Vol. XII. No. 17. THURSDAY,FEB. 27, 1913.

PAGE. FA

~ ~~~ -_- than tp the suffragists. We do not so much intend to criticise recent aspects of the women’s movement as en- deavour to show the futility of force, whether exercised on the part of the suffragists against the Government, or onthe part of theGovernment against the suffra- gists and against strikers. We havealready had occa- sion to condemn Mr. McKenna's forcefulmethods of treating a form of disease as if it were a form of crime ; and the events of theintervening period since August last have certainly not encouraged us to expect greater intelligence from theHome Secretary's Department. Militantoutrages have increased withincreased sen- tences and heavier fines ; though it is satisfactory to note thatthe actual number of so-called militants would NOTES OF THE WEEK. appearto have decreased. Our observations of the movementduring the past six months, however, have A NEW series of suffragist outrages, culminating in the ,convinced us that the agitation is more than ever a form attemptto blow up Mr. Lloyd George's new country of nervous trouble; and that it is, with every successive house at Walton Heath, Epsom, has once more drawn outrage, becoming morepathological. All the more attention to thewomen's miovement. We haveMrs. ridiculous,therefore, is the ill-conceived: plan of fine and imprisonment adopted by the Government for deal- Drummond giving the attempt her approval, and Mrs. ing withit. If a doctor in the course of his ordinary Pankhurstnot merely approvingbut also expressing practiceis calledin to prescribefor a woman who her willingness to assume responsibility and threatening showssigns of incipientneuritis orhysteria, it would to "hungerstrike" if sheis sent to gaol. We will, never occur to him that she should be bundled off to a therefore,take this opportunity of supplementing our solitary cell and fed there forcibly with a rubber tube. remarks on the woman’s 1mlovem.ent which appeared in He would be more likely to order immediate change of air, of diet, and of companionship, the latter being by THE NEW AGEof August 22 and 29 06 last year. In no means the least important. those Notes weshowed, and showed conclusively we think, to any person whose mind was open to reason- * '* * able conviction, that the movement was largely a move- When we saythat the militant women are simply ment of fallacies, that the ends pursued by the agitators suffering from aform of neuropathy,and that they wereobscure, even to themselves,and that those should be dealt with by a neurologist ratherthan by obscureends were being pursued by improper means, magistrates, policemen, andwarders, we are not thatthe movement bore no relation tothe Labour making an offensive accusation; we are merely stating movement, thatthe attempts to burn theatres and to a scientific fact. Our assertion will be upheld by any break windowswere as disagreeable tothe agents as experienced observer who has witnessed recent women's demonstrations at close handand noted thecharac- to the sufferers; and that, in short the women thus en- teristics of thefemale participants-the strained, glaring gaged, were suffering from such nervous disorders that eyes, the quick gasps, of excitement, the spasmodic theiractions were quite beyondtheir control. The throbbingand convulsilon of every visible nerve and treatment for such disorders, as we pointed out, was a muscle, the quivering,high-strung voices, and, worst sanatorium or a hydro rather than a prison. of all, perhaps. that occasional peculiar giggling of the neuropathicpatient which at once setsthe medical *** attendant on the alert. In lending their countenance to So faras the women’s movementin its relation to forms of agitation which necessarily encourage and Labour and to society is concerned, we have nothing to develop these symptoms, it seems to us that the elderly leaders of the women's suffrage movement are incurring add to or retract from what we wrote NEW AGE in THE a responsibility, the full extent and grave character of sixmonths ago,; and our ,remarks this week may be which they do notappear to haverealised If the taken as having reference to the Government even more veterans of the Socialistic movement were to insist on 394

~~ their youngerfollowers drinking a gallon of badgin blem that demands a spiritual solution ; and it is use- andsmoking a hundredcheap cigarettes and half .a less as well as dangerous to try to solve it by an appeal pound of opium a day, we do not see that they would toforce or to the crude, second-rate opinions of the begiving any more deleterious encouragement to the average man and woman. Indeed, the irresponsible dolts physical andmental qualities of their supporters than whorecommend such plans as theducking-stool for the encouragement now being given by the older leaders militant women andtransportation for labour “agita- of the women’s movement to the young women who are, tors,” would be the last to venture to put into practice in a very definite sense, under their control and in their the very remedies they suggest, if they were ever called charge. We sumup the mostserious tactical defect upon todo so. We must haveintelligence, andnot of the women’s agitation when we assert, as we do stupidity. that the non-catamenial women in it do not make any- *** thing like sufficient allowance for the neuropathic effects Here, however, we leave the women’s movement and of the campaign on their weaker followers ; andwith enter upon a broader field. Our complaint againstthe these words we leave this purely scientific aspect of the members of theCabinet, individuallyand collectively, movement to other pens. is that theyhave never yet shown any signs of being *** able to dealwith unrest, no matter whence it sprang, What, however, are we to say of the attitude of the in a properly spiritual way. Murder has been met with Government?It is useless to speak seriously of the hanging,exactly as the hunger strike has been met employment of “force” in connection with the feminine with forciblefeeding ; andboth forms of treatment agitation for votes No class in England, no sex, ever merely differ in degree of barbaric severityand .ineffi- had a “right” to the vote as. all classes have in France, cacy.Similarly, Labour unrest has been met with the .and .as all classes and a large proportion of the female truncheons of policemen, and, where the truncheons of sexhave in the UnitedStates. Here the vote has in- policemen did not suffice, withthe loaded rifles of the variablybeen conceded as aprivilege by thoseabove regularArmy Time after time wehave had occasion to those bellow; andthere are stillsome five or six to complain of the intellectual bankruptcy of the million adult men in Englandwaiting for the favour Cabinet Almostexactly a year ago,for example, in Emphatically we act up to Bluntschli’s dictum : “The THE NEWAGE of February 29, 1912,we found it neces- electorderives his right to vote,not from nature but sary to criticise Sir Edward Grey’s bland assurance that film the State.” To think that the women can secure the three enemies which the country had to combat- this favour by breaking windows and exploding bombs oldage, accident, and sickness-had been conquered is grotesque; not even the Russian revolutionaries, who respectively by old age pensions the Workmen’s Com- know their business much better than the women know pensationAct, and national insurance. And just as Sir theirs, have made any progress in that way, as we have Edward Grey could, notsee, or professed notto see, pointed out once or twice before. Strength for strength, thatPoverty was the realenemy, the enemy that woman is hopelessly inferior to man; and, as things are brought these minor evils in its train, so to-day we have at present, the forces at th,e disposal of the State are to complain of the spiritual ineptitude of a Cabinet that easily capable of dealing with thesuffragists, even if supportsthe Insurance Act,still punishes murder by every one of them.became a militantto-morrow. But banging, and still ‘regards the rubber tube as adequate this very fact, we apprehend, does not mean that, the treatmentfor neuricity turned ‘sour. We thought,and Government is at liberty to employ the powerful forces still maintain,that the women’s demands werefan- of the State to combat thepuny forces of the suffragists; tastic, useless and unnecessary ; but we are willing to we have not yet begun to use steam-hammers to crack admit at once that, in theearlier stages of thecam- nuts. We saidsix months agothat militant methods paign, they were put forward with some show of argu- were a profound mistake; but Mr. McKenna’s stupidity ment in manybooks, periodicals pamphlets, and in dealing with themis, if anything, evenmore repre- speechesThe arguments wereusually silly, the logic hensible. For heis, after all,a member of theruling defective, and the analogies strainedto the breaking- forces of thecountry, and, sincehe is such, it ishis point ; but the mere extension of the suffrage campaign, duty to set an intellectual and spiritual example in deal- if nothing else,indicated that theywere at least suffi- ing with disorders that demand intellectual and spiritual ciently plausible to deservean adequate reply. That treatment. *** reply was provided by Sir Almroth Wright’s now cele- brated letter in the “Times,” and by the Notes in the Such an example on the part of the Government is twoissues of THE NEW AGE alreadyreferred to; but all the more necessary, in view of the brutal and bar- the most diligent inquiry on our part has failed to dis- baric notions of punishment still prevailing among the coverany other spiritual counter-arguments in the lower intellectual ,orders of the populace. We do not, Pressor on theplatform ; and certainlyleast of all let it be noted refer to the working classes, who are in CabinetMinisters’ speeches. much moretolerant and better endowedwith a Sense *** of the humorous thanthe middle and lower-middle classes. It is people belonging to the two latter classes Exactly the same remark applies to the demands of who have written to the newspapers during the week, Labour. Economist aftereconomist, evenMr. Chiozza suggestingthat militant suffragists should be im- Money himself,pointed out timeand again that real prisoned and left tostarve if they did nottake their wages had been steadily falling for the last fifteen years, food, or that theyshould have their heads shaved. Sir and that the Labour unrest was not so much a move- Oliver Lodge, Sir Francis Burnand, and other nonenti- ment to secure increased wagesas to raise wages to their ties,brought into prominence for a singleflashlight former level, low enough though that level was. What moment by the“Weekly Dispatch” as persons com- reply did the Cabinet make to statements like these, put petent to give an opinion on the matter, recommend de- forward as theywere by responsiblespeakers, and portation-a typicalbourgeois view, this-Sir Arthur writers by men so widely diverse as Mr. Bonar Law him- Markham would“let them die,” and so on. A perusal self and the hacks on the“Daily News” ? None. We said of the correspondence in the newspapers is sufficient to that real wageswere falling, which was acarefully- show that the most cruel and loathsome suggestions of prepared argument;the Chancellor of the Exchequer- punishment-such as head-shaving-come fromthe retorted with “ninepence for fourpence,” which was a average married woman of the middle classes ; the next carefullyprepared lie. Mr. Lloyd George, elaborating mostcruel plans, of course,coming from clergymen. his theme in tones as suave as those of the spider put- When allthese facts are taken into consideration, we ting an invitation to the fly, told us of the blessings of his cannot lay too much emphasis on the assertion that, in Insurance Act, a task in which he was ably assisted by this particular case, the Cabinet exists above all for the a11 the Dodsons and Foggs of theLiberal Front purpose of putting average opinion entirely aside, and Bench,. That was all ; that and a few vaguereferences to should beguided, in turnguiding the nation, by the further instalments of relief by doles, with an occasional best mindsavailable. We are confrontedwith a pro- piousmention of the Kingdom of God. No Cabinet 395

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Minister of our time appears to have been gifted with case of Richardson, as in the case of Knox, nothing has the ability to see industrial and social problems steadily been more striking than the unanimity with which the andto see them whole Atany rate, no attemptwas workerssupported comrades whom they looked upon made to givereasoned answers to the various argu- as having been harshly dealt with. It was on this very ments put forward on behalf of Labour-the most im- factor, as we have often said, that we set our hopes for portantsubject of all-woman’ssuffrage a non-compulsory theemancipation of Labourfrom capitalism; but we InsuranceAct, or any of theother problems haveceaselessly reiterated that allsuch Labour move- which havearisen since 1906. The Cabinet has very ments, to be effective, must be based upon an untram- unwisely chosen to treat reason with contempt and to melled Trade Unionism. In other words, the men must rely upon force and force alone. in case of necessity beable to come out on *** V strike,and they mustfreebemake to their It is almost superfluous, let us hope, for us to point own terms with themasters before returningto out how grave a systemthis is, and what a speedy work.But it is precisely this freedom to which return to barbarism it means unless it is checked. Force themasters object; and, in spite of all the lies -which Machiavellidescribed as a means of contend- which have been told, and swallowed, by Conservatives, ing “proper to beasts”-is a treacherous servant. Even Liberals,and Labour people regardingthe Insurance the most cruel men in historyhave hesitated to resort Act, we repeat that the Act will in time inevitably rob to it; forits consequences are at bestlamentable and the workmen of the precious possession of freedom of usually disastrous. If, however, force is to be employed contract.Sickness insurance applies universally ; at allin extremecircumstances, consistency demands unemploymentinsurance applies to “ insured thatit shouldbe employed in accordancewith those trades”covering one-third of theadult males inthe rules which Machiavelli has expressed most clearly and country ; and the list of insured trades will be extended briefly-it should be logicallyemployed in such a way as time, funds,and opportunities permit. We do not that the object on which it is exercised is stamped out wish torepeat our old arguments as to the effect of forgood and all. When, forexample, a womansen- thiswidespread insurance system on the trade unions. tenced to twoor threemonths’ imprisonment is fed When their financialresources are depleted, and when forciblyfor a few weeks andthen discharged, the use everyrailwayman is paying unemploymentinsurance of force has utterly failed. Either it should not be em- contributions, weshall see with what rapidity Section 87 ployed at all, or it should be employed to the last ex- of the infamous Act will be brought into operation : ‘‘A tremity. Again, the Labour unrest is not settled merely workman who loses employment through misconduct or when a demonstration on Tower Hill is dispersed by a who voluntariliy leaveshis employment without just batoncharge. irritation iscaused all around,and no causeshall be disqualified for receivingunemployment result is attained. Give us themeans placed by the benefit for a period of six weeks from the date when he great capitalists at the disposal of our kept-Government, so lost employment” ; “A workman who has lost em- and we will undertake to crush the present Labour un- ployment by reason of a stoppage of work which was rest in such a way that it will never again raise its head. due to a trade dispute at the factory,workshop, or other It is true that, in such circumstances, postulating dras- premises at which he was employed, shall be disqualified tic action, England wouldnever again raise her head, for receiving unemployment benefit so long as the stop- either,and that the British Empire would crumble to page of work continues.” As all the workmen of this pieces; but the capitalists, if current indications are any country (if the Cabinet has its way) are destined to came guide to us, care for none of these things if only their under this clause sooner or later, we think it is the duty profits, and their opportunities of adding to them, are of trade union leaders, and especially of Labour M.P.’s left undisturbed. to impress upon the men thenature of thisparticular *** clause, which deliversthe workman definitely intothe It is sufficient to realise the logical outcome of force hands of the master. We cannot recollect a singlein- to know that it can never be a satisfactory solution of stance where a Labour Member has laid proper emphasis our social and industrial problems, and that, inconse- on this section of the Act ; and to say-thatis to condemn quence, the best minds among us strongly deprecate re- the Labour Party root and branch. course to it. So far as the women’smovement is con- cerned, we recommended last August that the Govern- A BALLADE OF BALLADES. mentshould encourage men likeSir Almroth Wright, I. whosesingle letter in the “Times” gave a greater in- I saw a ballade on a printed page, tellectual setback to the movement than all the fines and And fainted atthe too familiar sight. Whensense returned I hardly could assuage sentences of imprisonment beforeit or since. The My grief. And then I moaned, “What fiendish sprite reason,surely, is clear enough. No movement that is Inspired this crop of ballades And that night based on the slightest scrap of intellect, no matter how I made this prayer :--“O ye kindly bards, small and poor a scrap it may, can be vanquished by Write whatsoever else you wish to write, mere force. That the women’s movement was based on Eht please don’t give us any more ballades I such a scrap of intellect atthe beginning wehave II alreadystated. But the Labour movement is more to “Why don’t you, quickened by Graysonian ra e, the point ; for here the use of force is not merely use- Write hymns, inciting Labour men to fight less, but highly dangerous. Or sonnets-to a Miner in a Cage, Or to a Journalist, Bereft of Sight? *** Why not an ode in praise of Alfred Beit? Thoughtless and capricious dismissal is as absurd as Or virile verse, upholding beer and cards? the shooting down of strikers. For not adhering to the All these we might endure (I say we might), regulations and “endangering the safety of the public,” But please don't give us any more ballades! as itwas alleged,Driver Knox was summarily dis- III ‘missed. Because-if thePress in itsunanimity is cor- “Some blank verse all about the Minimum Wage rect-because hedid adhere to the regulations and re- Would, by comparison, seem fairly bright; fused toendanger the safety of the public, Guard An epic on the Great Ones of the Age Richardson is alsosummarily dismissed. The We live in 1 am sure would be all right; even think we might enjoy a slight twocases would appearpresentto a complete I Return to reeking tubes and iron shards contrast, and yet the methods of the directors do And lesser breeds, and such-like blatherskite, notvary. If a man offends,rightly orwrongly, send But please don’t give us any more ballades I” him away ; such seems to be the axiom. But we rejoice ENVOY. I to think that, despite occasional symptoms to the con- Prince, in thispresent too-enlightenedage trary, the better classes of British workmen still retain (The Age of Masefield) we get yards and yards certainqualities of theirfathers. Like the men who Of verse hurled at us monthly, I’ll engage! followed Watt Tyler, they are “not to beschooled by But please don’t give us any more ballades! the cudgel, scarce to be cowed by the sword.” In the J. F. Horrabin 396

Current Cant. Foreign Affairs.

(( If any real progress is to be made the ‘(Express ” is thestrong supporter of better conditions for the whole By S. Verdad. landand all its people. We do not turn our coat. We THEREwas no necessity for the lyricism of the Liberal do not shrink from thetruth. . . Theseare, in brief, Press,. TheGerman NavalMinister, Admiral von the reasons for the popularity of the ‘(Express,” which carries it tothe breakfast tables of Mayfairand to the Tirpitz,has made it clear that he was“speaking for factories in the dinner hour.”--(( Daily Express.” himselfand not forthe Chancellor,” and his official organshave sincereminded usthat he “reckons in (‘One of the mast cheering signs of the times of late squadrons of so-and-somany ships each, while Mr. has been theentirely undivided frontpresented by all Churchillreckons in units.” All thesestatements, in- forms of Christianity in our country with respect to the cludingthe definite German announcements thatthe WhiteSlave Traffic.”-Rt. Rev. HERBERTBURY. Admiral’sremarks have beenentirely misunderstood here, are beside thepoint. All of us who possess “ The Britishmanufacturer has been deeply imbued memories will recollect that on each successive occasion with Puritanism. He knows the right way to produce an the German Navy was augmented, a solemn pronounce- honestarticle, and nothing willinduce him to depart ment was made beforehand by some person in authority from the ways of righteousness.”-“ Morning Post.” that the Government meant to do nothing of the sort. In any case, nodiplomatist will take particular notice of (‘It seems to us that Mr. Maxse is in the position of this incident.Admiral von Tirpitz’s speech was a a defendant who has no evidence to give.The public cannot be expected to believe him.”-The ((Star.” (‘feeler” ; it was, so to speak, ,directed to the Liberal Press of thiscountry; and it was disavowedby the official German Press when it had served its purpose. (( I represent all women of all classes I represent the home. . . Among otheritems of particularinterest I The increasein the German Army is a muchmore am givinga powerful serialstory dealing with what is importantmatter though theproblem of theFleet is known as the ‘ WhiteSlave Traffic.’ Buy ( Mary Bull,’ and tell me if you do not think I have prepared you a largely dependent upon it. I think I can make the position dainty and satisfying meal.”-(( Mrs. Bull.” tion quite clear by expressing it thus : The British Navy -- is, as all political parties admit, absolutely essential for

(( Mayfair is not the part of London where you look for the safety of this country. Whatever views we may bold novelists’ residences. . . Yet it was ather own house about the strength of the Army, the employment of the near Park Lane that I met Mrs. Elinor Glyn, in a‘ drawing Territorials,or conscription we are all agreedabout room where colours rioted in bright defiance of winter in theNavy. A strong Navyis the bones and blood of park andstreet. Pink and red azaleas bloomed in pots British prestige, British international strength, and the near a bookshelf full of carefully chosen volumes bound BritishEmpire. Well, what the Navy is to us, the in hues of wrying: significance. Elsewhere, yellow chry- santhemumsscattered their suggestions of sunlight. Army is to Germany. We mustnever forget that for Warmand rich were the tints of furniture,declaring a nearly twocenturies modern Germany, inspired by tastequite Eastern. . Mrs. Glyn sat on a chesterfield, Prussia, had to fight for her life. Prussia herself had a heaped highwith brilliant cushions, agrey Russian hard struggle for existence; SO had Germany during the kitten on her lap. Her red hair made a magnificent: note Napoleonic‘invasions. What Germany possesses to- inthe colour scheme. . .”-WILKINSON SHERRENin Bay-strength, renown,prestige, influence--she owes “ T.P.’s Weekly.” ___- -- -- toher Army. Germany’spower is typified inher soldiers;and, in view of theevents of thepast the (‘It isthe certainty of punishment that detersthe careless from taking unjustifiable risks.”-“ Daily Mail.” army is not merely respected, but almost venerated by the people. I say this despite the scandals which come toour noticefrom time to time, and thestories of (( Don’t get lost in theslough of mediocrity, little power and small salaries. Boldly face thesummit and mount severityand ill-treatment which are freelycirculated. the hill of success.”-Pelman advertisement. These are exceptional cases ; and the truth of the general statement remains. “ It is an open secret that Queen Mary’s reputation as 3 Unfortunately for peaceful folk, theFrench Army typical British mother is a sore point with Queen Ales- means all this to the French people Until recently every I andra.”-“ London Mail. ’’ German did not serve in the Army ; but Frenchmen have ‘(The ballot is the weapon that men use in defending always had to do so since universal service was intro- theirrights. It isthe voice with which menexpress duced. With a longertradition behind itthan the their opinions.”-“ London Budget.” -- German Army, the French Army is even more popular. It isnot so much respected as loved ; not so much 6‘ years ago, when Sunday clothes were really Sunday clothes, and sacredto that day, it was found that the venerated as treated like a friend. I think nearly every world behaved better when it had itsSunday garments correspondent or adjutant who has attended the French on.”-BEATRTCE FAIRFAX. manoeuvres will vouch forthe accuracy of this assertion tion. Hereagain we havegood qualities of the ‘(Seldom has SO powerful an imaginative element been nation typified in the Army-impetuousness combined added to human life as that which the motor carhas withdiscipline; daring, reckless bravery tempered by brought. . . Without it thestreets would lose half coolness at criticalmoments; courage of avery high their attraction. . . . It exhaultsthe riderand the quality ; initiativeand intelligence in all ranks. The driver. It gives thema sense of power and of indepen- dence of material things, such as they never imagined German soldier, as we know, is on the contrary, rather ?hat they could possess. ”-GARRETT P. SERVISS. slow, and, although he readily responds to discipline, he is not sufficiently bold in acting on his own initiative. ‘(The first principle of the present State policy is These two great nations, as I and other writers have Property is Robbery, especially property in land, houses, frequentlysaid, are inevitably destined tocontest the railways, and ships.”-VANOC. --- supremacy of the western part of theContinent of CURRENT COMMERCIALISM. EuropeThe struggle was foreseenyears ago,as far “ One of the largest Baptist churches in Nottingham, back, indeed, asthe time of BismarckThe German theTabernacle, has been let to a cinematograph com- preparations weremethodical enough : Denmark first, pany for a picture theatre on week-days, while on Sunday Austria next, and France next. But allowance had not services will be as usual.”---(‘ News of the World.” -- been made for the extraordinary recuperative powers of the French people or for their unusual financial reserves. COMPULSORY COPULATION The Chancellor himself complained that he“had not If marriage could be cumpulsorily imposed it would certainly solve the problem of the Suffragettes. ”-A bled themenough ” afterhe hadsecured One of the largestindemnities inhistory. Itwas agreed-not in Doctor in the (( DailyMirror.” 397 public documentism, of course-that France should sub- sequently devote herself to developingand obtaining Military Notes. colonies while Germany wasto regulate her ownin- By Romney. ternal affairs. It took the Third Republic some time to FIGHTING,likemany otheroccupations, is the finest find its feet ; and in the course of doing so it trod On the thing in. the world at the moment when you want to toes of England,Italy, Spain, Siam, the Indian fight.Unfortunately that particular devil whom the Governmentand England. The year 190saw France powers that be have told off to see that we do not enjoy SO strongat home and abroad that Germany became anything too much (lest we should fall in love with this alarmed,and forthwith, acting with hercustomary life and become pagans) has seen to it by arrangement thoroughness,she made preparations for a decisive with the remaining rulers of the darkness of this world campaign.That year saw the firstextension of the that we are always called upon to fight at uncongenial German Fleet. moments-moments when we want to sleep, or love or TheGerman Navy Law, itmay notbe generally listen to music, or tella tale about a dog Hencethe known,was introduced only afterefforts had been need for militarydiscipline; but that is another story made to induce Lord Salisbury’s Government to enter It is my point atthe moment that upon an occastion into an alliance with Germany analogous to the alliance when I very much want to do something else I am compelled that bound Russia and France. It was not the first at- toenter into a tough .and unsatisfactorycon- tempt of the kind that hadbeen made; but it was as troversywith Mr. Brette Morgan, who criticised some unsuccessful. The ,Germanruling classes then realised of my observations last week. However here’s up and aset to and let us. hope that we shallwarm to it that an Anglo-French entente was inevitable ; SO, when a they drew up the Navy Law, they inserted the signifi- little as time goes on. cant preamble to the effect that the German Fleet was The trouble about this controversy is that nobody can not intended for aggressive purposes, but was designed really settle it. Given a hundred men whom you know, to be of such strength as to make the strongest naval andtheir answer to the question, “Why did they en- list ?” must depend to anenormous extent upon your Powerhesitate before attackingGermany. persoanl equation. It does not really settlethe matter No doubt the ,meaning of this proviso is now clear. to askthem to say point-blank, because the strongest When a war breaks out between France and Germany, motives amongstrude and uneducated men arethose the German Fleet must be so strong that England will of whichthey .aregenerally unconscious; besides, de- “hesitate”before helpingFrance at sea.Freed from liberately or unintentionally people will tell you in thefear of theGerman Fleet, and relying on the in- casual conversation what they think you want to hear. efficiency of the French Fleet, the Germans hope to be A somewhat depressing person like Mr. Brette Morgan able to master their enemy decisively onland. To this -and I think I may say without offence that Mr. end the German Government is now active in developing Morgan would be scarcely the man to inspire the private the Army. The peacestrength is to be raised from soldier to reveal the secretmilitary aspirations sf his about 550,000 to 850,000 men. Thisgigantic scheme heart, even if he possessed them-will receive depress- must absorb an enormous sum of money, and must take ing answers, whilst a cheery optimist will find a hundred time. Hencethe anxiety of the Chancellor togain a others like himself. One man will see whitewhere little time to breathe so far as the Navy is concerned. another will seeblack. I have no reason to doubt the The Wilhelmstrasse would be very glad to slacken the honesty and the literal correctness of what Mr. Morgan pacefor, say, a couple of years if DowningStreet tells us. No doubt fifty out of every hundred private would do so. solldiers did inform him that they enlisted as the result Just as the sudden development of the German Navy of hunger, unemployment, and despair. If he depressed was followed by a corresponding increase in ours so is them as much as he has depressed me I wonder that the wholly unexpected increase in the German Army to they did not tell him they enlisted at the express insti- be followedby counter-measures in France. It is true gation of an active and personal devil. I can only reply that the population of Germany is nearly double that of by quoting in refutationcertain equally indisputable her Western enemy ; but it should be remembered that facts which I see in the world about us, and which point Germany must protect herself on at least two frontiers, andmust point to a totally differentconclusion. The theFrench and the Russian. If France however, readercan put the two sets of facts together, and threw all her Army Corps on her eastern frontier, diplo- reconcile them as, best he may. maticinquiries would naturallybe made, asthe step Mr. Morgan allows me thirty per cent. of enlistments wouldbe regardedas provocative. TheFrench to cover the number of those who join :- Government will probably getover the difficulty by a (I Fromdissatisfaction with civil life. thirty months’ or three years’ period of training instead (2) In the hope of a “ career.” of twoyears, as at present.observeI that several (3) From sheer love of adventure. papers chiefly Liberal,blame France for taking such Ishall claim the thirty per cent. made up by these counter-measures. To thesecritics let me repeat that classes as. admittedly influenced by what I called the the Army is to France what the Navy is to us. “ love of adventure,” by which I do not mean that the unfortunateand deluded creatures in question consciously Imust add that no immediate war is regarded as probable. The German Government reckons on the in- went to the recruiting sergeant under the im- impression that they were going to be shipped off straight activity of Russia,who usually takessix weeks to awayto Schleswig-Holstein to shoot Germans,or to mobilise. Russia,however, is now under arms in view Hindustan to shoot tigers but they had been seized by of troublewith Austria, and Germany is not likely to the glamour of military things which at one period or provoketrouble But, in the present state of French another seizes all men,though a good many of them opinion,it is just possible--barely--that a “nowor (especially readers of this paper) would rather die than never” campaign may sweep the country. If Russia dis- acknowledgeit. Superficially this appeals to different arms,six weeks is too long towait for help.Modern persons in different ways : to one through the music and campaignsare short and sharp. Look at the Balkan the uniformsto another through the exhilaration of campaign. Look at thelast war between Frameand riding on horsesto athird through something else; Germany. War was declaredon July 15, 1870; Grave- but that it is the same to all at bottom is shown by an lotte which practically decided the campaign in favour exceedingly curious fact. It has, been the custom to of the German arms, was fought on August 18,Sedan terminateall foreign manoevres by the“decisive onSeptember I. Sixmemorable weeks : andwhat a attack ”-a sort of combinedspectacular advance and lesson for us ! charge of tens of thousands of men,covered by the M. Delcasse whose powers of organisation are well fire of hundreds of guns. known,has been sent as FrenchAmbassador to St. Now, it is a well-known fact that the excitement and Petersburg in view of thethreatening international exhiliration caused by the simultaneous onset of these situation. He is to keep an eye on the efficiency of the vast masses of men is such that the conscript will cheer- Russian army. fullyendure the preliminaryweeks of marching and 398 fasting in the expectation of it, and it is significant that the few occasions upon which the same piece of stage The Root of All Evil. management has been indulged in during manoeuvres in England are invariably remembered in detail by all who SOMEyears ago I suggested,during a lectureon our tookpart in them. As ColonelMaude remarks in one financial system, a means by which the industrial com- of his works concerning anattack of this description munitymight escape from the clutches of the usurers carried out at Aldershot in the’eighties-everywhere, and money-lenders-a class that owe their success and up and down the country, one is meeting commission- security primarily to our present banking and currency airesand policemen who remember theoccasion, and laws. Thatsuggestion was on somewhatsimilar lines will talk to you aboutit gleefully and forany length to the proposals made by the editor of THENEW AGE in of time. his recent articles on the Finance of Guild Socialism. That there .exists some widespread instinct of this Isuggested that allthose engaged in thesame in- description which requires to be satisfied, if only by ex- dustries should organise their own banks so that each citingincidents of this kindduring mockwarfare on special industry wouldhave itsown banking system manoeuvres, is. shown by the long-continued existence and these banks could in turn organise a general credit of our Volunteer andTerritorial forces. Not even the clearing house. It is gratifying to find so able a writer, bile of Mr. Morgan will misrepresent to him thatthe and so original a thinker as the editor of THENEW AGE, Territorialenlists in the home-defence armyout of endorsing this scheme. “ hunger, unemployment, and despair”; yet he enlists, In article No. 8 on Guild Socialism (which appears in and does .a considerable amount of very hardwork theNovember 28 issue of THE NEW AGE) the Editor with no pecuniary emolument to show for it. The why intimates that it would be necessary to maintain what is and the wherefore of all this are perfectly well known called the “gold standard” for the purpose of securing to anyone who has accompanied such troops upon some our foreign trade. This does not appear to me to be at excitingand adventurous proceeding on manoeuvres- all necessary. When the United States was carrying on say, for ‘example,a nightattack The hushed ex- her civil war and for some time afterwards, she main- pectancy of the men, the increasing tension as. the point tained and even extended her foreign trade, although her for action.approaches, the shiver of excitement which currency and money unit differed from that of all other runs down the ranks at every suspicious sound--every nations. The values of goodswere expressed in one of thesethings tells, its owntale. People soldier dollars,and the dollar meant merely a monetaryunit because they feel a natural interest in soldiering--some which materialised only in the form of the inconvertible more, some less, some for a long time some for a short greenback.These greenbacks bore certain relations but all in some degree. to gold at all times, and although these relations varied Thathunger is often the proximate cause of enlist- fromtime to time, itdid not seriously interferewith ment may be true. I will repeat in, greater detail what theforeign trade of thecountry. Indeed, the green- I said before. There are a certain number of men born backsserved, in a measure,to indicate the fluctations into every English class afflicted with a certain restless- in gold itself. ness-what Germans calI theWanderlust, and what Thereis a very generaland erroneous impression Kiplinghas depicted in a fine poem,the “Sestina of abroadthat nations engaged in foreign trade must the Tramp Royal” :- necessarilyhave the same commodity system as a Therefore, from job to job I’ve moved along, “measure of value” to enable them to exchange goods Pay couldn’t ’old me when my time was done ; witheach other. This idea became very pronounced For something in my ’ead upset me all, duringthe celebrated silverdiscussion in the United Till I ’ad dropped whatever ’twas for good States.It was said by manywriters that the United An’ out at sea, be’eld the dock lights die, An’ met my mate-the wind that tramps the world.” States couldnot adopta bi-metallicsystem without a generalagreement among allnations. There isno Thisframe of mindis peculiarly unfitted for the more reason why nations should have the same mone- exigencies of modern industrialexistence, and most tary or value unit, than that they should have the same such men have proved an industrialfailure before unit of lengthor capacity. This country, the Colonies ‘twenty. They havetaken like fishes towater, to the andthe United States, have all managed to conduct many avenues of casual employment open toyouth, theirindustries and manufactures quite satisfactorily offering at first better pay and a more variegated exist- by using the yard stick as a measure of length, whilst ence thanthe slow learning of a permanenttrade. France,Germany, and theLatin countries have Hence they drift naturally into the Army, hunger per- adoptedthe metric system, and millions of pounds’ hapsspurring them tothe final step.But inthe worth of goods made in these countries under their re- majority of cases, from whatI know of suchmen, I spectivesystems have been sentabroad generally don’tthink that a great amount of spurringwas re- without occasioning any trouble whatever. quired.Like mothsto a candlemen fly towhat is Precisely the same condition exists between countries perhaps the merely external glitter of military life. Pity exchanginggoods where their monetary systems it is that so many of them singe their wings. differ fromeach other, and whilst there maybe some As regards Mr. Morgan’sscheme for allowingor slight convenience in having the same unit, it is not a compelling soldiers to usetheir leisure hours in prac- necessity. tising a trade. .after,say, their firstyear of service,it Thereis, however, a very grave reasonwhy each may interest him to know that a similar system operated nationshould haveits own monetary system distinct in the old Prussianarmy before Jena.For reasons of andapart from that of everyother country. Money economy, a large proportiton of thetroops weredis- is the tool of exchange,and its field of operationis missed to live in the town for nineor ten months in confinedentirely to thecountry under whose laws it the year, only the recruits and a small number of trained has been created.The English sovereign circulates as men being kept in barracks. moneyin theUnited Kingdom because of theBritish It worked well enough then, and should do so now ; CoinageLaws. It doesnot circulate in France,in it would havethe additional advantage that it would Germany,or inany other country, because it ceases givethe men somethingto use their wits upon and to bemoney as soon as it has leftthe country of its prevent them rusting and degenerating, as they are apt origin. If itis taken abroad it is taken as a com- to do mentally amid the monotony of barrack life. Any modity,and may eitherbe sent back for goods such plan, however, would probably go to pieces upon chased, in exchangefor foreign moneys, or it can be the opposition of thehalf-educated schoolmasters and melteddown andmade into foreign coins. Money dissentingparsons who run the “forces of labour” in is like a Monarch.Although Monarch in its own this country, and who advertise the depth of their de- country,the moment it crosses its frontier it loses its mocraticfeeling by a rootedaversion to that military sovereignty. spirit which is one of the strongest instincts in popular In allcountries the quantity of money isstrictly life. limited withthe view of course, of maintainingits 399 value.Practically all nations to-day have adopted the of defining it as the value of so many grains of gold, free coinageof gold-through the special laws passed he actually defined it as the weight of the gold itself, by the world’s financiers-but thisfree and unlimited which is about as rational a statement as to define the coinage of gold would cease almost instantly upon news unit of length as the weight of box-wood of which the ofany vast and hitherto unexpected gold discoveries. yardstick ismade. Betweenthese two definitions The repeal of theSilver Coinage Laws in most there is all the difference in theworld, the results of countries was occasioned by the great silver discoveries which have been of tragic importance to the industrial in theWestern States of America,because financiers world. If a poundnecessarily meant a certainmass found that they would not be able to control the supply, of gold,then every debtor could be compelled to pay andtherefore money would become a muchcheaper his debts on the demand of his creditor in gold and in commodity than it is, and serve to reduce the necessity nothing else, and this is really what has happened. of purchasing bankers’ credit Ourlegal tender laws have placedthe bulk of the Money, havingbeen made compulsorilya scarce world’swealth producers at the mercy of thosewith article,it would appear to any intelligent person that legal claim against them-claims forgold which can anysystem which tended to the exportation of the neverbe redeemed. And so a perpetualstream of money-materialmust be injurious tohome trade, wealthin the form of intereston irredeemable loans, whilst one under which money could not travel and lose is taken annually from the pockets of the producers and itsnationality, wouldbe themost satisfactory. In the placed to the credit of the money-lending class. kingdom of the inanimate there is no greater coward or How false this definition of a pound is, may be seen traitorthan gold ! The momentdanger is scented it the moment we come to estimate any large amount of runs away ! wealth. Forinstance, accepting Sir Robert Peel’s de- In this country particularly, the industrial community finition, what sense is there in speaking of the wealth istaxed millions of poundsannually for the sole pur- of GreatBritain as equalto twenty thousand million pose of keeping our money patriotic ! Thetruly ridi- pounds?This sum represents an amount of goldthat culous legislation which provided foreigners with a free hasnever existed, and if itdid exist would make the gold market in London-the only one in existence-has statement of the amount of Britain’s wealth ridiculous ! costthis country an untold amount of wealth. This Itis estimated that the amount of goldexisting for has been one of thecauses of ourpast trade distur- coinagepurposes throughout the worldis under two bancesand industrial depressions-which furnished thousand millions of pounds, that is, one-tenth of the Mr. Chamberlain ammunition for starting his agitation wealth of GreatBritain, and the wealth of Great infavour of TariffReform. If the people of this Britain is estimated at its present amount in sovereigns country had understood the A B C of finance,Mr. merelybecause of thecomparatively small amount of Chamberlainwould have been unable to find adozen gold that exists. Inother words, the wealth of Great convertsto his wild and unscientifictheories. Britainis not equivalent to twenty thousand million Money has become an important thing only because pounds, but to twenty thousand million timesthe pre- of therestrictive legislation which hasprevented it sent value of one sovereign from sinking to its natural level in the economic world. Hadany member of Sir Rovert Peel’s Government John Stuart Mill was perfectly correct when he spoke beencapable of thinkingrationally on this subject of of money as the most insignificant thing in the economy expressing values, and paying debts, he might perhaps of society-except as a means of saving time. But have prevented the enactment of this egregious fallacy. just as a law limiting the production of any necessity, Moreover he would have had to go further. sayshoes, orhats, or salt, to an amount far below Our unit of length is., for all practical purposes, in- that actually needed to supply the wants of the people, variable, because it is conditioned by those things which would givean undue and preponderating importance tend tomake it variable. The legal unit of lengthis to the possession of such commodities, so by confining the distance between certain two points on a metal bar money to a raremetal and making it the only legal which is kept by the Government ; but since metals vary tender,the possession of money has become the most in length by temperature, the scientists who were given importantobject in the lives of thevast majority of charge of establishingthe unit, fixed a certaintem- theworld’s inhabitants. Legal tender and coinage perature at which the distance was to be measured as lawshave created the ‘money thirst which Governments thestandard. Similarly with theunit of weight.This ments have never attempted to assuage. was made invariable by fixing the altitude at which it Ifthe new industrialsystem is to escape from the was to betaken. Common sense would have led any tyranny of monopoly, it will have to abandon every law intelligentperson who had given the subject serious that could possibly lead to the individual control of any thought, to see that “a standard of value” to have any thingnecessary to society. The limit tothe creation meaning or utility, would have to be invariable,or as of currency should be the needs of trade and commerce? nearly so as human ingenuity could make it. andits volume should expand automatically with the The adoption of such a unit reduces money from the growth of trade.From the rational standpoint, money level of commodities tothat of avalueless token-a per se should-nay, must-be a valueless token-like a position similar to that of a promissory note, a theatre cheque, orstamp, or ticket. If it is toregister or railway ticket. This is money in its scientific aspect. honestly the variations in the prices of commodities it The necessitywhich atpresent exists for arbitrarily must necessarily be neutral i.e., valueless. restrictingthe quantity of money regardless of the It does not seem to me at all necessary, in relegating demands of trade-is solely forthe purpose of main- goldto the level to whichit naturallybelongs, and tainingthe value of theunit. abandoning it as the moneymetal to alter our mone- Nationsto-day find themselvesin this dilemma. If tary symbols. We might still go onusing the terms they attempt to supply the naturally increasing demands pounds,shillings and penceeven thoughthe pound of trade by greatlyincreasing the currency, how are did not represent, as it issupposed to do to-day, a they to avoiddepreciating thestandard? As Ihave certain weight of gold. As a matter of fact, the pound shown elsewhere, a commodity “standard of value” is has neverrepresented a certainmass of gold. The a legal fiction. Valuesbeing ideal creations-not con- pound may be said to be a composite, representing so cretemagnitudes-can only beexpressed in terms of much gold and so much paper, for it is certain that the the ideal-numbers. And yetthis so-called “gold value of a sovereign is affected by the amount of credit standard.”is the pivotupon which to-day the entire circulating, such as the fiduciaryissue of the Bank of capitalisticsystem revolves ! It isthe basis of usury, England.The fatal error made by SirRobert Peel and the most insidious swindle for enslaving mankind when he introduced his famous Bank Charter Act, was everconceived ! It allseems so plausible ! Morality in confounding the weight of gold in the sovereign with and science areboth harnessed to impose this its value. Whenhe asked hisfamous question : monstroussystem. Thestudent is first taughtthat it “ What is a pound?”he gave an answer which an is essential to have a “measure of value,’’ and for this ordinary schoolboywould have laughedat. Instead purposewe must select a commodity which is stable 400 and embodies great "value"in small bulk. Then he is taught that honesty demands a just standard for de- Impregnable Capital. ferred payments. Whatcan bebetter than to adopt a comparatively rare commoditywhich fluctuates the I HAVE previouslyassumed the possibility of convert- least, as the measure of economic justice between man ing a majority of theproletariat to Socialism. It is and man? Finally it isasserted that gold is the ideal now time to deal with that assumption, and to discuss, commodity andevidently created by an allwise Pro- whether sucha conversion ispossible on physical and vidence for thisvery purpose. Thus, under the guise psychlological grounds.Let us examine theforces of justice, morality, and science,we have imposed the working for conversion and those against it. goldstandard and currency system ! Onthe side of Capital there arethe schools, which Having enactedthe necessarylegislation, the trap are zealously watched by theruling classes, that no isset. The spiderdoesn't have to enticethe fly with revolutionary ideasshall penetrate there The child's anydulcet tones. Itmust enter the web whether it mind is so developed, thatthe existing system of likes it or not. The usurer needs no hounds or beaters society appearsto it as right andproper. Riches, to drive in thegame. The law performs this service poverty, high class, low class, wages, profits interest, for him free of cost. By making debts and taxes com- buying,selling, landlords tenants, masters, and workmen pulsorily payable in gold (or bank credit) every business men, are as naturalto it asfood air, grass, etc. man must become a client of the usurer-or be broken ! When the child growsup, and hears of Socialistic ideas they strike him asextraordinarily wild and un- Now, there are only two legal sources for liquidating natural.Abstract reasoning is powerless touproot debt--one isgold mining, and the other banking. acquirednotions, in the majority of humanbeings. Everydebt must be paid in legaltender (gold) or by New truths can supplant acquired and apparent truths cheque.Every debtcreated by a loanexceeds the only in a certainclass of persons, as will be shown amount loaned by the amount of interest charged. No later on. Thetruths of Socialism are not asapparent loanis ever sufficient to pay thedebt it creates,and to the average person as they are to the born revolutionist hence the mountain of debt must continue to grow year The majority of people cannotunderstand real by year ! For it is certain that the production of gold truths, when they contradict apparenttruths. This will neverbe allowed-even if it could-to seriously can be illustrated by examples :-The realtruth is, affect thedemand for loans.Hence there is butone that the more the rich consume of the national income, alternative to the perpetual enslavement of the masses, theless there is leftfor the poor; but, the apparent and thatis Repudiation ! To talk of buyingthe rail- truth tellsadifferent tale. Theaverage manknows ways and other great national industries-as the Labour from experience, that when the rich peoplespend a Party does-is the sheerest nonsense ! lot,then the workers engaged in theproduction of Itis as though our postallaws limited thesale of luxuries have plenty of work and good pay, the trades- postagestamps to one-half thenumber required to people gather a good harvest,and indirectly some meet the publicdemand, which wouldleave piles of crumbs fall even to those workers who are not directly letters undelivered through lack of postagestamps. engaged in producingluxuries. Onthe other hand, Although our statesmen have never degenerated to this when the rich at certain, seasons go abroad, i.e., when stage of idiocy in postalregulations, they have never instead of eating up the good things in England, they risen above it in regard to the currency. go to eat up the good things of other countries; then It issmall wonder thatthe history of Britishcom- Englandexperiences a depression of tradeWhat mence and industry is but a recital of misery, distress, effect will theabstract truth (namely, that the less panic, and industrial unrest, the horrors of which have Capitaltakes in profitrent, and interest, the more hardlyever been exceeded in thehistory of warfare ! remains in wages for the workers) have on the masses Failure to see this as the root causeof labour troubles against the apparenttruth mentionedabove. The has led to a series of extravagant and futile remedies. stock argument amongst the masses against a Liberal KarlMarx, who understood a goodmany things, did Government is :-That under a ConservativeGovern- notunderstand the science of money, andhe saw no ment the rich spend more. remedyfor industrial unrestsave the State ownership Hereis another example :-The realtruth teaches of allindustries and the establishment of theServile us thatthe working classes provide the capitalistic State. Mr. HenryGeorge couldsee no evil insociety classes with a living; but the apparent truth contradicts save what the private ownership of land produces, and it. Theaverage worker knows from experience, that evenwent so far as to justify interest, the very exist- when he cannot find a capitalist to give him work, he and his family suffer hunger, but when he does find a ence of whichdepends upon the legal restrictions re- masterthe wolf iskept away from his door. Which garding the issuing of money. truth will be more convincing to him,the real orthe Amongthe various reformers of thepast century, apparent To take a last example from Astronomy :- onename stands pre-eminent as havingunerringly the real truth teaches us that the Earth is a glove that pointed at the root of socialmisery. P. J.Proudhon, it rotates on its own axis, and travels around the Sun. the great French phillosopher, sawthat the basis of But, apparently theEarth isflat, and the Sunmoves monopoly was in the world's monetarysystems, and from one end of the sky to the other. If the rich were foughtdesperately to overthrow them. All his eforts as interested in hiding from the masses the real truth were at last concentrated on this one important reform, about Astronomy, as they are interested in hiding the and whilst KarlMarx was receiving the plaudits of real Socialistictruths; and, if itwere left to asmall mankind as thediscoverer of the onlyway by which number of idealistswith their slendermeans, to convert labour could extricate itself frommodern capitalism, vert the majority of people to the real truths about the Proudhon was neglected and almost forgotten. Earth andthe Sun; how manypeople would to-day Thelast few years,however, have shown clearly believe in the theories of Galileo and Copernicus? thatthe more intelligent among the Socialists are The second capitalistic force against Socialism is the realisingthat the salvation of mankindcannot be Church.Although she is losing her influence overthe effected by any system of State Bureaucracy, and that proletariat on the onehand, and on theother, some theMarxian remedy would proveworse than the members of theChurch here and there are coquet- disease. Afterall, what is thefundamental criticism ting with Socialism; nevertheless, as an institution it is of modern capitalism except that it is a legalised system still a powerful weapon in the hands of the propertied under which the few are permitted totake from the classes against Socialism. It ishardly necessary to masses alltheir surplus wealth underthe method of labour thepoint, as mostSocialists admit it. The rent,interest, and profits? And whatother means are third weapon theisPress. The most sanguine therefor overthrowing the system than byrepealing Socialist will not attempt to underrate its power against thelaws whichmaintain these legal claims? This is Socialism. Lastbut not least,is "Life " itself. The whatProudhon aimed at, and it is the onlyway in life which the majority of workers live, is not conducive whichindustrial peace will be finally secured. to abstractreasoning. When can the average work- ARTHURKITSON. ing manthink outthe Socialist theories? When can 401 -- heread through the necessary literature? Not in the it has reached the zenith of its evolution. To show the morning whenhe hurries off to work. Not during the world in which direction industrial evolution is moving, working hours when The foreman’s watchful eye is on and how to help on that evolution is the realaim of him. Not when he comes home tiredand has got to thesearticles The destructive character of the four think about domestic matters. necessary. wasarticles JOSEPH FINN. To all theaforesaid Socialistsmay retort with the question : “Have not hundreds of thousands of workers become Socialists in spite of all the difficulties men- tioned, and why may we not hope that the thousands Notes on thePresent Kalpa. willin time become millions?” Inthat veryquestion By J M. Kennedy. is hidden thegreat illusion of the Socialistic propagandist gandist. He assumesthat every workingman is a XIV.--A Question of Taste. candidate for Socialism, and that his conversion is only NIETZSCHE was not the first to make the distinction be- a matter of enlightenment. Unfortunately, factsare tweenthe “ bigsagacity ” andthe “little sagacity,” against such an assumption.The conversion of a though he was probably the first European to express person to a new idea does not depend on his reasoning this distinction in terms which, though symbolical, were capacities, nor on the logic of the new idea. It depends intelligible. “ Behind thy feelings and thy thoughts, 0 principallyon thetemperament of the person.Nature my brother, is to be found a powerful master, an un- createsSocialists and Conservatives, Freethinkers and known sage-he is called ‘ self. ’ He lives in thy body ; Salvationists,just as it creaks passisonate and phlegmatic he is thy body.” This “ powerful master ” is the com- matic, fierce and mild, generousand parsimonious plete man, mind and body ; not mind alone, as modern people. Whenthe natural disposition of a person is pseudo-philosophers would have him ; not body alone. “ Conservative,” no amount of logical arguments will as hewould appeal tobarbarians ; butboth in com- turn him into a revolutionistOn the other hand, if bination. This “ bigsagacity ” isopposed tothe one isborn a revolutionist, he will develop intoone, << little sagacity,” or reasoning powers- a precious but thoughhis upbringing and environment beconserva- imperfect instrument of the mind ; a purely secondary tive. We have enough examples of that in the Socialist affair. When Nietzsche thunderingagainst dia- movement. We have also examples persons brought is of lectics andreasoning and emphasising the importance up in aSocialistic atmosphere, who turnedout Con- of instinct, he is once more merely contrasting the two servatives. ii The above leads us to the conclusion, that in every sagacities,’’and whenhe assures us overand over country, and in every age, Nature turns out a certain againthat nothing noble, nothing of value,can be number of persons susceptible to new ideas Such per- proved,he is simply showing, inhis own way, that sons when brought in contact with themagnetism of mind plus body must act in harmony, which is not the casewhen the mere power of reasoning in one man Socialistic principles, will become electrified; but no 66 others. Hence, the belief that the number of Socialists convinces ” the mere power of reasoning in some one will increase in prolportion to the extension of the pro- else. This beingNietzsche’s view, both instinctive and paganda, until the majority are converted, is without a deliberate,it is not surprising that his works form a scientific foundationThe intelligentSocialist who is completehistory of hissoul. Of noother philosopher, not toointoxicated with his ideal,who recognises his not even of Plato, can this be said to the same extent. very slender means for converting the proletariat, bases For the nearest parallel we must go, perhaps, to one of his hopes for ultimate victory on the class war between Nietzsche’s own favouriteauthors, Thucydides, a Capitaland Labour, and thegrowing hatred and writer whom Nietzsche loved because he was “ so rich antagonism which the workers manifest towardstheir in muttered thoughts. ” employers, as well as their growingdiscontent with Consciously or unconsciously, however, Nietzsche was their presentlot. It is, however,a great mistake to merelyfollowing an Indian standard in taking up this regardthe class war as an enlightened and class- attitudetowards the body andthe reasoning powers. conscious awakening. His “ big sagacity ” corresponds almost in detail to the The idealist reader is now .asked to gird his loins for Indian “ atman,” i.e., breath, spirit, non-ego; just as the last shock which the writer is reluctantly obliged to his “ little sagacity ” corresponds to “ jiva,” Le., the give him.After many years of study,observation, non-ego, or rather the ego “ when affected by illusion.’’ and propaganda in the Socialist movement the writer Hence, the man whose ‘‘ sensibility,” in the older and arrived at the following astonishing conclusion : That, bettersense of theword, isperfect, or nearly so, will even if itwere possible toconvert the majority of never have occasion to argue or to askhimself questions the workers to Socialism,it would prove neither before makingup his mind. If,for instance, I read a desirable nor necessary. The workers do not desire poem by Mr. Masefield, say, or Mr. Abercrombie, and Socialism,therefore they do notdeserve it. Plainly instantly feel a sinking of thestomach and a buzzing speaking, Socialism is too good for them They would about the brain, I know at once that I am in the presence be contentedwith a lessexpensive article. Theydo of something ugly andunclean When the chancellor notwant Liberty and Equality The libertythey want of the Exchequer and his acolytes advance a thousand is quite a different articlefrom the one we have been and one “ reasons ” to show why the Insurance Act is offering them.They do not wantthe abolition of the beneficial, we maylisten ; butthese ‘‘ reasons ” will masterclass, nor do they want the full fruits of their count for nothing if we hear a single workman say that labour. What they do want is :-A fair day’s pay for the Act makes him “ fair sick,” as so many workmen, a fair day’s labour;constant employment; aholiday withvarying degrees of emphasis,have already indi- now and then; no sweating and speeding up; no harsh, cated. In a word, great emotions are never matters of- vindictive, pin-pricking treatment by the employers and the intellectalone. A great emotionmust affect the their managers.This being the case, where is the whole body spontaneously. If itdoes not, it is simply necessity for Socialism? If you invitea man. to have an imposture, a sham. a drink with you, and he calls for a “mild and bitter,” It is unfortunatethat the amateur, seasick-looking why should you persist in persuading him tohave a libertines and inexperienced demireps who turn out the. champagne, when he tells you that he prefers a “ mild average specimens of modern poetry that come to The and bitter” ? New Age office forreview, should have degraded the The intelligent Socialist tells us that he offers Social meaningof the word “ body ” intosomething merely ism to the workers, not onlybecause it is better than unclean and ruttish ; the Greeks meant something very anythingelse, but because nothing elsecan cure the different from this whenthey laid stress onthe word. evilsfrom which theysuffer. If that were really SO, When we saythat our “ body ” appreciates,judges, then the argument would be conclusive. But the writer harmonises,and experiences love, hate, or fear, we. differs from them on this point He will try to convince simplymean by the word what Nietzschemeant when thereader in thesucceeding articles that the gravest hesaid “ bigsagacity,” or what the Indian writers evils of Capitalism will be cured by Capitalism when meantwhen they spoke of “ atman.”This “ body ’” 402

of ours is composed of two things; the “ body” proper andthe mind; but these two cannot be separatedin The Chronicles of Palmerstown. practice, The soulis something detached from and Peter Fanning. beyond either. By In a cultural society-a society of Brahmins, for in- II stance-we shouldnot be calledupon to “ explain ’’ Msown observations hadconvinced me that much of the anythingor to give reasons. We cannot really (( ex- propertyin Palmerstown was thoroughly rotten and plain,”for instance, why we shouldbe irritated by greatlyovercrowded; but I was not preparedfor the Masefield and charmed by Theocritus. At bestwe can actual state of affairs as disclosed by the Census of 1901. simply pick outcertain cultural qualities and say : Ipublish the bald factshere and let them speak for “ These please me ; they are to be found in Theocritus themselves. andnot inMasefield.” But in a society of Brahmins Out of a toral of 6,777houses in Palmerstown, no, we cannot even assume that the question as to our pre- fewerthan 2,649 are of one or tworooms and were dilectionswould be asked. Thecurious reader would occupied as follows :- glanceat the “Widow,” let ussay, and remark : ONE ROOM HIOUSES. TWO ROOM HOUSES. “ This doesnot please me ; it runs counter to my in- 63 occupied by I person each 40 occupied by I person each stincts,”and everybodywould understandwhat was 113 ,, 2 persons ,, 295 ,, ,, 2 persons ,, meant. We cannot explain ouremotions any more 102 YY 9) 3 9, ), 396 9, Y9 3 )9 YY than we canexplain pain or pleasure; we can merely 70 93 ?9 4 Y, $3 412 ,Y 99 4 ?# 1) and oftenwith difficulty, describethe sensation, the 30 Y9 9, 5 ,Y 1, 356 ¶3 $9 5 Y* Y9 symptoms. That iswhy poetsand painters cannot I3 YY ,9 6 Y? 9, 280 ,, ,, 6 I, 99 1 3, I, 7 1, ,I 99 99 799 9, (( reason ” and ‘(theorise” about their respective arts, 33 2 1, ,Y FJ 9, 99 [379, 99 8 Yl 9Y as a rule ; or (‘reason ” about them only very badly. 1 3Y Y9 9 Y, 9, 77 91 $3 9 1) 39 A poet (( feels ” that his instincts are right-or rather 33 Y) 99 10 YI 39 he does not realise that he has instincts atall ; he simply Io )f 91 I’ )Y 9) poetises. A poetor painter who can even attempt to 5 ,, ,, 12 or more describe-not explain-his art isquite an exceptional On applying the census standard of overcrowding to character. Leonardo da Vinci is possibly thebest the whole town I discovered our condition worked out instance. thus : 846 persons were overcrowded in one room, 7,180 Thisdoes not by anymeans suggest that artists in two rooms 3,465in three rooms and 1,056 in four must not attempt to use their judgment; for they must rooms, making a total of 12,546 overcrowded persons in do so perpetually. Inother words, the artist is con- a population of thirty odd thousand frontedwith a chaoticjumble of facts,incidents, and To illustratethe value of the oneand two-roomed scenes from which he must select; and it is his judg- house property I quote the following account of a pro- ment in their adequate selection that will make or mar pertysale from the local Press :-“ Alderman Harris hiswork. TheEgyptian artists in theirstatues, the offered for sale by auctionlast night several lots of artists of China in their drawings, and the Renaissance leaseholdproperty. The saleresulted as follows : artists in theirpaintings (though to a lesser extent) ‘Tenemented dwelling houses of seven rooms each, 28 carried the principle of selection to its greatest degree and 30, Shakespeare Street, leased for ninety-nine years of development. Rembrandtalsois noteworthy a from 1864 andhaving an annual rental of &o I~s., example,and Velasquez, and Whistler ; Beethoven sold A232.’ ” in music. A degenerateform of art leadsus to the It is an eloquenttestimony to thestate of this oppositeextreme. Before the period of convalescence tenemented property, one occupied by four families and that led to the Renaissanceneither painters nor poets theother by five, that in the open market with near exercised the principle of selection toany great ex- sixty years of the lease to run it would only fetch eight tent ; andthe Post-Impressionists, who deliberately and a halfyears’ purchase. I shall return to this and endeavour to represent (( everything ” on canvas have similar property when I deal with its rating. departed most of allfrom classic tradition, classic It was about this time that information was given to form,and classicinspiration. Wagner is an example me of the terrible conditions many of the people were of thisdegeneracy in music,exactly as the Masefield- livingunder. I received it in the following rather un- Abercrombieschool is an example of itin poetry. usualmanner. I was about to close my shopdoor at The more we hear artists demanding the (( right ” to 10.30 when an old woman, a customer of mine, express (( everything ” onpaper, on canvas,or in addressed me (( ArrahPeadar, agra, have ye any marble, the more we may realise that the artistic cancer pieces of auld iron you can give me? ” is spreading. The only thing on which we can congratu- (( Old iron is it-and what the divil do you want with lateourselves is that cancer, in the end, spreads so old iron at this time of night?” farthat it kills theperson on whom ithas fastened ‘(Sure, there’s Mick Leyantjust home from work itself;and posterity is consequentlynot called upon fromthe furnaces. Whilst I was getting his supper to trouble itself withthe works of zymoticscribblers. ready he threw himself on the bed when, bad luck to it, Ourinstincts are born with us and cannot be radi- if the four foots did’nt go down through the flure and cally altered ; butthey can always be developed by the peoplebelow are in mortalterror that the whole beingperpetually broughtinto contact with what is placeis falling down.” noble. If, early in life,when he ismost susceptible “And what have you done?’’ tooutward impressions, a man of noble nature is (‘Mick and meself have raised the bed up again and constantlyconfronted with the mean and the sordid, I have the blazer under one foot and the tidy under the his instincts may run therisk of being influenced for other, and me two dinner plates under the others.” theworse. Our modern age, where examples of I got somemetal advertisement cards, and whilst physical andspiritual degeneracy meet us at every doublingthem up into four Iasked the old woman : street corner, in every picture-gallery, in every theatre, “ Who’s your landlord Mary ?” book andconcert-room thereforeis particularly “OuldRatty the sanitary inspector, the ould scut.” dangerousto artists. In the almost hopeless, though (‘ Have you complained to him about the house?” nor quitehopeless, endeavour to meetwith beauty (‘Complained is it. Faith I’vedone nothing but and nobility,they are oftenoverwhelmed by what is complain for this last two years, but its always the same uglyand unwholesome. No wonderNietzsche re- put offs : ( You’ll get attended to in your turn. ’ ” markedthat few artists could survive in thepresent ‘(What does he mean by that? ” age,but that thosewho could do so were asstrong “ He means that the lad he employs for an hour of asthe devil. No wonder,either, that the Jesuits an evening to rogh and patch his rotten ould property sought to train boys only during the first seven years will attend to me when he’s nothing else to do.” of their lives. After that,as they well realised,their I called the attention of thepublic to this case, and character would be as firm as a rock. Mary got a bran new floor the nest Saturday morning, 403 but she never suspected how it had been brought about. stand down. ’) Then to the first defendant :“ Have YOU A fewweeks after the above case more information anythingto say, mam?” regardingour housing conditions was given to me in First Defendant : “ Faith, I havethat. May be YOU have a wife and daughters of your own, Sir? ” thefollowing manner : “ Giveme another stone of flour,Mister. The one I gotthis morning is utterly Magistrate : “ Yes, I have a wife and daughters of my own. )’ spoiled. ” “Spoiled, mam-how do you mean spoiled?” Defendant : “ Well, Sir, how do you think your wife “Spoiledwith bugsand things, Mister.” anddaughters would like to use a closetthat looked “How did that occur, mam? It sounds extraordinary into a back lane and it having no door to it? ’) to hear of flour being spoiled by bugs.” Magistrate : “Not at all, I’m sure they wouldn’t.” “Well, it’s this way, Mister. My son has been work- Defendant : “ Well,Sir, I’m as good a womanas ing at the Tube works forthis last four months, and any wife or daughter ever you had, and I like it no more last week he took a house and sent for me and his wife than they would ; that’s what I have to say.” andchildren. We arrivedfrom Birmingham on Tuesday Magistrateto second defendant (an old woman) : day with our own furniture and took possession of the “ Now, old woman,what have you to say about this house,and very nice looked.it The walls newly nuisance? )’ papered, the ceiling newly white-washed, and the wash- OldWoman : “ Nuisance,Sir, how could I create houserepaired. This morning mydaughter-in-law anynuisance? Icross to Howden by thefirst ferry everymorning. I amthere all day earning my living says : ‘Mother, I think I’ll bake to-day. ’ ‘Alright, girl,’ said I, ‘and I’ll take advantage of the fire to do a bit of bywashing bottles, and I don’tcome back again till thelast ferry at night. How, then, could I make any washing.’ So wemade up a goodfire, Mister, and I nuisance? I never was in the place in my life.” came over here and got the flour. When I got back my Magistrate, to third defendant : “ Have you anything daughter set the flour, and when it had risen she drew theshort legged chair which we keep for the purpose to say?” ‘Third Defendant : “ Yes, Sir, I have a few remarks intothe middle of the floor andplaced the crock jowl upon it and began to knead the dough. Now and again to make, and the first is : I should like to ask why I’m standinghere. Why, Sir, am I not in thewitness-box shewent to the fireplace and stirred up the fire. And givingevidence against old Ratty ? Isn’tit a queer thenon returning once to her kneading she noticed a thingthat in a smalltown like this two sanitary in- darkspot on the dough. She thought nothing of it at spectorscould never discover thisnuisance for them- thetime and went on with herwork. But after she’d selves,although the door has been off thecloset for been at the fire againand returned to the dough, she sevenmonths. How do they put their time in, and foundcoveredit with black spots. And thenshe what do theydo for theirmoney? There are other thoughtshe saw one move. Looking closer she found things I could say, but perhaps that’s plenty.” itwas a bug.In fact every spot was a bug,Mister. Themagistrate evidently thought the same. The Whenshe looked up at the ceiling to see where they casein fact was getting uncomfortable for the Bench were coming from she found the ceiling was swarming andRatty. None of theother defendants was ques- withthem. She called me out of thewash-house into tioned. The magistrate closed the case sharply, with : thekitchen, and I shall never forget‘the sight I saw. “ Two and six fine and two and six costs. Thebugs were so thick by thistime that they were )’ knocking each other off by hundreds. The big fire had After the lapse of a minute or so, when the defend- brought them out of the walls, and they had climbed up ants were leaving the court, the magistrate called Ratty over the top of the wall paper and swarmed on to the and in a half serious, half jestingmanner remarked : ceiling Of coursewe couldn’t eat bread knowing it “ Now, Mr.Ratty, I hope we shallhave no more of wasfull of bugs. So I’lltake another stone of flour, these. casescoming into court. Very serious state- as the neighbour next door has promised to bake it for mentshave been made here this morning, and should itoccur again, we may beforced to take notice of us. ” them. ’’ “ Who’s your landlord mam ?” Of course Ratty and the Bench belonged to the same “ Mr. Ratty, the Sanitary Inspector, Sir.’’ gang.The replyto the woman’s question : “ How Later on I heard that Ratty was going to prosecute does he put his time in? ’) is as follows :-_At on a five womenand a manfor creating a nuisance, so I 9.30 attendedthe police courtto watch the proceedings. I Mondaymorning he would stroll down to the Town Hall.At ten he began to collect his rents, devoting am not likely to forget what I heard or saw on this occa- sion. When I entered the court I found that the Bench thewhole day to that purpose in Palmerstown. Tues- dayand Wednesday he spent collecting his rents in was composed of three property-owners, two of whom adjoining communities. The remainder of theweek he weremembers of thetown council, and, therefore, on the sanitary committee of the town Ratty stepped into worked as propertyvaluer to a buildingsociety. At thewitness-box. “Your worships, acting on information one monthly meeting of the council a member was in- received, my assistant and I paid a visit to Back considerateenough to mention the word sanitation. Ratty dropped dead on CurryStreet. There, your worships, we discovered an the chamber floor. To finish with the housing question for the present. awfulnuisance which had been created by the six de- fendants.In the yard of thehouse occupied by these For a time,after the passing of theTown Planning Act., propertywas inspected and repaired. But when people there are two earth closets, your worships. The the gang discovered that John Burns didn’t mean busi- door of one closet had been stolen, and the other closet nessthey soon stopped.The present condition of had been used to such an extent that the excrement had flowed overinto the back lane. It is a verybad case, ~ affairswas revealed at the last December meeting of ~ thecouncil. yourworships, and I hope you will dealwith the de- Councillor Callaghan stated “ At the present rate of fendants in a sharp manner.” inspectionit would take another seven years to finish Ratty stood down and his assistant entered the box thetown. The present system was that if amember and merely said ditto to his superior. And then occurred complained about a house, that house was visited while anincident which is, I hope, unique in English courts the house next door, which might be just as bad, was of law.Without any invitation from the Bench or in- notinspected. But to show the necessity for inspec- timation to it, Ratty sprung into the witness-box, and tionhe would quote the death rate in thedifferent turning to one of the defendants, the second in the line wardsfor the past year. North Ward, 20. ~6;Central of six, said :- Ward, 18.8; EastWard, 18.1 ; WestWard 16.8; “ Now, you old woman, tell the gentlemen what you , SouthWard, 15 ; andGrange Ward, 12.8.” told me last night.” NorthWard, 20.16; GrangeWard, 12.8. The Old Woman : “ Go long, you dirty old robber ; do youthink you aregoing to make an informer of Thosefigures tell their own tale, and cry shame on thosewho are responsible for them. me? ” PresidingMagistrate : “ Standdown Mr. Ratty, (To be continued.) 404

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take invain. Go downinto the Forum. Well, there Letters from Italy. are the Arch of Septimus Severus, and the frieze on the III Rome : FirstDays. TempleofAntoninus and Faustina and the three columns of theTemple of Castorand Pollux. I “SIR! ” said Dr. Johnson, “The best thing a Roman would give .all that rubble and heaps of earnest ostenta- ever sees is the road that leads to Paris.” tion for some Greek fictile thing-a vase for water or [Hush ! gentlemanly,educated critics; even the oil, painted by some uneducated boy who knew more of vulgarcontributor to THE NEW AGE knows Boswell. beautythan he realised. ‘(Beautiful Daphnis,” or Dr.Johnson said “ Scotland.”-Ha ! Quel esprit !] some such name, those vase-painters wrote on the bases But I cursed like an eighteenth-century satirist as I of theirclay vessels. And Aphrodite and Zeusand was bumped and jerked down the Via Nazionale in one Peleus ace all marked out for us in odd sprawling letters of these four and five times accursed fiacres From the lestthe clear figures, drawn with a few sparselines, mediaeval peace of Florence I was pushed into an imita- shouldbe unfamiliar. There isbeautifully-shapeda tivemodernity. Ah, the jolly little Italians. How gaily stoneurn at Barracco’sMuseum here. Itwas for the theyspit. How the tin trams sing “ Ting,ting, ting, ashes of somedead youth, and he is carved., badly ting, ting ! ” all down the road. (This is too much like enough,saying farewell to his mother and a girl. Whitman.) And down the cocchiere hauled me through This is all a hopeless digression from the character- a tunnel of white tiles beneath the King’s garden, and istics of Roman people to-day, of which I meant to say finally hauled up hispanting steed in thePiazza di something. They are very nice to me,and on the two Spagna.“Damnation,” was all I couldsay. I loathed occasionswhen I have told inquiring people in cafes the firstday or two in Rome that I was a “ poeta Inglese,” they were immediately Aftera while thefeebleness of the modern mob kindly and seemed to understand why one loved the arts ceasesto irritate, and day by daysome one eternal with the love passingthat of women. They don’t thing shows you its beautyand its use. “Colossal know English poetry though, by Zeus, or they wouldn’t vulgarity,” quoth I, observing the Colosseo for the first be so nice; suppose they read the trash that the noble time ; but now I find it very soothing o’ mornings to youths of the intellectual palaestra turn out today ! sit on a piece of Flavius’ marble and smoke my matu- The man in the cafe where I have breakfast is a plea- tinal pipe. Iwatch the sunlight, whichis clear and sant fellow-he calls me (‘Signorino,” which I take to sweetlike that of our English April ; thebarbarians bea compliment. He has a very pretty wife,who is a from Noo York, and so on, pass before me, and I blink devil of a shrew. Hepays heavily forhis aesthetic and smile and love thewarmth. I congratulate caste. Like most people,they have too many children. Flavius on hisamphitheatre; it is an admirable place An old man comes to the same cafe He talks Italian, to smoke in. (I could haveavoided that ultimate pre- German,English, and Portuguese. He is eighty-six, position.) and was in London when the Prince Consort (husband ‘(Quae cum ita sint ” (it’s about time I quoted some of aforgotten monarch, Victoria) died. “ Youdon’t Latin tag orother), treatI Rome irreverently I’ll speakFrench,” said I, why not?Tout le monde tellyou right now that the late Cinquecento and parle Francais ! ” “ Well, you see,”said he, (‘there Seicento art in the churches is as vulgar as a French was-is-a pecul’ar familycircumstance. My father bourgeois and as ugly as Hammerstein’s Opera House. -he was sculptor of Dresden, and he come to Rome to Thereis a kirk in theVia Quirinale (St. Andrea al studyunder Canova. Then he fought ’gainst Napo- Quirinale, I think) which the guilds tells you was built leon, and he hate the French and would not teach his by Bernini. I wish they hadstrangled him first. childrenthe language. ” Sacred God ! I thought Baroque,flamboyant, rococo, arewords too peaceful that was a pretty odd ‘( link with the past ” if the old and delicate to describe this coagulation of daubed vul- man spoke the truth. He said he had known Eastlake vulgarities “This picture,” snarlsthe guide in his foul as a boy, and had his “ likeness.” There was no reason droningItalian, “is by El Greco,e questa diSome- why he should have lied to me; I haven’t got anymoney body-else ” (forgethis name). As much by El Greco to give him. andSomebody else as by Mr. Strachey, or some other TwoItalian peasants came in oneday to execute celebrity. some legal document-signing a letter or something of I hada strangeattack of lyingin St. Andrea,etc. thatsort. They spat four times in three minutes. I “ Il Signore e pittore?”dixit guida. “ Si,si,’’ said left my “ pannino ” unfinished. I ; which was a horrid lie. And thenhe draggedme Ecco ! for propagande; Forward l’Age Nouveau ! past years of unspeakably bad Seicento paintings in the Allons, camerados ! Theywhack their horses and sort of conventback of thechurch. And thatcosts mules, and kick them and ill-treat them, and over-load four soldi-the price of my breakfast. God damn cul- them, until a mere English urchin like myself is enraged ture. beyond words. I would pull theirnoses for them. So It is difficult for a foreigner to say much of a people’s subscribe,all good people, to S.P.C.A., Piazzadi characteristicsright away. But here is a tipto the Spagna, Rome, for they do excellent work. And in all poverty-stricken.Learn Italian directly you get there ; seriousness the cruelty is disgusting. if theythink you’re English, theyswindle you-very More propagande!When I pay two soldifor a properly. At theBaptistry of St. Giovanni Laterno rottenlittle box of matchesand exorbitant prices for and at Santa Mariadella PaceI gave the old verger chocolat Menier (my greatdelight) I sighfor the fellow three soldi, which is one more than is necessary. glories of FreeTrade. I paythat dam tax, not the Howlsof rage-a francat least from an Inglese. Frenchchocolate makers, not the match-producers. Three soldi was “ poco.” Thenthe magnificent In- Tax my chocolatMenier ? Dahn wif’er bloomin’ gleseswings his cloak and says slowly but fluently : Gover’ment,dahn wif’er bloomin’ taxeson us pore “ Perche ? Sempre dieci centesimialle tutte chiese !” blokes ! Tax my ’bacca?Dahn wif ev’ryfing ! “ Ha ! IlSignore parla Italiano? ” (( Si,si, si ! ” (That’s how I feel !) “ Buon giorno Signore buon giorno !” Stillmore propagande ! Militarism ! 0 bilge, 0 I don’twant totalk about the statues in the sentiment ! 0 ecstasiesover darky soldiers from museums here, because I still cling to the hope that the Lybia, O mush of heroism ! Everygamin welts at a most august and excellentgentlemanly excellencies of toy drum or blows a screeching whistle : every “ vigi- the exceedinglyexcellent etcetera, will grantme a lazza,” or whatever they call the gens d’armes, jostles permesso.” In which case I can go round in a lordly you insolently ; every jack-a-napes of a lieutenant goes way and find some good “ out-of-the-way ” things, in- clad in exquisite cloak and shining raiment ; while the stead of running through like an American. povertyabout one hurts like watching cruelty And There are one or two Greek things here. The Latins for what? To protectthe “dono infelice di bellezza?” are stupid ; politicians, money-makers, amateurs, Philis- Put a tax on English tourists then. They have nothing tines-but the Greeks-some of them-are delicate, here worthstealing by force of arms exceptthe Dis- aesthetic, subtle-sensed,and exquisite in task, kind as cobolus. RICHARDALDTNGTON. that pleasant fellow of Nazareth whose name they now Roma. 405

abouttwice his own age.) People have lost tradition Present-Day Criticism. They call this an age of reason. though it seems nothing but an age of debatewithout reason, an age of mere A KI~-\~~~ ’-- correspondent addresses the present writer opinion.Opinion may scarcely go lower from tradtion with a warning not to be too playful in describing these than we have seen it. “We must be ourselves,” cry the “ notes.’’ “ Thereare always ‘ fools coming,’ ” he self-intoxicated ones, and hey drop away from tradition writes, ‘‘ who will belittle you for your own modesty.” like those paltry glass beads from the magic string in His letter is extremely well-intentioned ; yet we have no theIndian story. An instance : The Philistineplay- answerbut courteous persistence. To paraphraseBor- wrightshave a newnotion tomake heroic plays in row : “ No man would call his critical exploits notes if prose,disregarding therein the examples of all past he could call them anything else.” Would to earth that dramatiststhose trammelled Greeks and Latins, help- we possessed the insolence of some of her sons ; what lessElizabethans, and the whole French order, those Icarianwings to sunny fame might we not then con- that from the dawn of great drama to the very edge of structfor ourselves ! Deprivedof insolence, helplessly our benighted time have created the heroic play in verse modest we needs must be ; our ignorance crushes us. only.Verse is the sublime,merciful, and just veil of None realises better than we how fine it must feel to tragedy. One bas only to hear actors striving in vain to fancy oneself a great critic-to dare ‘challenge the mighty save the severe parts of the new Ibsen play from sound- comparison. Who wouldnot, if hedared, imitate the ing like most unbeautiful rant to recognise fully why the boldness of Mr. Frank Harris, for instance, and seizing poet-dramatistsdefended tragedy with verse. Bult “we and plastering together a thousand and one contradic- who must be ourselves,” will lay everything stark, even tory details, offer them in a volume as the last word on though thereby the ‘object is lost, and the spectatorgoes Shakespeare ; or, like Mr. Darrel Figgis, mincing and awaycynical and disgusted. You rememberthis veil cooking with oleaginous additions all that all fools and againdrawn across theface of grief by the wise unitedly have ever said about the high dramatist, noble Greek sculptor. There is a final mystery of suffer- puffily offer thatas the last word on Shakespeare? A ing not to be pried into with safety to one’s soul. Tradi- moderately ambitious man must envy even such authors tion has drawn the veil, and only the fool would tamper as Messrs.Seccombe, Ransome, MacCarthy, and Mrs. withit. Tynan,who are making quite a littletrust in mutual Butthis an age of reason ! Awaywith such old criticism, and who actually go half round the world as superstitions ! Let us see ! Onehears with a hideous a sort of literary co-operative shop, naming each other shock the phrase-“Christ crucified on the bioscpe.” everywhere as thegreatest critics, and positively dis- The debaters are not shocked. “Why not? ” they ask, coveringand re-discovering themselves to allsorts of “if we may read about the crucifixion whynot see it? ” de-civilised islands and unsuspicious provincial markets. ‘‘Good taste defend us !” we reply. “Taste-never mind And if these audacious figures do not set one gaping to about taste What reason is there against the display?” besuch a nobody-who mightcontemplate without And one can only turn aside, knowing that for people self-distrust, the legions of vast Fleet Street authorities, without good taste, let alone a sense for God, no reason so ‘many and so many, who have all said the very last exists against displaying God on the bioscope. word about something or other? But we know that we The working classes are now enjoying the novelty of could not,even if wedared, make wings of waxfor reading daily papers professedly devoted to their inte- ourselves out of Shakespeare’s death-mask; we simply rests; but that journal which professes loudest and most could not read Mrs. Tynan even in the hope of her be- often, appears to be far enough below the best traditions stowing whatsoever laurel; .and our nature would defy of theworking-class-steadiness, taciturnity, sobriety us to smile atMr. Hamilton Fyfe, although he could indeed and speech. In welcoming Mr. G. K. Chester- uplift us into the very throne of the Philistines. We lack ton to its ranks, the “Daily Herald ” blusteredlike a whatever it is in all these self-styled critics which makes cocksureboy Servility is one thing-humility is for the grand name without the grand thing, and so our another. The “ Daily Herald ” seems not to know that death in obscurity is noway to beavoided. Our respect well directedrealis self-respect. No self- cowardice is, of course,immeasurable. We are so respectingartisan would have blared like that ridi- feeble as. tofear even Posterity, to dread lest men of culous head-line-“ Chesterton Fed Up.” It is ridiculous taste, true critics, should always be borne unto the end to give satisfaction to one’s opponents, and the reception of our national decadence; and we do not want to gain of their late colleague must have been unction itself one of thosefamous little immortalities such as you to the “ DailyNews ” people.Silly American back- maysee instanced throughout the dictionary of Lem- slangdoes not represent the British workman at his Lempriere : “- , a pretentious critic, ridiculed by ___ in best. The “ Herald’s ” would-besmartness becomes his comedy-.” No ! let us find amusementacross evenodious. “Mown down by Motor ” is thetitle for theStyx, but not at our ownexpense. Enough if we thereport of anaccident “Three Kiddies Killed ” claim only to be saying nothing new in literary criticism, alliterativelydescribes the poignant tragedy of the nothingthat long-sighted tradition’ has not already Grahams. taken into account It is no use starting up and being Of course,they do these things much worse in over-proud, pretentious, or boastful, since if one’s title America and with no excuse, since the best newspapers were to be questioned by any person of high merit,. from there,such as the Philadelphia ‘‘ PublicLedger ” are that moment one would again be nobody. models of good sense and refined taste. But gIance, as No doubt that the traditional things we are so con- we often do at the “New York Times Book Review,’’ stantly repeating sound very new indeed in this time of what wild woodsman’sediting belittles the contribu- unprecedentedprogress. People seem never to have tions, some few of these of nobleintent and heard of our most venerable literary canon. (Can it be execution.The titles are often scarcely more literary that the “fools alwayscoming ” arereally alarmed at thancollege yells. “GeorgeBernard Shaw-His our novelty? Do they,perhaps, scent ruin in our ex- French Translator Calls Him the Moliere of the Twen- ample, so neweven when compared with their latest tieth.Century.” “ MagazineWriters-What Luck brand-new Philistinism? But what a choice situation to WouldYesterday’s Masterpieces Have To-day ? ” be in-accused of forging too madly ahead with some “Seeing Anatole France--Mrs.John Lane Describes a old rulefrom the Hindus, some prohibition from Visit to andHer Impression of ‘TheGreatest Living Horace, some behest from Cicero, a few long-meditated Master of Style.’ ” Fancy the great stylist to be read- hintsfrom the world’s literature. The jest too good ing that ! Compare the French “ Journal des Debats” must be untrue. Yet, this is a fact about one at least of on Mr. Shaw : “ M. Augustin Hamon a cru devoir inti- our great and acknowledged modern critics and makers tuler le Moliere du vingtieme siecle un cours qu’il a fait of belles-lettresMr. Arnold Bennett, that we could naguere sur 34. Bernard Shaw et son theatre mais ce write him a literary article which he could only suppose titre est singulierementpeu justifie Moliere estun us to have invented; and we should not be testing his , comique de genie M. Bernard Shaw n’est qu’un auteur impertinent self-confessed ignorance further back than satiriquenon depourvu de talent.” This writing,it 406 .--.- must be said, tolerates a yelling headline somewhat less tisedit, but by intercoursewith the menthemselves. thanthat of the American critic. Butmuch better He also mixed with the leading literary personalities in Americans thanMr. Brock (whose “ThisBreton Vienna. (The Czech satiristJ. S. Machar,who resides Augustin Hamonsays, etc.,” issimply vile), are be- in Vienna,has dedicatedvivacious a sonnetto littled by descriptions,the tradition of whichwe rest Przesmycki,dealing withhis sojourn there.) A further content to be unable to trace. An American informs us service of Przesmyckilies in his interpretation of that thestyle is a raffination of “corner-boys’litera- modern Czech poetry-particularly of Vrchlickyand ture ”; andwe personally should feel as though our Brezina. His essay on Vrchlicky wastranslated into literary pocket had been picked if some American editor Czech, andserves now as thestandard introduction were to despoil an article of ours with one of those im- even for native Bohemian readers. pertinentheadlines. Thething is creeping into Eng- Antoni Lange(b. 1863) is another poetwhose chief land,though our worst fears do not apprehend its establishment in literaryjournals. Tradition is still a concern is cultivation of form which he has displayed pretty good Englishman. in translationsfrom. Shelley. Poe,and Baudelaire. By We should like to go on discussing this tradition--to theemployment of suchtypes of verse aspantoums suggest its part in saving the franchise, and in deafen- and villanelles heserves more as a model for others ing English ears to the charms of the New Spellers, and rather than a poet of great original individuality in several other contests against promiscuous vulgarity. V. But we makenotes, and no more ; the “foolsalways Of the remaining Polish poets less than a dozen call coming ” must go elsewhere for the last word on the for specialnotice. Whattheir relation may be tothe subject. new movement is not always clear, nor is it very profit- able to discuss. It is betterto appreciatethan to speculate and in the work of these men there is much Modern Polish Poetry. toappreciate merely aspoetry apart from literature. P. Selver. One of the most vigorous of these personalities is Jan By Kasprowicz (b. 1860), whose peasant origin is revealed IV. in his bluff and uncompromising attitude to life :- ABOUTthe year 1890 a new movementtook place in What is life worth withoutecstasy’s hours, Polish literature. It was the firstmanifestation of that Void of those frenzies that men in their coldness unrestwhich German critics vaguely define as “die Christen transgression and overboldness ? Moderne,” but for which+no very precise term can be Such life is an autumn-tide sodden with showers. found The brilliant reactionary philosophy of Nietzsche But life is likeunto spring-tide, when love revealed a wealth of new ideas; the French symbolists And suffering both in its ken it enfolds, and decadents with their delicate poetical technique sup- When it plucks at the stars in the azure above. . . .

plied a fittingmedium in which to present them. This Kasprowicz himself has“plucked at the stars ” to movement was not without its dangers for the Slavonic somepurpose. In his earlier poems he showsa fierce literatures, on all of which it has Ieft very considerable realisation of social injustice, of the misery of the people traces. It tended’to blur the sharply defined national with which. his younger daysmade him familiar. His characteristics without which the poetry of the Poles, invectives do not even shrink from what orthodox souls the Bohemians, and the Southern Slavs becomes a mere would be sorelytempted to callblasphemy. He re- artificial product, written by litterateurs for litterateurs. proachesthe Creator for causing man’s distress. But And this,unfortunately has to some extentactually thisis only a phase;later he turnsfrom this view of taken place. It has resulted in an aristocratic exclusive- the existing order of things, and finds that man himself ness, a haughty reserve which can serve no good pur- is the source of all humansorrow. Kasprowicz, like pose. Ithas resulted in a searchfor morbid andper- Asnyk, gains consolation in nature, in the magic of the versethemes and aimlesseccentricity of style,which, pine-clad peaks :- howeverdoes not conceal thelamentable poverty of The wind whips the orphanedpines, ideasThe very appearance of these books betrays And rain at my window beats ; their folly and impotence-the immoderateuse of zig- In peaceful mood my soul zag lines,regiments of idle dots paucity of contents To mistypathways fleets. yellowish, fluffy paper-these are some of thedanger- It flows tothe flame-lit crags, signals. To the chasm-crowning ways, Theearliest Polish recruits to thiscampaign were Where the sight of the secrets of God led by StanislawPrzybyszewski (b. 1868),aliterary Is before us in tumult ablaze. figure akin to Dehmel and Strindberg in temperament, It speeds to the eddies of light a facile bilingual author who had promulgated his ideas That coil from the sun’s gold beams in German before he became the guide of young Poland. Where by the shoreless spaces His early medical training supplied him with ample Yearning in solitudedreams. material for his purpose. He wrote novels and dramas, The wind whips the orphaned pines, the subjects of which might well have been left in the , Mists in the rain unroll. pathologicaltreatises where he found them. Stanislaw 0, mountains eternal mountains, Wyspianski(1869-1907), painter, dramatist, and poet, 0 yearning of my soul! worked on more wholesome principles, and especially Kasprowicz is ahthe author of numeroustransla- in his dramas showed more regard for purelynational tionsfrom foreign poets includingBrowning. (The matters than other members of thisgroup. Slav nations whose linguistic attainments must be con- Theagitation was not without its, good results. It sideredremarkable, are, as aresult, very fortunate in led to a more ‘obvious striving after perfection of style, their poetical translations. This is specially noteworthy both in proseand poetry. InWarsaw the movement amongthe Bohemians.) centredround the journal “Chimera,” conducted by The melancholy, from which no Polishpoet seems Zenon Przesmycki (b. 1861),who writes under the name entirelyfree, is the chief feature of the work ofKazimierz Miriam. The introduction to his translation of Maeterlinck’s Przerwa--Tetmajer (b. 1865). In his case itis plays, published in 1894, marksthe beginning closely associatedwith hissurroundings, the craggy of a new era in the history of Polishcriticism. slopes of theTatra (Carpathians), of which hesings Przesmycki, whose original poetry is not very extensive, with a never-failingfreshness. Of himself hesays :- and is. more striking for its form than its matter, is a Unto my cradle from the Tatra flew symbolist. He absorbedthe principles of symbolism, The wind unloosed on *eagles’wings, and blew not merely by the study of the French poets who prac- Past pines that view each other on the height; 407

It roared above my cradle in its flight. from all the frothy humours of some of his contemporaries And in my heart a longing it has brought raries. Thusthe song-cycle “Hania”begins thus :- For endless eagle freedom; moody thought My ditty soars away on pinions It carried from the pines, that in the waste Unto the verge of earth’s dominions ’ Rock, by a mighty stillness held embraced. Thro’ forest gloom, Herehe is at home;his spirit is in harmony with O’er sheen of fields, o’er streams’ blue traces these vast expanses of rock and boulder, and with the To some far land beyond the places Where hill-tops loom. grim and sullentribe who dwell there Some of his poems are written in their dialect, and in his novels and Singing, it speeds with swallow’s flight shortstories he deals with their life. He is a moun- Amid expansesgold-bedight Of shimmering ways- taineer :- Until my soaring ditty goes, Ho ! ne’er let me meet my doom And at thy feet in humble pose Down upon the lea, Its homage lays. Nor may I find on earth a tomb, Death’s laughing-stock to be ! Ewually effective ishis “Arise, 0 Song !” with its spirited conclusion :- For all his melancholy he craves little from life :- 0 ’mid the dust of gleaming planets flow, Where’er I turn my face, ’tis one to me- The spheres’ wild rack, If to the north or to the south I fare, ’Midst dizzy whirling of their fiery glow, Shade from the scorching sun, a spring await The scarlet chaos of their blood-red track Me everywhere. Soar, sink, and by the opal radiance drowned Out of the ever-shifting colours, lights and shadows Ring and resound. on the mountains, he weaves the most delightful fancies, Yet ,another aspect .of his work is seen in the sonnets as in the ‘‘Songof the Night Mists,” from which a few devoted to mythologicaland classical subjects (Rydel stanzas are quoted :- has translated Homerinto Polish). Herehe reveals Softly, softly, let us wake not streams that in the valley anadmirable pictorial sense, a delicate Feeling for sleep, colour, which renders these poems vivid and convincing. Let us with the wind dance gently o’er the spaces wide “ Centaur and Woman ” immediately suggests a paint- and deep. Ing :- The starlight wanes; with gentle beams bedight Let us quaff the roar of torrents that aremerged into the lake, The plain afar is smooth and endless shed, And the gentle noise of pines and of the fir-trees in the To where-like to a stream of fiery red- brake. ’Neath greenish sky a blood-hued streak shines bright. Balmy scent of blossoms blooming on the hill-side let US drink, O’er the fair head and body white as snow, Filledwith music, fragrance, colour, let us rise to Whose girth a pair of swarthy arms enlace heaven’s brink. Another head, dark, bearded is bent low. Withthe milky dowh, the filmy coat‘ of darkness let us Again, in the “Syrens” :- Play Ocean, green ocean, in its endless maze. With the plumage of the night-owls,wheeling upwards The milky moon above in azure skies. and away. From far away the gleaming waves arise Snowy with foam, with lightning sparks ablaze. Let us flit from peak to peak,like to gently swaying bridges, The syrens are imaged in one line :- By the shafts of star-light fastened to the corners of the With scales, their hips are bright as rainbow-rays. ridges. The distant vessel thus :- A sail upon the sea’s dullsilvery rim. In less peaceful moods he calls on the tempest :- In“Psyche ” recursthe same effective contrasting 0 tempest, tempest ! Pluck this soul of mine of colours :- Out of my body into airy spaces, . . . . the glint of golden veins on pearly skin, As Tatra’s bird that lags in lowly places, And in her hand a rose-flamed lamp is burning. I, too, in lowly places chafe and pine. The conception of the antique world shown by Rydel Whither thou wilt, there waft it frenziedly, in these sonnets is especially remarkable,seeing that Let it to some lone spot, far, far be hurled. he is otherwiseprofessedly a poet who appeals to the I would forget that I am of the world, understanding of the masses. And not a spirit, winged, untrammelled, free! The poems of Leopold Staff (b. 1878) reveal a vigor- ous personality, now triumphant with the pride of the One more quotation to show yet another phase of his creative artist, now grappling with the problem of un- phantasy. It isentitled “Onthe Lonely Road ” :- attained ideals. He exclaims :- On my spirit’s strings thy fingers, All that was meek within me, timid, mild, Thou, 0 tempest, lay. With brutal giant-grasp I plucked asunder. The dream that ’mid deep water lingers For I adored the raging might of wonder, ’Mid bright dawning play. Tempests unbounded, overweening, wild. Play the strains from pastures streaming, I set my heart in surging pulse-beat ringing, From the drowsy pines. My dauntlessand unflinching soul was sending Play what in misty chasm dreaming Accents of strength, huge, plain, uncouth, unbending, Round the rainbow twines. Empassioned, bold, of storm and freedom singing. What most calm, most hid, has vanished Thesame youthfulexuberance, whichtends to To some secret lair, turgidity, is seen in such passages as :- Tempest, what is farthest banished In pangs of travail, pain of striving might, To my spirit bear. Racked by a fire untamed, with brow distraught, Here is a pet whose inspirationis direct and un- To weld in one huge form my slaving sought feigned,not detached from his daily life, butforming The shapes, hues, rhythms of each sleepless night. an integral part of it. Some shrine that man ne’er yet beheld, I made. Lucyan Rydel (b. 1870) is another noteworthy figure The awful strength of mightiness I battered. amongthe more recentPolish poets Most of his I raised a cyclop-statue there, from shattered work is marked by a simplicity of style that harmonises Huge boulders, with my chisel’s frenzied blades. well with its populartendencies. His love-poems are and rendered effective by this very unaffected tone,free A whole unshapen mass of precious ore, 408

Left in the unplumbedinmost of my breast, lyricalpoems hedescribes the mountain scenery of Volcano-like from chasms’ depths I wrest, Galicia. And then upon a hard steel anvil pour. It becomes a matter of some dificulty, when these ’Mid hammering din I smite with joyous thought, morerecent poets areunder review, toknow where For I must end a task, momentous, long, to stopshort. There is no lack of names,but one For from those ores my heart must needs be wrought hesitatesto be toolavish with them.Some mention A hardy heart, courageous, haughty, strong. shlould perhaps be made of Z. Debicki (b. 1871),Ludwik Szczepanski(b. 1872), andArtur Oppmann (b. 1867), His aims are high :- who writes under the name of Or-Ot.Debicki betrays Lob I a clod, huge, cyclopaean crave a leaning towards some of the current literary affecta- That fire-girt be my dream, from marble sundered. tions in suchpoems as “Black Roses ” andthe “ Lamentations.”Elsewhere, however, hegives token For a colossus my proud toil must yield, of betterthings. The song-cycle “ Nox Vadit,” My dream in purple, shimmering, kingly, goes. although conventional in subject and treatment, shows But in the end he finds :- a distinct power of dainty phrasing, appropriate to the Earth has no vastness worthy of my might theme. Thus :- Herpage, the wind,bears raiment-sheen, Ho, barren dreams, my dreams of each great night. Woven from woofof evening haze. Unto his mistress and his queen In the sonnet entitled “The Ruler” he expresses his Rapt on the pasture’s peaceful lays. (In Part I.) conception of the poet’s lofty rank and infinite power :- and A goblet wrought of amethyst I raise, The weald in peace she passes over, I pledge my glory’s strength, her sway unending, Rapt on the distant forest-strains. One heedless gesture, lo, fresh realms ascending, She passes o’er the blossoming clover, In me new life keeps endless festive days. The dismal stretch of fallow plains. It will be seen that this poet’s diction borders on the The glistening wheat she sets astir, harshand crude, but there is something more than Her hand o’er poppies sleep is flinging. wordsbehind these “Dreams of Power,” the title that The crickets play, and unto her stands at the head of his first volume issued in 1901. Locusts are singing, singing, singing. (In Part II.) Thepoems of JerzyZulawski (b. 1874), with their In six poems, each containing sixteen lines, variation? insistent note of despair form a direct contrast to the on the same theme are skilfullyintroduced. So in energeticutterance of Staff. “TheTemptation ” con- Part V :- sists of a trio of sonnets, in which the poet dallies with The peasants in a group are sitting, the thought of suicide :- The reed-pipe’s wistful cadence pours. The first day’s toil has left me sore oppressed, Softly the pallid night is flitting Life’s very onset-and for peace I long. O’er Vianda’s field-girded shores. There comes at times some phantom of the dead, The tethered horses crop the grasses ; And says “Why fearest thou? Of life’s thread ease thee.” From hissing flames with blood-red spire A patch of smoke to Warsaw passes, But the instinct for life is too strong :- The peasants gossip by their fire. Avaunt, 0 phantom back to life, to life ! Szczepanskiwrites delicate verses,strongly tinged The same idea is expressed in a shorter poem :- with a mysticism more characteristic of the Czechs than He has no hope whose ship in shattered plight, the Poles. In such apoem as “Weariness” there is a Sails gone, and rudder blindly o’er the wave marked similarity to the great Czech symbolist, 0takar Before the tempest scuds. Him naught can save Brezina. A few lines will suffice to indicate the style :- And he the coming of the end must sight. In its wide bounds isquailing He has no hope, and yet he does not leap The ocean white Into the tempest’s jaws, but grasps a spar, Bright Although he knows that he will see no star, Mists my resting-place are veiling. And knows, that not a soul for him will weep. Within the misty bounds Or again :- Of veils that tenderly conceal Why, Lord, to life didst Thou decree my doom? The silvery sounds Wherefore my soul, great, barren, didst Thou leave, Of harps grow silent in a dying peal. Powerlessly fierce, and hungry to conceive, The curious division of the lines is a close reproduction Dreaming of dawn, and yet o’erfilled with gloom ? of the Polish original. Why didst thou, stars in heaven, disclose to me Oppmann is a poet whose highestachievement lies And thrust me downwards, where no gleam can shine, in depicting various aspects of Warsaw life, chiefly in a pessimisticstrain. “TheTown Chronicle,”with its And bid me for the stars’ bright spectre pine, archaic phraseology may be compared with Mr. Austin And fall for ever, striving up to Thee ? Dobson’streatment of eighteenthcentury subjects. The poems of MaciejSzukiewicz (b. 1870) and W. His laconic disjointed style may be judged by the follow- Perzynski (b. 1878) are similar to those of Zulawski. ing brief extract from “ Rain ” :- They therefore need no quotation. ’Gainst the panes it streams, Andrzej Niemojewski strikes a differentnote in his O’er earth the mist-shrouds lie, “Fragment,” which might serve as .a reply to the three Like flowing tears it seems, preceding poets :- Like sobbing of the sky, Long from our brows hasthe garland of honour been The flickering lamp-lightgleams. hurled, Hear the cricket’s cry, With quivering lips ye breathe. ’Gainst the panes it streams, Brothers, be of good cheer ! for to-day all the world O’er earth the mist-shrouds lie. In a wanton dance doth seethe. And herethis record of necessarilyimperfect impressions What, brothers, avails us honour’s imperious guerdon, pressions must end. Other names might be mentioned, The brow that is decked with the bays ? but perhaps the time has not yet come to assign them What, brothers, avails it us, honour to bear as a burden theirfitting place in thepoetry of modern Poland.In . On humility’s slippery ways ? judging the whole matter the reader must bear in mind Here is that sturdy Slavonic defiance that is met with twothings : firstly, thedisadvantages under which a in the poems of Kasprowicz, and especially in the Czech literature must lanour whose artificers belong to three satirist, J. S. Machar.Like Kasprowicz, too, Niemjewski different realms where they are subject to serious racial hurlsreproaches at God. In hismore purely troubles;secondly, thegreat difficulty of reproducing- 409 lyrical poetry in another language, especially in turning land : its prime objective is to force land into productive verses from highly inflected Polish into scantily inflected use, andpay the whole cost of thenational services. English. If thesefactors be takeninto account, there All therebates and exemptions will betransferred to remains some justification for echoing the sentiment of manufacture.Against the punitive intentions of the the patriotic Polish song, “ Poland is not yet lost !” Single-Taxers,Flurscheim urges that, “though it is true that, as a rule, the landlord takes all he can extort fromthe tenant, this power of extortiondepends in Views and Reviews. the last resort on the rent-paying power of the latter. Now as anytax relief obtained by thetenant raises I DO not intend to deal with the “lies beyond”; there are his rent-payingpower, the landlord may certainly re- enough by the way. We know by past experience that, coup, by a higher rent, any tax shifted on his shoulders fromthose of thetenant. If a tenantpays $300 rent when the “ manufacturers’ party” deals with the land, ittempers injustice with hypocrisy. Cobden wrote to and $50 taxes, and you make the landlord pay the $50 taxes, will not the rent rise to $350? Mr. PeterTaylor, with reference to the agitation for There is a statement made by Mr. Wedgwood himself therepeal of theCorn Laws : “We don’twant the that betrays the fallacy of his argument that the Single questionto be argued, but to be taken up onthe primitive Tax will destroy the monopoly of the ownership of land. grounds of rightand justice. We don’twish it “ Many of thatminority,” he says, “who exclusively to betreated as a manufacturer’squestion, nor a capitalist’s , possessthe control of portions of theearth’s surface, either; but as a bread tax that robs all the com- have not only occupied what will satisfytheir own needs,but have also exercised their monopoly power munityfor the clumsy expedient of putting a mere of withholding from use, so as tokeep other land vacant fraction of the booty into the pockets of the robbers.” or half-used.They have. nonecessary inducement or Yetit was a manufacturer’squestion, for, four days need to do otherwise;and that it is actually done is later, Cobden wrote : “ Eighteen months ago the move- shown by the fact that many country landlords get no ment had its birth in the wrongs of a few manufacturers more than 2 per cent. on the capital value of their land; who were seeking to be relieved from injuries inflicted thus proving that ownership without even normalre- upontheir own peculiar interests.” These letters will turn, is allthey want.” If alreadylandowners are be found in Dr.Garnett’s “Life of W. T. Fox.”It contentwith 2. percent., why shouldwe suppose that they would resigntheir ownership, even if the 2 per behoves us to remember these facts when we are asked cent. were denied them ? It has already been predicted to believe that Landlordism is the primal curse, and to that England will gradually be turned into the pleasure ask ourselveswhat we have to gain by relieving the domain of the world’s aristocracy and plutocracy; and capitalist of all taxation, and raising the revenue of the Flurscheim arguesthat the Single Tax could not pre- countryby a singletax on land values. A Chartist in vent this conversion. “Supposethat, under the Single thehungry ’forties said of themanufacturers : “And Tax,” hesays, “the Rothschilds and a fewhundred now they want to get the Corn Laws repealed-not for other millionaires in England and America should share your benefit, butfor their own. ‘ Cheapbread,’ they the whim of .turning Great Britain into a deer-park, and cry; but .they mean ‘ how wages. ’ Do not listen to their Britishlandlords should sell at reasonable figures be- cant and humbug.” We are now asked to believe that cause of the new tax, which destroys the selling value the Single Tax means cheap land for everybody, whereas of their land. Under existing laws, what could prevent it onlymeans lower poundrents for manufacturers, these menfrom having their will?Certainly not the with concomitant higher profits. land-valuetax, even if it were as high as it would be On the abstract grounds of right and justice, we have were the present values taken as a basis of calculation, only to askwhy the whole cost of thenational ser- i.e., 200 million pounds a year. The income of Rocke- vices should be borne by only one section of the com- feller and Carnegie alone is at present valued at 12 to 15 munity to see the great injustice of the demand for the million pounds each ; that of the Rothschild families is SingleTax. Landlords, after all, do no more damage higher, and, without going any further, we have already to the working classes than do the manufacturers; and obtainedone-quarter of the yearly tax required.But itmust be admitted that the national services are at how long would it be required ? How long would there pesent performed more forthe benefit of themanu- be a rental value of zoo million pounds in a depopulated facturersthan of thelandlords. We maygrant that England, in that ,magnificent new deer-park?That the private ownership of land does not ensure the most value would followBritish enterprise wherever the productive use of it; we may agree with Mr. Wedgwod evictedpeople went. The United States, Australia, that “the heavy rates upon houses, machinery, stabling, NewZealand, Canada, South Africa, would see their sheds,glass-houses, etc., the 50 percent. exemption landvalues rise asthe British landvalues fell; and given to agriculturalland, andthe rebates on finally the 200 millions might be reduced to something game-covers, are all a very definite discouragement of like 5s. an.acre, to 20 million pounds,or even less, a production, and a distinct encouragement to keep land mere trifle forsuch magnates. That such an event vacant, or half-used, and cause a shortage in it.” But is practicallyimpossible is beggingthe question, be- who madeagricultural production so unremunerative cause it is only saying in other words that the Single that a 50 per cent. exemption had to be granted? Who Tax is impossible.” rushedthe nation into the towns, and forced up rents Into Flurscheim’s arguments for land nationalisation by the simple process of massingpeople on compara- by purchase I cannot enter here; but enough has been tively smallareas? Who but the manufacturers? Yet said to show that, if landmonopoly is the root of all they now come to us, in the person of Mr. Wedgwood, evil, asMr. Wedgwood argues, and I amwilling to and tell us that the mad to freedom lies through agri- agree, the evil cannot be abolished by the Single Tax, culture and that the only way to obtain the land for which, at the best, could only exchange a small number the people is to increase its cost by making it bear the of private owners for a large number and, at the worst, whole taxation of the country. would enable industrial capitalists to complete the ruin It is argued by Mr. Wedgwood as though he wished of England by purchasingthe land at forced prices. todemonstrate the vindictiveness that inspires the Already, as Mr. Wedgwood shows industrial capitalists attack on landlords, that a tax on land cannot be shifted are becoming landowners abroad; and the process may by the landlord on to the tenant. I care little for what well be repeated here if the Single Tax be imposed on the“most respected economists ” may say;Michael Flurscheim,who devotes a chapter of his“Over- land. By theabolition of thelandlord the capitalist producer would be freed from the burden of monopoly Productionand Want ” to theland question, talks rent;and the Single Tax would simplify for him the common sense on this point. For the Single Tax, be it remembered, does not abolish the private ownership of question of thecharges on industry. But with capital and land in the hands of the same people, the workers * “The Road to Freedom, and What Lies Beyond.”By of Englandwould be asbadly off asever. Josiah and Ethel Wedgwood. (Daniel. IS. net.) A. E. R. 410

virtuousman, for she refuses to marry anyone who Drama. knowsmore than she does? ” Mrs.Riis’ lecture on the necessity of an identical morality for the two sexes By John Francis Hope. was mal-apropos, and really contained nothing germane THEfox wasright : thegrapes are sour. I never yet tothe play.Not that it mattered,for there was no witnesseda forbiddenplay but I discovered that it play ; but there might have been a play if the essence wasa bad play ; and Bjornson’s “A Gauntlet,“re- of morality had not dissolved the drama into a tearful cently produced by “ The Play Actors,” is no exception exposition. I havesuggested that there is a simi- to the rule. The play had been banned, we were told ; larity between death and marriage, and I am pleased to- Isuppose that theprohibition was confined toScan- find myself supported by no less an authority than Lord dinavia, for a public performance was given by “ The Byron. In the third canto of “ Don Juan ” he says :- Play Actors ” on Monday, February 17th at the Court All tragedies are finished by a death; Theatre. But it does not matter when, where, or why All comedies are ended by a marriage ; a playa isbanned Forbiddenfruit is best,or, as The future states of both are left to faith, anotherproverb phrases it, forbid a fool a thingand For authors fear description might disparage that he will do, and, of course, the theatre was crowded. The worlds to come of both, or fall beneath, And then both worlds would punish their miscarriage ;, The facts that the play was at least forty years old, and So leaving each theirpriest and prayer-book ready, wasone of those works thatcan be dated, mattered They say no more of Death or of the Lady. nothing ; if “ The Sign of the Cross ” were to be pro- hibited its artistic value would be enhanced, its author It is asserted by all religions that some preparation is hailed as agenius, and surreptitious performances of neededfor death ; indeed,St. Paul dieddaily, and this bannedmasterpiece would begiven, and I should physiologists tell us that weall dothe same. But I be setto work toprove to a faithless and perverse do notthink thatmarriage requires so muchskill, or that such assiduous practice is necessary ; but it may be generationthat “ The Sign of the Cross ” was really only a tract for the times. maintained confidently that some previous experience is I havenot forgotten that the ghost of Hamlet’s commendable. Howeverwe accept the Biblical story, father protested against being sent to his account with itcannot be denied thatthe disastrous effects of the all his imperfections on his head. Death, it seems, is a first marriage were due to the limited knowledge of its seriousmatter, whichrequires due preparation if itis consequences possessed by thecontracting parties. to be properlynegotiated ; andmarriage, we are all Itis probable that Alfred Christensenknew the agreed, isa kind of death. If we adoptthe mystical worstabout matrimony, forhis adulterousconnection witha consumptive woman was probably not entirely view of EdwardCarpenter, in “ TheDrama of Love andDeath,’’ we have toadmit that both parties give delightful ; consumptives are apt to bevery irritable- upthe ghost that the offspring of theirembrace may Withan obstinacyworthy of a bettercause, he de- breathethe breath of life. The cynical view ismore manded union with a person who, as the event proved, common,and Nietzsche’s statementof it is one of sufferedfrom hyperaesthesia claustrophobia,to say nothing of the nervous debility and maniacal frenzy ex- the most famous : “ What becomes of the ‘ Wandering Jew,’ adoredand settled down by a woman?He hibited in the third act. It was plain to everyone that simply ceases to be the eternal wanderer ; he marries, he would have a worsetime with this lunatic than he and is sf no moreinterest to us.” Againstthis the probablyhad with the consumptive; yet with almost heroicpersistence he offered himself as herkeeper. boast of Benedick : “ There is no staff more reverend thanthat whichis tipped with horn,” isof no avail. Thatthere might be no disparity between them, he offered to live the life that she demanded for ten years, We rememberthe former description : “ Here lies Benedick, the married man,’’ and recognise Once again if need be,until, in fact,he was as mad as she was, thatmarriage is a kind of death.This being so, the provided that at the last he should be offered up as a questionarises whether itrequires any preparation willing sacrifice to the purpose of the world. This was comparablewith that neededfor thesuccessful lapse a man, indeed ; for,long before theten years were intophysical dissolution--whether weought also to passedshe wouldbe wreakingher forgiveness on another man. pray : “ Frombattle, murder, and from sudden mar- riage, Good Lord, deliver us. ” ButSvava Riis, in the early stages of herinsanity, The only expression of wisdom againstthis is held thatshe was dishonouredby the embrace of a frankly immoral, and is only to be heard from immoral man who had embraced another woman, and had heard people. Marriage is a trade to which no one need serve the customary lies from the lips of a predecessor. She an apprenticeship, is the axiom of peoplewho are op- herself hadlooked intothe eyes of anotherman, and pressed by CriminalLaw AmendmentActs. Ithap- there discovered the gleam pf previous knowledge ; but pens to be the assumption made by Svava Riis in “ -4 that, of course,did not count. What really hurther Gauntlet, ” and the fact militates against the pathos of wasthe fact that her perception was not infallible. her predicament. For she refuses to become the official In the first act she maintained that Alfred was as big a wife of a manwho had previously been unofficially fool about ’matrimony as she was, and by theend of married. It isnot here a question of a loveless mar- the first act she had discovered that, once again, she had riage : it is asserted that both parties are desperately deceivedherself. This discovery wasintolerable to in love, but, being a novice, she demands the ernbraces her, and a scapegoat had to be found, and the rest of of a novice, andrefuses the more skilled caresses of the play was devoted to her attempts to put everybody onewho has beenpreviously instructed.That is the else in thewrong. That is, of course,the usual trick brutefact of thesituation, and it is impossible to of women ; butit discounts heavilyall thefeminist pretend that it has any spiritual implications or value. twaddlethat she and her mother talked. Take one The girl prefers a clumsy lover, that is all. example : Alfred pledgeshis word of honourthat he If Bjornson had stated the caseas simply as this, even will befaithful toher whenthey aremarried, and it theaudience that preferredthe forbidden fruit might isargued that his word of honouris inacceptable, in haveseen that itwas only a crab-apple. But when in view of hisprevious entanglement. No evidence to doubt,talk of morality;that is English wisdom, and prove that he had pledged his honour to the consump- it isnot unknown in Scandinavia. They talked all tive was offered ; therewas nothing to show that he through the play ; and, as if this were not enough, Mrs. hadever broken his word. That she had deceived Riis stalked into Dr. Nordan’s garden in the third act herself was sufficient reasonfor her to be insulted by and lectured on “ The Essence of Morality. ” This was his assurance ; and Alfred became the scapegoat by ‘the not exactly a logical development of the situation. The simpledevice of allowingthe mother to exhausther question of the writer of the Book of Proverbs : “ Who jealousy of herhusband’s illicit loveaffairs in a little can find a virtuous woman, for her price is far above unwholesomeindignation against a voluntarypledge rubies? ” had been answered ; SvavaRiis was the of honour.Really, modern feminism onlyis old- womanThe question now was : “Who can find a fashionednagging with a new vocabulary. 411

that isbeginning to renderthe painter indifferent to Art. some things and partial to others. As forthe Study for Circus picture (No. 87), I The Goupil and Carfax Galleries. wonderwhether anyone knows whether the picture which seems to have been contemplated here was ever By Anthony M. Ludovici. painted? I am sorry to say that I know nothing what- ITis a simple and honestpersonality that liesbehind ever of such a picture. In any case, if the artist’s aim these hundred and fifty odd pictures by Arthur Lemon was ever accomplished, the result must have been very at the Goupil Gallery-simple in its affection and honest interesting; for the sketch itself is full of a power and in itsexpression. The subjectstreated reveal no vigour which almostis universally foreign to the profundity, no passionateness,complexity,no of painter. Thearrangement is simple,graceful and temperament.;andthere little is originality or genial ; the interest is concentrated on a beautiful sub- power apparent in theirtreatment. One gets ject of great interest-a woman on awhite horse- theimpression thatany plain Englishgentle- andthere is a dramatic outline of the crowdbehind. man,with a feeling for rustic life at home or abroad, If I had wished to buya Lemon this is the picture I who had attained a sufficient mastery over his medium, should have chosen. could havepainted just suchpictures as these. They In No. 134, Oxen Threshing in Tuscany, the gallery leave you very little-if at all-richer, and like many a certainlyholds the best of Lemon’scattle pictures. novel of Meredith’s,the catalogue in whichthey are Time, it is true, has melllowed the picture a good deal, classified mightwith perfectpropriety have “ as you but even in its rawest days, it must have been wonder- were ’’ printed in large letters on its back. fully attractive.Two little children are manipulating Arthur Lemon may have been a very charming man; the great white oxen by means of slender ropes, while he may have had a hearty affection for animals ; but it the beasts thresh the corn underfoot. It isa bewilder- is difficult to find much thatmatters in hiswork. inglycharming arrangement, executedwith skill and Take, forinstance, Fugitives (No. 24), HarvestTime, simplicity. Butthese three pictures surelyrepresent Surrey (No. 52), A TuscanPloughing Team (No. go), the topmost crest of Lemon’shighest wave. If they and that rather terrible head of a Tuscan Ox (No. 67). stoodfor his earliest work, or his average, he would Suchwork may be conscientious,it may be honest, it have been a more distinguished artist than he actually may be worthy ; but at any rate it is absolutely devoid is. of artistic taste; and this is after all the quality which In Mr. C. J. Holmes we have a very different person- counts.In these pictures there islittle of theun- ality. Here there is no question of guilelessness or in- unconsciously selecting mindthere is little of humanity genuousness. Mr. Holmesis very skilful, tres habile ; and of the spirit of the ordering man; there is none of but he knows a trick or two more than poor old Lemon. thepassion which willy-nilly generalisesand co Heis not the lessartistic for that. On the contrary. ordinates,transfigures and simplifies. For however Still, while standing in theCarfax Galleryone is per- much simplification may fail as a ‘conscious effort-and hapsa little too consicious of the cleverness’ of it all. mostmodern simplification is of this kind-thatsim- Why is this? Why does theundoubted charm of Mr. plification which arises unconsciously fromthe artist Holmes’decorative landscapes not captivateone literallybeing unable to see more thanthat which straightaway, without anyfurther ado? Why has appealsto his single ruling passion, is something that onecontinually on the tip of one’stongue, amid all everyone,save the corrupted layman orart-student, these wonderfullyshrewd andfascinating arrange- can tell at first sight.It is aquality thatcommands ments, simplifications,and patterns,the muttered andseduces. Itis one of thesigns of great power judgment that they are “canny,” well thought out, and It is obvious that this power is almost as completely brilliant? I suggestthat it is because Mr. Holmes is absent from ArthurLemon’s work as it isfrom Con- himselfstill too conscious of thesort of thingthat stable’s.Both painters have thesame ingenuous “pleases.”Let himonce be carried away by athing honesty. Both were a long way frombeing great that pleases for the moment himself alone, and we shall artists. get something a thousand times more irresistible than A generationthat has beenable to gazein wonder thesepictures now on exhibition. Then, also, we shall at such pictures asGauguin’s “L’Esprit Veille,” or find that he has forgotten one or twoof his mannerisms Van Gogh’s Orchards in Provence,in which the same in the fire of his enthusiasm, and his work will be re- ingenuousnessas that possessed by ArthurLemon is born from the experiment, freed from all the conscious coupledwith a skill andartistic taste which are infi- effortswhich now mar its beauty, orrather its con- nitely greater and more rare-such ageneration can vincingness. look only withtedium at the puerility of theEnglish- And Mr.Holmes can do this. Hehas it inhim to man. It is charming when one is begging for the loan fling all theserather “too able” conventions tothe of apocket knife from a rosy-cheeked lad to see him wind. Look at Carlisle Wall (No. 7), Floods at draw a bundle of tangledstring, a top, and a few Patterdale (No. IS), andthe WatchTower, Tenby coppers from his pocket, all glued together by a bit of (No. 27) ! A man who canpaint these things ought toffee. This is the sort of charm to be found in Arthur to scorn to captivatethis age .by means of pictorial Lemon’swork. Itis perfectlya definite thing; a embroideries. Add asingle human figure to Carlisle thingthat thousands belonging to the last generation Wall,and the thrilling drama would be so intense in still regard as the most delightful thing of all ; but it is its simplicity astomake Mr.Holmes’ brush a puerile-and there’s an end of it. While in the gallery weapon of overwhelmingpower, rather than of I noticed thatthe peoplewho were most enthusiastic overwhelmingcharm. No. 15, too, is excellent, so in their praise of the pictures were all men and women gravelyimpressive, so fullof deepand passionate in- well over middle-age ; peoplewho still gloatover terest in the plain things itportrays. I apologisefor Dickens and rave about Tennyson. my ignorance,but I amafraid I cannotsay off-hand And now I will makethree exceptions in favour of whether Mr. Holmes does or doesnot paint figures. Nos. 5, 87, and 134. In thesethree pictures itis If hedoes, they must be profoundly absorbing. At obvious thatArthur LEmon rises into adepartment any rate, he achieves the next best thing in this exhi- of his nature,which, if hehad but developed and bition, for the three pictures I have mentioned, though deepened it ‘by meditationand- rest, might have constituted landscapes are full of a thoroughly human quality. him not merely a good painter, but a powerful The hand of man is visible all over them. How could artist.The Campagna Romana (No. 5) isfull of the onenation produce both Lemon and Holmes without signs of greaterand nobler quality than that of the therebeing the most appalling conflict of aims and otherlandscapes. Breadth and easy generalisations aspirations in itssoul ! Of thetwo elements, how- takethe place of finnikinessand laboriously recorded ever, I cannothelp wishing that the latter may detail. Thereisa glimmering of rulinga passion triumph. 412

~ REVIEWS. Pastiche. Hilary’s Career. By Parry Truscott. (T. Werner “PURITY.” Laurie. 6s.) APlaylet in Two Scenes. The account of a parents’squabble over the pro- By A. W. N. GILLINGHAM. fessionalcareer of an only son,aged twelve. “ The public--God bless ’em-don’t wantanything new, or SCENE I. A street,dimly lit. Except for abanana-skin on the anythingoriginal, or anything clever.” The public is pavement, the street is empty. not trifled with in this novel ! Enter hurriedly a young lady of the typist class. She speaks :- Affair of State. By J. C. Snaith. (Methuen. 6s.) An A ‘‘I wonder if mother has got the kippers ; I’m hungry In the form of a novel Mr. Snaith has added a contribution enoughto eat a horse !” (She approaches banana-skin tribution tothe bewildering literature of industrial without seeing it.) politicsc Saysthe butler to his master, the President Y.L. : Oh, I do hope she’s remembered them, else there won’t be anything besides-. (She slips on the of theBoard of Conciliation : “ Forthe last twenty banana-skin andfalls heavily.Assistant in wings years, sir, the masses, in my opinion, have had a great makes necessary noise of impact.) Oh ! I believe deal too muchgiven tothem. Enlarged franchise, I’ve hurt myself!(She tries to rise.) Oh ! My which lies at the root of all the mischief, free food, free ankle ! I’ve broken it or something.(She weeps.) doctoring, free insurance, free education for their child- However shall I get home ? And the kippers will be ren,pensions for their old age,have put them right co-0-old ! abovethemselves, in my opinion. It is a case of all Enter young man, smartly dressed. masters and no servants nowadays. . . . And the more Y. M. (aside) : Hullo ! What the devil’s this? (He sees they get the more discontented they become.” Equally the banana-skin.) Oh ! (Advances.)Pardon me; original is the suggestion for the maintenance of sanity can I help you ? Y. I,. : I’ve fallen down, and I believe I’ve broken my andsafety in thedarkest hour of theGeneral Strike, ankle. if such an oneis ever possible in modernEngland. A Y. M. : Takemy hands, and stand on the other leg. RoyalProclamation is advised. “ It will callupon Now ! (She rises.) every able-bodied man in the kingdom between the ages Y. M. : Can you stand on it? (She tries, but winces with of sixteenand seventy, irrespective of creedor class, the pain.) to enroll himself immediately as aspeciai constable Y. I,. : No ! It hurts horribly. pledged and empowered to maintain law and order, and Y. M. : Will YOU waitwhilst I fetcha taxi ? you can to protect life and property to the utmost of his power.” lean on this window-ledge. Y.I,. : Thank you so much. Socialism. By John Spargo. (Macmillan. 2s. net.) (Exit Y. M., running.) Y. L. : I hope he won’t be long. It looks silly to be stuck This new and revised edition of a work first published here holding a window-sill. But won’t it be jolly to in 1906 owes its popularity as much to its plausibility go home in a taxi ! (Suddenly a thought strikes her.) as to its ,excellent outlines of Socialist economic theory. A taxi ! Mr. Spargo iscompetently familiar with the writings Enter (invisible) theSpirit of Paternal Government. Speaks : both of Socialist and the so-called classical non-Socialist Girlsare warned that they should never speakto economists. It iswhen he comes tothe discussion of strangers. If accosted by a stranger they should walk waysand means, in which studyalone ceases to be as quickly as possible to the nearest policeman. sufficient, that Mr. Spargo opens up controversies, and Y.L. : Oh ! that notice in the office ! only, we fear, persuades himself that he has closed them Spirit : They are warned never to accept a “lift” offered again,Like our own Mr. MacDonald, Mr. Spargo by astranger in amotor, or taxicab, or vehicle of sees no necessityfor a violentrevolution, nor, indeed, any description. for anything that can be called a revolution, violent or Y.L. : Oh ! What will become of me ? I am lost. I am betrayed ! peaceful. The“revolutionary evolution ” hehas in Re-enter Young Man in taxicab. mind is already we are to suppose, in course of deploy- Y. M. : I hope I haven’t been too long. I couldn’t find one ing. No one will be ableto date it, or to realiseits immediately. Take my arm and I will see you inside. successive moments, but,like dawn and Topsy, it will Perhaps you will let me see you home ? “ jest grow.”This optimism, while pleasing to timid Y.L. (recoils) : Go away ! I know what you are. I won’t meliorists, and notunpleasing to capitalists, would come with you ! You want to get me in one of those vanish,however, at the touch of realcriticism, not to awful places ! If you don’t go away I’ll scream and get a policeman ! say reality. Forit cannot be denied, except by the Y. M., embarrassed, apologises for his presence, and exit. blind, thatthe conquest of economicequality, asit Y. L. (hops across pavement and subsides in taxi) : Oh ! surpasses in importancethe conquest of political What a providential escape ! equality, must ipso facto surpass it in difficulty. Every Taxi-driver : Whereto, miss ? victory nominally won by Labour has so far been actu- Y.L. : LavenderVilla, Rose Avenue, Brixton. Would allyrecovered by Capitalwith interest; and all the you mindshutting the door? I’ve hurt myankle! meliorism of the last twenty-five years has but enlarged (She tries to raise her leg to rest it on the opposite dividends while leavingreal wages where they were seat.Driver sees her ineffectual endeavours.) Driver : Allow me, miss ! (Hegently raises thelimb, or below it. It isnot, therefore, by thesesteps that places it on the seat, and carefully adjusts her dress Labour will emancipate itself from wage slavery. On which has become displaced in the operation.) Whilst the contrary, we maintain that every such step plunges putting clutch in he winks and murmurs : A bit of the Socialistproletariat deeper in the mire. ’otstuff that! Veryjuicy ! Mr. Spargo, though he addsto this edition a new Curtain. chapter,takes noaccount of recentdemonstrations in the Socialist movement which effectually invalidatehis SCENE II Suburban home. Time : after tea. Atmosphere : burnt claim to present the “general opinion” of the Socialist gas, tobacco smoke,and kippers. movement. Two events, atleast, have occurred in A knock at thedoor is heard. Socialist thought on which no work on Socialism should Mother : Ah ! there’s ’Annah. Go an’ open the door, Jim ! in future fail to comment : first,the spontaneous and (Thehusband goes, leaving the door open.) practically universal discovery by Socialists that “ Col- Mother (shrieks) : Shutthat doo-our ! ’Ow many more lectivism ” is a capitalist ,dodge; secondly, the resulting times I got to tell yer ? D’yer want us all in bed wi’ bolt in thedirection of Syndicalism. Whether a third colds? , event must be added, greater than either of these,de- (The door is shut,and aftera shortinterval it re- opens.) pendsupon the perspicuityof thepresent Socialist Enter Hannah, leaning on her father’s arm. She limps movement. Guild Socialism (to distinguishitfrom to a chair. “Collectivism ”) has been formulated, but possibly be- Mother : W’ere you bin, gettin’ ’ome SO late ternight ? fore its time. Hannah : Oh ! mother, you don’t know what an escape 413 ~~- .. . ~.

I’ve had. If it hadn’t been for the notice in the office that I told you about I might never have come home I LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. again Mother : W’at ! That w’ite slavery notice? THE “ DAILY HERALD.” Hannah : Yes. Sir,-May I have again a small space in your columns Mother (with emotion) : My poor chi-i-ld ! (She comes for a fewmore words to “ Presscutter,” now that he has SO andputs her arm rounddaughter’s neck, and both openly shifted his ground? weep.) His firstcontention (January 23) with regardto the Father(raising hand) : Thank Gawd we’ve gotmen in “ Herald ” readers was that they could, but would not, pay Parli’ment w’at ain’t afraid of nobody ! ! more fortheir paper.Later, I see, it is theirinability Curtain. to pay that angers him. “The plea of poverty is shame- ful when it is not simply an excuse. . . .” NOW, unless “ Presscutter ” is a millionaire, poverty not being an abso- AT THE POSTMASTER’S. lute term, his position in relation to the millionaire is as “shameful” as that of the poorer ‘‘ Herald ” readers to BY ANTON TCHEKOV (TRANSLATED BY H.s.) those whose incomes necessitate the paying of income-tax A few daysago we buried the wife of our old post- Even if he does belong to thenoble order of the plutocrat, I master, Sladkoperzeff. After the pretty little woman had could suggest without difficulty some expenditure he could been consigned to the earth we went to the postmaster’s not afford. house in order to pay honour to the dead according to the And how can “ Presscutter ” logically condole with the custom of ourfathers “ Daily Herald ” and THENEW AGE ? for, according to his When the pancakes were being served, the old widower reasoning, their plea of poverty is a shameful one. If he began to weep bitterly, and said: tells me their poverty is the result of lack of proper sup- “ These very pancakes remind me of the dear departed port from their readers, I can point to the same lack on one. Theyare of the verysame bonny and wholesome the part of the employers of the poor ‘‘ Herald ” and New tint of brown.They are just asbeautiful as she was- AGEreaders. just as beautiful ! ” I do notunderstand ‘‘ Presscutter’s ” allusionto the “ Just so ! ” agreed several of the guests at this funeral resourcelessness of those who cannotjoin in groups to feast, r‘ your wife was really a very beautiful woman. A pay; for if they cannot pay the necessary sum as inde- most distinguished-looking woman ! ” pendent units, how could they as parts of a group ? Per- “ Yes, everybody who saw her admired her. But, gen- haps he was thinkingof investment as a meansof dilation tlemen, it was not because of her beauty that I loved her to the required amount. -not even because of herkind heart. These two quali- With regard to the remark about music-halls, cinemas, tiesare part and parcel of woman’s natureand we en- and football matches, I should like to know if ‘‘ Press- counterthem constantly in this life. It was for another cutter” himself adjures all spending except that involved qualitythat I loved her,a spiritual quality. That is to in bare living and education. Probably, as a member of say, I loved her,the dear, blessed soul (may God be the Press, he can effect a free entry to theatres,sports, etc., good to her ! ), because in spite of all the vivacity and should his tastes or duties point that way. But there are gaiety of her nature, she nevertheless remained faithful to other amusements, and I should like his assurance that he herhusband. She was trueto me thoughshe was not turns his back on all before I consider he has the right (not more than twenty-and I almost sixty. Yes, she was true necessarily then !) to censure the poor ‘‘ Herald ” reader to me-an old man ! ” The deacon, who made one of our party, permitted his who may try, with his few and cheap outings, to temper doubts to appear in aseries of significantgrowls and an existence of dreary toil. coughs. I will conclude by saying that we “ Herald ” leaguers think it of more lasting value to gain new readers for the “ You don’t believe it, then? ” askedthe widower turning towards him. paper (at +d. a copy) than to give IS. 6d. weekly, and keep the circulation of the paper within the small area of the “ Oh, yes, I do believe it,” the deacon returned em- barrassed, ‘‘ I merely wished . . . The young wives of few with the better-filled purses;and that we are not ourday are somewhattoo . . . what shall say ? . . . willing to accept the devil’s advocacy of “Presscutter.” rendezvous . . . suppers . . ” E. LIMOUZIN. *** “ No, you don’t believe what I say. But I will furnish you the proofs ! In all sorts of ways I ensured her being THE “EVENING NEWS ” ANDEDUCATION. faithful to me-by a kind of strategy-and by fortifying Sir,-Under the system of Guild-Socialism set before the my position, so to speak. It would have been utterly im- readers of THE NEW AGE by your contributor, I suppose possible for my wife to deceive me after all these clever the teaching profession will be given control of the educa- precautions of mine. I was particularly clever in devising tional affairs of the country, just as the writer of “Notes defences forthe sanctity of my home I knowcertain of the Week” advocated thatthe provision of medical words-watchwords one might call them. I went and benefits for theinsured should be handed over tothe s spoke these words. They were quite sufficient. After medical profession When theGuild ideal is attained, that I was assured of the fidelity of my wife and could surely the degradation of a great profession will be impos- deep in peace ! ” sible. As controlled at present, It seems that the Educa- ‘‘ But what may these words be ? ” tion Authority may gratuitously insult its staff with im- ‘I They are very simple. I spread a certain evil rumour punity.Last week the London County Council, along about the town. No doubt you haveheard this rumour. with several other such bodies, at the suggestion of the I said to everybody, ‘ My wife Aljona has a love affair “Evening News” decided that a pamphlet written by that with our chief of police, Ivan Alexejewitch Saliswatski,’ distinguishedcontributor to the “News,” Mr. Arthur No mandared to pay attentions tomy wife because Machen, should be read to the scholars to imprint on their everyone was afraid of thefury of the Chief of Police. memories the “imperishable heroism” of Captain Scott. The men usually scattered as soon as they set eyes upon Surely the teachers were capable of telling the simple her-so asnot to arouse the suspicions of Saliswatski. story of Captain Scott’s polar experiences. The aid the He ! he ! he ! For no man who was ever rash enough to of quarrel with this moustachioed ruffian ever enjoyed an- “Evening News” experts certainly was unnecessary. The other peaceful hour. Without winking an eye, this fellow impertinence of the suggestion mighthave been over- will issue half a dozen summonses against you for violat- looked if the work of A. M. was immeasurably superior to ingthe sanitary regulations. Or, for example,he may that of the averageteacher. A few extracts from the happen to see your cat promenading the street. Instantly pamphlet will show that this was not the case :-“These comes a summons-just as if it were some piece of stray men are all dead, and they died after dreadful-pain, in a dreadful place, called theAntarctic Region.’’ Later, we live-stock !” So your wife, after all, had no affair with Ivan Alexe- find‘‘dreadful pain,” “dreadful cold,” “terrible Ant- ‘‘ arctic,” “terrible storm,” etc. The style of the composi- jewitch? ” we asked,astonished, and with deep disap- pointment written on our faces. tiongiven as an example to the children can be noted from the following extracts :--“There is no proper land No ! That was only my cunning little way, you see. ‘‘ there.” “He knew how often men got ill and died in these He ! he ! he! Yes, you young fellows, I pulled the wool places because of what they had to eat there.” “The cold over your ears that time eh, what? That was the point began to freeze the water into hard ice.’’ “The story of of the whole joke ! ” Some threeminutes passed amidstuniversal silence. their trying to get back from the Pole.” We sat there dumb-shamed and annoyed to think that Thesefew extracts will suffice to show that A. M-’s this fat, red-nosed old fellow had duped us SO cleverly. ideas concerning the instruction of childrenare terribly Well, let us hope that, God willing, you may soon dreadful intheir scantiness.‘‘simply repeat dreadful ‘‘ and terrible often enough and the children must vividly marry again ! ” murmured the deacon. 414 -

realise any tragedy theteacher wishes to depict” seems to suspect as evidence could possibly be. On the bare word be A. M. ’S maxim. Doubtless some of the London teachers of two prostitutes a man named Frederick Jackson, a very were disgusted when they read the illustrious pamphlet. poor man was given 25 lashes, which means really 200 If any NEW AGE readers were among the victims I hope wounds. In another case appeal was refused in the face they will voice their disgust at theirnext union meeting. of the prison doctor’s testimony that the man was too ill UNCERTIFICATEDGUILDIST to be flogged. *** Where men are in a good position they can, as in the STATESMANSHIP BY STRIKE. case of the woman named Farrow, escape the net laid for Sir,--“P. in P.E.” opposes my view that the wealthy them-but a poor man has not much of a chance. Nor has classes would meet an increase of taxationby cutting a poor woman. I think that the “Times”was about the down unnecessary expenditure rather than by diminish- Only newspaper to publish a report of the charge brought ing what they would otherwise have had as capital, and against another woman by Ethel Maud Driver, assistant he says that “savings would suffer equally with spend- matron atthe Homes of Hope,Regent Square. Ethel ings.” Maud testified that she met FloraJohnson in apublic- My reply is : If a capitalist at present is faced with a house, had several drinks with her, and they went home new necessary addition to his expenditure of a permanent together.Afterwards they went out on thestreet to- nature, he does not usually make things worse for him- gether, where Floraaccosted men who treated themboth to self or his heirs by sapping his capital rather than his more drinks. Upon Floraaccosting the lastman, Ethel wasteful expenditure. I thinkcapitalists collectively Maud imploredhim to saveher. The kind gentleman may be trusted to hold on to their capital as long as they called the police-and Flora stands remanded withat- can; and with that end in view, not to surrender the tempting to procure Ethel Maud, who gives her age as producingpart of their wealth before their waste has twenty-eight ! been so “retrenched” that it is acomparatively small I rejoiced to read Mrs. E. Nesbit’s witty and merciless amount. reconstruction in the “Times,” February 20, of the Caxton Here, ‘I think, I can only leave the readers of THENEW Bazaar lady’s tale. One might censure the editor for in- AGE to umpire thepoint for themselves. sulting theintelligence of his readers, but considering that THE SECONDGuy’s MAN. the Bill which became an Act on the strength- of such *** yarns privately circulated, undoubtedly owed its passage THE ARTSAND CRAFTS. tothe shrieking support of Bishops, Lords, Commons, Sir,-Will you allow me yet a little more space for a Mrs. Mackirdy and Mr. Willis, most of whom read, and further word to Mr. Ludovici ? write for, the “Times,” perhaps the intelligence of these He tells us now that he “thoroughly disapproves of this people was never considered. In case it is supposed that cry of ‘Technique, Technique ! ’ which rises from the lungs the Bazaar Horror is thelargest camel thatthe white of all specialists the moment anyone attempts to express slavery imbeciles will swallow, allow me to quote the fol- his dislike of their results.” This is a disingenuous argu- lowing letter from the columns of Mr. Shaw’s latest plat- ment, seeing that the lungs which first exhaled the cry of form, “The Awakener,”also advertised every dayin “Technique !” were his own. the“Daily Herald.” Thedate of theletter is February In common with most fair-minded artists I welcome the First, 1913,year of Our Lord, and on the same page thestimulus of criticism in such mattersas proportion appeared a message to “The Awakener” from the Vener- and design. I likewise concede gladly to Mr. Ludovici, or able Albert Basil Orme Wilberforce, D.D., Archdeacon of any other critic, the right to expatiate upon the practical Westminster : “All success be yours.” functions of the cabinetmaker, provided that he will use To the Editor of “TheAwakener.” reasonable care and-intelligence in selecting instances to Dear Sir,-I should like through the columns of your prove his case. I am further prepared to admit the techni- splendid paper to put young girls on their guard against cal shortcomings of numerousworks inthis large and a favourite dodge of the fiends in human shapewho prowl heterogeneous collection; but let us keep clearly in mind in our midst, preying on girlish innocence. A girl should thepoint at issue. Mr. Ludovici chose his own ground, in no circumstances go to the assistance of a person run and I methim fairly upon it ; his contentionwas that over by a motor-’bus. The White Slave Trader does not the furniture designs gave very little promise because the hesitate to throw himself under the wheels of any passing craftsmen as a body were lacking in mastery of technique, vehicle in order toget in touchwith a likelyvictim. and that thiswas shown by a general slovenliness of work- Similarly I know cases where thesemen have set their manship. He now gives us details of thetests he em- own houses on fire and suffered themselves to be slowly ployed, and asks “Are these, or are these not, things of roasted in order to attract girls’ attention and enlist their sympathies which aman who is nota cabinet-maker can judge? ” They should be, in all conscience, but are we to belie\-e Trusting that you will put girls on their guard against that Mr. Ludovici applied his tests to any of the following these devilish devices.-I remain, yours faithfully, Jan. 23, 1913. E. B. FRANCIS. works ? The list is not exhaustive, but it includes several People who canhave theirlegs pulled likethis are of the pieces singled out fur adverse criticism : simply feeble-minded : yetto satisfy these, the Govern- Nos. as, 51, 56, 94, 98, 122, 375, 468, 532. ment has turned us into a flogging nation. That Act, an None of these IS my own work, but I have examined Act for the relief of flagellants, fools, and vixens, ought them all, not once but several times. I stake my reputa- to be repealed . BEATRICE HASTINGS. tionupon the assertion that every one of them,being *** subjected to suchtests, either by Mr. Ludovici or any- one else-layman or specialist-would justify itself as c2 Sir,---Some few weeks ago I addressed you on the sub- piece of consummate workmanship. How is this to he re- ject of a Frankfort native convicted of assault on a white conciled with the sentence which gives the keynote to the woman, and sentenced by SirAndries Maasdorp to six original critique : years’ imprisonment, a sentence which the women of the “But the greatest fault in all the furniture is surely district agitated to have supplemented by the lash. While its unworkmanlike, bad finish ? ” (The italics are mine). this man was in prison,another woman from theFree Mr. Ludovici protests that he is as well able as another State identified him out of all the dark faces in the coun- man to tell good work from bad. Very well, then. Did he try as one who had previously assaulted her. Sir, Frank- handle the works I have named? If he did, how came he fort drawing-rooms seethedagain But the judge, on the to leave them by implication under the wholesale stigma jury’s verdict, sentenced the native merely to another six of that sentence? If, on the other hand, he did not, how years’ detention, remarking that “there was no good pur- was he justified in writing such a sentence at all ? pose to be served by inflicting lashes.” Women have by HAMILTONT. SMITH. no means got their heads in this country. And, moreover, *** our judicial tradition is of merciful and enlightened Justice THEWHITE SLAVE ACT. tice : the English tradition is---Jeffreys, an ignorant and Sir,--Hitherto the evidence upon which the flogging Bill buffoon.degenerate OOM BOOMSLANG. was promoted has been wropt in mystery. Frightful horrors *** were hinted at and the hints were almost sworn to by all ON LEDDYESHER’S ACCOONT=KEEPIN’. sorts of pastorsand masters in Governmentand by EhSir! the cheek 0’ somefowk!Michty women. NOWthat the cases are beginning to come into hecht anddepth o’t ! A titled leddy taeeacbusiness-me! the the courts and to he detailed in the Press, the public can lassies accoont-keepin’ ! Ma certie ! the haverin’ quean. examine the evidence for themselves. Presumably the Noo, what wad she say tae her hoosemaid who offered strongest and not the weakest cases from the police point tae show ’er leddyship a minuet, an’ mind ye ! no’ jist of view have heen advanced and what do they amount to an’ or’nar’ minuet, but a proper minuet done pro-perly ? -cock-and-bull stories that nobody with any experience Govey ding ! some weemen ha’e nae logic, and some try of life could hearwithout a grin if the thing were not Nijinsky-lowps whar’ ithers save their br’ath. serious--if there were not magistrates anxious to decree A’ll tell ye aboot twa business lassies A ken-jist for a the lash? Men are being flogged on evidence abut as lauch ! The young ane 0’twa-an’-twinty works in London 415 .- __ - . - - frae 9 till 6 five-an’-a-half days a week for 30s.~and the CULTURE AND SEX. auld ane 0’ thirty worksfor an up-tae-d’ath firmfrom 8.45 till 8 and 9 o’clock six days a week for 40s- Noo, thae Sir,-Mr. J. M. Kennedysays : ‘‘ No cultured person twa lassies need a guid mony things 0’ the same natur’ ever thinks of taking the sex question seriously.” And that Leddy Esher needs, an’ nane 0’the three0’ them wad further on in the same article he says : “In French farces pit thae things doon in ony accoont, tho’ they’d nather sex is laughed at ; in serious plays it is not ‘discussed.’ forget the price nor the place 0’them in their mental sums But then sex is not a subject which is taken seriously by 0,’the week’s spendin’s. A merely mention this tae pint the artists of nations and races which have outgrown the oot that th’ethings pincelled plain in accoonts hardly ever primitiveness I have already referred to.” God bless me, accoont for a’ the money spent, and the things no’ there theFrench novelists are faced bynothing else butthe are no’ tae say forgotten aboot. Na, na ! sex question. George Sand,Maupassant, Zola, notto Faith ! it’s an awfu’ peety her leddyship couldna ludge mention Rousseau and Renan, all treat this subject ela- wi’ ma freends for a month. Wi’ 30s. a week tae keep the borately and seriously. It is the principal subject of their paintaff, she wad never ha’e to write doon mairthan novels. aince that her share 0’ the clean wee bedroom and match- But sex, according to MI-. Kennedy,is a primitive box sitting-roomtwelve miles oot 0’ London was 5s. a quality, and is only held in high estimation by primitive week, nor that her workman’s ticket tae “Waterloore- uncultured people ! Well, eatingand drinking are as turn” was gs. a week mair, nor that the daily worryin’ primitiveas sex, and the cultured. take these functions waste 0’ 3d. tae-an’-frae, say,Regent Street (whar’her rather moreseriously thanthe uncultured. Where has leddyship would work), added yetanither IS. 6d. Then Mr. Kennedy lived that he has found the cultured look- alloo’in Lady Esher ahale saxpence forthe nameless ing upon the sex question as frivolous and the simple look- things she couldna’ forget she wad find her wee bit purse ing on i’i as serious ? My experience inEngland and raped 0’its first ten bob withoot a stump 0’ pincel tae Scotlandis thequite reverse. PRIMUS. paper. *** Weel, it wad tak’ mairthan LeddyEsher’s share 0’ brainstae stretch her second half sovereign ower the THE METHODS OF MR. BARKER. week’s food. For mind ye ! (though it’s a secret)ma lassies are Scotch, andher leddyship wad find that a sardine Sir,-Mr. Webb does not admirethe modern theatre didna’ fill their wames at luncheon, nor ac hap’ny bun at but he has defended the Barker theatre, which is the most teatime. modern. He hasdone this, I imagine, because he has not taken the term “ gramophone record ” literally--as I Tired an’ hungry at nicht, she wadna’ be fashed gaun intended itto be taken. To be fully qualified or this tae learn her ledger at Craig’s Court, she wad jist ‘‘gang controversy Mr. Webb and theothers shouldhave had hame.” In thetrain she’d wistfully wonder whatthere actualexperience of Mr. Barker’s method. Mr. Barker’s lnicht be for supper, and hope it micht na’ be horrible method is the appendage of Shaw-Galsworthy “realism.” cocoa again!She lnicht e’en daurtae think 0’ thein- solence o’ well-dined weemen teachin’ hungry un-dined To fasten this appendage upon Shakespeare is quitea work-girls hoo yet they micht add mair accomplishments modern idea,and a bad one. I havestated my case to, the 15s.-a-week job. Guidness ! she’d be fair forfouchen against the muddling-up of Shakespeare with this Shaw- wi’ tap-tap-tappin’the accoonts o’ titled weemen an’ Galsworthy “ realism ” in terms which are losing their chorus-girls a’ day, an’ micht ponder ower the possi- pureand original meanings. Spontaneity, impulse, bility o’ ever possessin’ enough, her very ane sel’, to “open individual emotions, temperament,personality. etc.-all an account” hersel’. But she’d haemair important these words are now expressive of one dreadful thing- unlimited licence and “ artisticanarchy.” “ Spon- thochts than thae. She’d hae tae hoosekeep hersel’ ower the week-end in food and fire an’ licht, pay her landlady taneity ” means the “Star System “ impulse ” means for a’ the brekfasts an’a’ the suppers an’ theSunday an actor-manager, “emotlon means “incompetent” denner, an’ senda 5s. postalorder “hame tae mither.” actors,” ‘‘ freedom ” means immediate insanity. “Space” Her leddyship wad mak’her shabb shoon daeanither is too awful to contemplate. fortnicht,an’ that bonny 2s. IId. blouse she wad hae The rational alternative to these violent things is a good likedtae buy she’ll makher ain sel’ next week for a strong dose of Mr. Barker’s “ Savoy grammophone--or shullin’ less, tho’ she’d wish it was simmer sune tae see prison. In conclusion, Mr. Barkerhasinterpreted hy, for her een wad be sair wi’ shorthand an’ electric licht. Shakespeare in Shaw values and in terms of Shaw The Leddy Esher micht na’ counsel tae live sae faur oot 0’ method which he uses to produce Shakespeare came out of the toon. She wad save on trains and buy an annuity wi’ Shaw Butthe plays of Shakespeare are not like the thethree shullin’s? But ma lassiesare Scotch (an’ain plays of Shaw, and cannot be rightly produced in terms draps her t’s still when she speaks !) an’ need the blessed of Shaw They are Shakespeare, and possess a value of fresh air that blaws a’ the Sundays, Simmer an’ Winter, their own which has nothing whatever to do with the ower Epsom Downs an’ Ashtead Woods, which a’ helps Shaw value Shakespeare is spontaneous; Shaw is (wi’ guid food an’ the grace 0’ God) tae keep the paint aff gramophonic Hence, Barker’s gramophones. their faces. . . . An’ forbye, has her leddyship ever Aver- AN ACTOR. . w- tised for a double bedroom within ten minutes’ walk 0’ Oxford Street? Losh ! she’d be fair ’mazed at the scores Any condition. I pay 0’ replies,and the prices-Govey Ding! Ma freends are highest prices. Id. to no’ sae awfu’ Scotch, they can put on the English accent 213 per tooth, pinned for a’ lauch, but they’re ower Scotch for thae prices ! on Vulcanite ; 411- on Ma word ! a’ the late Sprin ma hoose is fu’ 0’ the bonny Silver : 61- on Gold ; cooslips they send ta me, aniA mak’ jam in October wi’ 71- to 22/- on Platinum. Prompt Cash. Satisfaction guaranteed the brummles they pu’thegither. I’ll gieLady Esher or goods returned. Rankers : Parrs. their address if she’d like tae jine them-on 30s. a week, S. CANN (Dept. 451), 69a,Market Street,MANCHESTER of coorse, which she’d hae tae earn, yeken-an’ she winna’ need a’ pincel tae keep her aumonts.-A’rn juist WANTED.--A permanent Country Cottage (3 bedrooms), Un- JANET. furnished, isolated, within 50 miles of London, preferably pine district *** For literarypeople. No agentsneed reply, but recommendationsof Private persons will begratefully acknowledged.-Address, Box A.I., THENEW AGE. CONSCRIPTS OF HUNGER. A FIRM OF CO.OPERATIVE PRINTERS (specialising in Sir,-Apropos of the article by Mr. Brctte Morgan on Offset Lithography and Letterpress)are open to estimate and Offer “ Thepath to glory. . .,” the following cutting-, taken suggestions for printing and publishing booklets and illustrated work.--OFFSET from a northern paper, on November 27, 1911,might prove LITHO,LIMITED Martell Road West Dulwich London. Phone Brixton, 463. of interest :- Colonel A. J. A. Wright, of Leeds, speaking upon national defence at a Bradford meeting on Saturday night, said that from a record which he had made of ,the reasons given to himby recruits wishing to join the armyhe foundthat 70 per cent. were conscripts of hunger,and would not have joined if they had been assured of a job ; five. percent. joined because they wanted to serve-and those were the first-class soldiers; ten per cent.enlisted because they had ‘‘ had a row,” had been in trouble with theirparents or withtheir sweetheats ; andthe re- mainder joined the ranks because they were getting only 16s. a week wages, and army rates compared favourably. JAMES WARDROPPER. 416