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PAGE PA GE THREEPOEMS. By Rupert Brooke NOTESOF THE WEEK .................. ... 49 ............ ... 59 A ROUNDELFOR REVEILLISTS.By A. P. Begg ......... 52 ART AND DRAMA.By Huntly Carter ............ 60 A FABIANFABLE. By C. E. Bechhöfer ............ 52 NINEFOR FOUR. By Beatrice Hastings ............ 61 FOREIGNAFFAIRS. By s. Verdad ............... 53 STEPSTO PARNASSUS.By J. Collings Squire ......... 64 AFTERMR. BALFOUR?By Kosmo Wilkinson ......... 53 MUSIC AND Musicians. By John Playford ...... THEFRAUD OF THE CONCILIATIONCOUNCIL. By H. Russell REVIEWS ..................... ::: 2 Smart ..................... ..- 55 LETTERSTO THE EDITORfrom O. Holt Caldicott, E. Cowley, TRIUMPHANTREPUBLICANISM. By V. de Braganca Cunha ... 56 Arthur J. Penty, L. K. Tao, Harold B. Harrison, Herbert DELENDA.By John Nicolas .................. 57 B. Hammond, M. B. Oxon, Horace C. Simmons, Pharall The MEDICALREVOLUTION .................. 58 Smith ........................ 68 Subscription to the NEW AGE are at the following We do not profess to look forward to the fulfilment rates :- of our forecast with any satisfaction. A strange fate Great Britain. Abroad. has, however, befallen the attempts of the Labour One Year ... ... i5 % 17 “4; party to destroy the Liberal party-a fate as strange Six Months.. ... 76 88 as befel Luther, who re-established the Church by Three Months ... 39 44 attacking it. Undoubtedly the early Labour leaders imagined themselves as the successors of the Liberal All communications relative to THENEW AGE should not of the Tory, party. The Liberals were their par- be addressed to THE NEW AGE, 38, Cursitor Street, ticular enemy, and it was to the aboIition of the Liberal E.c. party that they confidently looked forward, with the -_____~- massing of Socialists versus Tories as the final forma- tion. But it has all happened exactly otherwise. The Liberals have grown by attacks, while the Conserva- NOTES OF THE WEEK. tives have languished under neglect. And not onIy IF the resignation of Mr. Balfour were necessarily to have the Liberals themselves been strengthened by be regarded as final it would mark the end of English being made the object of attack, but their very attackers political conservatism. As it is, and so long as there have become Liberals in the process. We are nearly all is any doubt whether Mr. Balfour will resume the Liberals to-day, and the only Conservatives are a hand- leadership of his party, the fate of Conservatism is ful of Tories, now proved incapable of retaining Mr. scarcely to be predicted. Two sections are now Balfour as their leader, and a few Socialists like our- warring for predominance: the section of the Cham- selves. All the rest have joined in th wild goose chase berlainite tradition-Radical with a veneer of Tory after “ social reform,’’ “ progress,” “ democracy,” or Imperialism ; and the section associated with the name some equally chimerical fowl. Not for years, perhaps of Mr. Walter Long-Old English Tory with a veneer not for many years, will the nation realise that its of Social Reform. The adoption of Mr. Bonar Law as expedition is in quest of the moon. Meanwhile there a compromise between these two diverging sections is is nothing to do but to continue talking sense-though a desperate expedient. If Mr. Balfour can no longer few will listen to it-and to wait patiently for the straddle the gulf that daily widens between them, it is recovery of national sanity. For it is as clear as noon- certain that Mr. Bonar Law cannot do it. In a very day that the Liberal expedition is a moon-hunt and little while, Mr. Law will be a Longite or a Chamber- nothing less. If the glamour of the Thessalian witches lainite. We have, therefore, to face the prospect of a were not over our public men and electorate, they would definite split in the Unionist ranks, and that before see clearly enough that the drift of the applauded very long. The cement that united the Liberal Unionists legislation of the Liberal-Labour-Chamberlainite section with the Conservatives will certainly cease to have any is precisely up in the air. Not a single class of the binding power so soon as Horne Rule is an accomp- community will actually be better off as a result of all lished fact. Already, indeed, while Home Rule is still the measures now being pursued by the whole herd. in the air, the union, as we see, is dissolving almost The poor in ten years’ time will certainly be no less exactly down its original line of formation. Once let it poor, though the rich may be pestered and irritated be realised-and that may be months before the Bill is almost beyond endurance. What was it Macaulay said passed-that Home Rule is inevitable, and the two of Puritans and bear-baiting? The social reform of unequally-yoked partners of the historic marriage will most Liberals is inspired, not by love of the poor, but divorce each other to their mutual relief. The fate of by hatred of the aristocracy. Consequently both rich the Liberal Unionist section of the alliance can be and poor will suffer. **Y deduced from its nature. Without a single real prin- ciple of union, its cohesion will vanish when the In speaking of Liberals, our caution must be remem- common negation that bound it disappears. Several of bered that most of the politicians of all parties are its members will find opportunities and excuses for Liberal to-day. It is clearly the case with the Labour returning to the Liberal fold. One distinguished mem- party, whose members, save one, have a unanimous ber has already gone over, and others are on the point resolution to play pilot-fish to the official Liberal shark. of following. A few will throw in their lot with the Another direction of travel altogether or genuine indepen- Conservative party pursang. But the Conservatives, dence is inconceivable to them. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald when all is over, will not make a large party. Unless would be hard pressed to define a line of division between the unexpected occurs, they will in ten years from now himself and, say, Mr. Lloyd George. Given a legal, be the smallest party numerically in the House of instead of a scholastic, training, Mr. MacDonald might Commons. even be conceived as occupying Mr. Lloyd George’s 50 place at this moment. And Mr. Lloyd George, as the under its nominally “ Conservative” successor. As leader of the English Labour party of to-day, would things are drifting, in fact, there is every prospect that strike nobody as out of his element. But the Liberalism a “Conservative” Government will differ only in appear- of the nominal Conservatives is equally beyond dis- ance from the present Liberal Government. The means pute. Saving for Mr. Balfour and his immediate to ensure that an alternative Government shall be also friends, the entire mass of the Conservative members a different Government lie not in the mere defeat of the has no notion why it sits in opposition rather than on Liberals at the polls, but in the rout of the Liberal con- the Government side of the House. Outside the ception of Social Reform. We may safely say that it sphere of gilt and gingerbread politics-the House of does not matter two pins at the present moment whether Lords, Imperialism, Colonial Preference, and other Liberals or Conservatives or even the Labour party are in power. Lord Curzon or Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Lloyd meaningless mouthfuls-no difference . of principle George and Mr. Ramsay MacDmald have all precisely divides the majority of the “ Conservatives ” from the majority of Liberals. They even have the political the same notion of social legislation. They all agree that the way to abolish poverty is to cover it up by indecency to admit it by the most obtrusive implica- State doles extorted by taxes or other devices from tion. Writing of the present session, during which (as rich and poor in variable proportions. we rather fancy our readers are aware) the Insurance Mr. Bonar Law would raise the money (at least, he thinks he would) Bill is being passed, the “ Morning Post,” the organ of by a tariff on imports. Mr. Lloyd George would raise the Chamberlainites, calmly states that “ with the best the money (at least, he thought he would) by a tax on will in the world, the Opposition will find little to oppose land. Mr. MacDonald-the Lord knows how he would in the Government’s autumn programme.” Nothing attempt to raise money. But the employment and des- for Conservatives to oppose, remark, in a measure, tination of the money thus hypothetically or actually soaked in Liberalism, reeking, nay, stinking, with raised would in each case be the same. We should Liberalism. And worse even than this, that late cham- have it squandered by Mr. Bonar Law and Mr. Mac- pion of aristocracy and present aspirant to the leader- Donald exactly as it is to-day being squandered by shp of the “ Conservative ” peers, Lord Curzon, Mr. Lloyd George in free education, free old-age pen- a announced at Birmingham on Thursday last that sions, free or assisted insurance-free or assisted every- “ Unionists must more closely identify themselves with thing, in fact, of the poor. And all this, we say, is social reform, housing, sanitation, Poor-law reform ” inevitable, be the name of the Government what it may, and--what, in heax-en’s name, do our readers think- unless Mr. Balfour or somebody else can get into the “ with insurance ! ” If that is not a palpable attempt nation’s head a different conception of the means of to outbid Mr. Lloyd George in Liberalism, we have no Social Reform than that prevailing now.

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