KING AND TSAR. By VICTOR GRAYSON, M.P

The New Age June 20, 1908.

KING AND TSAR. By VICTOR GRAYSON, M.P.

A WEEKLY REVIEW OF POLITICS, LITERATURE, AND ART Edited by A. R. Orage.

No* 719 series. Vol. III. No. 8] SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1908. [m~~;$$~;o*] ONE PENNY

NOTES OF THE WEEK . . . , ,, ,,, . . . . . . 141 THE PREMIER’S CONFIDENCE TRICK . . . . . . . . . 143 SHOULD MORLEY RESIGN? By X. . . . . . . . . . 144 THE PRUSSIAN SOCIALIST VICTORIES. By W. Sanders . . . 145 AT A FABIAN SOIRÉE. By F. S. Flint . . . . . . . . . 145 GOOD BREEDING OR EUGENICS-VIII. By M. D. Eder . . . 146 THE PHILOSOPHY OF MRS. GEORGE COLLINS. By G. R. S.

Taylor .,. . . . . . . . . . ..! . . . 147 VICTOR GRAYSON’S UNDELIVERED SPEECH ON THE TSAR . . . 148 UNDILUTED MASCULINISM By Millicent Murby . . . . . . 149

CONTENTS.

NOTICE TO CORRESPONDENTS.-All Business Com- munications must be addressed to Publisher, " New Age,” 139, Fleet Street, E.C.; communications for the Editor to 1 & 2,

Took’s Court, Furnival Street, E.C.

NOTES OF THE WEEK. IF the causes of the King’s visit to the Tsar are still secret, not so the results. The price of the Russian Loan on the British Exchange has. risen from 89½ to 97. Let us repeat the abominable story. In October, 1905, the Tsar, being hard pressed for money, was induced to make a solemn pledge to create and respect an elementary constitution for Russia, the first Duma. In consequence of this, and for the first time in Eng- land for half a century, a Russian Loan was floated in London and‘ Paris amounting to go millions sterling. In the very same month of October the Black Hundreds of Russia under the name of “The Union of Russian Men ” were formally reconstituted for the express purpose of maintaining the Russian autocracy and bureaucracy against the democracy of the Duma. So effectual were they that the Tsar was emboldened to break his pledge, to dissolve first one Duma, then another, and finally to openly consort with and support the Black Hundreds who had served him so well.

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Meantime, however, the loan of 1905 was exhausted. A few months ago Russian credit stood at a low ebb. Her debt had grown in three years from 467 to 665 millions, and on the present year’s budget there was a deficit of 20 million pounds. What was to be done? The credit of the third Duma, in spite of Stoly- pin and Miliukoff, was not enough to warrant the Franco - British - Semitic financiers in staking, more money on the internal peace of Russia. The last sops of pretended constitutional reform had been thrown

away, and with 169 members of the first Duma and 74 members of the second Duma imprisoned, with a total death-roll by execution and semi-official assassination of over twenty thousand persons in two years the appeal to Europe on the grounds of political promise was scarcely likely to be successful. At this juncture the idea seems to have struck somebody (quite possibly Sir Edward Grey himself, who is singularly open to sinister suggestion) that in view of the delicate state of international affairs (vide Mr. Belloc’s obliging

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. . . A BOOK OF THE MOUNTAINS. By Edward Carpenter MY BLACK BOY. By Richmond Haigh . . .

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*.* 150 . 151

BOOKS AND PERSON;. By Jacob Tonson . . . BOOK OF THE WEEK: Thus Spake Zarathustra :: REVIEWS : The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain . . .

The Northern Iron . . . Fourteen Years in Parliament ::

. . . ::: . . .

-- .*. 152 . . . 153 . . . 153 . . . 154

BOOKS RECEIVED ,.. ,., .., .,. .*. 155 . . . 157

DRAMA : Where There is Nothing. By Dr. L. Haden Guest 157 CORRESPONDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

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alarmist speech of last week), and particularly of the paper navy of Germany, it would be as well to make another effort to set the Russian Humpty Dumpty on his tottering throne. The conversion of an avuncular correspondence into an official visit by King Edward was no sooner suggested than boldly advertised, with the result that the France-British-Semites begin once more to loosen their purse-strings Tsarwards.

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This may be the true explanation, though we admit in the presence of Mr. Belloc’s omniscience that it is only the guess of a worm in the dark. But at least it sounds more probable than any of the explanations we have heard. There are other results, however, which may or may not have been foreseen. The Tsar is made an Admiral of the British Fleet. The Tsar is coming to England for some pheasant shooting in September. (In Russia it is not pheasants that are shot.) Several of the Russian papers cast the shadow of an alliance between England and Russia following on the present rapprochement. Also, we understand that the Balkans question was discussed-settled, of course, is quite another matter. Lastly (to our present knowledge, that is) the Radical members of the twice-purged Duma have sent messages of thanks to the English Labour Party and Liberals who voted against the King’s visit to their beloved but despicable monarch.

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What troubles us most about it all is the secrecy in which the origins have had their being. A frank statement seems to be regarded by Sir Edward Grey as indecorous in the highest degree ; and he is nothing if not decorous. Nobody, we gather, outside the “ inner circle ” (Mr. Asquith’s incautious phrase) knows anything of the Cabinet’s foreign policy. We do not even believe that all the members of the Cabinet are in that “ inner circle. ” But it is certain that there is something in the wind, something, too, which dares not be named. What did King Edward mean, for example,- by his phrase to the Tsar regarding the settlement of ‘ some momentous questions in the future ” ? Did Mr. Belloc write that sentence for the King? The question,. however, is one of principle and not of detail. England is prepared to trust a Liberal Cabinet so long as a Liberal Cabinet trusts England. Surely we can be informed whether the present plan in foreign affairs is one of general amicability or one of offensive and defen-

sive alliances. Ententes, as we said last week, we car understand and support ; we want a federated Europe for our Socialist plans. But alliances are a horse of another colour ; their day is gone by. Meantime we urge the Labour Party to keep its eye on foreign, and especially European, affairs. That proposed visit of the Tsar to Sandringham must not take us by surprise

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The corruption of good manners that comes from evil associations is evident in the virtual renewal by Lord Minto in India of part of the 1878 Press Act of Lord Lytton which was courageously repealed by Lord Ripon (the only “ Liberal ” Viceroy India has had these many years). Lord Morley. if we remember rightly, was loud in his denunciation of that. Act in 1878 ; but, as he told the Indian Civil Servants on Thursday, he approves of it now. Such a change does twenty years make in a man’s political opinions. Lord Minto assures us that “India is not ripe for complete freedom of the Press. ” May we assure him in return that India never will be in his opinion or in the opinion of men like him. No nation is ever ripe for freedom of any sort in the opinion of its bureaucratic rulers. The definition of

’ bureaucracy, in fact, is distrust of freedom. But Mr. John Morley once knew better, even if in making the passage to a peerage he has drunk of the perfidious Lethe, and forgotten. We agree that the Indian situa- tion is difficult ; but attempted repression will make it impossible. If the Newspaper Bill can be passed by the Viceregal Council in a single day of ignoble panic, why should not a day of noble panic, panic lest the promise and potency of liberty be destroyed, be sufficient to pass a measure that will inspire young India with hope? Picric acid is the symptom of despair. We regret that Lord Minto threatens even more extreme measures than the Newspaper Act. Has he been listen ing to the advice of the egregious Sir Bampfylde Fuller, whose policy was that of “hammering the people until they come to their senses “? What is needed for India is not Police but Statesmen. We wish Lord Morley were Mr. John Morley again and twenty years younger.

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The political warfare of our age is not Democracy against Monarchy nor Democracy against Aristocracy ;

both those battles have been won, save in Russia and Turkey, all over Europe. The battle is now Demo- cracy against Bureaucracy ; and it promises to be a long, a bitter, and a costly war. We should not be surprised to see every European nation fade and fail before the issue is decided. But this we know, that Democracy somewhere at some time will win, it may be in America, it may be in Australia or New Zealand ; it may, with the help of the gods, be in England. How great are the forces of bureaucracy, reinforced in Eng- land as they now are by the once defeated powers of the Crown and the Lords, is evident from many events of this very week. Lord Morley’s address to the In- dian Civil Service Club, temperate, able, liberal as it was, was punctuated, we are told, with cries of dissent. Now, with the rest of the world, we are proud of our Indian Civil Service, proud of its history, proud even of its present courage, efficiency, and ability. But if there is any lingering doubt in the minds of its members that they are in India to carry out the beneficent will of Democracy the sooner they resolve those doubts the better. We can understand the irritation they feel when some “ amateur,” like Lord Morley, talks to them in the large, roundabout common sense of amateurs generally. We can understand their natural objection to being told how they should do the job which Eng- land has set them. What we cannot admit, however, is their conception of the job itself. If they know best how to do, it is England that knows best what to do. ‘And either the Indian Civil Service exists as a mere

“predatory Army of Occupation in India, or, as England’ intends, as a vast organisation for training India in the noble art of self-government.- For the I.C.S. to dissent when Lord Morley tells them what they exist for is therefore a piece of bureaucratic impertinence, intolerable by a democratic people.

Another Minister who has fought his battle with bureaucracy is Mr. Herbert Gladstone. Only, unfortunately, Mr. Herbert Gladstone has ignominiously capitu- lated. We have considered his Prevention of Crime Bill, read a second time on Wednesday, and we discover it to be with each re-reading worse than we before conceived. Briefly, the sentence of “indefinite detention ” which Mr. Gladstone proposes should be passed on criminals at their fourth offence is intolerable ; and it is intolerable on the simple ground that the life-liberty of men is placed at the disposal of con- stituted prison authorities, suggestion.

and, as we suspect, at their Mr. Gladstone was particularly insistent

on the necessity for trusting the prison authorities. We might, he said, drop the Bill at once unless we had confidence in the authorities. Well, let us drop the Bill. For, frankly, if we had to choose between trusting people like Sir Robert Anderson and, say, Francis Flute, the bellows-mender, or Tom Snout, the tinker, we should choose the latter. All prison authorities, though they start as children of light, become in a very little while children of darkness ; the sword of punishment is infernally two-edged, and smites him , that gives as well as him that receives. faith in “ prison authorities ”

Hence any is out of the question.

* * + If, therefore, we must trust the Prison Authorities

we reply by saying, like Mr. Birrell, “ we simply won’t. ” What is more, Mr. Gladstone will find that public opinion “ won’t ” either. If it is known that a fourth conviction may rob a man of liberty for life, sensible and humane juries will cease to convict ; they will fight shy of a fourth conviction as now they fight shy of a death sentence. Moreover, humane house- holders will overcome their fear and revenge and cease to put the law in motion ; for, among cultured people, the more revolting and brutal the law, the more induce- ment to ignore it. We can foresee a great deal of com- pounding of felonies if this Bill is passed. Even Lord Robert Cecil would pause before sentencing to indefinite imprisonment an old lady whose only weakness was a preference for a neighbour’s bacon.

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We gladly note Mr. Belloc’s excellent speech in opposition to the proposal. We hope he was inspired to his democratic defence by his failure of last week. Mr. Belloc urged that the proposal of “ indefinite detention ” was a breach in the tradition of both Roman and Christian law, inasmuch as punishment thereby became retrospective. But he made a better point in ob- serving that the sentence was aimed chiefly at offenders who were irritating to the governing classes. No doubt for our plutocracy it would be very desirable to let Sir Robert Anderson have his way, and to give him all the professional thieves and burglars with a single neck among them, and to allow him to send them to rot in cold obstruction for the rest of their lives. But we would not give a man more than a pinch of the ear to save the whole of Park Lane from a sleepless night. Mr. J. M. Robertson (once, sad to say, the editor of THE NEW AGE) followed Mr. Belloc with this incredible saying : “ If it be once decided that a man is a danger to society, then society is perfectly entitled to confine him for the whole of his life if necessary.”

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Plato asked : “ How can a word not understood be the basis of legislation?” And he replied : “ Im- possible. ” Does Mr. J. M. Robertson understand the meaning of, we will not say justice, but “ danger to society ’ ’ ? Mr. Gladstone’s proposal, by the way, does not apply to murderers and the like. One is not con- victed four times of murder, unless one is a Tsar. It applies to thieves and burglars chiefly. Now, are thieves and burglars a danger to society? Irritat- ing, Yes ; but so are many M.P. ‘s ; destructive, yes ; but so are many company-promoters ; vexatious, terrifying, and an abominable nuisance, yes ; but so are bores, borrowers, and bureaucrats. But they are no more dangerous than vermin, discharging, in fact, exactly that office in the body politic. But Mr. Robertson’s astonish-

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JUNE 20, 1908

ing dictum goes a great deal further even. Dr. Stock- mann was an “ enemy of the people.” So was Socrates, in the Athenian opinion. So is Mr. Robertson sometimes in ours. If we prove to a jury four convictions against him of being a danger to society, would he, like Socrates, drink hemlock ? We hope and believe he would do nothing of the kind. Mr. Robertson’s principles in this matter are-like Hans Breitmann’s : “ Boot. dey haf some liddle trawpacks und in fagt aren’t worth a dern.”

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Mr. Herbert Gladstone tells us that ” the majority of the criminals are made between the ages of eleven and twenty-one. ” Does that not suggest the proper direction of the remedy?

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We are inclined to wonder if Mr. Asquith has read his Old Age Pensions Bill in print. The permanent officials seem to have played a trick on him. Speaking at the National Liberal Club on Friday, in special reference to the Bill, he said : ” I agree with those who say there should be no question here of any general test of character, of any inquisitorial examination into the remote past, the moral antecedents and possible flaws and blemishes of conduct which take place in most men’s lives, and which at the age of 70 might, at any rate, be allowed to be obliterated.”

* * *

Now note the words of the Bill, of which, by the way, Mr. Asquith further tells us ” the disqualifications it imposes are. measurable and ascertainable “-presum- ably without inquisition : ” if before he [the applicant] becomes entitled to a pension he has habitually refused to work, or habitually refrained from working when he was physically able to work, or if he has been brought into a position to apply for a pension through his own wilful act or misbehaviour he shall be disqualified.”

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We leave the reconciliation of these two statements to people with a more elastic intellectual conscience than we possess. May we drag in Socrates again, and observe that Socrates would by this test be hopelessly disqualified ?

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The Labour Party, we are glad to see, intend moving four amendments ; to reduce the qualifying age to 65 ; to abolish the income limit ; to abolish the penalty on married couples ; and to abolish the disqualification from the receipt of Poor Law relief. May we urge them to two more positions ; first, a defence of the right of the wastrel to be supported by the State. Mr. Asquith cheerfully dismisses the wastrel to perdition so far as the State is concerned. But we may point out that the wastrel does not go to perdition ; he lives on his poor relations, who are no more responsible for him than the rest of us. Why on earth should his already afflicted friends and relatives keep him after society has ruined him? Our second suggestion to the Labour Party is that they should fight the obnoxious clauses of this Bill with their gloves off.

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The difference between the Small Holdings Act in theory and the Small Holdings Act in practice is just the difference between an egg and an egg-shell. Con- trary to the prognostications of our squirearchy, there has been demonstrated a wide-spread desire to get back to the land. Sixteen thousand applications have beer received for a total of a quarter of a million acres. Sir Edward Strachey fenced for a long time Mr Mackarness’s question : How many such applicants had been settled ; but at last (why not at first?) admitted that not a solitary man had yet been put in charge of a solitary acre. Five months have gone by, the Liberal Party has made capital out of its Act, thousands of men are anxious to till the idle acres. Meantime grants are being made for the growth of cotton in Uganda. Yet not a sod is stirred in England by the spade of a small holder. What is wrong ? We grievously suspect those Commissioners whose only testimonial so far is that they have ” the confidence of the great landlords.” That should disqualify them.

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The Premier’s Confidence Trick. THE discrepancy between Mr. Asquith’s Budget speech and the details of his Pension Scheme as revealed in the Bill itself cannot easily be explained except as an exhibition of a positively cynical disingenuousness. We are forced to suppose that the Premier regarded the desperate position of Mr. Churchill and “of his other friends who were then fighting in the country as sufficient to justify him in deliberately misrepresenting the character of his own proposals. We cannot deny that he reaped his immediate reward in the ensuing crop of bye-elections, but we doubt whether those successes were worth the price that will have to be paid for them when the electors discover how they have been duped. For the nonce Mr. Stuart was beaten, but we predict with confidence that such a defeat will do the Labour Party more good than harm. It should not be difficult to teach the Government that quite apart from all ethical considerations tactics of this sort are unwise on the lowest grounds of political expediency.

The character of the actual proposals which are now being discussed by the House is cheese-paring. The whole Bill amounts to a barefaced attempt on the part of the Government to obtain a maximum of kudos at a minimum of expenditure. The history of party legislation is of course full of precedents for such an attempt, but never before, we rest assured, has so mean a bargain been offered to the electorate. For the credit of having introduced the most important and popular reform of the present century the Liberal Government only intends to pay £1,200,000, and this in spite of its promise last year to find more than double that sum ” as a nucleus. ” Could miserliness go further? Next year it is true more money will have to be spent, and if the Liberals are still in power Mr. Lloyd-George will have to find it ; but why wait till next year? Brave words about the inexhaustible possibilities of a Free Trade Budget may suffice to thrill the breasts of Minis- terialist members with confidence and pride, but they will not be so much as listened to in the country until hey have been translated into action.

Why are “ two or more persons living together in the same house ” to be penalised by having their pensions reduced from five shillings to three and ninepence? - Bitterly as Socialists have been denounced for their imagined attack upon home life, they have never been accused of anything so villainous as this Liberal proposal. Why is any old man or woman who has received poor relief since January 1st, 1908, to be disqualified For the receipt of a pension ? Apart from the inherent injustice of any such arbitrary ex post facto condition, what defence of it can be raised by a party which is never tired of professing its desire to do away with the stigma and disgrace attaching to the aged pauper? Why are the habitually idle to be excluded? Why is there to be a character test? Why is there to be an income limit? And, finally, why is the qualifying age fixed at 70 instead of at 65? The answer to all these questions is the same. In every case common sense and common fairness are to be sacrificed to the sacred Libe- ral tradition that makes for petty economies.

The most vicious point in the Bill is, of course, the provision which Mr. Asquith concealed until the last moment, and which introduces a character test. The full text is as follows :-

“A person shall be disqualified. . . . . if, before he _ __ becomes entitled to a pension, he has habitually refused to work or habitually refrained from working when he was physically able to work, or if he has been brought into a position to apply for a pension through his own wilful act or misbehaviour.” ”

In other words, a pension is to be a matter of patronage instead of a common right. Whose patronage matters little. The particular person who has the invidi- ous task of interpreting that word ” misbehaviour ” in individual cases, whether he be the village squire, the local vicar or the excise officer, may or may not enjoy his position, but he will certainly often abuse it. In this matter we are on the side of English tradition and

144 JUNE 20, 1908-

against such an inquisition as must result from this clause ; and we are persuaded that an overwhelming majority in the country are of a like opinion. But even if there were not this difficulty about a character test there is no justification for it on other grounds. Old Age Pensions are not a question of desert, but of need A man who has “ habitually refrained from working ’ is at least as likely as anyone else to need a pension and the State has no right to concern itself with hi: moral delinquency as long as the rich idler is treated as a respectable citizen. After all, if a man has succeeded up to his seventieth year in avoiding work and thus emulating the gentlemanly life of his superiors, he almost deserves some special recognition for his personal triumph over the slave-driving conditions of modern industry.

The clause excluding criminals is equally pretentious and illogical. Mr. Asquith gave us to understand in his Budget speech that only “ persons actually under sentence ” would be disqualified, a reasonable provision. But we find now that all persons who have been imprisoned for any offence without option of a fine are to be disqualified for ten years following release, which simply amounts to an additional punishment for old offences and an additional deterrent to reformation. A single conviction, even though it entails but a week’s imprisonment, is to make a man a semi-outlaw for ten years. And it is this same Government that talks so much of applying common-sense reform to our criminal system.

We hope that the Bill will be amended, and that it will serve as the foundation of a great and valuable national institution, but the fact will remain that the manner of its introduction and of its drafting has been distinguished by an amount of chicanery, meanness and stupidity-we sincerely regret the necessity for such language-unsurpassed in the history of Liberal Go- vernments. By the time these lines appear, the second reading debate will have been concluded. We can only express the hope that the protests of the Labour Party will be found to be as unqualified as they are deserved,

Should Morley Resign ? ALAS ! John Morley has resigned. We were wont to complain that John Morley had never got beyond the eighteenth century. With infinite sorrow we must now learn that Viscount Morley has not yet reached that era of philosophic freedom ; he is still in the seventeenth century of Star Chambers and Despotism. John Mor- ley refused to govern Ireland by Coercion Acts ; he would not sacrifice the teachings of a life-time to a panic fear. by coercion.

Viscount Morley can govern India only John Morley was the declared enemy of

Castle Rule ; Viscount Morley is the obsequious servant of Council Rule. India is dominated by a bureaucratic system more fettering, less in touch with the governed, than any form of government in our day.

Bureaucracy in Russia is almost liberal compared with the system that holds India in its sway. There is the Viceroy and the Viceregal Council, which has but. quite recently admitted some Indians as additional members. Not content with this Council, we have another India Council sitting in this country composed almost entirely of Anglo-Indian officials and the Secretary of State. The members of this extraordinary Council are nominated by the Secretary of State and serve for seven years.

This mysterious Council of mainly ex-Anglo-Indian officials (each of whom receives £1,000 a year), sitting in London, subject to no Parliamentary control-we doubt very much if the average British elector is even aware of its existence-exercises, on the other hand, a most effective control over the Secretary of State for India. Though it has no powers of initiation, it has the power of vetoing any suggestions that may come from the Minister. A body more out of touch with Indian feeling it is not possible to imagine, In 1907 two Indian-members were nominated to this Council ; the members selected were known to be amongst the

most reactionary and servile to be found in all India. Saiyid Husain Bilgrami publicly said that the only method of governing India was that adopted by US in Ireland.

We have no knowledge of the inner history of the India Council. It is possible that both John Morley and Viscount Morley of Blackburn have fought against this hopeless incubus. if so, and if the Viscount cannot obtain a hearing for the views of the author of ‘ ‘ Compromise, ’ ’ there is but one way for a man of honour-Resignation. Take the nation into your confidence, Viscount Morley ; make it clear to us that the Secretary of State for India has his hands tied. Do not connive at that ignoble policy of silence on the inner life of officialdom which stands in the way of every attempt at reform. In Mr. Shaw’s play, John Tanner, at the height of robust manhood, foresaw his decline into a decrepit dotage. Give us some proof, Viscount Morley, that, with all your seventy years, you have not yet sunk into complete intellectual and moral decay.

We refuse to believe that anarchy must be met by anarchy, dynamite by dynamite ; the long history of civilisation insists that repression, flogging are no remedies.

imprisonment, They but engender the very

evils which they pretend to remove. What is the meaning of this resort to violence among the Indians, a people the most gentle, the most humane in the whole world? Lord Minto says, “All India has been shocked by cruel crimes.” Yes, we agree, all India . and all Europe has been shocked. But whose crime is shocking ? It is the criminal action of that Anglo- Indian hierarchy which has refused to pay the slightest heed to the sufferings of the people ; to the desires of that people for some measure of freedom ; to the often- expressed wishes of that people for some share in their own government. For years the members of the National Congress have been flouted, their speakers jeered at, sneered at as ignorant Babus, harmless cranks. Upon you the official cliques would set the entire burden of’ the responsibility for the displays of force that have startled you into the only policy your feeble brains can conceive-Force. And when that fails-then, More Force.

We are no apologists for the dynamitard ; we hate any resort to physical violence as much on one side as on the other. We can, however, find sufficient excuse for a resort to violence by some few irresponsible and perchance ill-educated men goaded into desperation by a contemplation of their undoubted wrongs. There is no excuse for the anarchical methods of Lord Minto and his Council.- The Newspaper Bill and the Ex- plosives Bill were rushed through the Council at a sitting without the slightest pretence at any considera- tion. The Indian members of the Council protested, of course in vain, against the hasty manner in which the Newspaper Bill was passed.

What a bitter reflection upon English methods of government is it not that after more than a century’s rule in India we should resort to the very methods that we are the first to denounce when employed by Russia and other Powers.

Yes, measures for the suppression of such little freedom as is left to India can be passed in a few hours, whilst measures to meet the wishes of the people themselves are delayed and postponed for ever. Lord Minto said at the conclusion of a speech which betrayed little but fear and ignorance, “ By some irony of Fate, the outrages have been sprung upon us almost on the eve of the introduction of constitutional changes. ” Almost upon the eve ; but why cannot constitutional changes be passed through in a single sitting? Why must these ever wait? Those who have Followed recent events in India will know that both Lord Minto’s and Sir Harvey Adamson’s speeches con- tained many mendacious statements as to the punish- ments inflicted upon political offenders.

We have no special knowledge of the dynamite ex- plosions in India, but we think the public should be very suspicious of the police findings. For every bomb due to an anarchist, at least ten will be found to be the work of the police spies -a system maintained in India

at great expense. It is, of course, in the interests of the spies to create a scare, just as it is in the interests of the officials to make their measures as rigor- ous as possible. Not satisfied with ‘the flogging of India’s most revered leaders, with their exile or imprisonment, they have now obtained summary powers over the entire Press. The right of free discussion is burked in India, but the agitation for constitutional reform will not be killed. It will, however, make it the more difficult for the moderate section to remain in control. The Anglo-Indian bureaucracy has initiated the policy of Force ; then comes reprisal by the op- pressed ; now from the bureaucracy. Where is this policy going to lead us? You can afford to waste no time, Lord Morley ! Let not our cry be another Lost Leader-just for a riband to stick in his coat. X.

The Prussian Socialist Victories, THE forward march of German Social Democracy, tem- porarily checked at the Reichstag elections -eighteen months ago, has more than recovered the ground then lost. For the first time in its history the Prussian Par- liament, the citadel of all that is reactionary in the Em- pire, has been compelled to open its doors to the Red Flag and admit representatives of the strongest political party in the nation. The return of six Socialists- which number may be increased to eight when the final stage of the election is gone through-can only be appreciated in its full significance when the circumstances of the electoral contest and the nature of the Prussian franchise are understood. This apparently small vic- tory indicates that the principles of Social Democracy are still rapidly gaining ground among the masses, and, what is equally important, permeating at last some sec- tions of the timid and passive Bürgertum.

Berlin, as usual, is the leader in the new Socialist success. Five out of the six seats won outright are situated in the capital. The sixth is at Linden, a suburb of the town of Hanover. The figures relating to the election in the latter constituency are eloquent of the peculiar iniquities of the three class, indirect system of franchise. Each of the three classes elects one-third of the electoral college. In Linden the number of first- class electors voting was 280 ; of the second-class 1,111 ;

of the third-class 5,849. Hence one voter in the first- class was equal in electoral power to twenty in the third. And this is by no means one of the worst instances of the working of the system.

Throughout the campaign the Socialists had the united opposition of practically all the other parties. The voting being open gave opportunity for the exercise of pressure of the most tyrannical and cowardly character. Liberals no less than Conservatives threatened the municipal and state employees with denunciation to the authorities and consequent dismissal if they dared to vote for the Social-Democrats. One Berlin Liberal organ distinguished itself after the election in seeking to revenge its party for the losses it sustained by not only pointing out cases of teachers and municipal officials voting “ Red,” but also endeavouring to stir up the authorities to take measures against those public servants who did not go to the poll on the ground that their abstention assisted to return the Socialists ! Need- less to say that in the small towns and country districts the employers used to the full their power to force their workpeople to vote for anti-Socialist candidates.

The tiny Socialist group of six-among whom will be Dr. Karl Liebknecht, son of the old leader, Wilhelm Liebknecht- in a House of 443 members will be the voice not only of the Socialists of Prussia, but of every movement aiming at even the smallest democratic reform in the existing bureaucratic constitution. The disgraceful alliance of the Liberals with the Conserva- tives-or rather the degraded servitude of the former to the latter-has compelled the remnant of honest middle- class Liberal opinion to look to the Social Democrats to secure those political changes which Liberalism through want of courage and insight has failed to ac- complish. Dr. Barth’s new party, in spite of its youth

and want of organisation, must have been a factor in the Socialist gains, and will continue to form a useful addi- tion to the backing in the Berlin constituencies to the efforts which will be made by the Socialist Six to keep the burning question of Prussian electoral reform before Parliament and the country. They will demand that the same franchise shall be instituted for the Prussian Land- tag as exists for the Imperial Reichstag, namely, manhood suffrage with voting by ballot. For this proposal they will find no supporters in the House, for even the Liberals since the elections have been complaining that the present electoral system must be too democratic or it would not have been possible for the six Socialists to win seats ! Nevertheless, the debates which will arise on this and other questions will be of great value as a means of propaganda. The tribune of the Landtag will become a Social Democratic platform even as that of the Reichstag. Matters of vital importance to the Prus- sian people which cannot be dealt with in the latter place because they are outside the scope of an imperial Chamber, and which have never been thoroughly handled in the Landtag owing to the want of a really earnest opposition to the Government, will now become subjects of frequent interpellation and serious discussion, and the speeches upon them circulated broadcast by the efficient Socialist press. Although nothing may be done immediately to democratise the Prussian constitution, the effect of the new development of Socialist strength upon Germany as a whole will be undoubted. It will influence greatly the next general elections to the Reichstag, the results of which already promise to be vastly different from those of the last. The presence of their representatives in the Landtag will give fresh confidence to the Prussian working classes and encour- age them to adopt new tactics in their fight for emancipation. For it should not be forgotten that the Social Democrats have displayed less patience and more bold- ness in the recent electoral agitation than are usual with them.- At their outdoor demonstrations they have de- fied the armed police not only in words but in deeds which throw a new light upon the capacity of the Ger- man as a political fighter. An exhibition of sufficient “ devil ” in a previously somewhat too orderly and philosophic movement is a sign of life upon which the Social Democrats may be congratulated,

W. SANDERS

At a Fabian Soiree. Gay gay, gay,-- The glamour of an English June, With morris dance and old folk-song Of hearts a-jangle, hearts a-tune, Has gathered all the laughing throng Together, in a dismal June,

Gay gay, gay,--- The old songs breathe out many a scent Of woodland and of garden bloom ; And all their hoarded, sweet perfume In heart and air is redolent. But dance and song are of a health That fought and won in freer years, When valour was a nation’s wealth. And this none better knows than these Who listen, for their grace and ease And laughter hide the glint of tears, The world is now a huge cocoon, Wrapped round with newspapers, whose Is being drawn by all the ilk Of money-hog and money-loon.

* * O slough your wrappings, be ye strong, And make of life a grateful boon, With morris dance and new folk-song And glamour of an English June.

F. S. FLINT,

JUNE 20, 1908

Good Breeding or Eugenics. VIII.

“ THE Inheritance of Ability,” the first publication from the Eugenics Laboratory, assures us at the outset that “in 1869, the belief in the hereditary nature of inborn natural ability was held by very few.” I cannot easily recall what was believed in 1869, but at a far earlier date it is written : “ And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his Kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind. ” This seems sufficiently definite ; the authors of the Eugenics memoir attempt to make the idea less indefinite, they say, by substituting “for a description that is merely qualitative, one that is also quantitative. , Their definite conclusion is “ by disregarding minor differences, and speaking somewhat broadly, we may say the degree of intellectual similarity between father and son, as indicated by the degrees which each took is .3 or nearly 1/3.” This exactitude is arrived at by comparing the degrees taken at Oxford by fathers and sons. 149 men took first-class honours ; 27 of their fathers had taken first-class honours ; others were placed in the lower lists, whilst 15 had taken no degree at all ; out of 868 men who took pass degrees, 41 had first-class fathers, 479 pass degree fathers. In all 3,990 persons are dealt with on these lines. On similar lines the resemblance between brother and brother, comparing the degrees which they took, works out about .4.

x x

One obvious objection to these statistics is that it is only a measure of resemblance between some of the children and the father. To have anything like reality we must have an estimate of all the children, of the sons who didn’t go to the University at all, of the sons who died in infancy, and so far as I can see, an estimate of the daughters’ ability is likewise required. All we have is the degree of resemblance between many fathers and some of their sons who went to the same University. Minor objections are the varying character of the examination and of the examiners in the years that are considered ; and the one considered by Pro- fessor Pearson-that it is a selected class-but selection must not be understood as he generally implies, selected for merit. Seeing that the required corrections cannot, from the nature of things, be made, I regard these figures not only as useless but dangerous, since they give an air of greater exactitude than is warranted. In short, indefinite verbal statements, such as we make daily when we say that children take after one or other of their parents in disposition, are much more reliable than the false security of these figures.

* * * If we turn from ability to diseases, we are confronted

by some very curious swings of the pendulum ; in “ The Doctor’s Dilemma, ” it was said, I think, that medical opinion revolves in cycles of 150 years, but Mr. Shaw ex- aggerates as usual ; probably cycles of IO years would be nearer the mark. Sir T. Watson, whose treatise on medi- cine was the recognised authority of his time, writing on consumption, said : verily believe it is not.

“Is phthisis contagious? No, I Neither can the disease be

easily, if at all, generated in a sound constitution. Nor is it ever imparted to another.” Watson died in 1882, the very year that Robert Koch announced the discovery of the tubercle bacillus ; a discovery which rapidly led to the belief that phthisis is contagious, can be generated, and is imparted to others. For a time this view swayed almost unchallenged. It was, I believe, Dr. Harry Campbell who first insisted that both the soil, the individual constitution, and the seed, the bacillus, must be taken into account. At all events the simple observation that many persons living under pretty similar conditions, and so equally subject to the infective agent, reacted differently - some fell sick, others did not- caused many to hark back to Sir Thomas Watson’s view. And now comes in the mathematician to main-

I I

tain that “the diathesis of pulmonary tuberculosis is certainly inherited, and that intensity of inheritance is sensibly the same as that of any normal physical character yet investigated in man “-about one-half. This conclusion is based upon the investigation of 384 stocks of tuberculous (consumptive) families.

* *

Let me make clear what this means. The disease itself is not inherited ; what is transmitted is a tendency to the disease. The build of the person-perhaps his lung cells ; possibly it may be some chemical constituent of his blood absent or present-is such that if he becomes subject to the sphere of influence of the tubercle microbe he is very likely to be stricken. Professor Pearson admits that the infective agent must be present, but he apparently believes that it is easier and wiser to induce the predisposed stock not to marry than to take steps to remove the infecting agent. He says, “ for the artisan class the inheritance factor is far more important than the infective factor, because in a very large proportion of cases it does not lie in the power of the individual to maintain in the stress of urban life a wholly safe en- vironment. ”

* *

This is, however, an Academician’s way of looking at the question, not a human being’s way. The disease is, as Sir William Broadbent said, a poor man’s disease. Which are you going to remove? The human beings with a predisposition towards attracting the microbe or “the stress of urban life “-in other words, all the conditions that give rise to the spread of the microbe? Human beings can be prevented from being sources of infection ; a sensible change in our social conditions would practically remove all danger of the predisposed persons ever meeting the microbe. If there are no tubercle microbes about, however much predisposed you may be, you will not get consumption. The Socialists’ answer is plain (and is of course not based on this one instance), the whole superstructure of modern civilisation must be swept away. We must learn to put another valuation upon human lives than that of their commercial potentialities. “The stress of urban life ” is making us into machines and machine- tenders. How inadequate is Professor Pearson’s point of view will become clear when we have, as we shortly shall, other papers from the same laboratory showing scores of other diseases to be due to “inherited tendencies. ” There is hardly a family in the land who would be allowed to beget offspring. Some rather interesting points ensue from Professor Pear- son’s paper ; the number of children born when one of the parents is tuberculous is not less than the average, though when both parents are afflicted, the number is less. So perhaps the best thing to do with consumptive people is to induce them to fall in love and marry one another.

J * *

Space does not allow me to do more than allude to one other paper (by Mr. Heron) which concludes that “the insane diathesis is inherited with at least as great an intensity ” as other things. Here Dr. Urquhart’s statement that “ insanity is a unity “. is taken for granted. This is, of course, a very convenient assump- tion for the laboratory statistician, but it is the very thing to be proved. The majority of medical men, the majority of men who observe their fellows at all, would cavil at such a simple way of dealing with recondite psychological problems. I believe that we are all poten- tially sane and insane, and much will depend upon the strain to which we are submitted. From this standpoint I am prone to regard the majority of those classi- fied as neuropathic, or even insane, as the harbingers of a more intelligent race ; these persons who are thrown out of balance by the vileness of our social conditions- by sights and feelings that do not influence the coarser grained amongst us ; who consequently remain “ sane.” I have no figures to prove this, but I do ask readers not to accept the conclusions of every gentleman packed away in his laboratory who dabbles with statistics about human beings in complete ignorance of their manifold individual differences. M. D. EDER,

http://www.modjourn.org/render.php?view=mjp_object&id=mjp.2005.01.013

THE’ NEW AGE. 147

The Philosophy of Mrs. George Collins.

IN one of those tender epistles, on cheap paper, which Mrs. George anonymously wrote to the Bishop of Chelsea, she expressed the desire to meet him in heaven, and not before. The careful selection of this meeting place was typical alike of the worldly tact and the dreamy mysticism which together made that incom- parable woman. She clearly was not prepared to discuss the propriety of the relationship with her friend’s ecclesiastical superior at Canterbury, preferring to face the archangels. But she might reasonably have expected that her amorous adventures would be more sym- pathetically regarded by the hardened gentlemen who write dramatic criticism for the London papers. If so, she was sadly disappointed ; the critics, so far as I know, with unanimous voice have declared that they do not see what Mrs. Collins was driving at ; that they do not understand, in fact, what Mr. Bernard Shaw had in his mind when he created her and all the rest of the people who appear on the stage in “ Getting Married.” And the critics have not only confessed their ignorance ; they have proved it in columns of print. But what, indeed, could they expect ? Most of them, with professional urgency, had to see the play on one day and write about it in time for the paper next morning. That is quite possible when they have to discuss the plots and morals of a musical comedy or a play by Mr. Pinero ; but you can no more hope to comprehend Mr. Shaw in one performance than you can hope to grasp the “ Origin of Species ” or the Psalms of David after three hours’ reading. And the latest of Mr. Shaw’s plays is the most gigantic masterpiece of scientific sociology and purest poetry that has been born these many years ; and it is quite impossible to sort out one’s ideas in time to catch the next newspaper train. Of course, there are a few people who find nothing new in the play ; they say that it has all been done before. A friend frankly told me that not one of Mr. Shaw’s characters had anything new to tell him. Now a man who appreciates intimately all the multitudinous matrimonial complications which appear on the stage during the course of “ Getting Married,” is a person whose experience I respect ; on the understanding that it goes no further, one might add that he is to be envied-though the confession should not be made to a maiden aunt with a noncon- formist outlook on life.

But it is necessary to come to the philosophy of Mrs. George : and to get there one has to listen to two-thirds of the play before she arrives on the scene. The first two acts are, in short, an elaborate preparation for her reception, and, incidentally, the most searching scientific analysis of marriage, in its economic, social and moral aspect, that has been put on paper. Of course it is cast in the form of brilliant wit ; and the critics, being unable to conceive of a man who can laugh and think at the same time, decided that the author was laughing. They only took Herbert Spencer seriously because he had the great advantage (for a scientist) of being a chronic invalid and distinctly dull. So, just because Mr. Shaw has a practicable digestion, they have labelled him a jester, instead of a scientist.

The Bishop and his lady have called together their friends and relations to witness the marriage of their sixth and youngest daughter. The wedding cake is placed on the table ; and, in some inexplicable manner, distils its essence into the minds of everyone present ; in a few moments the room is the scene of an animated conversation on the marriage relation, which, by crisp outspokenness and frank vigour, is calculated to qualify any “ young person ” in the theatre to receive an old age pension, if knowledge of life be any test of age.

Everyone in the room, except the bishop’s wife, has his or her problem which calls for solution. Mrs. Leo wants to marry two men in such a way that they will not preclude a few others for odd moments. The two objects of her special choice want to know how one of them can marry her without leaving any vindictive feelings towards the other. She finds St. John a perfect companion at a concert ; but she must be with the elderly Reggie because she cannot bear to think that he will forget his liver pad and his hair lotion. Lesbia Grantham candidly announces that she wants children, but does not want a husband about her house. Edith and Cecil, the objects of the wedding party, will stand by their promises ; if they are not made responsible for each other’s legal obligations. It is quite clear that the existing marriage laws are not elastic enough to satisfy all these varied demands. The Bishop admits that he told four successive Prime Ministers that if they would not amend the laws there would be a revolt against marriage altogether. Someone suggests the drafting of a model contract ; and the irony of fate settles that Father Anthony, who believes in celibacy, shall draw it up. Quite naturally, they cannot do it ; as Mr. Alderman Collins tells them, there must be “ all sorts of bonds between all sorts of people.” He adds that if anyone can help in this tangle it is his sister-in-law, Mrs. George. They send for her ; she enters, in a rather loud yellow dress, her age is apparently between forty-five and fifty, and her husband is a flourishing coal mer- chant, at present the mayor of the borough.

The alderman has already let fall hints of her history. Her earlier married life had been a rapid series of affairs. She would say ‘ ‘ I must go to him, George ” ; and her husband, having the foundation of a philosopher, gave up talking about these adventures after the fifth. Mr. William Collins said that these experiences made her “ wonderfully interesting, ” and “ gave her a lot of sense.” Sometimes she would go into a trance and say strange things ; “ just as though the whole human race was giving you a bit of its mind,” as the appreciative William put it. And this was exactly what she did in the Bishop’s house. She had never spoken to him before ; but she had written to him those anonymous letters, in one of which she had said that she “ must have one great man, high above all my lovers. ” So it came about that the Bishop, with whom she had committed no graver indiscretion that to sit before him in church in the presence of the clergy and the congregation, had been to this woman of vast experience above all her lovers. And from the words of her trance one caught glimpses of her ripest philosophy : “ I gave you the sun and the moon to play with ; I gave you eternity, and put the strength of mountains in your embrace . . . . Must I mend your clothes, and sweep your house as well? I gave you your soul. When I do that for men I am their prey.” She awakes suddenly ; and in a few moments Edith and Cecil are telling the Bishop that they are ready to marry, because they have found an insurance company which will guard them against each other’s liabilities : but one turns away from their paltry materialism with Father Anthony’s words (spoken in another connection however) in one’s ears, “ Do you think that a man who has sung the Magnificat and adored the Queen of Heaven can listen to such trash as that.”

These people had been foolishly trying to translate the subtlest relationship of life into the terms of a legal document, with the President of the Divorce Court to judge when the contract is fulfilled ; when, by a flash of the most delicate inspiration in literature, Mrs. George snatched the whole subject out of the realms of matter and placed it in the world of impalpable emotions. As a lawyer, I can quote an old judgment which runs : “ The thoughts of man are not triable ; for the Devil himself knoweth not the thoughts of man.” Therefore Mrs. George’s chief love affair was beyond the jurisdiction of the Courts : where they can only deal with terms of years, and children, and liver pads and hair lotions. But the sun and the moon will never get within the clauses of the most perfect of marriage codes.

G. R. S. TAYLOR.


148 JUNE 20, 1908

Victor Grayson’s Undelivered Speech on the Tsar.

[In the debate in the House of Commons last week on the King’s visit to the Tsar, Mr. Grayson was unfortunately prevented from delivering the speech he had prepared. The following résumé from his notes has been kindly written out by Mr. Grayson for THE NEW AGE.-EDITOR.]

MR. CHAIRMAN,-Before this debate closes, I desire emphatically to associate myself with the sentiments expressed from these benches against the visit of the King to the Tsar of Russia. I must confess that I am unable to follow some of my comrades in their adula- tions of King Edward and their gratitude for his beneficent international influence. If I understand the Con- stitution rightly, we employ an elaborate and expen- sive Foreign Office to make international arrangements and to administer foreign affairs. If his Majesty per- forms these functions with the advice and, instruction of the Foreign Office, surely it is the right honourable gentleman (Sir Edward Grey) who sits opposite who must have the credit or blame. If, on the other hand, his Majesty negotiates independent of the Foreign Office, there ought to be something said about it to this House. This country, Sir, has done with autocracy, even of the benevolent species.

It must have struck honourable members that only the feeblest and most ludicrous defence of the Tsar has been permitted to peep out in this debate. One honourable member (Sir Ivor Herbert) wishes us to believe that the Russian peasantry love their Little Father even when he finds it necessary to cut their throats. That they have superstitiously trusted him I think few will deny. But how has that trust been rewarded? Take the ghastly instance that has already been quoted more than once to-day. I mean the incident now known to history as “Bloody Sunday.” Will any honourable member have the temerity to argue that the Tsar was not cognisant of and responsible for this indescribably horrible massacre, superintended with bloodthirsty zeal by his military confidant, General Trepoff, and his beloved uncle, Vladimir? Will hon. members try again to visualise that scene of slaughter? Over two hundred thousand working people, with their wives and children, without arms, and suffering under the lash of cruel oppression, march to the Winter Palace to present their humble petition, Instead of a smiling Little Father, who would hear their woes, they were met by brutal battalions, who shot, sabred, bayonetted, and trampled them under the horses’ hoofs. And Sir, it has been said in this House to-day that to the accompaniment of the shrieks and groans of his subjects the King’s nephew was being entertained with music.

Further, the only apology which the Tsar could find it in his heart to make a little. over a week after the massacre, after truck loads of corpses had been carried out of St. Petersburg, was this : “ If you repeat the offence, I shall repeat the massacre.” Sir, this is but one event in a long career of sanguinary despotism. But, I wish to say that if it were the only event, it is sufficient to make out the Tsar of Russia as a subject for isolation. But look at the actual history of our friendly ally. During his interesting career there have been over six hundred “ pogroms,” involving the wounding, torment, and death of 150,000 people. And the Tsar felt it consistent with his duty to the people to receive the chief of these brutes, and to decorate himself and his son with the badge of the Black Hun- dreds.

Sir it has been said that the Tsar has yielded to the desire of the people for representative institutions, and granted them a Duma. But what did the Emperor Nicholas mean by a Duma? Not a Parliament of strong men who should voice the people’s will, but an aggregation of submissive flunkeys who would cringe to execute his low and coarse designs. During two Dumas the moment they have approached the border

of beneficent and needed reform they have been despotically dissolved and even banished, tortured, and imprisoned. Such callous brutality, Sir, has had its only possible effect, and churned the country into seething discontent ; so that the Tsar’s life is not worth a moment’s purchase. The state of the country has practically shattered the Government’s credit. And the Tsar, cunningly enough, sees a chance of estab- lishing it and procuring a needed loan by a visit from his uncle, our King.

Sir, I could not conscientiously say that this country is free from tyrannies,-none the less tyrannies because they are draped in the vestments of law and religion. We do not shoot our people down. We let them starve. But backward as we are, cruel as are our laws, we are too good to smirch even our traditions by contact with this quite exceptional monster.

Hence, Sir, on behalf of a strong and numerous body of educated opinion in this country, on behalf of the brave souls in Russia who are nobly struggling to be free, on behalf of the haters of tyranny throughout our dominions, I enter my passionate protest against this sinister entente. VICTOR GRAYSON.

IS RELIGION UNDERMINED? By Rev. C. L. DRAWBRIDGE, M.A.

THE NEW AGE :--“The author’s grip of his theme will be readily conceded. The clear expression, the flowing thought, the many suggestive passages, the apt quotation, the breadth of view, and the kindling sympathy with some phases of modern thought are very refreshing.”

MORNING POST :-‘ In style, matter, and temper it is a model of what popular apologetic should be.”

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The PROBLEMS and PERILS OF SOCIALISM.

I LETTERS TO A WORKING MAN

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JUNE 20, 1908 149

Undiluted Masculinism. OF coarse, Mr. Bax cannot see what the hero of the Katskills has to do with the case-I never expected he would, though I hardly anticipated that his reply would go so far to warrant my parallel as to start with reminiscences of ancient controversies. The particular variety of mixed pickle ascribed to me, however, is an error in diagnosis : it was not supposed to be biting at all. Is Mr. Bax really so set-up with the human mind that he cannot allow it to be criticised as an imperfect instrument ? If so, I am afraid that we shall have seriously to discount his value as a philosophic writer. Of course, it’s the only mind we’ve got, and we can’t afford to be very rude to it, but no good is done by refusing to recognise its defects, and the difference between the intellects of the sexes is not worth the con- sideration of either in comparison with our conceptual standard. I very much regret that Mr. Bax has not justified my elaboration of this point by maintaining the thesis he suggests (viz. : that women are unsuitable as depositories of political power), but some future time will I hope provide the opportunity.

Meanwhile, I must again take up his main contention, which I still think, however, I put in its proper place in my previous article. Mr. Bax is like a man who would argue against the possibility of a pontoon bridge because a single plank will not cross the stream. We Feminists (how sick I am of the continued necessity for using this word !) are marching forward over the Bridge of Time on a roadway so solidly built as to withstand the strain of our advancing legions, whether in rhythmic step or broken order. Mr. Bax grasps a bit of scaf- folding-throws it into the water, and defies me to cross the river thereby. I have not the slightest in- tention of trying-I ‘m no Captain Webb-and Mr. Bax’s own balance is obviously far too precarious for me to attempt a combat in mid-stream to so little purpose. The bridge will suit me better.

To quit metaphor, however, and come to the point. Mr. Bax says it is a flagrant and a brazen falsehood that non-enfranchised womanhood is groaning under the oppression of unjust man-made laws, and he alleges that the real facts furnish a powerful argument against what he calls the “ Suffragettes’ propaganda. ” Does he mean to suggest that women are not legally excluded from the franchise (they are not, as a matter of fact, but the contrary is generally assumed) ? That in their case, as with men, Taxation and Representation go hand in hand? for it is with these points that the suffrage movement is mainly concerned. Mr. Bax plays with irrelevant incidents, while we are engrossed with main issues. His sense of proportion differs from ours -we deny as brazenly as our organs will admit the existence of any “ special privileges ” SO long as those fundamental grievances are unredressed. His alleged favours are but ciphers added to ciphers, and we claim the recognition of our integral existence. Mr. Bax is like Marie Antoinette when the people were starv- ing for want of bread : “ Can’t they eat cake? ” he cries. Madame Gâteau, too, might have quoted the Peers, as he does, and have been scorned for a “ feminine ” incapacity to perceive the obvious re- joinder. We claim bread-not privileges-simply the political rights which will not be “ common ” until we share them with men. It is not surprising that the supporter of one mode of tyranny should dread another, but if Mr. Bax would look more closely into the modern utterances of Feminism, he would I think find that his fears are ungrounded ; its ideals are on a far broader basis than he apparently supposes. It is not sex- aggrandisement that women are fighting for-it is for the power of effectual co-operation with men.

AS regards the result of that emphasis of difference which has marked our history hitherto, I am challenged to prove that woman’s possession of political power would have altered the course of economic evolution. In the first place, I (although a Socialist) deny that except in theory and for the sake of argument, industrial

development can be regarded as “ purely economic. ” There is no such thing as a purely economic movement outside a text book. ignored. Mr. Bax, of course, knows as well as

The human equation cannot be

I do that the external framework of our life is necessarily conditioned by our consciousness at any particular epoch, and does he seriously deny that the controlling power of consciousness must vary with its effective volume over and above the demand of immediate essential activities ? Supposing all the intellectual energies of a people to be completely absorbed in the maintenance of existence, it is obvious that there will be only a limited possibility of self-criticism. Now the development of industrialism involved, broadly speaking, two important consequences-(I) the binding of labour to the grindstone, and (2) the concentration of the managing classes upon their own aggrandisement. In each case, the consciousness concerned was chiefly masculine, and was practically monopolised by material pursuits, nevertheless it assumed the political control of the nation’s destiny, completely ignoring a volume of consciousness which, whatever its content, was at least not in the beginning either bound per- petually to labour for the merest elementary necessities, or commercially alive to the fascinations of profits at thousands per cent. That women were not oblivious of their responsibilities, the field of Peterloo afforded sufficient proof, to say nothing of the early history of the Trade Union movement, and later of the Chipping Norton incident, etc. In short, this so-called purely economic movement is directly illustrative of characteristic male egotism, and here be it understood, I speak entirely from the biological standpoint without any feeling whether of praise or blame. ing “ transcendent righteousness ” for the female

I am very far from claim-

human : certainly not on the grounds of unselfishness. On the contrary ? I believe in egotism-as well as in a scientific recognition of its effect. I realise fully the evolutionary value of a sublime self-absorption, and it is not (pace Mr. Bax), with a desire either to decry men or to exalt women that I point out the predominance in human affairs of this sex-characteristic. I wish merely to urge (I) that women are conscious ; (2) that their consciousness is-shall I say without being misunderstood? -semi-detached, and concerned as much with the lives of others as its own ; (3) the maintenance and development of the race demands the free use of all available power in race service ; (4) in failing by enfranchisement to give the consciousness of women a political direction, men have encouraged the frittering of this consciousness on non-social ends, and allowed to waste itself, energy they could not spare. have-been :

I cannot prove the might- I can and do urge as a probability that the

organised inclusion of a disregarded influence would have modified the course of evolution in the direction of the admitted tendency of that influence, and that therefore my statement connecting disregard of human life with an absence of recognised feminine responsibility may be considered as duly warranted.

It is a pity that Mr. Bax should not allow himself to realise the daily increasing desire of women to co- operate in furthering humane enterprise in a healthy spirit of comradeship. Attacks on women of the sneer- ing character he deems compatible with the vital importance of the question do but arouse and sustain a spirit of antagonism which in the name of our common needs it were well to exorcise once and for all. Every human movement of a really organic character inspires activity in natures of types wide as the poles asunder ; the true philosopher is concerned with no one specific form of agitation. He inquires rather as to the ulti- mate fountain and origin of the forces whose external effects sometimes appear so contradictory, and so trivial in comparison with their pretensions. It may be that there are arguments to be brought against the Feminist movement which might prove its success to be pre- judicial to the advance of the race ; but Mr. Bax has only succeeded in demonstrating that masculinism undiluted subsists on prejudice, and is incapable of ex- pansion -a result possibly foreseen when evolution was based on bi-sexual lines. MILLICENT MURBY.

JUNE 20, 1908

A Book of the Mountains. By Edward Carpenter.

IT would almost seem as if the love of Nature in her wilder and more intimate haunts was on the wane in modern life. Folk, it is true, rush furiously in trains to the seaside when the weather is hot ; they fly through the countrysides on cycles, or past charming scenery in their motor-cars ; they snatch a fearful joy from the climbing of perilous rocks and peaks. But go a little aside from the beaten track, roam the lanes and hills inland from the crowded promenades of Brighton or of Douglas, or take a boat and row a mile out from their shores, and you will be in the veriest solitude. Even the climbers of the Lakeland crags or of the Alpine snow-peaks are too desperately engrossed to catch the real spirit of the wonderful scenes that surround them. And the number of those who in Cumberland or Wales spend a few days actually walking on their own feet over hill and valley, noting, enjoying, and absorb- ing the ways and moods of Nature in her own domains is strangely small, and-if we are not mistaken- grows yearly less instead of greater.

Henry Salt’s book, “On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills, “* is a much-needed offset and argument against this tendency. The headings of some of the chapters, e.g., “The Shrine of Snowdon,” “The Shrine of Scaw- fell,” “Pleasures of the Heights,” “Wild Life on the Hills, ” “Slag-heap or Sanctuary,” are alone sufficient to indicate the nature of the contents. The devotion with which he approaches the great mountains, the ex- hilaration of their summits, the endless charm and interest of their surroundings, the variety of their winged and their four-footed inhabitants, the passionate plea for their dedication as Nature-sanctuaries free from the defilement of commercialism-all these things are spontaneously in evidence here.

For intimate knowledge of the Cambrian and Cum- brian Hills, and of ways and routes over them (many of which are indicated in the book), I suppose Mr. Salt has hardly an equal. I was once climbing a rugged slope in his company, in a wild spot near the summit of Tryfan, I think, where it might almost be thought that no human beings had trod before, and was just about to plant my foot on a slab of rock-one amid many thousands lying around-when I heard a voice behind me say, “Don’t step on that stone ; it is loose.” I thought he was joking; but, on trying, I found the stone was loose and a little unsafe to tread. It was an old friend of his ! “After visiting Tryfan some dozens of times,” he says (p. 34), ‘ I still feel its attraction as strongly as when I first discovered it (for it comes to every mountain-lover as a discovery of his own), and I have sometimes thought that a summer might be well spent in making a thorough study of the peak, until one became familiar with the many unexplored recesses which the climber passes by, that labyrinth of cyclopean masonry - terraces and’ galleries, slabs and spires, turrets and gargoyles-with which it uprears itself, like the great cathedral that it is, to the two standing stones which form its crest.”

Tryfan, as above, and Snowdon, still magnificent even though disfigured by the hotel on its summit, are our author’s favourite mountains in Wales. Certainly the walk of six or seven miles in a huge aerial semi- circle some 3,000 feet above the sea, along the ridge formed by Snowdon’s two great curved wings or arêtes, Crib Goch and Lliwedd, is one of the very finest in the British Isles-with its wonderful, ever-changing views of near rock and precipice, slumbering tarns and distant villages, and far rivers and seas with the gleam of sunlight upon them. In Cumberland, Scawfell and Great Gable hold his closest sympathies. “ In so far as the Cumbrian Hills can be singly appraised, the Gable

* On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills.” Salt. (A. C. Fifield. 1908. Price 3s. 6d.)

By Henry S. .

is the summit to which there clings the strongest senti- ment, by virtue both of its noble and arresting outline and of the grand rocks and ridges by which it is so powerfully flanked. Its name is somewhat ill-chosen, perhaps, for the likeness to a gable is hardly to be discovered except from the south ; from other quarters the impression is rather that of a great round tower, or dome, a majestic sight when seen from a few miles’ distance, belted with clouds or looming up in dark relief against an ominous sky.”

Over all these regions Mr. Salt takes us by the hand, and points us out with a lover’s appreciation, as it were, a thousand beauties and charms. The wild birds and animals especially command his attention-the buzzard, the peregrine falcon, the raven with “ his deep kronk or his wild dog-like bark ” ; or the fox and the mart, and he wild goat still “living in a state of absolute freedom on the hills.”

I will close this short notice of an excellent book with an extract (p. 115) on the necessity of Nationalising these fair domains, in order to rescue them from deface- ment by the commercial owner and speculator : “What we need, in short, is the appointment of mountain sanctuaries -highland parks, where the hills themselves, with the wild animals and plants whose life is of the hills, shall be preserved in their wildness as the cherished property of the people-consecrated places, where everyone shall be entitled to walk, to climb, to rest, to meditate, to study Nature, to disport himself as he will, but not to injure or destroy. When we truly care for these hills of ours, we shall remove them from the tender mercies of the mine-owners and railway lords, who now seek profit in their disfigurement, and shall place them under a council of mountaineers and naturalists and Nature-lovers who understand and reverence them, with the instruction that they shall so administer their charge as to add to the present happi- ness and the permanent wealth of the nation. How long will it take us, hag-ridden as we are by the night- mare of private ownership, to awaken to the necessity of such a change? ”

INTERNATIONAL VISITS For the purpose of Studying the Customs

Institutions of other Countries.

A VISIT TO NORWAY AUGUST 18th to 27th.

Inclusive Cost of Visits need not exceed Ten Guineas for the fortnight.

Full particulars will be seat on application to MISS F. M. BUTLIN, Hon. Sec. THE INTERNATIONAL VISITS ASSOCIATION, OLD HEADING- TON OXFORD

THE IBSEN WEEK.

A SERIES OF PLAYS BY IBSEN AND BJÖRNSEN

will be acted (according to custom) at

THE NATIONAL THEATRE, CHRISTIANIA,

During the last week of August, 1908. Peer Gynt (music by Edward Grieg) on August 24.

MEDICAL SOCIALIST SOCIETY The First Meeting will be held at

he offices of the Ramoneur Company, 19, Buckingham Street, Strand, on Thursday, June 25th, at 4.30 p.m. A DINNER (2/6) will be held on the

same date, at 7.30, at the Hotel de Dieppe, 40, Old Compton Street, Soho.

Apply to M. D. EDER, 2, CHARLOTTE STREET, FITZROY SQUARE, LONDON, W,


JUNE 20, 1908 THE NEW AGE

My Black Boy. By Richmond Haigh.

HIS father brought him round to me one afternoon, saying simply, “Vigoanacjo, m’re ! ” (Your child, sir.) I looked at the youngster, and smiled, partly at the comical little figure and partly that I was very pleased to know that old Jaboadi, one of the principal head- men of the tribe, and an honest, good-hearted warrior withal, placed such faith in me as to give me, of his own thought and wish, his son to train and rear in my service. When he presented the boy and said, “Your child, sir,” he meant that for three or four years he resigned the child to my care, understanding that he was to be my servant and that I would reward or punish him according to his obedience and behaviour, and that I would feed and clothe and protect him. He did not say a word to this effect, nor did I ask a question or make any stipulation.

The tribe had known me for two years, rather extraordinary years because of intertribal troubles, and had decided as to what manner of man I was. Some few weeks before, Jaboadi had said he would like to give me his son, and asked if I would take him. I knew the man’s family and standing, and said yes with pleasure. During the interval he had doubtless gone into the subject thoroughly with the boy’s mother, and discussed it with his friends as they sat in the shade dressing skins or cutting out wooden platters or kerries. A full de- cision had been arrived at without a single question or reference to me. The old man was wealthy, but there were other children to look after his flocks and cattle, and this boy, the son of the favourite wife, should he given an opportunity of learning new things and the ways of the white people, so that when he came to take his position as a man in the council of the tribe he would be able to talk with knowledge of these things.

The boy was about eight years of age, tall and very thin and bony as became a true son of the Sepeke. Of course he wore no clothes, not even a hide ; that at his age, would have been unusual. But his features were of a good Kaffir type, and the eyes bright and intelligent. “ Your name, boy ? ” “ Otai.” “ Good. Now, then, go and ask Jan, the stable boy, for a piece of soap. Then have a swim and wash yourself thoroughly in the spruit ; when you come back I’ll find a shirt for you. Quick now ! ”

Off he ran. Then turning to the father, I said, “I’m glad to have the boy, and I think you were wise to bring him ; he will be well trained.” Jaboadi nodded. We knew each other. “He is in your care. You are his father. I go now. Farewell. Kga boksi. Kgosi,” and the old man’s tall, spare figure, with the kaross hanging loosely from, the shoulders, was soon out of sight.

There was a beauty and dignity in that little conversation between the native and the white, and the occasion of it, that kept me musing for a while. The com- pliment to myself was great, and I fully appreciated it, while at the ‘same time I could not help admiring the wisdom of this courtly African who trusted to a man’s honour rather than to promises or an agreement. The word “ uncivilised, ” in crossing my mind, appeared so ridiculous that I almost laughed aloud. Could all the wits of a London lawyer have served that father’s purpose better than-

“Sir, I have washed my body.” My reverie broken, I turned and looked at the little chap standing demurely a few feet away, his skin shining like burnished copper, with drops of water still glistening here and there, and his round woolly head looking fresh and clean. He held the piece of soap in his hand, but had never known the use of a towel. Given one, he would probably have carefully kept it dry and twisted it round his head as a turban.

“That’s right, Otai ! Now remember you are to have a bath like that every day. You understand, every day.

So keep that bit of soap for your own use.” I found a shirt for him. down for you.

“Take this to Jan, and ask him to cut it Then get something to eat.

when I want you.” “ E m’re,” I’ll call you

lighted. and off he goes, de-

The youngster was intelligent and quick, as I expected he would be, and seldom required to be told of a thing twice. The pride of his superior knowledge was very amusing to see when any other picaninnies were about.

He had been with me about a month or so when one day he came into my room, picked up a few of my boots, and went out again. for boot cleaning,

It was not his proper time and something about the boy drew

my attention, so that when he was gone I moved to the open window to see what he was up to. He strolled carelessly across to the boys’ huts, put the boots down, and went inside, but as there was a group of little nigger boys of about his own age watching him close at hand, I guessed there would be a little play worth seeing, and waited. He came out in a moment carrying the blacking and everything necessary, and without a glance at the curious group, sat down in the sun with his back to the wall, laid the brushes out carefully, opened the blacking, and took up a boot. His every action was a study ; he knew that six pairs of wondering eyes were watching him, and that what he was going to do now would make him a reverent subject of conversation for a week at their kraal. He held the boot up, and picking out a stiff brush, ran it round the sole, then took a cloth and wiped the boot over. By this time the six funny little urchins were standing in a silent and respectful line a few feet in front of him. Otai never looked at them. They were simply barbar- ians to him. He now took a piece of sponge, and looking at it, pressed it together once or twice-the on- lookers opened their eyes a little wider-then carefully dipping it in the blacking, brought it round with a flourish to the boot again. Each time before using the blacking he would ostentatiously press the sponge and allow it to open out, and the “kiddies ” had now their mouths open as well as their eyes, for there was surely magic in it. Having blacked the one boot, he placed it aside and went through the same performance with the other.

Not a sound had been uttered as yet by any of them ; ‘but Otai knew that his triumph was coming. Taking the first boot again, he picked up a wrong brush, pur- posely, looked at it knowingly, then laid it back and took a long-haired soft one, which he ran over his shin bone as a test. Now holding out the boot at arm’s length, he swung the brush across it and back swiftly to and fro just touching the leather. The little rascal had evidently been an apt pupil of the boy Jan. The boot began to shine at once, but Otai worked his little arm faster and faster ; the line of pot-bellied little bodies bent forward and swayed with excitement. The brush was suddenly dropped, a soft cloth grabbed up and passed quickly round once or twice, then, bringing his arms down, he gently gave the finishing touches, and stood the shining beauty away from him.

“ Ho Otai ! ” “ Ho Otai ! ” “ Otai knows ! ” Otai can do things ! ”

“ Ehe, The ejaculations of the delighted

and astonished little group were sweetest honey to Otai, and I never saw a funnier little face than his as he screwed his mouth up trying hard to keep back the smile which would betray his gratification. I called him, and still without a word to the admiring by- standers he came over, and I gave him some work to do inside.

He was anxious to learn how to read and write, and so often got into trouble for neglecting his work on account of his books that I took them away at last, and only let him have them for an hour every afternoon, but as I took a personal interest in his lessons, he pro- gressed quickly. It was a constant pleasure to me to notice how he invariably acted up to his birth. With the other boys about he was friendly, but he had to be recognised as the chief amongst them. I had sometimes wondered to what depth this pride of blood was genuine, and on an occasion on which it was neces-

152 JUNE 20, 1908

sary to treat my ward very severely I was made well satisfied on that point.

Arriving home one day earlier than usual I glanced in at the window as I passed, then moved quickly to the door and threw it open. Reclining in my most comfort- able chair with one leg thrown over the knee- of the other and my slippers on his feet, Otai had his left elbow resting easily on an arm of the chair while he held my favourite pipe in his mouth. He had not lit the pipe, and the mouthpiece was hardly through his lips. He was dreaming of great things.

The young scamp had seen me resting exactly in that position nearly every evening, and I have no doubt as he sat there he was issuing imaginary orders to everyone about the place and felt hugely important and dignified.

My entry was so unexpected that the poor little beggar could hardly move. He put the pipe down sheepishly, took his feet out of the slippers, and stood up His face as he looked up at me would have been worth a fortune to an artist. I pointed to the pipe, which he picked up and brought to me. I took it, looked at it, looked at him. Then I moved across to a shelf, took a hammer and a nail, and with two or three good blows nailed my dear, but withal rather rich, old pal to the wall, dropped the hammer heavily on to the table, and looked at the culprit.

The effect was tremendous ! He was a highly-strung youngster, and all the blue blood of the Sepeke rushed to his face, while his eyes glared at the pipe on the wall, his jaw was shut tightly, and his bony hands clenched. I had never anywhere seen such an exhibition of pure breed, and one could hardly imagine this was the same boy who had just before shuffled awkwardly out of my chair. That was a silly “ kid “-this was a passionate young man. There were years between them. I was rather more than satisfied, and looking the boy in the face said quietly, “Now, go to your room.”

That night Jan the half-breed attended to the table, mentioning that Geelbooi, as he preferred to call Otai, was stretched out on a rock halfway up the kopje and he could not get an answer to his call. This pipe incident formed one of the ring periods of Otai’s life ; he was never quite the same irresponsible boy after- wards. The next morning he presented himself at his usual time, but paused for a moment on entering. I looked at him half-questioningly. “ Kgos, Ki rapilla ! ” (Bless the boy, Sir, I apologise !)-and with a face which convinced me that I was an utter brute.

“ Ga böke, Otai ! (I have put it behind me.) Ngoana a Sepeke. ” “ Mereno Kgos. ” He struck his hands together as is their way, then went about his work.

I allowed him to go home occasionally, and he was sometimes visited by the members of his family, but it was not until he was about thirteen years of age that old Jaboadi called to see me again about Otai. The son of the head chief of the tribe was shortly to go through the native school course, and it is a very desirable thing to have been at school with your chief. With these natives there was a good deal of importance at- tached to it, so that before the old man had spoken I knew the reason of his coming.

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Books and Persons. (AN OCCASIONAL CAUSERIE.)

A BAD publishing season is now drawing to a close, and in the air are rumours of a crisis. It appears that publishers have been losing money over the six-shilling novel, and that they are not going to stand the loss any longer. Of course the fault is the author’s. It goes without saying that the fault is the author’s ! In the first place, he will insist on producing mediocre novels. (For naturally the author is a novelist ; only novelists count when crises loom. Algernon Charles Swinburne, Edward Carpenter, Robert Bridges, Lord Morley-these types have no relation to crises.) It is stated that never in history were novels so atrociously mediocre as they are to-day. And in the second place, the author will insist on employing an Unspeakable Rascal entitled a literary agent, and the poor innocent lamb of a publisher is fleeced to the naked skin by this scoundrel every time the two meet. Already I have heard that one publisher, hitherto accustomed to the services of twenty gardeners at his country house, has been obliged to reduce the horticultural staff to eighteen.

* * *

Such is the publishers’ explanation of the crisis. I shall keep my own explanation till the crisis is a little more advanced and ready to burst. In the meantime I should like to ask : How do people manage to range over the whole period of the novel’s history and de- finitely decide that novels were never so bad as they are now? I am personally inclined to think that at no time has the average novel been so good as it is to-day. (This view, by the way, is borne out by publishers’ own advertisements, which abound in the word “masterpiece ” quoted from infallible critics of great master- pieces !) Let any man who disagrees with me dare go to Mudie’s and get out a few forgotten novels of thirty years ago and try to read them !

* * Also, I am prepared to offer £50 for the name and

address of a literary agent who is capable of getting the better of a publisher. I am widely acquainted with publishers and literary agents, and though I have often met publishers who have got the better of literary agents, I have never met a literary agent who has come out on top of a publisher. Such a literary agent is badly wanted. I have been looking for him for years. I know a number of authors who would join me in enriching that literary agent. The publishers are always talking about him. I seldom go into a publisher’s office but that literary agent has just left (gorged with illicit gold). It irritates me that I cannot run across him. If I were a publisher, he would have been in prison ere now. Briefly, the manner in which certain prominent publishers, even clever ones, talk about literary agents is silly ; it is worse than silly, it is infantile.

* * *

Still, I am ready to believe that publishers have lost money over the six-shilling novel. I am acquainted with the details of several instances of such loss. And in every case the loss has been the result of gambling on the part of the publisher. I do not hesitate to say that the terms offered in late years by some publishers to some popular favourites have been grotesquely in- flated. ” Publishers compete among themselves, and then, when the moment comes for paying the gambler’s penalty, they complain of having been swindled. Note that the losses of publishers are nearly always on the works of the idols of the crowd. They want the idol’s name as an ornament to their lists, and they commit indiscretions in order to get it. Fantastic terms are never offered to the solid, regular, industrious medium novelist. And it is a surety that fantastic terms are never offered to the beginner. Ask, and learn.

* * But though I admit that money has been lost, I do

not think the losses have been heavy. After all, no idolised author and no diabolic agent can force a pub-


JUNE 20, 1908 THE NEW AGE. 153

lisher to pay more than he really wants to pay. And no diabolic agent, having once bitten a publisher, can persuade that publisher to hold out his generous hand to be bitten again. These are truisms. Lastly, I am quite sure that, out of books, a great deal more money has been made by publishers than by authors, and that this will always be so. The threatened crisis in publishing has nothing to do with the prices paid to authors, which on the whole are now fairly just (very different from what they were twenty years ago, when authors had to accept whatever was condescendingly offered to them). And if a a crisis does come, the people to suffer will happily be those who can best afford to suffer. JACOB TONSON.

BOOK OF THE WEEK. Thus Spake Zarathustra.* WE are glad to welcome a second edition of “Thus Spake Zarathustra ” ; but had it been the twentieth we should have been better pleased. There was really no reason why England should remain on the same intellectual level with Norway and Spain, while France, Germany, Italy, and Russia were sharpening their teeth on the most nubbly writer of recent years. The fault lies almost wholly with the English publishers. Cer- tainly the English reading public is extraordinarily un- adventurous, not to say intellectually craven ; but the timidity of publishers passes all the national limits of decency.

It is now twelve years since “Thus Spake Zara- thustra ” was first published in this country. Written at the climax of Nietzsche’s powers, in an heroic form, with lyrical extravagances comparable only to ‘the Old Testament, with a more or less complete philosophy implicit in it, and full of the most seemingly extrava- gant doctrines and paradoxes, “Thus Spake Zara- thustra ” was the very last of all Nietzsche’s writings that should have been chosen to appear first in Eng- land.

There were other volumes infinitely preferable for the purpose of gradually accustoming the English reader to Nietzsche’s extraordinary views. “The Birth of Tragedy,” for example, Nietzsche’s earliest and in some respects sanest work, was in a way specially adapted to the English reading public of a decade or so ‘ago.

There was then, if we may use the phrase, a run on dramatic theory, and particularly on the theory of tragedy. Everybody seemed to be writing about it, and generally without much light. Nietzsche’s essay was a contribution to the discussion of the highest importance. He had made a discovery which threw light not only on Tragedy, but on Greece, the mother of Tragedy. Scholars, and poets all over Europe recognised it at once. A few students in England who knew their Germany gratefully sat at Nietzsche’s feet.

Yet, when Nietzsche began to be talked about and people in England at last began to enquire what he had written, the publishers would not take better advice than to ignore the “ Birth of Tragedy ” (which would have sold easily), but published instead “ Zarathustra,” of which the first edition has only now, after twelve years, been exhausted. A second blunder was made in issuing the volume at the preposterous price of 8s. 6d. If “ Zarathustra ” had been as dull as, say, Kant, the price might perhaps have been justified. But “Zara- thustra ” had a good many of the elements of popularity. At a reasonable price and with judicious advertisement, the first edition might have been sold in a year or two at least. And by this time, instead of the four or five of Nietzsche’s works, we should have had the complete set, as they have long had in France.

Two other grumbles remain which we have long had on our mind. The present translation of “ Zarathustra ” remains unaltered from the first edition ; and that translation is not nearly as good as it should be.

* Thus Spake Zarathustra. * By Friedrich Nietzsche. Translated by Alexander Tille. Second Edition. (Unwin. 8s. 6d. net.)

Secondly, the “Introduction ” by Professor Tille is about as forbidding a foreword for English readers new to Nietzsche as could well be imagined. One would suppose from the tone of it that the Professor was intro- ducing a learned dunce to an audience of dons. Except for a few phrases, there is nothing to indicate the meaning or value of the colossal poem that “ Zarathustra ” really is. It merely adds to the difficulties of Nietzsche in England.

Having said all this, we hasten to thank the trans- lator and publisher for having produced “ Zarathustra ” at all. Disagree as we may with Nietzsche, it is a great thing that he should give us something to disagree nobly about. Such disputations as he provokes might very well have occupied the fallen archangels during Satan’s absence in Eden. About everything that Nietzsche writes there does, indeed, hang something of the Luciferian shades. We refuse to dissect and analyse it, or to rationalise his meaning into some trumpery little eugenic proposal. If ever human affairs were regarded with dignity, Nietzsche so regarded them in the pages of “Zarathustra.” All the old romance of the splendid epic order which the nineteenth century, with its Darwins and its Spencers, had hidden their eyes from (and the eyes of their immediate SUC- cessors), Nietzsche restores ; not willingly, since he was the child of his age and denied his own master- passion, but nevertheless surely. High romance lives again since Nietzsche. He has poured out once more the wine of the gods of the elder days.

“Thus Spake Zarathustra ” must be read as an epic, or at least as a psalm. Doubtless, as Nietzsche himself supposed, there is a philosophy hidden within its purple Folds, but Nietzsche never lived to dig the whole of it out, and nobody but a fool will attempt to complete the task. The mistake was made of treating Plato as a systematic philosopher until Lutoslawski only a few years ago corrected the world and saved the unborn a profitless labour. Similarly, some minds are intent on finding a system in Blake ; a system which we pro- foundly hope will never be discovered. Nietzsche likewise has suffered, though chiefly from himself. Sensible readers will spare themselves the trouble, and take their ‘ Zarathustra ” without a thought of system, but merely as an intellectual delight. A. R. O.

REVIEWS. The Arts and Crafts of Older Spain. By Leonard

Williams. (“ The World of Art ” series.) Three Vols. (Foulis. 15s. net.)

The history of the major arts in Spain resolves itself into here and there a name, and any feeling of internal continuity or tradition is remarkably absent. It is through the medium of the decorative rather than the mimetic or synthetic arts that the riches of her invention and the exuberance of her imagination are able to exercise the fascination they do upon the traveller.

Velázquez and Goya, wholly native as they are at east in respect of an uncompromising realism, can by no means be received as the inevitable culmination of a national tendency ; they are isolated phenomena., and rightly belong to the palaces and museums of a city as pre-eminently European and non-peninsular in character as Madrid. In sculpture, as in painting, only a very few individuals were successful in achieving a masterpiece that is capable of an existence independent of its purpose or its surroundings, and among these few there are some foreign names ; while the architects were, with scarcely an exception, imported.

It is in the symbols and accessories of her religion, and particularly in things by nature inseparable from

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JUNE 20, 1908

their function in the carved choir-stalls, the elaborate altar pieces of polychromed wood and, above all, the marvellous wrought-iron screens, of her churches and cathedrals, that the art of Spain makes its most potent impression upon our senses. The paraphernalia of state, together with the prodigal treasure of her nobility, in the days when all the gold of the Americas lay at her feet, would doubtless make an array scarcely less formidable than that of her ecclesiastical circum- stance, were it not that time has everywhere dealt enviously with the emblems of temporal pomp.

This absence of creation in the highest plane may perhaps be in some measure due to the African origin which Mr. Havelock Ellis has recently ascribed to the Iberian ancestry of the Spaniard, perpetuating a tendency towards a love of barbaric glitter rather than the more solid beauties of structure and form. It is, however, with more probability to be traced to the natural inertia of the Spanish temperament, which, as it is the secret of the weakness in so many other respects, has likewise in art rendered them incapable of the sustained effort necessary to the production of the noblest works.

But if the supreme forms of beauty are seldom attained, it is certain that the “ arts and crafts ” of Spain are imbued with a spirit of invention which, alternating thought it may do, between an almost ex- cessive reserve and an imaginative abandon bordering on the fantastic, is matchless in its kind. It is strange that in these days of the scientific classification of all the arts, when in nearly every other country no phase of artistic energy is considered too trivial for a mono- graph, that the inexhaustible riches of Spain should

‘ hitherto have suffered almost entire neglect. There still remains an endless field for modern research and criticism.

How scanty our present knowledge is may be seen from the work before us. We have here a praise- worthy and in the main successful attempt to sum- marise the rather meagre and unsatisfactory labours of native Spanish scholars in a more or less popular form. Mr. Williams tells us that his three volumes “ repre- sent the well-meant assiduity of several years,” and the quality of their contents words.

is well indicated by these The work has both the merits and defects of a

painstaking compilation, showing little originality either of thought or research.

The author does not appear to us to be possessed of a high degree of aesthetic perception, nor is his knowledge of art sufficiently wide in range to enable him to deal adequately with the complexity of foreign in- fluences, deriving from Italy, Germany, Flanders, and elsewhere, which are so important a factor in the history of Spanish art. He seems, too, in his special sphere, to have a strange diffidence of his own powers of observation ; for even in describing objects which he has himself seen, he prefers to quote the prolix and often inaccurate effusions of Spanish writers rather than record his own impressions.

We may instance a case on pages 27 and 28 of the first volume, where a very few words explanatory of the sketch which is appended to the chapter would have served his purpose far better than the garrulous passage from the Spaniard, Amador de los Rios. The space at the author’s command was doubtless restricted by the publisher ; but by judicious compression and a good many excisions, a great deal of really valuable material might have found room in the book. For example, the gratuitous explanation which is given of miserere seats on page 72 of Volume II. is, in our opinion, super- fluous ; particularly as a large number of Spanish words that would present real difficulties to the average reader are left untranslated and unexplained. Whereas a table of Spanish money with its approximate value at different periods would have given some meaning to the numerous quotations from accounts and similar documents which were made by the author.

For we are sure that the mere mention of so many maravedis, pesos, cruzados or the like being paid to an artist or for an object must be without significance to most of us. Again, the space devoted to the mag-

nificent altar-pieces of polychromed wood which, as we have already mentioned, are one of the principal glories of the Spanish Cathedrals, is wholly insufficient to their importance ; and space might well have been found for some account of the painted altar-pieces of the fifteenth century which belong to the scope of a treatise of this kind rather than to the history of painting. Neverthe- less, in spite of imperfections and omissions, the student of Spanish art will on the whole be glad of the volumes, and they will take the place of Señor Riaño’s very inadequate handbook as a useful work of reference for English readers. The illustrations are numerous and interesting, and serve considerably to in- crease the utility of the text.

(Maunsel. 6s.)

As a story this book is admirable, but it will do little

The Northern Iron. By George Birmingham,

to enhance the literary reputation of Mr. George Birmingham. It is too evidently a made-book with, for some inexplicable reason, a happy-ever-after ending. surprisingly little that is fine in Anglo-Irish literature has been inspired by the period of 1798, when Ireland was living a most intense drama ; the moment when her life was the most tortured thing in the world ; when English rule had reached its abominable climax. Treachery and corruption, slaughter and lust, starva- tion and death, went stalking through that desolate land like monstrous figures in some dream of hell ; the red-coated soldiers of merry England, ravishing, burning, looting, torturing beyond everything that is con- ceivable in modern civilisation. And what of it all now? A few old stories, a few old ballads-and cattle- raiding ; the most beautiful folk melody in the world- and a stolen-jewels scandal in Dublin Castle ; a renas- cent art and literature-and empty homesteads. To- lay, of her younger sons she has such writers as Padraic Colum and Seumas O’Sullivan, each of whom in his own way is carrying on the intellectual tradition of the race. Dramatists, poets, artists, all are there ; but of novelists there are not three with any genius. and we are sorry that Mr. George Birmingham is not really creating anything permanent in literature. With his first book in our hands we thought he might go far, but “ The Northern Iron ” leaves us where we were. We have certainly a strong story, vigorously told ; a story of Capulet and Montague, vested interests and love-making, national rebellion and individual honour. To one who knows the people of Antrim it is very clear that the author has an intimate knowledge of that hard-headed, remarkable race ; their characteristics are here true to life, their lineaments as accurate as a photo- graph. For instance, at a most exciting point in the story, when the soldiery are torturing some man in the street, he makes a woman, who is just running out to see it, shout to somebody who asked her to stay, “ Do you think I’m daft to be sitting my lone in your kitchen and them flogging a clever young man in the next street ?” This has a strong flavour of Synge, but it is Belfast up-to-date. Mr. Birmingham achieves something like passion in a speech of the rebel James Hope :-

But the people are slaves, actually slaves, not a whit better. Are nine-tenths of the people to be slaves to one- tenth? The thing is unendurable. Look at the Catholics in the south, men without representation, without power, without direct influence ; men marked with a brand of inferiority because of their religion. Look at the men of our own faith here in the north. Our case is not wholly so bad, but it is bad enough. We have asked, petitioned, begged, im- plored, for the removal of our grievances. If we are men we must do more-we must strike for them. Else we confess ourselves unworthy of the freedom which we claim. They alone are fit for liberty who dare to fight for liberty. Think of it, Neal Word, think. It is we, the people, dig- ging in the fields, toiling at the looms, it is we who make the riches, who win the good fruit from the hard ground, who weave the thread into the precious fabric. And we are denied a share in what we create. It is from us in the last resort that the power of the governing classes comes. If we had not taken arms in our hands at their bidding, if we had not stood by them, no English Minister would ever have yielded to their demands, and given them the power which they enjoy. And they will not give us the smallest


JUNE 20, 1908 AGE 155

part of what we won for them. " What inheritance have we in Judah. ? Now see to thine own house, David. To your tents, O Israel ! ”

And when another character remarks at an exciting moment, that “ Fighting’s no test of courage. It’: running away that tries a man “-one forgives the un- literary finish of the book for such a dainty aphorism.

Fifteen Years in Parliament. By A. S. T Griffith-Boscawen. (Murray. 10s. 6d. net.)

In this volume Mr. Griffith-Boscawen supplies us with an interesting and impartial narrative of political events from the year 1902 to the overthrow of the Conserva- tive Party. As a prominent Churchman, Conservative and Tariff Reformer, he was closely identified with both the good and evil fortunes of his party. The greater part of the book consists of a summary of the events and business of Parliament from year to year which may prove indispensable to the political and his- torical student, without being specially interesting to the general reader. Whether from temperament or resolution Mr. Griffith-Boscawen has rightly suppressed any leanings towards hero-worship, and writes in the easy conversational style of the man of the world. In- deed, with the material at his command, we have beer more than a little disappointed at the meagreness of his personal descriptions of our great political figures, which more than anything else enhance the interest of a book of this kind. Here, however, is a description of Gladstone at the very end of his public career :-

“ His earnestness, his vigour, his fiery words, his apparent resolve to do the right all the world over, his graceful gestures, so rare in English speakers, could not fail to appeal to all. Then there was his marvellous old-world courtesy to all alike, even to the youngest member on the opposite side, so different to the ways of the modern politician. I remember that he sat through my maiden speech, which is more than any of my own leaders did. ”

Very shrewd is his allusion to the lonely furrow :- “ Lord Rosebery's conduct at this period bore a sort of inverted resemblance to that of a great actor or music- hall star, who was always making his positively last appearance. In the political world he was always making his positive reappearance, and consequently drawing great attention to himself ; but he continued to do it over and over again, and seems to be doing it still. ”

Mr. Griffith-Boscawen discusses with commendable candour the causes which finally led to the disastrous defeat of his party, and we think rightly lays much of the blame upon Mr. Balfour for his strange irresolution in making up his own mind. Upon the formation of his last Cabinet we are told :-“ The idea seemed to be the formation of a Ministry which was favourable to Tariff Reform in principle, but not prepared to do anything practical in that direction for the present. How the Balfourite policy was to be carried out, in fact, was never explained. This was a source of great em- barrassment, the more so as every time that Mr. Balfour spoke Mr. Chamberlain interpreted his speeches in one way, and Lord Hugh Cecil in the opposite.

* There was, in fact, a perpetual fight for Mr. Balfour.” If not the author, Mr. Griffith-Boscawen would have heartily subscribed to an “ Emergency Resolution,” furtively circulated at the Sheffield Conference at the time, but, of course, never moved : “ That this Con- ference refuses to adjourn without recording its humble but hearty admiration of the extraordinary skill with which Mr. Balfour has at once succeeded in eliminating Mr. Chamberlain from the Cabinet, while retaining the services of Mr. Brodrick, an arrangement which makes for the efficiency of the Empire, and removes all doubt as to the result of the next General Election.” Many a true word is spoken in jest, and the writer frankly admits that apart from the dissensions created by the Tariff Reform movement the Conservative Government had outlived both its popularity and its deserts. As one who lost his seat in the general ruin which followed, we cannot question his accuracy, and can only con- gratulate him upon being able to discuss a painful subject with such sang froid and freedom from resentment.

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‘ One of the freshest books on its subject we have read for a long time. . . . The book is pre-eminently one for the times, and we trust that, in the interests of sane teaching in Sunday schools and elsewhere, on the themes it discusses, it and the volumes which are to follow may find a very wide circle of readers. ‘- Christian World.

‘ There is not a dull page in this book. . . . It is as clear as possible that the author’s interest in religion, in the highest sense of the word, is most profound. He was admirably fitted to carry out the task which he has set himself, that of helping preachers and teachers to make practical use of the results of Old Testament criticism.“- Christian Commonwealth.

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A Pocketful of Sixpences. By Geo. W. E. Russell. (E. Grant Richards. 6s.)

We like the title of this book, which is taken from the author’s favourite, D’Israeli. It aptly describes the essays therein which are what may be called the small change of literature ; yet genuine coins, all of them. They fill up gaps in hours of reading, and always leave you with a taste for more. Mr. Russell has wit, and the next best thing to it : he quotes the wit of others with genuine enjoyment. In “ A Parlia- mentary Swan-Song,” he tells us, “ A Whig States- man, who entered Parliament in 1813, and lived till 1878, said to me : ‘ In my young days there were a dozen men in the House who could make a better speech than anyone now living ; but there were not another dozen men who could even understand what they were talking about.’ ” We cannot say whether there is any improvement in the House of Commons in this respect at the present day. But in other respects we have certainly improved, for in the essay on Modern Puritanism we are told that “ a prominent Puritan, still spared to us, punished a child for giving an apple to his pony on the first day of the week !” Mr. Russell is equally at home in the worlds of Politics, Society, Literature, the Church, and above all, of Lord Beacons- field and his novels. All are drawn upon in the same light, easy, skilful, impartial way. An epigram, if only smart or genial enough, he does not hesitate to

’ use, though it runs full tilt against his dearest opinions. In connection with the Church Clergy he asks : “ Of what profession was it that Clarendon said-‘ They understand the least and take the worst measure of human affairs, of all mankind that can write and read ’ ?” After this we cordially recommend to the clergy Burns’ advice to the devil, “ to tak’ a thought and mend.”

It would be rather unfair to compare this pleasantly instructive book-which makes no pretence to instruct at all-with the author’s previous “ Collections and Recollections ” and “ An Onlooker’s Note-book.” The delights we experienced in those two volumes were akin to first-love, and debar us from making comparisons which would be obviously odious for that reason. There are men, and women too, who are full of knowledge and geniality, gifted raconteurs, who also have a capti- vating way with them in the social circle which springs -as in the case of “my Lord Castlewood,” not so much from wit, as from enjoyment. These people, the delight of their friends, are in great demand, but the supply is small. However, it is possible to put the cream of their minds and spirits into a book which, going round, shakes hands with all the world. Mr. Russell, by this means, is familiar to thousands upon thousands, to whom otherwise his engaging qualities would never have been known. However, lest we divert into praise of the art of printing, we will leave our readers to select their sixpences from the book themselves. “ At the Eton and Harrow Cricket Match of 1888 at Lord’s soon after Dr. Welldon became Headmaster at Harrow, Harrow won the match ; and a small Etonian, in the bitterness of defeat, Said to an exulting Harrovian of similar dimensions, ‘ Well you Harrow fellows needn’t be so beastly cocky. When you wanted a Headmaster, you had to come to Eton for him.’ To which the Harrovian replied, with deadly sarcasm, ‘ Well, at any rate, we never produced a Mr. Gladstone. ’ ”

Political Problems of American Development. By Albert Shaw. (The Columbia University Press. 7s. 6d. net.)

This book is a collectian of lectures given to the students of an American University. It approaches the subject of politics from the philosophical conception of a people deliberately struggling to reach a definite end in their public affairs, Mr. Shaw says that “ the theme of the book is the struggle of the American people to realise national unity upon the basis of a homogeneous and well-conditioned democracy ” There is a charac- teristically American touch about the sentence. The American people have no such conscious purpose before them. Democracy is nothing but a sentimental idea which sounds pretty ; but which they care very little

about. They talk bombastically of Democracy : while in reality they allow their land to be governed by a few dozen bosses and railway directors. It is well that the absurd idea that the men across the Atlantic, who are gradually seizing the trade of the world into their grasp, are hard-headed people of business by instinct. They are nothing of the sort : for outside their office door they are the veriest slaves of an unrestrained sentimental imagination. In the affairs of Wall Street they may manage to keep within the limits of material facts -though the periodical crises make us suspect that the limitation is imposed with a certain difficulty-but in the real affairs of life, which never happen in Wall Street or on the Stock Exchange, the average American is a simple child of fancy. He is a political dreamer. We make these remarks the more freely because we are prepared to say that Mr. Shaw, whose book is before us, is an unusual exception from most of what we have just laid down. He is apparently a man of judgment and sense, in a country where politics are the domain of unbalanced nonsense. He writes in an interesting way of the imminent questions of American public life ; of the race problem between the white and the black ; of the reception of immigrants from Europe ; of the proper handling of the public lands ; of the need to purify the ballot - box from corrupt votes ; of the control of railways and other outbursts of capita- list tyranny ; of tariffs. In all these matters the author is illuminating, and, in the eyes of a Socialist paper, his judgment is generally on the rational side ; for he believes in controlling the anti-social individualism of the railway director or the land-grabber by the social restriction of the communal law.

The book is rather verbose. For example, the last sentence of the book runs : “ Our political growth and experience in America has demonstrated the wisdom of those who founded our institutions. . . . We seem not to have changed the essential aims of our political structure, which are those of orderly freedom, of equal opportunity, and of democratic brotherhood upon a high level of intelligence and social well-being.” The man who can write those words in the face of Rocke- feller, Bossism, and a nation of machine-driven human slaves, must be, for the moment, a sentimental American.

Rubens. By Hope Rea. ‘(The Miniature Series of Painters.” (Bell. IS.)

Miss Hope Rea’s essay rises much above the usual average of this popular series of little art biographies. It is, on the whole a well written sketch of the life and art of the Flemish Master. But the writer makes amazing apologies for “ the peculiar element of coarse- ness ” which, she finds, “ runs like a trail through most of Rubens’ work affecting his treatment of the nude female figure. ” We are told-to quote one instance from many-that “ he (Rubens) overpassed the lines of decorum ” ; we read of “ this all-pervading semblance of a degraded taste ” ; assertion that “ singularly one-sided . . . he lacked

and on one page we find the

all sensitiveness to the essential feminine element in the cosmos. ” This vindication closes Miss Rea’s estimate of his art-‘ ‘ and even when his subject most revolts, he throws over the horror the magic of his brush, and thereby almost justifies his picture !” (the note of exclamation is ours).

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DRAMA. Where There is Nothing.

I REGRET to delude you. This is not a criticism of Mr. W. B. Yeats’s play, it is a reflection on the vacuity of the dramatic prospect. As a hopelessly optimistic person, I always expect something or other of interest to turn up week by week, and this last week pinned my hopes to Miss Fanny Ward’s production of “The Three of Us ” at Terry’s.

Let us be polite. “ The Three of Us ” is a very nice play ; it has moments of pathos and of drama, several times it gives good acting openings, and it rounds off at a final curtain which the actors valiantly strove to make final by smiling broadly all over their faces. But it is second-hand. It is plagiarised from every other

play that has ever been written during the last thirty years. It is a rechauffée of the same old dinner we had yesterday and the day before, seasoned with sauce à la Mining Camp in Nevada and garnished with trimmings à l’Americaine.

There is one big joke in the play,-the which resides in the plot. The play hinges on the sale of a mining property, the value of which is accidentally discovered by the hero to be three times its current market value. This information the hero (who, by the way, never brushes the mud off his riding breeches, in contrast to the villain, who is always very neat) proposes to present to a speculator on the understanding that money for working hero’s claim adjacent shall also be provided. The owner of the claim, a friend of the hero’s, is not considered. Hero, however, makes mistake of con- fiding this little plot to the heroine, and as Miss Fanny Ward, who played this character, had forgotten to shut one of the four stage doors, the plot is overheard by young and foolish brother sick to death of Nevada mining camp life. In that, I am sure, he had the sympathy of the audience, and a bold appeal to our innate love of the defiance of the old (stage mining camp) conventions by youth would have met with a riotous tornado of applause. But when the brother who has overheard the plot sells the information to another speculator for five hundred dollars, instead of allowing hero (kindly keep your eye on the unbrushed riding breeches) who has stumbled on the information to do down the owner in a square business deal, all the morality of the speculators is up in arms. And worst of all, the brother ends by slobbering his repentance on his sister’s shoulder, while the hero (who, of course, has suspected the heroine) smiles broadly at the descending curtain.

Rachel Crotless, the author, has lost either a fine chance for a Diabolonian fantasy or a real mining camp play. The realistic play would begin when the curtain falls on “Three of Us ” and the ordinary life of the camp resumes. The elements of the fantasy play exist on the stage as it is, only the fantasy is one played upon the frayed and worn strings of melodrama morality, of which we are all weary to death. The rash and wilful brother ought to have been the saving of the play. He has the root of the matter in him ; his extremely pertinent enquiry as to how the family of three, plus an Irish maidservant, live on the . interest of four thousand dollars never having been answered. The fantasy plot ought to give him the chance of robbing the widow and the orphan on strictly business principles to accumulate a nest-egg, and then of proceeding to bloom out as a millionaire by a callous disregard of all the moral conventions which stage speculators hold dear.

There are the beginnings of this fantasy idea in the play as it is. Unfortunately the author mistook her

THE ENGLISH DRAMA SOCIETY will produce on Tuesday, June 23rd, at 2.30, at the SCALA THEATRE, a Play in 3 acts, entitled “The Mill,” by NUGENT MONCK. The Cast will include Miss Clare Greet, Miss Isabel Roland, and Mr. Courtney Thorpe. It will be followed by a Play in one act by G. V. STUART, entitled “The Drums of Doom,” in which Mrs. Tree and Mr. A. Goodsall will appear. Usual prices. Tickets from Nugent Monck, Scala Theatre.

JUNE 20, 1908

hero, and made it Stephen Townley, when it should have been the brother, Clem Macchesney. Miss Fanny Ward could have acted the heroine, Miss Rhy Mac- chesney, just as well and twice as naturally, because the play as it is turns on the brother. Stephen is merely a sacrificial figure. The fantasy consists in putting Rhy into a number of typical dramatic situa- tions, out of which she escapes by sheer ordinary common sense. Rhy is discovered in the villain’s “ rooms ” (in a Nevada mining camp) at 4.0 a.m. (ap- proximately), and serenely observes that she has come

. on business. Her word is given by a trick to keep a secret of the villain, the keeping of which involves her own unhappiness, that of her lover, and that of her brother, and she refuses to keep it. And these outrages on melodrama, which suited Miss Fanny Ward admirably and enabled her to get the sympathy of the audience, would just as well have suited brother Clem and lover Stephen, who must have been positively panting to do something rational.

I await with patience and resignation the rebellion of actors against the theatrical dramatist. When will they insist that these second -hand wardrobes have lasted long enough and that something new is needed? For until we get plays produced habitually in which the observation of character and locality is genuine scientific observation, we shall not be able to give actors and actresses a real chance of showing their powers.

“The Three of Us ” has just enough local colour about it to show that there exists material for a very interesting play. The Chinaman servant of the villain who appears for a too brief interval in Act III. (most Chinesely done by Mr. A. B. Tapping), the breakfast scene in the dull first act, and the occasional hints of the fever of mining speculation are all indications of good stuff. But there ain’t nuthin’ to it. Probably the author was afraid of putting in too much local colour, and of outraging theatrical proprieties, and, most of all, of doing any original observation.

It is much easier to accept from the stage and from books a few idea patterns into which the experiences of life may be more or less accurately fitted than to see things and note things as unique. But to produce plays in which a few of these stock patterns are trotted out more or less effectually disguised and darkened over with local colour ought to be made a punishable offence. For the actor it is an offence which punishes itself, at least so far as the habitual playgoer is concerned. To see plays acted by those who are familiar in other parts requires some illusion of art to make bearable ; to see the same plays acted by those familiar in the same parts differently dressed is an outrage.

I thought I saw a banker’s clerk Descending from a bus, I looked again and saw it was -

Not, I regret to say a hippopotamus, but Mr. Jones and Miss Brown doing. the same thing all over and over again. And I do wish they would find something new to do ; pect is bare.

where there is nothing the dramatic pros- L. HADEN GUEST.

CORRESPONDENCE. For the opinions expressed by correspondents, the Editor does not

hold himself responsible. Correspondence intended for publication should be addressed to

the Editor and written on one side of the paper only. SPECIAL NOTICE.- Correspondents are requested to be brief,

Many letters weekly are omitted on account of their length.

FEMALE SUFFRAGE AND MR. BELFORT BAX. To THE EDITOR OF ‘( THE NEW AGE.”

Mr. Belfort Bax seems to have been indulging in the venerable, pleasant, and exceedingly easy pastime of setting up a man (perhaps, in the present case, one should say a ( woman “ of straw, and then knocking it down. He in- timates that ‘(the great argument of feminists in favour of the extension of the franchise to women is that non-enfranchised womanhood is groaning under the oppression of unjust man-made laws.”

Now the “great argument ” (whether‘ of “feminists,” who- ever they may be, or anyone else) for the grant of the

franchise to woman is something very different from this; although, no doubt, the manner in which man-made law has operated and still operates to the prejudice of the other sex is (quite legitimately) referred to by those who advocate her political emancipation. But the great argument for Female Suffrage (as also, of course, for Adult Suffrage) is that to require individuals to obey laws, and punish them for break- ing laws, in the making of which they have no voice, is despotism ; and this quite irrespective of whether the laws are good or bad (as to which, after all, opinions differ in many cases). The argument has been stated again and again, and was forcibly put by one of the suffragettes, on being sum- moned before a magistrate, when she said, (‘ I don’t -acknow- ledge the authority of this Court so long as I have no part in making the laws I am supposed to obey: I am a rebel because I am an outlaw.” Precisely: to those who are denied the franchise, the law lacks the moral sanction, and it is not surprising that they should regard its enforcement as tyrannical.

The positive argument which Mr. Bax puts forward against granting the franchise to women, namely that they are as well governed as they would be if they had it (or rather, better governed), is one which is usually advanced as a defence of alien government. It is amongst the reasons assigned for refusing the request of our Indian subjects for some approach to autonomy.; it was one of the pleas for depriving the Boers of their Independence; and it was used in connection with the denial of Home Rule to Ireland. Generally it is not true in fact; but even if it be, it is no answer to those who ask for self-government. They are entitled to say that how they shall be governed and in what good government consists are for them to determine : and to this the only reply is the argumenturn baculinum- which brings us to Mr. Bax’s true position. All he really has to rely upon is superior force ; but as tyranny is repug- nant to him, he is thrown back upon the well-worn plea that the superior force is beneficently exercised. Perhaps if a paternal government deprived him of his vote on the . ground that they supplied him with sugar-sticks, he would realise how much that plea is worth.

Just one additional observation as to the “privileges ” which women enjoy, and which Mr. Bax regards as a justification for withholding ( rights.” He says, if women do not want these privileges why do they not say so in the course of their agitation ? Well, I suppose he would consider Miss Christabel Pankhurst a leading “agitator,” and I myself heard her state publicly, in reply to a critic who had taken up the same line, that women wanted no privileges. But it takes two to make a bargain; and what I am anxious to know is,. when and in what manner women agreed to barter (( citizenship ” for “ chivalry.”

* + * JNO. GEO. GODARD.

FEMINISM AND FEMALE SUFFRAGE. To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.”

Allow me to suggest to Mr. Charles D. Leslie that he should look up a reliable dictionary for the meanings of the words progress, birthright, and retrograde. Also, in view of his painful threat to emigrate to Germany, I should like to warn him that this childish ‘(Woman’s Movement ” is quite stupidly universal- I feel so sorry for him because even heaven would seem to be unavailable as a refuge from it ; up to the present we have not heard of any special sex laws amongst the angels.

SIME SERUYA. * * *

To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.” Without attempting to criticise in detail the naughty-

boyish remarks of your correspondent Charles D. Leslie, will you permit me to express the hope that, in the near future, when the vote has become the birthright of women as well as of men, he will have the resolution to carry out his threat to emigrate? BARBARA SPENCER.

* c +

WORDSWORTH’S FUNNIEST LINE. To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.”

How comes it that your contributors, in their quest for Wordsworth’s funniest line, have overlooked :-

(‘Why art thou silent ? Is thy love a plant.” w. w.

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JUNE 20; 1908 159

FOREL’S (( DIE SEXUELLE FRAGE.” am no Party man, but I assure you that for crass incapacity To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.” coupled with every base variety of snobbery, falsehood, and

Jacob Tonson should know the publishers’ pretty ways. trickery of the most paltry kind, the present Cabinet of

Nearly a year ago I offered to translate Dr. Forel’s work, Plutocrats, K.C.‘s, and “ Souls ” and Snobs is by far the

“ Die Sexuelle Frage,” now in its seventh German edition, worst in my experience, On this point, if on no other

thirty-fifth thousand. I submitted the offer to a leading point, I agree with Lord Halsbury, who proved before the

medical publisher, and was told that such a popular book United Club recently, that the present rulers of our Empire

could not be produced in English. The same publishers “degrade everything which they touch ! ” Their evil in-

have recently brought out a wickedly flippant and influence, like some deadly Upas tree, has a blasting influ-

adequate book on marriage, which was adversely reviewed ence from the Ganges to the Shannon and from Glasgow to

in your columns, and with every justification. Cape Town. Their ill-omened management has shed lurid

M. D. EDER. and blighting rays alike upon the slums of our provincial SC + * towns and on the appalling luxury which is described daily

To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.” in the “Daily Chronicle ,’ and was illustrated by that dread-

With reference to the remarks of Dr. Saleeby and Mr. ful “ gala performance ” at the Opera.

Jacob Tonson in THE NEW AGE regarding “Die Sexuelle The gentle and divinely nurtured St. Cecilia shrank in

Frage,” Prof. Forel wishes to state that the work has just horror from that fulsome display of the ill-begotten wealth

been translated into English and published by the Rebman of an evil Plutocracy and on the snobbish wiles and petty

Company, New York. It should now be on its way to cunning of the most odious Bureaucracy that ever de-

England. ASHLEY DUKES. moralised any community.

I hereby, Sir, pick up the gauntlet you have thrown Zurich. down, and I pick it up gladly. There is not an officer in

* -E * the army whom I know who would not support your indict-

UNI-SEXUAL CRIMINAL LAW. ment, only that, no matter what outrage is inflicted on him,

To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.” he dare not even mention his case to a writer for the Press.

In re discussion under this heading, may I point out that If any friend of his ventured to comment upon his treat-

in cases of non-vaccination from’ conscientious motives, it ment in a letter to THE NEW AGE or to the “Morning

is the man, not the woman., who goes to prison, though the Post ” he would be mercilessly crushed by that ruthless Star

wife may be the anti-vaccinator. Again, it is pointed out Chamber-the Army Council.

by Mr. Collinson, of the Humanitarian League, that a But as far as I am concerned you can use this letter as

man may be sent to prison for his wife’s debts, in regard you please, I will not hesitate to support every word of its

to which he may be in entire ignorance until he is arrested contents on oath any day.

on a County Court warrant. In Industrial School cases T. MILLER MAGUIRE.

the law is even more oppressive and unjust. A few days [We are indebted to Dr. Maguire for his spirited accept-

ago I read a case in which a step-father was committed to ance of our challenge; and we hope that THE NEW AGE

prison for non-payment of 1S. 6d. weekly for maintenance will be privileged to print before very long some articles

of his second wife’s illegitimate son in an Industrial School. from his pen .--ED., N.A.]

MARY L. PEDDER.

DR. MILLER MAGUIRE’S ” J’ACCUSE.” To THE EDITOR OF ‘(THE NEW AGE.)’

You ask me will I write a new ‘( J’Accuse.” I certainly am prepared to charge the War Office with most outrageous breaches of trust in every direction, with being false to its most recent constitution, with betraying the nation for snobbery-with being a party to systems of organisation in which they did not believe -with most malignant persecution of officers who dared to tell the truth or happened to be unpopular ; with outrageous perversions of justice ; with supporting a damnable system of Military Law; with snobbery of the basest and trickery of the most villainous types.

* * *

THE FLORENCE PRESS BOOKS.

I charge the War Office with adopting educational systems which are a disgrace to civilisation; with ignoring every protest in favour of improvement for Society reasons and these reasons only ; with the basest kinds of corruption ; with being a perfectly intolerable bureaucracy which in- jures every military interest, and with stupid indifference to misery and suffering.

The Army Council is a canker of the State. Its present territorial system is a perfect farce and fraud. All these charges I undertake to prove up to the hilt ; the

To THE EDITOR OF THE NEW AGE.)’

Permit me to suggest to Mr. Tonson that he is still quite in the dark as to the possibilities of fine printing. Had he himself been concerned with the issue of hand-printed books, or owned a private press, he would know that however one may wish the public to purchase large editions of finely printed books, the public have other ideas; and were one to print unlimited editions it would merely result in speedy ruin. It appears to me a risky experiment to issue so large an edition as 500 copies of a book, the cost of which is necessarily increased by hand-printing and the use of good paper. These things cannot be had for nothing, and experience has shown that the public willing to pay for them is limited to, at the most, a few hundreds.

A. K. COOMARASWAMY. Essex House Press, Campden.

* 3c *

only difficulty may be that if I mention names and you print them you may be involved in a libel action. The authorities dare not take any action against me, even if I charged certain officials by name with being curses to our community. They know very well what kind of questions I could ask them in cross-examination, and as to any counter charges against me they are estopped collectively and individually, and have been throughout for years past.

“RAGGING ” AT CAMBRIDGE.

To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.)’

May I, as a Cambridge graduate, draw your readers’ attention to a simple explanation of the recent (‘ragging ,’ at Trinity Hall?

I have neither fear of, nor respect for, any English Government Department, because I have had well sustained charges in many a case against them in which their conduct has been characterised by almost inconceivable incapacity or by gross blackguardism, or by both. I have had ample experience of their ways for a quarter of a century, and so have had my colleagues and my clients. A sojourn in either the Russian or the “Salisbury Siberia” would do them a lot of good.

Each college is unfortunately bound to receive a varying proportion of irresponsible youths, whose real object in residing at Cambridge is not the pursuit of learning, but the pursuit of pleasure. Considering its relative size, Trinity Hall generally gets an unduly large share of these useless people. Again, this is the chief ‘varsity shrine of an almost imbecile devotion to the god of muscle, hence intellectual balance is not to be expected from its average undergraduates, whose entire mental perspective is blocked by beef and biceps. The (’ raggers ” of May 12th and 16th are very obviously drawn from these unhealthy sources, which, happily, are in no way typical of the average Cambridge student who is becoming more Socialist daily.

It is a choice between their exposure and removal, or the WILFRID LEADMAN. utter ruin of our State in a decade or two. Of course, I Port de Goulphar, Belle-ile-en-mer. France.

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JUNE 20, 1908

THE NEW AGE PRESS begs to announce the following NEW PUBLICATIONS and editions :-

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There is nothing to equal it as a

LOVE POEMS. By W. R. TITTERTON. Quarter canvas, gilt, 1S. 6d. net. By post 1S. 8d. ‘ Mr. Titterton’s pen is a whip that cuts to the bone. He is restrained by no conventions.“-Daily News. ’ These poems

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KING AND TSAR. By VICTOR GRAYSON, M.P