoidable struggle in the near future with Bulgaria." —With the most suggestive and original paper in the number, Sir W. M. Ramsay's discussion of "St. Paul's Philosophy of History," we cannot deal adequately in a brief summary. We can only note that, in defiance of the teachings of modern science, Sir William Ramsay is led by his experience and his reading to confirm St. Paul, and to accept the view that the history of religion among man is a history of degeneration, and that "among the vast majority of the nations the history of manners and civilisation is a story of degeneration." We give the sequel in the writer's own words:— " Having attained this view I recognised that it was the basis of the Pauline philosophy. In this Paul adopted the opinion current in pagan society and in pagan philosophy. The practi- cally universal view in the ancient world v:.ts that decay and degeneration were the law of the world; that the Golden Age lay in the beginning, and every subsequent period was a step further down from the primitive period of goodness, happiness and sym- pathy with the Divine nature. We are too apt to pooh-pooh this ancient doctrine as merely an old fashion, springing from the natural tendency of mankind to praise the former times and ways. But it was much more than this. It was the reasoned view of the philosophers. It coloured almost all Greek and Roman literature. It lay deep in the heart of the pagan world. It pro- duced the tone of sadness which is hardly ever absent from the poetry of Greece and Rome, heard as an occasional note even in its poems of pleasure. A feeling like this cannot safely be set aside as false. It must be explained ; and the only explanation is that it arose from the universal perception of the fact that the history of the Mediterranean world was a story of degeneration and decay."

The Fortnightly Review opens with Mr. Swinburne's memorial verses on the death of Karl Blind. The vehemence and concentration of the poet's early revolutionary verse are lacking, but in spite of a rather diluted style there are some fine lines, such as- " When glories forged in hell-fire fade,

And warrior empires wither in the waste they made."

The curses hurled at "Bismarck and his William" are some- what tame.—" East and West in Council," by Mary Craw- ford Fraser, is a striking study of Japanese thought. The Western minds in the council are the hostess and an American missionary, the Japanese a legislator, a diploma- tist, and a thinker. The West argues that religious convictions affect but lightly the mind of the Japanese, for they have no desire to go forth as missionaries. The East answers that with them religion is a state and not, as with us, an action. They may not have religious ideas according to Western notions, but they possess a spirituality which pervades their existences completely. This theme is worked out by the different speakers with variety and interest, and the symposium is broken off to look at the June sunset reflected in the lake, which also emlJosoms the reflection of Fuji, the symbol of the spirit of old Japan.—Colonel Pollock writes an article on the problem of Army Reserves. He points out that at present a regiment is no more than brought up to its proper strength by its reserves, leaving nothing to supply the wastage of war. The "possible development" Colonel Pollock discusses is the provision of reserves trained for the purpose much as he trained the Spectator Company. These reserves in time of war would be drafted into regiments of long-service men. As to the possibility of creating this reserve, the writer mentions that a manufacturer who employs no less than ten thousand men told him that "in his opinion the moral, physical, and intellectual advantages of a six months' training undergone

by his apprentices, some three hundred of whom recruit his works annually, would amply compensate him for any temporary dislocation of his business during a

"The Angola Slave Trade," by Mr. H. W. Nevinson, discloses a state of things which must make many people feel that the small nations like Portugal, in the same way as Belgium. are sadly in need of coercion by their larger neighbours. The Portuguese carry on quite unblushingly a regular slave trade, with all the accompanying horrors of the slave caravan route from the interior of Africa to the coast. This route is strewn with dead bodies and skeletons, for those who fall ill on the march are knocked on the head and their bodies left by the roadside. A large number of the slaves are sent to the cocoa islands, but many work in the plantations along the coast. None ever return to their own country, although of course the Portuguese pretend that these wretched people are only engaged to labour for five years. This official fiction has no effect whatever on the open buying and selling of men and women. We are told that one-fifth of the cocoa and chocolate that come to England is slave-grown. There seems to be some small hope that the large cocoa manufacturers of Britain and America have been shocked at the disclosures as to the origin of their raw material. If they would join together in a boycott of Portuguese cocoa, they would in all likelihood produce a- more practical result than would the Foreign Office. Among the English manufacturers are names justly honoured. Will they not lead ?

In Blackwood Sir Theodore Martin seeks to show that Dante did not intend Francesca to he considered guilty of more than the kiss. The argument is based on the remark of the poet that he was not only overcome by pity on seeing the lovers, but was sinarrito. This word is translated "perplexed." Why, therefore, should Dante have been perplexed at finding the pair in hell unless he felt doubts as to their guilt 2 Dante knew the family of Francesca, and as the tragedy happened not so very long before the writing of the poem, he must have been acquainted with the truth. It is on these grounds that we are asked to consider the lovers as un- fortunate rather than guilty. There is doubtless no need to believe all the details added by Boccaccio eighty years later. But why, if Dante believed in Francesca's innocence, did be place her in hell? In answer to this Sir Theodore Martin asks : Why did he put the husband in hell too, and in a lower circle ? In balancing the evidence we must remember that Dante has made the pair read the story of Lancelot and Guinevere, and has made Francesca exclaim, "Galeotto was the book,"—" Galeotto" being the Italian version of the name " Gallehaut" in the original French romance, who acted as a kind of Pandarus.—" Undiscovered Switzerland" is the title of an entertaining article which describes life in the ancient town of Schwyz. The town still keeps its- old inn, where Massena slept the night before the battle of the Suwarrow Bridge. This is not the inn-keeping of the tourist parts of Switzerland, though even here one finds an echo of the more strenuous hotel-keeping. At the old inn there took place the sale of a piece of land at Brunnen, less than three-quarters of an acre in size, and it was sold for eight thousand pounds, the hotel-keepers having joined together to buy if to keep out a rival. In this paper we are given some glimpses into the past history of the old town, which in the seventeenth century dealt firmly with the spread of infection. During a visitation of the plague the stricken were walled up in their rooms, food being passed in through holes. It is not perhaps surprising to learn that half the town perished.—" The Wise Woman of Our Parish" is a capital study of a bard, shrewd old village wotnan. When her family tired of her they induced the ecclesiastical forces of the parish to try to persuade her to go to the "house." The district visitor is sent flying, a contribution of a shilling, levied on the curate, and the vicar so preached at that be guarantees an annuity of six shillings a week.—" An Echo from Old Bengal," by H. E. A. Cotton, relates the story of an Englishwoman who was the wife of William Watts, Member of .Council at Fort William during the troubles of 1756. Watts with his wife and three children were taken prisoners at Moor- shedabad, but they were befriended by the mother of Seraj-ud- dowlah. After Plassey Watts retired to England, and of his daughters who married one became the mother of Lord Liverpool. On her husband's death Mrs. Watts returned to Calcutta, where she passed the rest of her long life. She married again, but when her husband, the principal chaplain, retired to England, she could not tear herself away from India, and remained for many Years as a leader of English society. The former prisoner of Seraj-ud-dowlah and the con- temporary of Clive lived on to the time of Wellesley and Minto, and did not die till 1812, when she was buried near Admiral Watson at Calcutta.

The notes on current events at the beginning of the Albany Review contain a bitter attack on Sir Edward Grey. It is announced that as regards Macedonia he is worse than Lord Lansdowne. What is absurdly miscalled "the pathetic failure of our representatives at the Hague" is also 'ascribed to the Foreign Office. A hope i expressed "that Sir Edward Grey will see the propriety of bringing his methods and his policy into harmony with the feelings and Wishes of the House of Commons." We should have thought that even the writers of the Albany Review would have recognised that in the department of foreign affairs the present Government have done their best work.

Sir John Macdonell, writing of the Hague Conference, takes much the same line, and blames the British Government for not having discussed their policy on the housetops and in Parlia- ment before the Conference began. The Government have given in to their extreme supporters many times, but apparently they have earned no gratitude.—Mr. Edward Carpenter in an article headed "Morality under Socialism" sketches his views of the new morality which he seems to think is in store for us. We are given some reasons why we should abandon what he calls the morality of formulae. It would appear that what the writer particularly dislikes is the sense of duty and the restraint of the passions. As to duty he says : "Splendid as is the conception and practice of Duty, as a self-oblivious inspira- tion and enthusiasm, it becomes a truly revolting thing when it takes the all too common form, 'I have done my Duty, I'm all right.'" It seems to be only what he calls the "revolting" side of duty that he takes account of. With regard to the second question it is asked : "Why should people be afraid of rousing passions which, after all, are the great driving forces of human life ? " Mr. Carpenter's method of con- troversy is to pick out the things which have answered least well in the system he is attacking, and contrast these with what he thinks may be the results if his own nebulous ideas were put in practice. This plan is unconvincing, and until he adopts a more scientific method of argument he is not likely to make many converts.