PAGE PAGE NOTESOF THE WEEK..................... 25 UNEDITEDOPINIONS : Money-changers in Literature ...... 35 VERSE: The Hypocrite. By Gilbert Thomas ......... 26 AMERICANNOTES. By Juvenal ............... 36 FOREIGNAFFAIRS. By S. Verdad ............... 27 BOOKSAND PERSONS. By Jacob Tonson ......... ... 37 THE DECLINEAND FALL OF THE LABOURPARTY. By Cecil CHRISTINA ............... ......... 38 Chesterton ..................... 28 THEREAL MEANING OF PRAGMATISM.By Professor Albert VERSE: Field Grasses. By Ruth Pitter ............ 29 Schinz ........................ 41 OLD LAMPSAND NEWWICKS. By T. H. S. Escott ...... 30 THE“ BLUEBIRD ” AND BERGSONIN PARIS. By Huntly Carter 43 RURALNOTES. By Avalon .................. 31 LETTERSTO THE EDITORFROM Walter Jerrold, Frederic Hillers- PUBLICHOUSES II. By Stephen Reynolds and Robert Woolley 32 don, C. J. Whitby, M.D., Hugh Blaker, J. M. Kennedy, A CLARIONCRITIC. By Alfred E. Randall ......... 33 S. Verdad, E. H. Visiak, Norreys Connell ...... .... 45 SPECIALNoTE.-All communications, whether re- Eating to the editorial, business, advertising or to consolidate the series of measures which Mr. Lloyd George has condensed into a single Bill have so far publishing departments, should be addressed to THE failed. On one other point also it appears to us that NEWAGE, 38, Cursitor Street, London, E.C. the Government are acting wisely. They intend if possible to pass the’ whole measure in the present session. That is quick work indeed for English NOTES OF THE WEEK. politicians; but it may be noted that the famous Ghent No great Bill was ever better received than Mr. Lloyd scheme, which Mr. Lloyd George quoted so approv- George’s National Insurance Bill. From the most un- ingly, was carried after only half an hour’s discussion. expected quarters the praise showered upon both the *** Bill and its author has been lavish. Reserve of a We may be sure that not only the economic but the friendly character has been made in regard to the de- political consequences of the Bill have been taken into tails of the Bill; but in regard to its principles no voice account. These are obviously extremely favourable has been raised in opposition up to the moment of our from the Liberal Party standpoint. Indeed, Mr. Lloyd writing these notes. This is by no means remarkable, George may be said to have come by means of this since, in spite of all the discussion of the last twenty Bill in the very nick of time to extricate his Party from years, the distinction between Social Reform and Social what promised to be a difficult position. Enthusiasm Amelioration has yet to be generally realised. for the Parliament Bill has, as everybody knows, de- Generally, do we say? Not more than half a dozen clined rather than increased in the country at large; publicists in England, partisan, non-partisan, Collec- and it is quite probable that with the imminence of tivist or Socialist, have the faintest notion of the direc- Home Rule and Welsh Disestablishment, the fortunes tion in which legislation by sentiment without science is of the Liberal Party would have been still further de- carrying the country. Nor is it likely that for some pressed. Exactly as by his Budget Mr. Lloyd George time this handful of thinkers will be increased; for the lifted his Party from the Slough of Despond, so now he social drift of the age involves not merely England, has lifted them again. The prestige of the Government but the Continent and the English-speaking world. It in the public mind has been suddenly renovated; and would require a Galileo to discover and to proclaim that for the first time for some months Mr. Maxse’s unceas- in fact the world moves in a contrary direction. ing diatribes in the “ National Review ” appear comic. *** We by no means imply that they cease to have their There need be no fear whatever that the Bill, when usual truth. But in appearances, at any rate, which finally passed, will not work. In several towns in are half the battle in that subtle power we call prestige, France, notably Dijon, Orleans and Paris, it is true the Government has already gained enormously by Mr. that a contributory scheme of insurance has so far George’s new Bill. A secondary consideration, which failed to command the adhesion of workmen; but in however, has not been neglected, is the effect of the Germany, Belgium, and elsewhere, schemes quite as Bill upon the fortunes of the new Tory Democracy. elaborate as Mr. Lloyd George’s run on oiled wheels. Mr. F. E. Smith has been generous enough to welcome Germany, indeed, may, and does, feel immensely the Bill with both hands; and, indeed, Unionists every- flattered that her own schemes have been the chief where have been loud in its praises. But the observa- model of Mr. George’s. In some respects, however, tion may be ventured that in so doing these Unionists the Government has bettered the instruction. What have driven a nail into the coffin of their hopes. If, as was initiated by the German Imperial Rescript of 1881 we believe, the country is actually set upon social required at least ten years and half a dozen Bills to amelioration, the present Government has now plainly carry out. Mr. George’s Bill proceeds to their conclu- established its right to power. A very different pro- sion by a single bound. Nor do we share Mr. Austen qramme from that of Mr. F. E. Smith’s Committee will Chamberlain’s view that this course is to be regretted. be needed to dislodge it. Doubtless the Government Bill is immensely compli- *** cated, and equally without doubt the two subjects with Superficial observers will say at once that the National which it deals, namely, sickness and unemployment, Insurance Bill is a great piece of Socialist legislation. ’have little in common; but sooner or later, if they had Once upon a time we should have said the same thing ‘been introduced separately, their administrations would ourselves. What leading Socialists have advocated for have become mutually involved, and a Consolidation years and what the majority of them now declare to be Bill would be necessary. But, as Germany has dis- an instalment of Socialism should surely be at least covered, a Consolidation Bill, of all Bills, is the most Socialist in character. Besides, has it not been gener- difficult to draft and pass. The attempts in Germany ally admitted that Laissez-faire is at last dead,-killed 26 by this Bill? Mr. Garvin himself has said it. And is is fast becoming that society; and the abandonment of not Laissez-faire the very opposite of Socialism? If Laissez-faire means no more than that the Society is Laissez-faire be dead, it is Socialism that must have is now formally incorporated. We readily admit the killed it. Contraries alone exclude contraries, as Plato need; but to statesmen we should a5 certainly have de- pointed out. But, at the risk of appearing as an nied the necessity. The stereotyping of status involved Ishmaelitish Mrs. Partington, we must deny all the in Social Reform is the greatest obstacle both to assumptions involved in this line of reasoning. Laissez- Humanism and Socialism that the modern world has faire is not the contrary of Socialism, nor is Laissez-faire ever known. dead. State responsibility for the worker is not *** Socialism, nor under the present Bill or all the Bills We will not, however, leave our readers quite com- together of the Government, is even State responsibility fortless. Our gloomy forebodings are shared, as we for the worker established. Finally, the stereotyping of say, by no more than a small handful of perhaps status now rapidly in progress and almost completed negligible thinkers. We are not only few ; we may by the National Insurance Bill, is in our opinion as con- be wrong. It is true that wages have tended to trary to Socialism as it is at the same time contrary to decline by just so much as the State has spent in Laissez-faire. These distinctions may and doubtless provision for distress. It is true that the law of will appear to most people as altogether too fine to be economic rent is iron. It is true that Bills of the same of the smallest importance, but what appear as fine good intent as Mr. Lloyd George’s have hitherto only distinctions in the initial stages of a long controversy piled up wealth and aggravated poverty. But perhaps often appear at its close as the only distinctions that with so much enthusiasm for Social Reform as now really mattered. We are convinced that it is necessary, seems burning in all parties, these iron laws may be for pioneer historians and students at any rate, to keep melted in this last instance. Besides, more mundane their minds clear on these points. considerations will show that if we are to retain the *** party system-and there seems no escape-the Unionists must find an alternative and an opposing That Laissez-faire is not the contrary of Socialism programme of Social Reform. And this may just as may be made clear to the dullest mind by a simple well be Socialist as not. They have at any rate the illustration. If a theory called Socialism arose with prior claim to a land policy and to the leadership of the the declared intention of abolishing by equalising the country parishes ; where, indeed, Socialism can alone respective statuses of domesticated horses and their vitally begin. It is the cities and city men who have present human employers, it would be no application of misled England. It may be the parish squires who the theory to transform the practice of turning out the will lead us back.