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THE NEW AGE, July 25, 1908

THE BOURGEOISIE. By UPTON SINCLAIR.

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

No* 724 series. Vol. III. No. 13] SATURDAY, JULY 25, 1908. C”“*] ONE PENNY

CONTENTS. PAGE PAGE

NOTES OF THE WEEK . . . ,.. . . . .,, . . . 241 ORIOLE NOTES. By Beatrice Tina . . . . . . . . . 250 THE EDUCATION BILL. By Sir Hartley Williams . . . . . . 244 ANDREA D'AGNOLO (DEL SARTO). By Eden Phillpotts . . . 250 THE KIDDIES AND THE FLOWERS. By Kennington Cross . . . 244 MR. S. G. HOBSON'S ATTACK ON THE LABOUR PARTY. By WHY DO WE SEND OUR CHILDREN TO THE DOCK? By W. R. R. C. K. Ensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Titterton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245 BOOKS AND PERSONS. By Jacob Tonson . . . . . . . . . 252 GOOD BREEDINGOR EUGENICS. -XIII. By M. D. Eder . . . 246 BOOK OF THE WEEK : Virgil. By W. Bailey-Kempling . . . 253 WOMEN AND WAR. By Richmond Haigh... . . . . . . 247 REVIEWS : The English People Overseas . . . . . . . . . 254 MILITARY EDUCATION AT WHITEHALL. By Dr. T. Miller DRAMA : Towards a Dramatic Renascence.-II. By Dr.

Maguire ,, , ., . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248 L. Haden Guest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256 THE BOURGEOISIE. By Upton Sinclair . . . . . . . . . 249 CORRESPONDENCE . . , . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

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

Took’s Court, Furnival Street, E.C.

NOTES OF THE WEEK. THE event of last week was the publication in the “ Daily Chronicle ” of Count Tolstoy’s open letter to the governors of Russia. Were all the rest of his work

destroyed, this mighty philippic would suffice alone to secure its author such immortality as men may claim. Written at an age when the vast majority of those who use their brains have lost all but the shadow of their youthful powers, it must take its place among the

great documents of history. Quite apart from its political significance, its remarkable character can scarcely be exaggerated. To read it is to be convinced that the man who wrote it could have founded a great religion.

* +i *

Gladly would we reprint the whole. But for the pre-

sent we can only offer to those who have not already seen the complete letter a quotation from its culmi- nating passage :-

“ I cannot help feeling that my peace is really de-

pendent on all the horrors that are now being perpe-

trated by the Government. And being conscious of

this, I can no longer endure it, but must free myself

from this intolerable position ! It is impossible to

live so. That is why I write this, and will circulate

it by all means in my power, both in Russia and

abroad ; that one of two things may happen : either

that these inhuman deeds may be stopped, or that

my connection with them may be snapped and I put

in prison, where I may be clearly conscious that

these horrors are not committed on my behalf ; or,

still better (so good that I dare not even dream of

such happiness), they may put on me, as on those

twenty or twelve peasants, a shroud and a cap, and

may push me also off a bench, so that by my own

weight I may tighten the well-soaped noose round

my old throat.”

We heartily congratulate the “ Daily Chronicle ” on having had the honour of publishing the greatest humanitarian appeal ever written. But we cannot con- gratulate it on the manner in which it has accepted that honour. The attempt of its leader-writer to express sympathy with the “noble outburst ” of the spokesman of the Russian people and at the same time to defend the insane rapprochement between British Liberalism and Russian despotism would have been ludicrous but for its painful servility. Perhaps, however, we should rather sympathise with those who are in the predica- ment of the “Chronicle.” To be unable to question the policy of such a Foreign Secretary as he in whom the Liberal Party now rejoices must be an unhappy fate.

* * *

For many reasons we hope that Count Tolstoy’s “ tremendous indictment ” will be widely disseminated in the country without delay. Persistent rumours that the Tsar is about to pay us a visit defy Sir Edward Grey’s assurances to the contrary, and it is well that a suitable welcome should be prepared. Report suggests that the Isle of Wight is the only portion of Great Britain in which the arch-murderer feels he can safely stay, and that landing there, he will venture no further, But what has the Isle of Wight done to deserve this indignity? We have never before heard it suggested

that Newport and Ryde were strongholds of royalism, or that their inhabitants lacked the ordinary prejudices of free men. Indeed, if we remember aright, it was in Carisbrooke that the last man who attempted to rule this country despotically was imprisoned. In any case, we trust that the gallant 59 who voted against the Reval visit will not forget that we are all relying upon them, and will see that these rumours are either confirmed. or dispelled before the motion for adjourn- ment comes on. A determined protest would probably prevent the visit, even if it be already arranged. The Tsar, we understand, has all the personal nervousness for which his brother-potentate in Constantinople is noted.

* * *

It is announced that the King is to go from Marien- bad to Ischl in the middle of August to meet the Emperor of Austria. This, we trust, will complete the series of international visits. The Kaiser has been to England, King Edward has been to Russia, President

JULY 25, 1908

Fallières came here last month, and will be at Reval this week, and now our King visits Austria. The plain man, in the street or elsewhere, may well ask what it all means, whether indeed the result does not cancel out to nothing. Politicians seem to think other- wise, and some perhaps regard King Edward’s Aus- trian tour as a spying out of the land. However, Ischl is not Reval, nor ‘Francis Joseph the Tsar, and we have no complaints to make. The life of the aged Emperor, like that of his contemporary, Queen Vic- toria, has been a singularly harmless one. It is his death that will be the very devil.

* * *

For half a century or so the Great Powers have been trying, or pretending to try, to reform the government of Turkey. They have never met with the slightest success. At last there are signs of a strong and healthy revolutionary movement amongst the Turks themselves. The Young Turks, as those are called who are awake to the advantages of political freedom, have suddenly shown that their power and determination are not such negligible quantities as was generally supposed outside Turkey. Armed rebellion has begun on a large scale. One Governor has been assassinated and another rendered hors-de-combat. The Sultan’s European troops are refusing to march against the rebels, and in many cases are actually joining them. What will be the outcome it is impossible to forecast. But whether Abdul Hamid prevails or no, it is certain that a good sprinkling of his subjects have learned to covet liberty, and will never rest till they have achieved it.

* * 3c

Civilisation, we are told, has travelled West. It seems that constitutionalism is travelling East. In Russia, in Turkey, and in Persia we are witnesses of its birth-pangs. The next generation may see its ac- complishment still further East. In India Mr. Tilak is on trial for sedition, and the eagerness with which the proceedings are being watched all over the country shows how wide and deep are the roots of the National movement he represents. His magnificent defence of the views and aspirations of his party will be made known to the people through the native newspapers, and will penetrate even beyond the reach of the Press through news-agencies of a sort unknown to the West. Such eloquence will not be lost.

* * *

Whether we like it or not, it is impossible any longer to deny that the demand for Indian autonomy is as extensive as it is serious. It is of no use talking con- temptuously of “a few over-educated Babus wanting to govern the rest of their countrymen.” Rather must we recognise that the movement is already large and articulate, and that in such matters there is no going back. It may. be admitted that India is as yet unfitted

,- for self-government on a large scale ; that most of her population could not even understand the meaning of a vote ; and that to place supreme power in the hands of the Westernised minority would be to invite disaster and betray the masses. To-day these facts are unques- tionable. But equally so is the further statement that at some future time they will no longer be true. It is on ‘that day rather than on the present that we must fix our attention. If we remember that it is coming, and frame our reforms accordingly, then we may hope for a peaceful transformation. But if we forget, then inevitably we shall find ourselves faced with just such a’ situation as that which is now perplexing Tsar and Sultan and Shah.

x- * *

The discussion in the House last week on the Naval Estimates was chiefly interesting for its exposures, The furious controversy as to the relative strengths of England and Germany has been carried on for the past year as if neither country possessed anything but “ Dreadnoughts. ” This, it now appears, is not the case. In point of fact, we have a great many other battleships of the first class, not to mention armoured

cruisers by the score and smaller vessels by the hun- dred. These unconsidered trifles, according to Dr. Macnamara are amply sufficient to secure the two-Power standard without a superiority in Dreadnoughts.

* x- *

Another exposure was of the purblindness of the present Government in the matter of industrial economy. With unutterable scorn Mr. McKenna dis- missed the suggestion of Mr. Gretton that the state of - employment in dockyards should be considered in the arrangement of naval construction. None but naval considerations, he declared, should govern the laying down of England’s warships - forgetting for the moment how frequently political considerations enter into ‘these matters. That, however, is by the way. What we complain of is that in this year of grace 1908 a leading member of the Cabinet should be SO

ignorant of the elements of the unemployed problem. Mr. McKenna, with his colleagues, has a sincere desire to solve that problem. Yet he is still unaware that it can never be solved except (inter alia) by the Admiralty and all other public employers deliberately regulating the amount of work done in different seasons. It is as great nonsense to say that the state of employment should never be considered as to say that that con- sideration alone should govern Admiralty policy. We suspect that when the new Unemployment Bill which is promised for next session comes along Mr. McKenna will have to eat his words.

* * *

On the following day- the consideration of the Budget was renewed. Mr. Snowden proposed a reduction of the tea duty from 5d. to 3d as a step towards the aboli- tion of all indirect taxation. To show the injustice of the present tariff, he produced figures proving that while the man with £1 a week pays taxes equal to 2s. 8d. in the pound, the man who earns £2,000 a year pays no more than 9¾d. The Government, he added, came into power on “free food,” yet to the consumer there was no difference between a tax upon tea and a tax upon corn. Mr. Hobhouse, in reply, admitted that the tax was unjust and repugnant to the finer feelings of the Government, but pleaded the financial impossibility of removing it.

* 3i *

We are tired of commenting upon these habitual confessions of impotence on the part of the strongest Government of modern times, and we will only sug- gest that the importance of the subject demanded at the least an answer from the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer. No one in the country can yet have for- gotten the great campaign which was waged against the tea duty by the Liberals when in opposition. Posters depicting desolate and tealess homes were on every hoarding and helped to defeat Unionist candi- dates at by-election after by-election right up to the General Election itself. Yet on Tuesday last Mr. Lloyd George did not even pay Mr. Snowden the common courtesy of being present to hear his speech. It is extraordinary that the Government, however care- less of other considerations, should fail to realise the obvious tactical advantages of abolishing this indirect taxation. Imagine the effect of being able to go to the country and say : “We have taken off all the taxes upon your food ; we have given you a free table for tea and supper as well as for breakfast ; the Tories propose to go back and add to the old new taxes on corn and perhaps on meat. Which of us will you have ? ” There is nothing in the way of this but “financial im- possibility. ”

w * +

On Wednesday Mr. S. Roberts moved to reduce the income tax with the usual appeal to precedent and Mr, Gladstone and the usual description of it as ‘( a war tax. ” He also quoted Mr. Asquith’s promise to relieve the income tax payer when opportunity arose. Mr, Lloyd George, in reply, accepted full responsibility for the pledges of his predecessor, but added drily that he saw no prospect of the said opportunity arising,

THE NEW AGE

In Japan, he casually informed the House, there was now a graduated income tax, rising to as much AS

5s. in the £, and he had been told personally by the Japanese Chancellor of the Exchequer that the experi- ment was working quite satisfactorily. It is a new experience for us to learn interesting facts of this sort

from a Minister instead of having ourselves to press them on his attention ; but it is none the less welcome for that. Already our Eastern ally has proved her efficiency in war. social legislation ?

Is she now to show us the way in

* * *

When Mr. Roberts had been disposed of, Mr. Chiozza Money moved an amendment to secure a declaration of income from all taxpayers. At present only those who are poor enough to claim abatement are required to disclose their total income, and consequently we have no information as to the probable revenue that would be obtained by a tax graduated all the way up the scale. Mr. Lloyd George, however, declined to clear the ground for future developments. Possibly the gambler’s instinct forms part of that inscrutable Welsh personality. He does not care to know how many eggs there are before he robs the roost. We confess to some sympathy with him in this case-provided, of course, that he really intends to rob the roost-but the information would have been acceptable, all the same.

* 9 *

The Home Secretary has been making valiant efforts to retrieve his character as an administrator. Severely as he was heckled last week about the. imprisonment of the Suffragettes he never lost his stolid official atti- tude. Except once ; and that was when Mr. Alden asked him whether there was any precedent for such treat- ment in cases of political prisoners. With startling and brilliant irrelevance came the reply : “ Does my honourable friend suggest that political murder should not be punished?” Another question, asked by Mr. MacNeill, his face blazing with honest indignation, was as to whether these ladies were obliged to wear the cast-off clothes of other prisoners. “ New clothes can- not be supplied for every prisoner,” remonstrated the Home Secretary. That they should be allowed to wear their own clothes was a solution which did not occur to him. A most lamentable lack of imagination has characterised the proceedings of the Government throughout in this matter. Feeling themselves-quite reasonably-to be in the right, they have adhered with petty persistence to the letter of the law. They have insisted upon the justice of punishing street dis- turbances, when a generous recognition of the legiti- macy of the agitation would have diverted sympathy to their side. To tiresome interruptions they have replied with petulant reproaches and discourteous refusals to receive properly constituted deputations. In short, they have played up to their opponents by show- ing annoyance. On two occasions Mr. W. E. Glad- stone peremptorily dismissed the demands of the women, but he never let himself look a fool.

* + *

Mr. Balfour’s speech in the Queen’s Hall on the education difficulty opened new vistas of religious con- troversy. Professing to be the bearer of a message of peace he defended with studied arrogance the superior claims of the Church of England. He declared his firm adherence to the principle of tests for teachers, and ridiculed those who are dissatisfied with the 1902

settlement. His only new proposal was that the Cowper-Temple clause should be repealed and denominational teaching introduced into the Board schools. In other words, he proposes now to sow discord in the only schools that have escaped the demoralising effects consequent upon the war of the Churches. The cause of education is to be sacrificed in order that the Opposition may have a new pawn to

play. The sinister figure of Mr. Balfour feeding the flames of sectarian strife conjures up Mephistophelian memories.

We can now state definitely that the Old Age Pen- sions Bill will pass through the Lords without either delay or serious amendment. The “ Times ” has issued a Bull threatening the Upper House with dire pains and penalties if it should venture to obey the “ Spec- tator ” and give effect to its private opinion of the measure. In that assembly Lord Northcliffe’s organ still retains its ancient pontifical authority, and we may rest assured that the instructions of the heavy father of journalism will be followed to the letter. The constitutional position, the Peers are informed, is very intricate, and unless they acquiesce in a Bill which is really part of the Budget “ they will place them- selves in a very difficult and dangerous situation. No word is said of political expediency. Thus. is dignity preserved and England saved from untold disaster,

t + ”

We have received some documents from Mr. T. C. T. Potts alleging gross misgovernment of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, which are remote British dependencies situated in the Western Pacific. Mr. Potts has peti- tioned the King for an inquiry into certain grave alle- gations of himself and a trader, Mr. Lodge, and also into the circumstances under which a concession was granted to the Pacific Phosphate Co. This company appears to have been fortunate enough to obtain from the authorities a ninety-nine years’ monopoly of the phosphate deposits of the Paanopa Island, at a rental of £50 per annum, and in two years’ working its net profit was £85,000! It is an unpleasant coincidence that Lord Stanmore, sometime Governor of Fiji, and High Commissioner of the Western Pacific, is chair- man of this concern.

* * *

Other charges which we have not had time to scrutinise and verify are brought by Mr. Potts against Mr. Campbell, the present Resident Commissioner. The statements of fact set out in the Petition involve reflections of a most serious character on the integrity

of Mr. Campbell and other officials in the Colonial service. A careful perusal of the documents before us certainly lends colour to the view that Mr. Campbell should be transferred to a less responsible post, and that Mr. Potts has been the victim of gross persecution. Lord Crewe would be well advised to order a searching investigation into the matter.

+ * *

The action for libel brought by Mr. Jack Williams against the “ Daily Express ” was heard last week, and some of its features should interest Socialists who may at any time contemplate similar proceedings in the courts of justice. The “ Express ” had stated that Mr. Williams was a confirmed loafer, that he was con- victed last summer and fined for being drunk and dis- orderly, and that he had used obscene language in addressing a meeting of the unemployed on Tower Hill. The question at issue was as to whether these statements were true or false. On the first the jury preferred their own opinion of Socialists in general to the direct evidence of the plaintiff’s employer for the last sixteen years ; on the second they refused (in effect) to accept the statement of the clerk of the court in which the plaintiff was alleged to have been so con- victed ; and on the third they accepted the recollections of the “ Express ” reporter and a friend of- his against the evidence of the police, who had taken a full short- hand note of the speech and declared that it contained no obscenity whatever. The jury are, however, per- haps less to be blamed for their bias than the Lord Chief Justice, who in summing up the evidence sug- gested to them that if they found for the plaintiff (the verdict which he naturally expected) they should award only nominal damages, since people who expressed such views (i.e., Socialist views) could scarcely be “ really damaged by this sort of thing.” The costs of both sides fall on Mr. Williams, who cannot afford to appeal.

* * *

[NEXT WEEK.--“ Porker on Women,” by Ashley Dukes ; Occasional Reflections,” by Edgar Jepson; H. Quelch on Socialist Policy.” Also First Part of a Lecture (specially

ranslated for the NEW AGE) on “Free Union,” by Dr. Auguste Forel.

244 --- THE NEW AGE July 25, 1908

The Education Bill. By Sir Hartley Williams.

WHAT has become of this Bill? It has undoubtedly been very sick. Is it then moribund, or is there any reason- able prospect of its restoration to health? Judging by report, there appears to be but a small chance of its recovery from the effects of the prolonged agony and torture and the many knock-down blows to which it

has been subjected. The attempts to pacify the various

‘denominational bodies and to persuade them to agree to any compromise or modus vivendi upon the subject of religious teaching in the schools have all proved abortive, and no progress can be discerned as possible with a measure which, we were assured a short time ago, is a matter of national importance.

‘In this impasse, why should not common sense essay

to find a way out. 2 Prima facie it is the duty of the State to see that the children of the State receive such an education as will tend to turn them out efficient, good, and moral citizens. Prima facie it is the duty of

parents and guardians and of the clergy of the various denominations to impart religious instruction to the children. This function is one of the reasons for the creation and existence of the clergy of all denomina- tions. If, however, they all could agree upon some simple form or forms of religious lessons or instruc- tion to be given in school, the sectarian difficulty would still remain unvanquished. The teacher, whose duty it would be to administer the religious lesson or instruc- tion would either have a bias against religious instruc- tion or in its favour, and if in its favour, that bias would be tainted with sectarianism originating from ‘the religious belief of the teacher. Then again the children to be taught are not dumb, and, like most children, being of an enquiring turn of mind, they would be certain to ask questions. If these questions be not answered, the children will be tolerably sure to form a low estimate of the religious lesson or instruc- tion given, while if, on the other hand, they be answered by the teacher, the answers given are equally sure to be in some degree coloured by the religious belief of the teacher. Further, there is clearly no desire on the part of the teachers that this function, which, as we have pointed out, is that of others, should devolve upon them. In fact, taking the whole body of teachers, the great majority of them are adverse to the proposal. The teachers are quite willing to teach, and, we are glad to say, do teach morality : they do their best to instil into the minds of the children, and to form in them, habits of diligence, honesty, truthfulness, kind- ness, obedience, clean living in body and mind, and punctuality. If, however, teachers are to be compelled to do that which the clergy appear desirous of shirk- ing -viz., to impart religious instruction-then, no matter how simple the lesson may be, it will either degenerate into a meaningless farce, and be so esti- mated by the children, or sectarianism will creep in.

What then is to be done? There is only one way out, and to get out there is only one thing to be done. That is to enact free, compulsory, and secular educa- tion, with liberty to the religious instructors of the various denominations to enter the schools at specified hours-say, an hour before school commences and an hour after it closes-and give to the children of their denominations whose parents desire that such instruc- tion should be given whatever religious lessons or instruction they consider advisable or best. This is the solution of common sense, and, in our opinion, it is, and will be found to be, the only effective solution. it is also one no doubt to which the greater portion of the laity would agree, which the large majority of the teachers would welcome, but which the clergy of the various denominations would probably attack tooth and nail. AS it is impossible to please them, or to get them to agree even amongst themselves on this sub-

ject, the only plan is to take the bull by the horns, and quietly ignore them and their opposition, bitter and strenuous as it will be. If the clergy then fail, as they probably will fail, to utilise the liberty proposed to be given to them to impart religious teaching in the schools, they will only have themselves to blame, and onlookers will be able to estimate at its true value the violence of their enthusiasm for the religious teaching which they now so strongly advocate.

This way out, which common sense indicates, and of - which the outline has been given, is no doubt simple in the extreme. Its simplicity will probably be one of the chief objections to it. It will no doubt be regarded as too rough and ready ; but when we contemplate * the present lamentable and hopeless condition and posi- tion of the Education Bill, we feel forced to the con- clusion that the most merciful course to pursue is to put an end to its tortured existence. Let us, therefore, consign it to the waste-paper basket, and start de novo on the lines suggested in this article. If we desire precedents for an educational measure of the kind indi- cated, bold and drastic as it undoubtedly is, we have only to look abroad, and we will have no difficulty in finding them. We think that, outside the religious denominations, such a measure would be generally acceptable, and that the mass of the people of this country would support it. With that support it might be successfully piloted through the House of Commons. Whether the votes and influence of the spiritual lords in another place would be too many and too much for it is another question. For many years their votes and influence defeated the Deceased Wife’s Sister’s Bill, and there is no doubt but that they would strain every nerve and stick at no obstacle to defeat an educational measure framed on the lines suggested in this article.

The Kiddies and the Flowers. I aint no bloomin’ juggler, but I knows Wot brings the ruby colour to the rose ; Wot mykes the pink-an’-white o’ London Pride, W’y the tall lilies are gold-tinted inside, An’ lykewise w’y the scarlet runners run- It is the influence of the glorious sun !

An’ not alone the sun ; it is the rain, The bath o’ Nature streamed o’er ‘ill an’ plain ; It is the kindlin’ o’ the clean, sweet air That mykes all ‘erbs an’ blossoms fresh an’ fair, That mykes it ‘appiness ter live an’ grow Until the garden is a ‘Eaven below. .

I aint no bloomin’ doctor, but I sees W’y doctors overwork fer scanty fees Around our district- w’ich is Lambeth way- An’ w’y we ‘ave kids’ funerals every day ; It is because the kiddies only thrive On wot doth keep the ‘erbs an’ flowers alive.

Pore little kiddies, doomed ter waste -ter death, Fer lack o’ Nature’s clear an’ balmy breath ! Pore little stunted lilies-O so white ! O give ter each the simple, ample dower That Thou dost give ter every rural flower ! Dear Christ, ‘ave mercy on each fragile mite !

In Galilee, You said once long ago : ‘(Consider ‘ow the beauteous lilies grow : ” We do consider this most pleasant word, But-let me put it plynely, gracious Lord- Ain’t all the little kiddies, Lambeth way, As precious as the lilies any day?

Yer knows it, Lord ; then do not let ‘em pine Fer want o’ Nature’s influence benign ; If blokes lyke me must pay the bitter price Of our fust parents’ fall in Paradise (W’ich is a story as I greatly doubt)- There ain’t no sense in shuttin’ kiddies out !

KENNINGTON CROSS,

Why do we send our Children to the Dock ?

“THIS poor little thing,” said Miss Duncan, “is not allowed to dance because she is just under ten,” and she patted the poor little thing’s head, and the poor little thing looked unutterably miserable.

But I felt proud. “You see,” I said, “we have to fix a limit some-

where, and ten seems about the proper one. Of course, it’s hard on you ; you treat the children so wisely and educate them well and make them so fit and fine, but, generally, it wouldn’t do, would it, to let a very, very little child go on the stage and get over-excited and neurotic and all that sort of thing? We English are strict, but we are kind. The moral and physical health of the children : we are very careful of that.”

“You are so careful? “- Miss Duncan smiled the query straight at me.

“Yes ; our medical regulations are the only thing in connection with the theatre we can be proud of. The plays and the acting are bad, cannot be worse, I sup- pose, but we have wonderful medical regulations.”

“Then why is it,” she asked, turning to me abruptly, “that you send these children down to the police-court to be licensed ? ”

Her finger pointed towards the stage, where the troupe of beautiful Parisian dancers (see advertisement) were sitting and lying in all postures of ease, and watching us with bright, eager eyes for a sign of con- clusion to my chatter.

I blushed-and then turned pale. The bringing to- gether of those two ideas, the police-court and these children of the sun, produced in me a feeling of nausea. It appeared that our regulations were not so perfect after all.

Then the band began to twitter in an impatient, jerky manner, and Miss Duncan shook my hand and smiled me into oblivion . . .

Why do we send these children to a police-court to be licensed ?

I could not imagine. It was too absurd. Now, I could have understood the sense of sending the police- court to the children for approval. But even that . . . The bringing of them together would not bear think- ing cf.

You know the pestered magistrate, worn threadbare emotionally by his constant rubbing against brutality, you know the pedant clerk, the callous, well-meaning policeman, the lewd, grinning public, the shabby, dirty atmosphere, the sour, sanitised odour of filth and crime.

Why do we send these children there? A police-court is a place where crime is punished

with many stripes and virtue rewarded from the poor- box. You go there if you are a criminal or a judge or both, or a virtuous pauper. But these children eluded such classification.

Let us analyse. They go to be licensed. To do what? To appear in stage-plays, music hall entertain- ments, and the ballet divertisements of Mr. Beerbohm Tree. For whose sake are they licensed? For their own, obviously, that the theatre manager may only employ them when they are strong enough to stand it, when the moral atmosphere of the theatre is not dis- cordant, when their schooling is looked to, when they are well fed, do not work too long hours, and have passable parents. A very pretty picture-it makes one feel fatherly to look at it. And we give them this charter of health at the police-court ! Why in the world do we do it?

This dreadful query sat on my spirit clawing for sundry nights and days. At last it grew too much for me. I had to get some sort of answer or go under. So I went a-questioning. I tackled people in the streets, on top of ‘buses, ‘in marble-topped restaurants. “Why do we send our theatre-children to the police- station to be licensed? ”

No one had any idea. One or two thought it was a conundrum, and asked what was the prize.

Then I tried the lawyers. The answer I got most frequently was this : “It’s the law,” and then they crossed themselves and looked grave.

One old gentleman admitted that, viewed sentimen- tally perhaps, hem ! hem ! viewed sentimentally, the police-court was not quite the place you would like to take your own girl to, but he had really never seen any evil consequences (psychological consequences while you wait ! the quaint man !). Maybe he was so used to the police-court-spent half his life there, you know- that it did not jar on him (mark that ! it didn’t jar on him), and everything was managed decently, children brought in first thing when the court was clear, almost never mixed with the drunks . . .

“ Mixed with the drunks ! ” “ Oh, almost never.” God! I had not thought of that. Think of the bare

possibility, ! I went to the theatre-managers. The theatre-

managers did not help me to a solution. They merely deepened my horror and perplexity.

Mix with the drunks? Every time, almost, at some courts--that means once a week on tour. (A devil’s Sabbath.) Of course, some magistrates are particular, and try to keep the courts clear, but what would you? The drunks come on next turn, and one must not waste time ; they generally meet in the wings.

And, yes, they would like to see the law amended. Better a medical-officer, better even a puritanic County Council, than the police-court. In some towns already the evil was realised, and the magistrate saw the chil- dren in a private room ; but, anyhow, the police-court was the police-court ! From which one gathers that theatre-managers have bowels.

But the law has none ; this blind, mechanical, moralist’s law that treats the actor-children as if they were criminals, brands them, makes them breathe con- tinually the air of this ante-chamber of the pit, accus- toms them to go there, to stand as a “case ” before a magistrate, to be familiar with corruption-(and do you understand the immense importance of the com- mon man’s disinclination to go to a police-court, of his unfamiliarity with-and perhaps therefore, his dislike of, the paraphernalia of the place?)--this foolish law that places an impressionable child cheek by jowl with the dregs and offal of life, the obscene, dirty, diseased by-products of the social machine.

This is no unimportant matter. The number of children employed on the stage is considerable. It is good they should be employed there. Most of them get better fed and better educated than they would in their own homes. It is not a bad training even for the average man to learn to be easy and unconstrained, to speak clearly, to move gracefully, and keep his mouth shut without looking a fool. These are all good things. Why need we spoil them then with this con- stant pressing in of the mark of the beast?

To shift the scene to a private room in the police- court building, to try to keep the child clear of the charge-sheet is like getting him to touch infection with a glove on. There is no possible controversy over the matter. The law has got to be altered. We do not want a constant stream of infection passing into our homes and our theatres. We want some day to see the theatre a temple and- the actors priests ; we will not let the law pollute our priests. Already most of the business is done by the County Council inspectors. It is their reports that really regulate the granting and refusing of licenses. The man of the world magistrate is largely a wax figure that pats the child’s head and

says, “ Do you like acting, dear? ” and “That’s right, that’s right.” Why not put away the wax figure? All you want is the certificate of the L.C.C. inspectors and a competent medical officer. Where do the police- station and the magistrate come in?

I urge the absolute necessity of getting an amend- ment added to the Children’s Bill transferring the granting of licences from the magistrate to the borough or county council medical officer.

W. R. TITTERTON,

246 THE NEW AGE JULY 25, 1908

Good Breeding or Eugenics. XIII.

MARRIAGE is so unimportant a factor in good breeding that I have bestowed little attention upon it. Everyone recognises nowadays marriages, as contracted in Euro- pean States, are unions that cannot have the basis of permanency. In this country any two young persons between whom a chance acquaintanceship evokes some sex attraction can, in a few days, link themselves for life ; or that union may depend upon purely financial or territorial considerations. Even in the more or less pro- longed courtship that is customary, what knowledge has either of the high-contracting partners of the other?

When knowledge reveals some gross incompatibility of temperament, when experience shows that one is tied to some unpleasant debauché, to a drunkard, an epilep- tic, when one of the possible purposes of the marriage -maternity- is denied, when, as is not uncommon, the husband infects the wife with disease, the unhappy pair find no honourable escape. Marriage is supposed to mean monogamy in England. As a matter of fact, of course, most men are polygynous, and obey their in- stincts ; most women are polyandrous, and some obey their true propensities. Various are the reforms that have been advocated ; some would make the divorce laws broader ; the English, whose middle class is more licentious than that of any other civilised people, except the Yankees, have less liberal laws than other races, e.g., insanity under certain conditions is a ground for divorce in Germany. difficult. The sensible and simple plan is to instruct

Others would make marriage more

your young persons, and then allow them to make what- soever contracts they wish, inducing them, if possible, to ascertain some simple facts about one another in an easy way. No one, I least of all, would pretend to make this a perfect world. But at all events by allow- ing people to make their own regulations and to break them we permit them to make other arrangements with sufficient frequency to discover in time the mates that suit.

x- * 3c

Women are now entering into all pursuits with so much zeal, and making themselves so efficient in every occupation of life, that they can now enter marriage with a clear realisation of their own value. If they give up the occupation, temporarily or permanently, which afforded them a living, there can be no pretence that they are not entitled to a full partnership in the joint home-to something more than the housekeeper’s wage. Women could insist, then, on proper deeds of partner- ship, and though young people in love are apt to neglect all precautions, they very soon discover the value of some stable arrangement. At any time after their union the contract could be made, and one that would have the same force as any other deed of partnership. It would be better when thus made after they have lived together some months and proved one another. In many cases women would not entirely surrender their occupation, and so they would remain in quite as inde- pendent a position as the man.

It does not seem probable that rational people will yet have their way, and the emotion of love become a negligible quality in human affairs. It is precisely on this ground, and because of the safeguards that women require, that they demand to step in and protect their own sex. In the arguments that travel around the suffrage question, women are insistent in avoiding the real issue and men are careful not to raise it. To woman love means renunciation, a complete abandonment of herself without a thought or desire of compensation, of reward ; she gives up body and soul, and she finds therein her supreme joy. She makes no bargains, no conditions for the present or the future. Thus love brings the woman under the subjection of a man to

whom it means not the joy of sacrifice, but the fierce delight of possession ; the man seizes, the woman renders. The man’s protestations of eternal love are as unnecessary as they are futile. Women who have loved, and the introspective women of this generation who have analysed the emotion, have realised this hazard their sex runs. At all events, in material things, which play no unimportant share in the round of life, the suf- frage-women, have said that women shall not suffer by reason of this strange antinomy of the two species that compose the human race. The sensible modern man can but look on and applaud ; for at the bottom of his heart he does not believe that any power of the vote, any but the utmost freedom, will change the deep-lying instincts. On the contrary, there are signs that the sexes tend rather to a greater differentiation and not to a closer homogeny.

* * *

The question of the children has not been forgotten. For the protection of women, and in the best interests of the State, it has become necessary to place maternity upon the footing of the most favoured industry. For many years blind efforts have been made in this direc- tion-for instance, in the free education of children- but it has only recently become a conscious movement. For the details of a workable scheme I refer those interested to “The Endowment of Motherhood.” It becomes necessary to protest against the absurd matri- mania and genomania of some reformers. One corre- spondent from North America writes me that there are thousands of women in the United States whose sole desire is that Roosevelt shall be the father of their chil- dren. Stupid, “cultured,” superficial, and uninteresting as are most American women, in piquant contrast to the natural vivacity and glow of the men, I know that women are not quite so devoid of imagination as is pre- tended. The correspondent, of course knowing little or nothing about women, imagines them attracted by the appeal to the literary or political strong man or by a wish to immolate themselves on the altar of the future. The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong. The world is composed of individualities, and though we cannot understand “what she could have seen in him ” or “he in her,” I think there is much to be said for Grant Allen’s elective affinities ; perhaps some subtle chemical-emanation, or some subtler psychi- cal one that defies the senses of all outside the magic pair.

-x * *

It is just this mysterious bond that renders so difficult the task of pedantic scientists like myself. In France and Germany it is proposed to allow no mar- riage without a certificate of health - “a document setting forth that the holder of the certificate has under- gone a medical examination before getting married.” The details of the examination are to be entered on the certificate and given to the other side. This does not mean any prohibition of marriage, but it is a means, and a sound one, of allowing the two people to know something about their physical condition. If, knowing the worst, they are still bent on matrimony, well, they must run the risk. There is no reason why such certi- ficates should not be requested nowadays ; they seem to me as useful as the legal enquiries into the young man’s position and the nature of the young woman’s invest- ments. Possibly some unhappy alliances might be avoided and some men and women would not unite if there were a reasonable certainty of their children being epileptics, or insane, or if one of the partners were suffering from an infectious disease. ‘It has been my experience to caution a man suffering from disease against marrying ; to discover the warning unheeded and the wife infected. Would the marriage have taken place had the facts been known to her? Surely many would avoid it, and even if it but save a few individuals and a few children, unhappy from birth through some inherited disease, the suggestion of health certificates before marriage is a Eugenic proposal worth entertain- ing, M. D. EDER,

THE END,

JULY 25, 1908

Women and War. “ WOMEN, being themselves non-combatants, would yet have the power of declaring war and sending men out to fight.” As it was really some knowledge of the in- tolerable and unfair strain of war upon women that firstly influenced me in favour of their appeal for equal voting rights, possibly my point of view may be worth a moment’s consideration.

Those I have heard bring the argument forward have seemed to consider-ridiculous as it may appear- that the man who went to fight was the principal suf- ferer in a state of war ; whereas, indeed, it is he who is to be congratulated ; and seldom, very seldom, would he change places with the unfortunate fellow who had to remain at home. He would not miss the happiness of the movement, the action, the risk, the fighting, the life, the continual feeling that he is really living. He would not miss this, I say, for anything.

It may be savagery and barbarism. The soldier will not argue the point with the man who brings it for- ward ; he will pity him and let him stay at home ; but he is satisfied that there is far less savagery and bar- barism in warfare than is to be found in any civilised country in the piping times of peace.

It is hearts and souls that count and should be con- sidered in this world. Bodies come afterwards. The hatred and bitterness is with the peaceful ones at home who have caused the war, not with the soldier. He still fights with an open heart.

I can hardly imagine a soldier or a war correspon- dent of any genuine experience bringing forward the argument against woman suffrage given above, for the simple reason that his knowledge of how much more suffering and agony there is for women than for men in time of war compels him to believe that reasons would have to be weighty indeed, and every possible alternative a failure, before the voice of women would be for an appeal to arms.

The man on the field will perhaps go hungry and thirsty ; he will shiver through bitterly cold nights without covering. He will risk at all times the loss of an arm or a leg ; capture and possible torture by the enemy-but his only dread is sickness. With everything else he is active and moving, and. chances are fair and compensations great. As to sickness and disease, he is liable to that anywhere, but it is wicked to him at the front because then he is “ missing the fun. ”

But there come trying times to the man on active service. As man to man he glories in it ; either side-- savage brute ! When woman is included his heart falls. Innocent of all offence ; never having been con- sulted or considered ; having had, perhaps, to contain her passionate protest silently within her heart : the soldier knows and shudders at the thought of what she must suffer. Whether, in personal safety, she sits pining and yearning and dreading for those at the front, or whether the fighting actually takes place in her neighbourhood, the feeling of utter helplessness, the knowledge that she can only sit and wait must be crushing to the heart of the mother, the wife, and the sister.

In Ladysmith, when we knew of the defeat of Buller at Colenso, there was very little said, but when to a friend a remark was made, this would surely be the first : “ What an awful time it must be for them at home !”

We sympathised with the poor fellows at home in

England who would be going about with their heads down, and biting their hands in helpless rage. We sympathised with them, but we knew they would be getting to work at once with both mind and muscle, determined to do something. But it was a far deeper feeling than sympathy which went out to the women. The first thought was to the dear old Queen-and one’s heart contracted painfully-and then to one’s own women-folk, and then to the women of England. And one went away and got to work quickly.

My friend receives a bullet in the head and is killed. There is a deep curse under the breath, and the tears will rise when he is buried and a grave is left, but I know he is all right ; the regret is for myself in having lost a good friend. Then, when it is over, I go home and, on receipt of a little note, visit my late friend’s

. widow. There are three children-two boys, the eldest nine, and a little girl. The widow tries to control her feelings, but I leave that house realising for the first time the real terror of the war through which I have been. The physical pains of a dozen wounds are not to be compared with the suffering of that broken heart.

Again. We approach a Dutch farmhouse, and it is reported that two men were seen to slink away along the orchard wall and disappear towards the spruit. There are three women in the house, two young-one lately married and mistress of the house-and the old mother. They are questioned, but deny that there are any Boers about the farm, or that any have been there that day. Sentries are posted at a little distance, and we enter the house for the usual more or less casual inspection-firearms, hidden ammunition, or even men under beds or in lofts, as they were sometimes found. We have hardly commenced to look round when, ,’

Kwa-ku ! the report of a mauser. We spring out and see the sentry posted on the ridge to our right collapse in a heap. A hurried movement and we are satisfied that it is the work of a sniper-and it must be one of the two who were seen to leave the house as we approached it.

We return to the house and, questioning the -women again, can see they lied to us. Naturally and of course they lied to US. What were they to do? Our questioning is merely a formal matter from start to finish. However, a man has been shot at the home- stead, and the rules of war are plain and well known, and if it is to be war at all they must be carried out. The women are told they have ten minutes to collect what they most require, and that the house will then be burnt down.

Oh ! the pity of it ! The house and all its contents do not count for a

moment against the life of the sentry ; but the praying of the women, the wringing of the hands, and the streaming faces. They lose five minutes in vain im- plorings, then the torches are lit ; and they choke in their throats and go for the last time into their dear old home, with its quaint little harmonium in the corner, its hand-carved chairs and tables and bedsteads, which they will never be able to replace ; the handwork ornaments on the walls, and the hun- dred and one things they love. They are given an extra five minutes to make up for the time they lost ; and one or two soldiers go in and give them a willing hand to collect some of the most precious things. Then time is up, and all are ordered out of the house and torches are applied to the thatched roof. The women- not crying now, they are past that-sit down beside the few things they have saved and bury their faces in their hands not to see the fire.

The Boers move on before us ; they mount their ponies and canter over the hills. Movement and action all the time ! A farmhouse is burnt, and they curse and shoot straight, and it is soon forgotten. The men wanted war, and they are having it, and it is all right ! But had the women-those whose sufferings are greatest and whose hearts are seared for all time -a word in bringing on the South African war? And would war ever have been declared if women had had to decide? RICHMOND HAIGH.

Military Education at Whitehall, By Dr. T. Miller Maguire.

III. For the first time in the history of any civilised State

has any generation of noblemen and gentlemen, so- called, been grossly ignorant and proud of Ignorance as if it were Knowledge. We all admire all manly exercises and horsemanship, indeed our instructors have had to take no end of pains to teach wealthy race- frequenting idlers how to ride ; but manly exercise is one thing and the Cult of Sport to the neglect of Brain Power is quite another thing. Every word that Euri- pides said in contempt of the worship of game players by degenerate Greeks applies with ten times the force to the scenes at the shoddy Olympic games at Shep- herd’s Bush. All that Tacitus says about the worship of jockeys and gladiators and other sportsmen and of danseuses by decadent Rome applies word for word to the entertainments of Cabinet Ministers and the habits of life of our nouveaux riches and the titled women and men of to-day.

Of course this brutal folly is the child of Ignorance. Young Tories and Whigs carry on the same system and manners at their War Office as they began at their schools. The Army Council system of Education : Qualifying, Entrance, Promotion, Staff College, Tac- tical, Strategic, Literary, Linguistic, Scientific, and Social is a farce and a fraud from beginning to end. The system of the Chinese mandarins was more reason- able, as it was based on excessive reverence for certain classical writings, while the Army Council’s methods and ideals are based on snobbery and jobbery and ab- horrence of Learning.

I have before me the general education programme of officers of every leading State. To compare White- hall’s curriculum with any one of these is to compare

* the Stadium of West London with the Roman Coli- seum. From examinations for cadets who are allowed to gain commissions without being able to read, write, spell, or cipher, to the tactical tests for officers aged forty, who are often examined by men who are much more ignorant than themselves, out of “cast ” text- books, all is confusion and waste and irritation and folly. But for a few German tutors in Tactics most of the Tactical Examiners could not set a scheme ! Yet these private tutors are very badly treated by the authorities, almost as badly as the well-known and veteran English educationalist, Colonel Lonsdale-Hale, who never received any decoration, though every mili- tary sycophant in society or hanger-on of the Court has his breast covered with orders. Not one man in three of the War Office Educational Staff could lecture on any military topic to any audience, or ever studied the Science or Art of Education, or was ever a teacher or is any more fit to draw up Courses of Study and conduct examinations than a Dean is fit to be engine- driver to the Flying Dutchman or Scotch Express.

I have seen topographical papers in which streams ran up and down inclines like switchback railways. I have seen scientific papers set to young candidates which no man of science in England could work out. Some problems on military engineering might possibly be solved by the engineers who constructed the Chinese Wall or the bulwarks of Adrian and Antoninus, but no man living could solve them. An ingenious examiner officially censured sixty captains for ignoring what he called “the fact ” that the Volga flowed into the Black Sea, whereas the Councillors of the Royal Geographical Society declare that it flows into the Caspian Sea. Another set of Staff College candidates were asked to discuss the strategy of the British Empire on the sup- position that the English Channel and the North Sea were dry land !

These are simple matters, but when it comes to the more technical branches of the Art of War, we find cases of instructors being appointed for mere social reasons or “ because they were good at games.” Sand- hurst as an educational establishment is so bad that the cadets have for many years declared that most of

their time there was utterly wasted. The authorities of Whitehall fancy that any person who is ordered by them to deliver lectures thereby becomes an efficient instructor. I get reports from all parts of the Empire of the deplorable results of this preposterous fallacy. Not six officers out of all the Staff of the Army could give a on e h our’s lecture that would interest a Mechanic’s Institute on Napoleon’s campaigns or on Marlborough or on Wellington or on the British in India. Not four Whitehall chieftains could speak on any professional subject at the Royal United Service Institution without preparation or lavish notes.

The late Lord Morley, when Secretary of State for War, wrote to me more than twenty years ago that English Literature and History were left out of the curriculum to please Eton ! Of course, the result has been disastrous. As Lord Roberts declared, a large pro- portion of the officers cannot write or understand orders. Their lack of necessary knowledge was often fatal in the late war to themselves and their men. A large proportion of the candidates for Woolwich and Sandhurst never read six books of good English litera- ture, not even Scott’s novels, and know nothing about Military History. A well-known politician wrote to me a few days ago in most contemptuous terms of this inane system. I quote one phrase : “ In military circles it seems to be thought that while only a drill-sergeant can teach drill, any casual, untrained mind can teach military history and cognate subjects.” My correspon- dent is right ; the War Office is full of “ fools in putties,” as Sir W. Butler called them. But their ap- palling ineptitude is worthy of a military adjunct of fashionable and Ministerial society that worships music- hall artistes and pretends to worship cricket at Lords, and goes into raptures over stable boys in the pluto- cratic and titled maelstrom of Ascot enclosure.

But there is no worship for knowledge and its votaries ! I could fill columns with anecdotes of insolent and mean ill-treatment of my own colleagues in educa- tion for the past generation. All teachers are worse treated in England than in Germany or any other civi- lised State. On the other hand, men take up hunting, racing, and polo deliberately, because admission to the highest social circles can be gained by lavish expendi- ture of time and money on these arts by any rich fool, however worthless in other respects and however ignorant of every other accomplishment. The military text-books of the War Office for many years past have supplied topics for ridicule to home and foreign critics. They are stupid and cheap compilations utterly un- worthy of the nation ; yet men of genius have founded the elaborate and brilliant theories of the various branches of the Art of War which used to have a splendid literature in England, and still furnishes lavish material to most able writers on the Continent. Only five of all the British writers on the Art of War are even noticed in the scholastic circles of any other army, and two of these are barristers who have been very badly treated, and indeed insulted, by the charlatans of Whitehall.

So wantonly indifferent to the honour and prospects of officers are the Army Council authorities that they often set courses on books that are out of print, and terrible annoyance and irritation and injury result, and not the least apology is made to victims.

In such subjects as Tactics and Topography and Engineering, the “ Army and Navy Gazette ” (June 30) proved that there is complete antagonism between the views of our anonymous examiners, half of whom cannot write intelligible English, and not only our own recognised text-books, but also the leading authors of other armies. In fact, if the unsigned examination tests of the Whitehall Star Chamber. be right, every tactician from Tokio to Potsdam and from Chalons to the Curragh must be wrong ! The sooner Military Education under the Whitehall Star Chamber system is abolished the better ; it is a nuisance and a snare to ordinary officers and a downright insult to all officers who take pains to learn their business.

But what is the Army Council? I will answer this question in the next article.

JULY 25, 1908 THE NEW AGE

The Bourgeoisie. By Upton Sinclair.

THE bourgeoisie, or middle-class, is that class which, all over the world, takes the sceptre of power as it falls from the hands of the aristocracy ; which has

* the skill and cunning to survive in the free for all combat which follows upon the political revolution. Its dominion is based upon wealth ; and hence the determining characteristic of the bourgeois society is its regard for wealth. To it wealth is power ; it is the end and goal of things. The bourgeois represents

an achievement of the body, and all that he knows in the world is body. He is well fed himself, his wife is stout, and his children are fine and vigorous. He lives in a big house and wears the latest thing in clothes ; his civilisation furnishes these to every one- at least to every one who amounts to anything, and beyond that he understands nothing-save only the desire to be entertained. It is for entertainment that he buys books, and as entertainment that he regards them ; and, hence, one characteristic of the bourgeois literature is its lack of seriousness. The bourgeois writer has a certain kind of seriousness, of course- the seriousness of a hungry man seeking his dinner ; but the seriousness of the artist he does not know. He will roar you as gently as any sucking dove ; he will also wring tears from your eyes or thrill you with terror, according as the fashion of the hour suggests ; but he knows exactly why he does these things, and he can do them between chats at his club.

The basis of a bourgeois society is cash payment ; it recognises only the accomplished fact. To be a Milton with a “ Paradise Lost ” in your pocket is to be a tramp ; to be a great author in the bourgeois literary world is to have sold a hundred thousand copies, and to have sold them within memory-that is, a year or two. With the bourgeois, success is success, and there is no going behind the returns ; to dis- criminate between different kinds of success would be to introduce new and dangerous distinctions.

The bourgeois ideal is a perfectly definite and con- crete one : it has mostly all been attained-there are only a few small details left to be attended to, such as the cleaning of the streets and the suppressing of the labour unions. There is no call for perplexity, and no use for anything hard to understand. Originality is superfluous, and eccentricity is anathema. The world is as it always has been, and human nature will always be as it is ; the thing to do is to find out what the public likes. homely virtues.

The-public likes pathos and the The public does not like passion ;

it likes sentiment, however-it even likes heroics, provided they are unconventionalised, and so, to amuse it, we turn all history into a sugar-coated romance. The public’s strong point is love, and we lay much stress upon the love element-though with limitations, needless to say. The idea of love as a serious problem among men and women is dismissed, because the social organisation enables us to satisfy our passions with the daughters of the poor. Our own daughters know nothing about passion, and we ourselves know it only as an item in our bank accounts. To the bourgeois young lady--the Gibson girl, as she is other- wise known-literary love is a sentiment ranking with a box of bonbons, and actual love is a class mar- riage with an artificially restricted progeny.

These which have been considered are the positive and more genial aspects of the bourgeois civilisation ; the savage and terrible remain to be considered. For it must be understood that this civilisation of com- fort and respectability furnishes its good things only to a class, and to an exceedingly small class. By means of its control of all economic opportunity this small class is enabled to charge a monopoly price while paying a competitive wage, and thus to skim off the entire surplus product of society for its own use. The majority of mankind it pens up in filthy hovels and tenements, to feed upon husks and rot in misery. This is unpleasant to think of, of course, but it is the

249

way of life, and it is all that the masses are fit for ; they, are ugly and dirty and vicious, and never can be anything else, and there is nothing to do but keep’ hem in their place. This was once easy, but now it is growing harder-and thus little by little the bour- geoisie is losing its temper. Just now it is like a fat poodle by a stove-you think it is asleep and venture to touch it, when quick as a flash it has put its fangs in you to the bone.

The bourgeois civilisation is, in one word, an organised system of repression. In the physical world it has the police and the militia, the bludgeon, the bullet, and the gaol ; in the world of ideas it has the political platform, the school, the. college, the Press, the Church-and literature. The bourgeois controls these things precisely as he controls the labours of society-by the control of the purse-strings.

We have at present established in this land a religion which exists in the name of the world’s greatest revo- lutionist, the founder of the socialist movement ; this man denounced the bourgeois and the bourgeois ideal more vehemently than ever it has since been denounced -declaring in plain words that no bourgeois could get into Heaven ; and yet his Church is to-day, in all its forms, and in every civilised land, the main pillar of bourgeois society !

With the Press the bourgeois has a still more direct method than endowment ; the Press he owns. All the daily newspapers in New York, for instance, are the property of millionaires, and are run by them in their own interests, exactly the same as their stables or their cuisine.

And so we come to literature-and to the author. The bourgeois recognises the novelist and the poet as a means of amusement somewhat above the prosti- tute, and about on the level with the music-hall ; he recognises the essayist, the historian and the publicist as agents of bourgeois repression equally as necessary as the clergyman and the editor. To all of them he grants the good things of the bourgeois life, a bour- geois home with servants who know their places, and a bourgeois club with smiling and obsequious waiters. They may even, on state occasions, become acquainted with the bourgeois magnates, and touch the gracious fingers of the magnates’ pudgy wives. There is only one condition, so obvious that it hardly needs to be mentioned-they must be bourgeois, they must see life from the bourgeois point of view. Beyond that there is not the least restriction ; the novelist, for in- stance, may roam the whole of space and time-there is nothing in life that he may not treat, provided only that he be bourgeois in his treatment. He may show us the olden time, with noble dames and gallant gentle- men dallying with graceful sentiment. He may enter- tain us with pictures of the modern world, may dazzle us with visions of high society in all its splendours, may awe us with the wonders of modern civilisation, of steam and electricity, the flying-machine and the automobile. He may thrill us with battle, murder, and Sherlock Holmes. He may bring tears to our eyes at the thought of the old folks at home, or at his pic- tures of the honesty, humility, and sobriety of the common man ; he may even go to the slums and show us the ways of Mrs. Wiggs, her patient frugality and beautiful contentment in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call her. In any of these fields the author, if he is worth his salt, may be “ entertaining ” -and so the royalties will come in. If there is any one whom this does not suit-who is so perverse that the bourgeois do not please him, or so obstinate that he will not learn to please the bourgeois-we send after him our literary policeman, the bourgeois reviewer, and bludgeon him into silence ; or, better yet, we simply leave him alone, and he moves into a garret. The bourgeois garrets resemble the bourgeois excursion steamers. They are never so crowded that there is not room for as many more as want to come on board ; and any young author who imagines that he can bear to starve longer than the world can bear to let him starve, is welcome to try it. Letting things starve is the specialty of the bourgeois society.

Oriole Notes . By Beatrice Tina.

I DID never believe to have sung an oriole note about England : so jealously my heart was with the heart of

Ethiopia. But while a rose-hedge tilts its white, wild blossoms

against a summer-blue-sky, I must lie back among the

clover and sing. For crimes against the gods, the early folk were

changed to birds and streams ; and disobedient nymphs

were turned to reeds and laurels. Would I knew the crime which would commit me

ever to be a rose ! * * *

Syllables which swell to a sound like my rapture circle with the noontide butterflies around the rose-bush. I hear them winding in the spiral of my mind ; and the inner ear tries them with its tuning-key. They float

about my lips, and I say A with the grass, and B with the bee, and Oo with the bird : and the soul of me says Ay with them all.

Whoever told me that I might pluck a rose and, with no fear of death, despoil the thrush’s nest and tear the daisy from its bed. ? I know that I may not do these things. The blossom and the bird came with us out of

’ Paradise. They sing the song Eve taught them. Heaven hold our hands !

* * *

I note the rhythm of the rose. It is swaying above

its five-leaved sprays, nectared and expanded to the uttermost edge of its burnished curves. It seems the favourite, the confidant of Earth, through whom she does up-breathe, at last, her answer to the Sun.

Sunflowers, tulips, and such proudly-rearing blooms stand to express the message of the great Lover ; but roses, to convey the message of Earth. Not in a single May-day is she won.

And when the last summer instant comes, and the rose divinely strips her heart, no Tragedy is this ex- cept to the butterfly beau and the robber bee.

The Sun smiles very broadly on September mornings : for Winter is the trysting hour in Infinity.

* * 9

How Africa claims me. I remember my little friend, Laura, a girl of the Eastern Province. Laura had a passion for crimson roses. And these flowers rested upon her with a triumphant fitness. Her form was a delicious bubble ; and, girdled in a white dress with a great velvety rose on her bosom, she seemed a votary of some order. One might have believed her a novice in the Order of Venus.

* * *

And Louie -ethereal Louie !-another rose devotee : at sixteen no bigger than a fairy-child of ten ; but lithe, and pale with the pallor of perfect health. I would tell of YOU as I remember you once standing. on the step, begging me to come out, and holding a rose in one hand, and in the other an enormous peach-which, surely, you could never eat ! I can speak of the hazel stars which were your eyes. But, by what magic, might

I convey the exquisite voice which held me fascinatedly talking nonsense to you while my lessons waited?

A pestiferous barrel-organ has begun to shriek. It is being turned in a street at least a mile away. It breeds maggots in my mind-maggots of memories of a lout humanity, a beer-shop standard, foot-lights, and poverty.

And now I will tell ! A dozen yards from me is an insolent board.

“ Trespassers. ” It says

peril. I am Trespassing. I am on this piece of grass at my

No ! that could not happen in Ethiopia.

JULY 25, 1908

Andrea d’Agnolo (de1 Sarto).

How often did his soul ache as he painted? How often fainted His erring spirit, while the immortal gift Of his right hand cut wider the deep rift Between him and his art? How often did his palette light a higher And purer fire Within him? Much he suffered, so they say, Because a worthless clod of woman’s clay Burdened his foolish heart.

He made her dust immortal ; never man Since world began Paid better for the privilege she gave Of share in her ; but did the baggage save Him from his faulty self? While he translated her into the sky, Madonna high : All that she did was drag him down, down,

down. To coin his fame and sully his renown And smirch his soul for pelf.

Uxorious master ! that could let a wife Tarnish your life And with her greedy, harlot view of things Betray your spirit, soil you, clip your wings To line her dirty nest. Some other she had helped to lift your soul Nearer the goal- To raise your genius and environ it With womanhood a little better fit To guard your precious best.

Vain, vain to think so ! Pitifully vain This futile strain. Our fires burn dull or splendid as they can. No woman’s taper shall eclipse in man His own, his proper light. That stuff we’re filled with makes or mars

the fame ; Decides the flame. The mingled oil that rare d’Agnolo fills Came from the presses of ancestral mills To burn now dim, now bright.

Andrea was Andrea ; higher than his soul Shall wave the scroll That rates his place supreme ; and if a fool- If his days show a sort of crepuscule Between their dawns of glory, What strange, unparalleled concern is that To babble at? Clothe a phoenix sense of colour, form Twined up and wove with feeble human norm ; And hence the master’s story.

Then suck your grapes with joy, and leave the

We gather fig from thistle, grape from thorn Where art is born ;

stones, Nor utter sanctimonious silly groans Because the seed is sour. Let clocks of men, that only keep good time, Make their own rhyme And tick perfection from the mantelpiece Over the parlour fire ; art’s ancient lease Is shortened not an hour.

Florence, June, 1908 EDEN PHILLPOTTS,

Mr. S. G. Hobson’s attack on the Labour Party.

By R. C. K. Ensor.

WE all know Ishmael. “ He will be a wild man,” says the text, “his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against his.” He shines wherever there is guerilla fighting. While the adherents of a cause are too few to be worth disciplining, his knack of hitting at every head that he can see may be invalu- able. When they are numerous enough for regular warfare, he becomes a nuisance.

English Socialism to-day is faced by few greater dangers than that of its Ishmaels. Some have in the past done yeoman service, and they have done it by practising Ishmaelitism, or, as they would misdescribe it, by “being revolutionary.” The habit has grown on them, and is hard to shake off. Its good repute is associated with their own ; and, besides, it has an obvious glamour. It is more romantic to captain a little band, crouched in a side valley along the Socialist army’s march and taking shots for a lark at every- body, than to be a unit in that patient, footsore, dust- brown multitude,, doing all the tedious, inglorious, but invaluable work of a loyal soldier, and firing as a rule at nothing more exciting than the enemy. Why Ishmael in his luckiest moments may snipe at (what rarer sport ?) the Socialist generals themselves !- whenever they expose their backs to him, absorbed in their far-calculated operations. O the rapture if he graze one ! if he inflict a scratch, perchance even a wound ! if the great one be compelled to turn round and know that Ishmael must still be reckoned with ! And some day, with the last of countless snipings, the great one may bite the dust. Probably the cause will suffer, perhaps perish ; but what is that to the joy of revenge for his having discredited Ishmael and led the Socialist army to such humdrum conclusions as vic- tories ?

Mr. S. G. Hobson’s two articles in THE NEW AGE, by which these observations are prompted, exhibit very characteristically one of the subtlest and most insinu- ating of our Ishmaels. There is nothing new in them. Anyone familiar with his long career as a superseded prophet could have put them in his mouth beforehand. For a taste of his random knocks, try that at the Salva- tion Army. The Army (a body not to be exempted from grave criticism) has for years done a gigantic work of research, protest, and personal care in con- nection with children exposed to criminal environments. This work culminated in the introduction and discus- sion of the Children’s Bill ; and the other day Mr. J. R. MacDonald paid it a well-earned tribute. Mr. Hob- son’s comment thereon is to talk of “Mr. J. R. Mac- Donald’s fulsome panegyric ” and “ General Booth’s ugly creed, ” and to say that the former shows the Labour Party to be “dominated by Nonconformist Liberalism,” while the latter is “repugnant ” to the moral code of Socialists. Truly a fair-minded and politic comment ; well calculated to assure everybody that Socialism stands for sweetness and light and respects the inviolability of religious opinions.

But, you see, Ishmael must have his knock ; his motto is “ Hit every head you see “-not excepting the head of the Chairman of the I.L.P., if he has the temerity to replace Ishmael’s methods by the methods of civilised warfare. Indeed, it can escape no attentive reader of the two articles that their writer shows most gusto-or at least the blindest unfairness-precisely when he snipes at the Labour Party’s leaders. Take his treatment of Mr. Henderson. The past five years show few things more encouraging than Mr. Hender- son’s Socialistic development-a development that could hardly be dreamed of ten years ago, and yet is to-day under the Labour Party being paralleled in nearly every trade union. Here you have a tried leader of an old strong union going about in politics divorced from Liberalism and Toryism, declining, it is true, the

Socialist label, but preaching on most issues of the

day a Socialism that in all but name is quite as genuine as the S.D.P. ‘s, only more up-to-date. Everywhere he sought frankly to make Trade Unionists fight side by side with Socialists for their common objects on the terms of the Labour Party alliance. He is not a dazzling but a sterling man, and within and without the House wields the leadership of one who is no wind-bag and always acts up to his professions. Now what has Mr. Hobson to say of him? One gem shall suffice : ‘ No economic issue divides Mr. Arthur Henderson from Sir Christopher Furness.” That is not fact ; it is not even opinion ; it is stupid abuse. It would be just as true, tactful, helpful, and witty (and really less vituperative) if we were to compare, say, Mr. Hobson to Judas Iscariot.

There is not room for more than a few observations ion Ishmael’s chief target-the view that has built the Labour Party up ; though its elements are so seldom explained to Fabians, that a real treatise on it in THE NEW AGE might enlighten many Socialists of that de- scription.

Our prime business is to make our people Socialist. But it is a crude individualistic analysis which resolves a people merely into so many million human atoms. Organisations, traditions, and all manner of composite Forces are also components. Now, when one longs to win the British proletariat for Socialism, what is its outstanding feature? Surely the Trade Unions. I say outstanding ; and yet what is apt to mislead the raw middle-class Socialist recruit (the kind from which Mr. Hobson announces that he can summon his ten legions of angels ‘to submerge the Hendersons and Mac- Donalds), is that for him the Trade Unions do not stand out enough. He has not belonged to one him- self, and it is only when he gets (if he ever does) into the real heart of working-class life that he takes the measure of these wonderful organisations. To talk about a class-struggle and then leave them out is like playing “ Hamlet ” without Hamlet. Through them the main devoting, class-uplifting, spiritual forces among our people have for seventy years flowed. Prac- tically all their work is our work ; their stones have to be laid if our wall is to rise ; they themselves-doubt- less with many modifications and evolutionary changes --will always play a vital part in any Socialist (I do not say Anarchist-Communist) scheme. Now, what were the relations between these bodies and the Socialists in the ‘eighties? Those between two next-door neigh- bours, who profoundly distrust each other, seldom speak to each other, and perpetually malign each other behind each other’s backs. Consider the difference to-day. What has wrought it? There is only one answer . the “ traditional policy of the I.L.P. ,” leading . up to and through the Labour Party alliance-the policy which Mr. Keir Hardie founded, and Mr. Mac- Donald cemented, and of which Mr. Hobson has be- come well recognised as, in a humble way, a “ tradi- tional ” opponent.

Note the key to the opposition. There are two ways of trying to win the Trade Unions for Socialism. One is to “ nobble ” them. You get them to elect Socialists as delegates and so forth, and then these Socialists act as if they were delegates of Socialist bodies. This might nowadays be described with a fair deal of accu- racy as the “ traditional policy of the S.D.P.“; and it is the policy which Mr. Hobson espouses when he wants the Labour Party’s Annual Conference to adopt a Socialist constitution. For a lover of intrigue it has a natural fascination. The ‘I.L.P. policy, which has built the party up, is the very opposite of this. It precisely is not to “ nobble ” the Trade Unions, but to ally with them for common ends on the basis of a frank recognition that they are non-Socialist bodies. This does not prevent-it enormously facilitates-the carrying on of Socialist propaganda among their mem- bers. And that is the only way to win the Trade Unions for Socialism. It is idle to superpose a Socialist basis on them ; the proper place for a basis is under- neath. Or, to borrow a good metaphor used by Mr. Wells in another connection, it is folly to go behind their backs when they are not looking. They will only

dislike and distrust you when they find out the trick that you have played. If you want to preserve the confidence of the Trade Unions and the chance of making their members Socialists, you must stick to treating them on the straightforward Hardie - Mac- Donald lines, and realise exactly why and where Mr. Hobson’s line is fatal.

The Labour Party, then, is not a Socialist Party, nor meant to be, until its members (I do not mean its M.P. ‘s) are Socialists. It is frankly an alliance be- tween Socialist and non-Socialist elements ; let us be clear about that. What then may a Socialist fairly demand of it? Two things. Firstly, that its existence should promote and not retard Socialist propaganda ; secondly, that it should do good work in Parliament. On the first ground it has overwhelmingly justified itself. Even among the middle classes it is its boom above all that since 1906 has so transformed the horizon of our propaganda. Among the manual workers it has yielded similar results fifty-fold. No country can show so much Socialist progress in so short a period. Ishmael hardly disputes this, though he practically ignores it. But on the second ground he expands himself. The gist of all his plaints is that “ Parliamentarianism (the politician’s worst vice) has eaten its way into the Labour benches.” Does not this somewhat hackneyed criticism practically amount to saying that the Labour members have done what they were sent to do-have learned their trade? They might easily, of course, have neglected it, have ranted, have made futile scenes ; they preferred to master it and reap results. These Mr. Hobson despises as “just the legislative tit-bits that are dear to the heart of the practical politician, that blatant and blasting blight upon all great crusades.” Well, the widow of the docker killed by accident, the mother of the starving school-child, the miner half-brutalised by overwork, the veteran of labour with the workhouse staring him in the face, even the unemployed man who knows the fight put up for him by the party in the House, have come, or will come, to judge differently and, I think, more rightly. That is where the Trade Unions give us airy Socialists such helpful reminders ; they live on the solid earth, and grip concrete facts.

One word more. Neither the Labour Party nor the situation generally are all that they might and should be. That is obvious. But Socialists will not mend the pace of non-Socialists by calumniating and alienating them. And the sniping in the back which our own leaders endure is a disgrace to our movement. No bit of abuse seems too undeserved for some Socialists to fling at Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Henderson ; even Mr. Hardie, who is more sacrosanct, draws down Mr. Hobson’s sneer. Such a policy of pin-pricks stimulates and improves nobody ; it distracts the party, and may wreck it some day. The time for Ishmaelitism and captious intrigue is long over ; the time for reasonableness, self-restraint, and discipline, for mutual loyalty, sympathy, and for- bearance, is most emphatically here.

Books and Persons. (AN OCCASIONAL CAUSERIE.)

THE sale of the “Westminster Gazette ” brings on the meditative mood. I hear the “ Globe ” saying to the “Westminster ” : “You see, it may happen to any of us.” But whereas the “Globe ” has only one proprietor (who probably made himself a present of the “ Globe ” as a man in a fit of generosity may make himself a present of an antique scarf-pin), the “Westminster Gazette ” has, apparently, ten. Ten is too many. The comment of Bagshot on these ten would be agreeable reading. A fracas there is bound to be, sooner or later. The Radical gentlemen may put down £100,000 to buy an organ, and in the act their hearts may beat as one, but when the party declines from power, and darkness covers the land, and honest men are tried in adversity as in a furnace, then the evils of a too numerous proprietary will peep forth and the decadence of a deservedly great reputation will set in. Yes, I

regret this change, For I have loved the “West- minster. ” In my early free-lancing days I once sent a political joke to the “Westminster,” and next after- noon myself and all Fleet Street were astonished to find the joke printed among “ OCC. Notes,” exactly like a piece of Occ. verse. A long time ago ! The “West- minster ” wouldn’t do that now. Neither should I. This has been my sole contribution to the “West- minster. ” Result, 3s. 6d. Except for 3s. 6d., our relations have, I think, been pure. Hence I can express my affection for the “Westminster ” without qualms. I hate people who express their affection for people, places, or things by the adjectives “dear old.” As, “dear old Balliol, ” “dear old Fred Leslie,” “dear old Strand ” (when in Burmah). I simply hate them. I would kill them in sheer anger. But upon my soul, I almost catch myself murmuring, with humid eyes, “ Dear old Westminster ! ”

* SC *

I shall still read it. I shall’ not let its caprices in the matter of ownership affect our relations. When I am aged, when I am convinced that the world is going to the dogs, I shall still be reading the “Westminster,” for it has wound its tendrils round me. I have seen other Socialists writhe in fury at the occasional Whig- geries of the “Westminster,” and I have remained calm.- I have forgiven its worst sins. For example, its painful passion for the All-Red Route. I have for- given even its literary criticisms. And a man who can forgive some of the literary criticism of the “West- minster Gazette” could swallow camels. The other day it occurred to the “Westminster ” to review Mr. Trevena’s novel, “Heather,” which is quite a good book. It goes without saying that the “Westminster ” singled out the originalities of the novel for blame, and called them blemishes. It then went on to state that “ Heather ” is “without a doubt the only really impor- tant novel of the summer.” Could the fatuity of fatuous literary criticism go further? I wonder by what process the egregious journalist who committed that review managed to eliminate the element of doubt from his assurance. Well, I have forgiven that, too. But I do entreat the “Westminster ” to be a little more literary, at large. Its leaders are full of literary distinction, and so is the letterpress of F. C. G.‘s cartoons. Its dramatic criticism, since the sad mole- cular change in Mr. A. B. Walkley, is the best in London. Its art criticism is passable. Vernon Lee illuminates its pages now and then. But its sketches, its literary criticism . . . ! It often strikes me as if its literary criticism was done by someone who could do, and did do, something else- much better, and who after a hard day’s work on that something else said to himself : “By the way, before going to bed, I’ll just polish off a few books.” Mr. Spender is among the very greatest of journalists. But there is a lot of spade work to be done before the “Westminster ” can depose the “Manchester Guardian ” from its position as the greatest of daily papers.

* * -x-

It would seem that one must read foreign periodicals for most interesting items of English literary news. Had I not been a subscriber to the “Mercure de France ” I should probably never have heard of Messrs. Arthur Symons’ and Louis Thomas’ beautiful edition of the poems of Choderlos de Laclos, published by Dorbon (Paris). Some years ago Mr. Symons wrote a couple of bibliographical articles in the “Outlook ” on the subject of Laclos’ verse. I do not imagine that the

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verse has much value, but nothing from the pen of the great author of “ Les Liaisons Dangereuses ” will be neglected by lovers of honesty in fiction. I possess, by the way, a copy of another little-known work by Laclos, “De l’Education des Femmes ” (with notes by Baude- laire), which was given me by its learned young editor, Edouard Champion. The price of Mr. Arthur Symons’ volume is 3 francs, and there are only 312 copies of it. Here is a specimen of the rhyme : “To the lady to whom the author offered an apple at a ball, and who would only accept it with verses.”

Comme Venus vous êtes belle, Comme Pâris je suis berger, Comme lui je viens de juger ; Voulez-vous me traiter comme elle?

It is an idea : to go to a dance with an apple all ready in your pocket ! JACOB TONSON.

BOOK OF THE WEEK. Virgil.” OUR French neighbours describe the forty members of the Académie Française as The Immortals ; and some French writers of the past, to whom the conven- tional epithet Immortal may be applied, have been members of the Academy. But immortality in litera- ture cannot even be predicted with any certainty of the living. We do not assign it as yet to the members of our own Order of Merit, or of our very juvenile British Academy ; though the public is often disposed to give it to certain popular writers, judging solely by the number of their editions, and one of our most popular novelists has not hesitated from appropriating it to herself. Popularity, circulation, are however merely gauges of the public appetite. Of immortality, Time, the Devourer, is the sole unerring Judge.

But when we go beyond the range of our modern literature, and pass into a world which in some senses has vanished, though in others it is more living than ever, we do find certain writers to whom the phrase Immortal can be applied with a fuller and more certain meaning. Of these, undoubtedly, is Virgil. By his own time and people he was accepted immediately as the “lord of language,” as the predestined seer and singer of imperial Rome ; whose fame, like that of the city, should be eternal. By the early Middle Ages he was half-worshipped as a prophet of Christianity, and half-dreaded as a magician. To Dante he became once more the poet of a sacred Empire, the inspirer of Italian patriotism, the guide and teacher of modern writers. Down to the fifteenth century Virgil was the unquestioned sovereign of European poetry. Even Bacon described him as “ The chastest poet and royalest that to the memory of man is known.” But, as learn- ing revived, and Greek was recovered, there broke out a pedantic and barbaric warfare between the partisans of Homer and of Virgil. Each century, each critical school, urged its own futile reasons for preferring one poet to the other. The prevailing fashion of the nine- teenth century was to put Virgil into quite a secondary place, as “artificial,” as “imitative,” as on the whole wanting in some mysterious quality which was assumed to be in Homer. To sum up, the “Homer ” of the Iliad was supposed to have lived in the times of which he sang ; and his poems were discussed as though they had come into the world ready-made, like a natural production, without even the intervention of writing. Recent archaeology, which has moved recorded history so far back, has exploded this fiction ; and the Homeric poems, as we have them, are seen to be the product and reflection of a civilised time, not of a primitive time, and to rest upon many previous ages of an old and complete civilisation. In other words, “ Homer ” is certainly as “ artificial ” and is probably as “ imita- tive ” as Virgil was accused of being. Let us hold, rather, and with gratitude, that both poets were heirs of all the ages which preceded them ; and that each poet is, as Bacon says, “ royalest ” in his own dominion. -

* “The Death of Virgil.” By T. H. Warren. (Oxford : Blackwell ; and London : John Murray.)

Or, to put the matter in a different way, the only possible controversy between their votaries is one of individual taste, which is not only insoluble in itself, but no person whose taste is sound and sane will think of raising it.

There are many reasons why Virgil should appeal in a special way to Englishmen of our own times. He is the- poet of agriculture and country life, of a fervid patriotism based on love of the country and on rever- ence for its traditions. He is also the poet of Empire, with all its burdens, and problems, and destinies, and duties. All these he raises to the higher plane of the ideal and suffuses with poetic emotion. By all these functions of his poetic office he makes a special appeal to citizens of the British Empire. And we are not less touched than our predecessors, but more, by Virgil’s pathetic appeals to human feeling, to unchanging ex- periences, to individual sorrow. The sense of tears in mortal things becomes more poignant as the problems of the world grow upon us in complexity and number. For all these reasons, Virgil has something to give us which Homer does not and cannot give ; he appeals in a more special way to our individual experiences, to our patriotic feeling, and to our Imperial anxieties.

Some of these aspects of Virgil have been brought home to Englishmen who do not read Latin by Tenny- son in lines which are perhaps among the best, and certainly are the most unTennysonian, that he ever wrote ; and now we have a new poem which gives us the mind and person of Virgil more fully than they have been presented in English verse before. Mr. Warren, the President of Magdalen, and at present Vice-Chancellor of the University, has written “The Death of Virgil,” a poem in blank verse, of nearly thirteen hundred lines. The quality of the verse makes it a great English poem. There are some things in the style, perhaps, which may not be appreciated by non- classical readers. Certain lines, certain phrases, may appear to them abrupt, harsh, unpolished ; but, to scholars, many of these experiments will be full of reminiscence, of suggestion, and of interest. Mr. Warren’s verse is, as a whole, strong, majestic, digni- fied. It is a fine addition to our literature, in which good modern blank verse is rare.

Virgil, after working eleven years at the Aeneid, and bringing it to the stage in which we have it now, went to Greece and Asia Minor to finish his epic among some of the places which it describes. As Mr. Warren makes him say :-

I had meant, Eros, to consider all, To polish and perfect, visit myself Each site, each scene, and on the classic soil Of Greece or Asia, Troy, Crete, Sicily, Catch and revive and fix, whate’er remains Of rite or custom, colour, tale, tradition.

But it was not to be. After only a brief sojourn at Athens, he was met there by Augustus, who persuaded him to return. Unfortunately, before sailing, he visited Megara, and contracted a malarial fever as he lingered over its antiquities. He was grievously ill during the voyage, and died on the fourth day after his landing at Brundisium. His own desire was to burn his unfinished Aeneid. Mr. Warren describes these last days of his life and the imminent peril of one of the great poems of the world. Though we know the Aeneid is safe, Mr. Warren’s skill may be measured by our apprehensions as he reconstructs its wavering fate.

This is the main incident, the object, of the poem ; but Mr. Warren brings out, in the course of it, Virgil’s own mind, with his passion for philosophy, his yearning to solve the riddle of the universe ; his fervent love of

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Italy, his conception of the Roman Empire are charged with a beneficent mission to mankind, through the instrumentality of Caesar and his divine Trojan blood.

Caesar himself is described happily by Mr. Warren as

The hero of the Gallic provinces, Half-sainted for his tragic martyrdom.

The Empire is summed up in the lines which tell us of the beauty and wealth of Italy

And all the wondrous ways of God to Rome. These passages are filled with Virgilian echoes, ren- dered most happily into English verse, which is always original, in spite of its fidelity to the words and thought of the Latin. Mr. Warren’s descriptions are far too numerous to quote ; but we may transcribe one, about Athens, not only because it is exceedingly beautiful in itself, but it is not unworthy to stand by Milton’s famous description in “ Paradise Regained.”

Athens, loved Athens ! Would I had never left that charmèd cirque, Your violet hills and their delicious air ! With Socrates beneath the blossomed bough That over-hung Ilissus’ rill I sat, I strolled with Plato in the olive-grove Of Academe, and with them both discoursed Of life before the cradle, after the grave, And through Colonus’ thicket saw and heard The stars and nightingales of Sophocles.

This extract must suffice us in the way of quotation ; though we should like to give the lines in which Cicero, Lucretius, Catullus, Gallus, Varius, and Horace are hit off so pertinently. The whole Augustan age is put before us with the firmest and lightest strokes. There is no work without a blemish. If there were such a paragon of perfection, says a wise Frenchman, it would only be a perfect monstrosity, because it would be in- human. But the only serious blemishes which the present writer can find in Mr. Warren’s poem are in the presentation of Augustus and Maecenas. Neither of these figures is quite worthy of the great and most interesting originals, to both of whom the world of civilisation and letters owes more than it usually re- members.

Space fails us to dwell on Mr. Warren’s memorable rendering of the great passage in the Second Georgic, or on his fine verses where he touches on deeper themes, such as :-

What are our lives but dreams within a dream, If death be real, yet not less real is life.

And so we must leave his volume, recording our genuine thanks and admiration ; happy at finding so great a contribution to English literature, which carries on, as it seems to us, the traditions of Milton, Shelley, and Arnold in the workmanship of our blank verse, and also in its scholarly and living presentation of those classical writers who are undoubtedly Immortal.

W. BAILEY-KEMPLING.

REVIEWS. The English People Overseas. By A. Wyatt Tilby

(Francis Griffith.) There is no dedication on the title-page of this

volume. Had the author desired to pay such a tribute he might fitly have rendered it to Sir John Seely “The Expansion of England ” has been the inspiration of the present work, which in conception and execution reflects credit on the school founded by the great pioneer of Imperialism. The volume treats its subject from two points of view. In the first place, it gives an account of the English in India and Australasia up to 1815, and of their doings in America until the War of Independence. In the second place-and this is the chief merit of the work-it brings all these episodes into their proper place in the general history of the English people, and exhibits them as so many mani- festations of the spirit of the age. Careful study of contemporary literature, especially of contemporary drama, has enabled Mr. Tilby to show what the Eng- lish people thought of their Empire at any given moment. Further, he has made it clear that in domestic events must be found the ideas on which the

JULY 25, 1908

English settlers overseas built the intellectual fabric of their new abodes. Without some such treatment as is, it is impossible to understand the past history and present attitude of the English-speaking peoples in three continents. On reading the record of the founda- tion of the American colonies, the War of Indepen- dence is seen to follow as the inevitable result of the spirit in which they were established. It is indeed a melancholy commentary on the Imperialism of an Im- perial people that twice in its history it should have driven out some of its best blood to build up what could not but be an alien nation. Such blunders as these Mr. Tilby makes no attempt to palliate. Nor is

he a blind admirer of the great Imperialists. Both Clive and Warren Hastings come in for their measure

of condemnation. In connection with such men as

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JULY 25, 1908 THE NEW AGE 255

these the English conception of Imperial rule is con- trasted with the conceptions of our Spanish, Dutch, and French rivals, and its strong and weak points duly brought out. The history of the growth of the Imperial idea at home is too long to be summarised here, but it is in this part of the subject that Mr. Tilby makes his one serious error. In our opinion, far more stress should have been laid on the Peace of 1763. The War of Inde- pendence raises the question of the fitness of the Eng- land of that day for Imperial rule, a subject to which Mr. Tilby devotes several thoughtful pages. With his treatment we do not quarrel as far as it goes. But it does not go far enough ; it does not bring out the utter lack of an Imperial point of view, as shown by the Peace of 1763. That- peace was one of the worst in history. It made a most injudicious restoration of terri- tory and it created the Newfoundland fisheries ques- tion, a running sore in the body of our diplomacy for the next 141 years. That such a treaty should have been made is surely conclusive evidence that the Im- perial spirit, so conspicuous in the Seven Years’ War, was but a passing enthusiasm evoked by the magnetic personality of Pitt, and that the Walpolean tradition of peaceful development still had firm hold on men’s minds.

The- book would be improved by the addition of an appendix containing a few of the most important State papers of the period. In the next volume we trust that room will be found for a copy of the Declaration of Independence-a document which one Englishman in a hundred has read. A few maps would also be a great boon. Also the author’s practice of splitting up his chapters by cross-headings strikes us as unfortu- nate. This is an historical work, not a newspaper article. If these signposts are required at all, they should be relegated to the margin.

National and Social Problems. By Frederic Harri- son. (London : Macmillan and Co. 1908. 7s. 6d. net.)

This collection of essays on political and economic problems of the last forty odd years reads as freshly to-day as though they were of to-day. England is fortunate in possessing such citizens as Mr. Harrison, men who are prepared to sacrifice a life of leisure and social amusement for the purpose of waging implacable war against cruelty, oppression, and injustice of every kind. The most valuable service rendered to the work- ing classes by Mr. Harrison was his long and strenu- ous campaign on behalf of Trade Unions. Apart from this, his destructive onslaughts on the cruelty of Im- perialism and the immorality of Plutonomy stand out as most worthy of praise. In politics it is impossible to classify this humanist. Neither Conservative nor Liberal, neither Socialist nor Radical, he has truckled to no party, and has been listened to with respect by all.

It is worth while to examine this able publicist’s attitude towards Socialism. Like all great movements, Socialism counts among its advocates the most diverse types, while its opponents, unfortunately, include some of the noblest and best Englishmen. Mr. Harrison is definitely opposed to the “annihilation of personal ownership of capital,” as such annihilation would lead to “the annihilation in the early future of the Family, and ultimately of Civilisation-because it applies a rigid and dominant democracy to material life alone, blind to all life, domestic, moral, intellectual, and re- ligious. ” The vigour of this denunciation makes it a little incoherent. In the essay on “Moral and Re- ligious Socialism ” we find the principle on which this criticism is founded : “ Without the passion for accu- mulation which makes a capitalist what he is, products would be consumed as fast as they were made, and no accumulation would exist. Without accumulation, society would come to a standstill, and at the first turn of bad times or a succession of bad seasons, the people would everywhere be deprived of the means of living.” This reasoning is based on the application of the pre- sent capitalist system and its evils to the future system of Socialism. Accumulation may be necessary to-day under the profit-making society which rules our com-

mercial life ; but the aim of Socialism is to rid Eng- land of the curse of uneven production and incompetent distribution, which is the real cause (except the failure of crops) of “ bad times.” To suggest that it is neces- sary to have “ the passion for accumulation,” lest pro- ducts be consumed as fast as they are made, is econo- mically unsound, for the excellent and unassailable reason that the productive powers of mankind, if pro- perly organised and adequately distributed, are greater than their consuming powers. As has so often been pointed out, under Capitalism the more plentiful a crop or a take of fish is, the more likely are those in need of the crop or the fish to starve, because the luxuriant crop or the heavy net of fish reduces the price to such an unprofitable level that it is not worth while to pay the cost of transport. Moreover, this is a necessary and inevitable result of Capitalism. Socialists are de- termined to end this tragedy of the mockery of plenty being accompanied by the awful reality of want and starvation, and Mr. Harrison should produce some better arguments to justify his opposition than the un- sound economic thesis which underlies it.

Mr. Harrison’s essays on foreign politics are much better reading than his criticisms of Socialism, as he and the author of “The Present Position of European Politics ” are the two best-informed Englishmen on all aspects of European politics, now that the late Lord Acton has passed into the Land of Shadows. The studies of Garibaldi and Cavour are admirable. We are glad to see that Stein is ranked with Bismarck as the “great man ” ; personally, we should be inclined to place him higher than Bismarck. The tribute to Léon Gambetta should be received with caution, owing to the glamour in which Gambetta was surrounded at the time it was delivered.

From some points of view, the ablest essay in the book is on “The State of Siege,” in which English judicial opinions on martial law are well summarised, and Lord Halsbury’s corrupt decision in the Marais case subjected to a most damaging attack. Lord Hals- bury will go down to history as the Lord Chancellor who threw over law to gain popularity, and whose Marais decision shook English law and morality to their foundations ; it was a decision which should have led to impeachment.

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DRAMA. Towards a Dramatic Renascence. II. THERE are a good many societies and individuals who have turned their attention to the rescue of Drama from the ogre of metropolitan commercialism. To enumerate them all, or to do justice to them all, would need not two or three articles, but a history. Even the worst and most commercial of theatrical authors and mana- gers have their moments when they find that the artistic conscience forbids them to overstep certain limits. The great majority of authors and managers do try very hard to square the commercial process of collecting money from large audiences with the artistic process of producing good plays. But the temptations to fall away from the path of artistic merit are numerous and usually succumbed to. Yet even a hardened melodramatist will subscribe his guineas to the Stage Society.

The important thing for us, however, is to consider how far existing agencies are likely to meet our demand for drama of the kind we want. Certainly, the most important of these agencies has been the Vedrenne- Barker management, and there is always the chance of such a management cropping up on the ordinary com- mercial field. But there is always the possibility of

such a management passing away again, because in the nature of things it cannot bring in such large returns as ordinary theatrical management.

It certainly ought never to be forgotten that theatri- cal business is essentially a gambling game. A couple of thousand pounds invested in a London production may either bring in profit at the rate of hundreds per cent. if it is successful, or be absolutely swept away, not to speak of a legacy of liabilities if it be a failure. And the glitter and splendour of the gambling world tend to make mere sober and serious profits earned by steady hard work appear dull and insignificant.

As the kind of theatre and the kind of drama we want can never make these big gambling profits it is always unattractive to the manager who thinks he can produce a success as well as another man, and spend money with just as much ease and comfort.

Combinations such as the Vedrenne-Barker manage- ment are only possible apart from the ordinary course of theatrical events, and by means of some such acci- dent as left a little “ pocket ” of Bernard Shaw’s plays unexploited until the Court. Theatre took them up. They cannot be counted upon. Nor can the indi- vidual experiment of the production of this or that play. The tendency of aberrations from the usual course of theatrical productions to be dragged back to the normal level of commercialism is almost irresistible, although the success of Miss Lena Ashwell at the Kingsway seems to point to a time near at hand when such aberrations may establish’ themselves.

In Ireland they have the Irish Theatre ; but that is not in London, and cannot be expected to do more than just occasionally visit us. In Manchester a local drama has also arisen. And both these enterprises have been subsidised.

In London the only permanent home the drama we want possesses is in those pioneer dramatic societies which are financed by the subscriptions of the members. The best known is the Stage Society, now in its ninth

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year. It has produced some admirable plays. But it is not experimental or courageous enough, and it only gives ten performances in a season. It produced in the early days “ Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” and then “Waste ” ; it has produced some poor plays and a good many foreign plays. What it has done it has done well, and rather expensively ; but it has not given a new and definite direction to British drama. Even when we add to the Stage Society the performances of the Pioneers, the New Stage Club, the English Drama Society, and the Playactors, we have not got a very imposing list even on paper, while in practice the list is less imposing still. During this season the Pioneers produced Masefield’s “Nan,” the New Stage Club

plays of Dr. Schnitzler, and the Playactors’ “ Hannele. ” But only one, or at most two, perform- ances of good plays is very unsatisfactory, and involved as the performances are in all the business of the special organisations which produce them, they are not acces- sible to the public who would like to see them. In fact, the experimental drama societies are badly organised ; they are casual attempts to produce drama which is “ interesting ” or “ unacted ” or “ advanced.” They have, none of them, the definite idea of leading the drama away from metropolitanism to find for itself a more real and more acutely individualised existence.

The English Drama Society, although perhaps not so well known as some other organisations, has been doing very important work. This society is in practice an association of a few players who produce good and interesting plays whenever they can create the oppor- tunity. They support their enterprise by inviting the public to buy tickets for their performances, not by subscriptions. Their work, too, has been more defi- nitely experimental than that of the others, and with one enormously important factor, that of cheapness of pro- duction, kept constantly in view. How far the other societies have kept this factor in view I do not know, but the total of £954 OS. 7d. for the series of per- formances of five plays shown in the Stage Society report for the year 1906-7 does not look as if economy was studied very seriously. The 1907-8 figures will, I am sure, be about the same. It is upon, the question of expense and the possibility of cheap production as one of the items of that expense that the whole ques- tion of the production of the drama we want turns.

The best known production of the English Drama Society is that of the Chester Mystery Plays ; but this return to Mediaevalism is balanced by their production of “The Song of Solomon;” “ In a Balcony,” and the modern plays of Dr. Nugent Monck, one of the mem- bers. In many ways the English Drama Society is en- couraging because it is less bound up with theatrical and social fetters than either the Stage Society or the Pioneers, and having shown in its productions a more definite idea of its development.

There do exist other managements and experimental societies I have not mentioned, as, for instance, Mr. Charrington’s presentation of “ Ghosts ” in Manchester last winter. And I have not attempted to mention the work of societies which have laid the foundations of present-day work, but have now ceased to exist, nor to criticise and compare impartially the work of those still going on. But even taking the most favourable esti- mate of the activity of all these societies, prophesying

a reinvigoration of the “ Vedrenne-Barker, ” with all its old fire and perpetual youth for Miss Lena Ashwell, it is fairly clear that we have not got anything very

much to flatter ourselves about. The drama we want gets produced, if at all, with difficulty and spasmodi- cally. Is there no way of doing anything more to help it and regularise it ? There at once comes into my mind the idea of a municipal theatre subsidised by the L.C.C. But this is not a living political issue, nor would it meet our wants. Let US agitate for the municipal theatre by all means, but until we have created the agitation it is useless formulating our demand. And in the mean- time I believe we can do a good deal towards estab- lishing a drama and a theatre such as we desire.

L. HADEN GUEST. (To be concluded.)

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PROPAGANDA BY ART. To THE EDITOR OF (( THE NEW AGE.”

Allow me to protest against Anthony Oldpate inviting the readers of THE NEW AGE to join in his merriment over a futile conversation. One can forgive his naughty friend who was convinced that Mr. Shaw’s plays are intended solely for the salvation of the suburbs. He merely expressed a pious desire that they might be such, in an unsuspecting moment. It is more difficult to be generous to Mr. Oldpate, who declares in a pontifical manner that Mr. Shaw writes “drama,” and then rings the curtain down on the argument like a superior person worsted in debate by a dangerous and rather too polemical youth. Because Pinero is no philosopher and Ibsen no social re- former it follows that Mr. Shaw is no propagandist! Be- cause the Poet Laureate is no politician and Mr. Yeats no scientist, it follows that John Davidson is no iconoclast ! The reasoning of our friend Anthony is droll. He is mani- festly the victim of that mischievous epigram, “Art for Art’s Sake.” It is late in the day to point out that every idea, every new point of view, whether it is woven into a poem, a picture, or a drama, carries with it a certain power of pro- pagating itself, of being absorbed-and therein lies the supreme virtue of Art. Let Anthony Oldpate’s mind cease to be tickled by an epigram and held in bondage by a narrow and superficial theory of drama.

R. L. GRAINGER. * * *

“THE JEWISH APOLOGISTS OF THE TSAR.” To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.”

Some time ago you inserted an article in THE NEW AGE dealing with a body calling itself the Jewish Board of deputies. Dr. M. D. Eder, after giving a short résumé in regard to its constitution, uttered some very pregnant remarks about this Board and the house of Rothschild. At the time I thought that the interests of Jewry, and especially Russian Jewry, would best be served by keeping a discreet silence. The fact that the article in question was read by Mr. Leopold Rothschild and other influential gentlemen, bracketed with the further fact that the Board had recently acquired a more vigorous accession of strength, gave ground for some belief that-this body would act with somewhat greater vigour. Judge, then, of my surprise when at the last meeting the President, with the apparent approval of the whole body, absolutely refused to permit the Board to asso- ciate itself with those members of Parliament who protested against the recent visit of the King to Russia. I submit that such action is worthy of consideration.

Here is a body with whom the Lords Rothschild and Swaythling are associated, which specifically claims to watch over and guard, not only the interest of Anglo-Jewry, but of that greater Jewry beyond the seas, refusing to accept the proffered services of men who had nothing to gain by their humane action. Unless the claim of this Board is restricted to an indulgence in high-sounding words or pernicious philanthropy, it is difficult to see how they could have

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THE NEW AGE JULY 25, 1908+

afforded to have disassociated themselves from the spirited protest made by the Labour Party. Only when you come to examine the personnel of this body can you obtain a satis- factory reply. So imbued with class feeling are the executive that although they disregard all logic in dealing with matter: affecting Russian Jewry they cover up their shortcoming: with the word diplomacy. And I think we all know what diplomacy means, especially when it is dark diplomacy.

They protect the rich Jew’s interests whilst the poor Jew is placated with liberal doles of charity. They fear anti- Semitism, not because it can hurt those who are already poor, but because it means no more knighthoods, and no more presentations at Court. During the past eighteen months this body has been asked to thank the S.D.P. for supporting the resolution carried at Carlisle condemning the Russian bureaucracy. It has been asked to approach those Socialist M.P.'s who have expressed their willingness to modify or abrogate the Aliens Act. It has been further asked to recognise a resolution acclaimed at Stuttgart relative to alien emigration and immigration. To all these pleas it has turned a deaf ear, preferring to seek inspiration at New Court, or sitting on the doorstep whining for an interview with Sir Charles Hardinge at the Foreign Office.

You would naturally conclude that such a body would be only too glad to clutch at any straw in order to save a large remnant of an oppressed race, but such is not the case with this Board. Before they do anything for the poor, they ask themselves : will it hurt the rich ? Quite recently the opportunity presented itself of preventing the executive pre- senting some fulsome adulation on the occasion of the pro- jected visit of the Tsar. A resolution embodying this was sent to a prominent member who prides himself on his progressive tendencies, and a postscript was added asking the member to support it. Substantially the reply was that the resolution was premature. Could anything be more ludicrous ! I suppose we must wait until a petition is pre- sented and then protest that our hands have been tied, the while winking at the process. It would be humorous were it not so pitiable to see the way these deputies fawn upon the rich. If the Montagues or Rothschilds put in an appearance their attitude of nervous trepidation is unaccountable, ex- cept upon the score of inherent snobbery. Hitherto I have always associated this psychological phenomenon with the working classes ; I now know it to be shared with the pros- perous Jewish bourgeoisie.

A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC MEMBER OF THE BOARD.

+ * *

THE INJUSTICE OF VOTES FOR WOMEN.

To THE EDITOR OF (‘THE NEW AGE.”

C. H. Norman urges as an argument against votes for women that “long training through centuries has habituated the male mind to the initiation of policy, and the construc- tive development of that policy,” women being disqualified by centuries of lack of training in these directions. Sup- posing the facts to be as stated, Mr. Norman must either relinquish his conclusion, or proceed to defend the theory of the inheritance of acquired mental characters. He will find this no easy task. Failing success in it, he must admit that each generation starts afresh in these respects, and the apparent results are due merely to individual training and environment. Give to women equality of opportunity-the true watchword of Socialism-and society may learn whether or no they can be of use. The natural difference of tem- perament and genius in men and women is an argument for, not against, co-operation in statecraft.

As for the control of the lives of men by the exercise of the vote in time of war-there is an instance of the advantage of the difference of temperament. Women might save us from some needless wars. And as it is now, it is those (men) who do not fight (often mere financiers), rather than those who do, that decide for or against war. Does Mr. Norman desire to disfranchise all men not liable to be called upon at any moment for active foreign service? If not, there is no reason why he should regard such a non-liability as a disqualification in the case of women. Most of Mr. Nor- man’s other arguments are as flimsy. The statement that the fabric of civilisation is essentially and almost exclusively the work of men, many sociologists would controvert ; and, if true, it is not a compliment to men, but an argument for the infusion of new blood into the world political.

ANANDA K. COOMARASWAMY, D. SC.

* Jc *

A BRITISH SOCIALIST PARTY.

To THE EDITOR OF (‘ THE NEW AGE.”

The most significant thing in the Socialist movement of this country, at the present moment, is the uneasy stirring of the masses under the quickening of idealism, as though they

.

C

sensed the dawn of Socialism. They are waiting with long- ing eyes for the message which is being withheld under the stress of “practical ” considerations. That this subjective idealism is running quicksilver-like through the veins of the proletariat cannot be doubted. Wherever the messenger is true to his inspiration, wherever he delivers his message unadultered and undefiled, he finds an eager response from the common people-whether Socialist or non-Socialist. The rank and file are in the van, whilst too often the leaders lag behind in the tortuous ways of “practical” issues.

Nevertheless, we must be fair. The careful men, who have rendered such magnificent service to the movement, and whose devotion one would not dare to question, are absolutely sincere in their desire for Socialism, which they think can most quickly be attained by cautious-I had almost written Machiavellian-methods. The pity of it is that they only faintly realise the great lesson of history, which is that idealism is the cutting edge of all progress, an edge that cannot be blunted, which? through the ages, has hewn its way into the forest of reaction. It was the cutting- edge of Christianity, of Buddhism, of all the movements which have held enthralled the soul of mankind. In our own time, it was the cutting edge of Colne Valley.

The “practical ” man has the strength and-let it not be forgotten-the weakness of the objective mind. He fails to understand that whilst, objectively, the people are fearsome and have to be cajoled, yet, subjectively, they are permeated with latent idealism. The tinder is there-who will apply the spark?

What are we going to do? The I.L.P. policy of the socialist-Labour union has been attended with excellent re- sults, but-and it is a big (‘but “--we are not indefinitely committed to it. Our nursery experiment has been success- ful, but the Labour baby cannot be Parliamentarily wet- nursed when the teething process is completed-and it is getting a big boy now.

Again, what are we going to do? We must consciously work towards the objective of a British Socialist Party in he House of Commons. It can be done. It will be done before many years have run their course. How is it to be accomplished ? By the socialising of the Socialists-in other words, by the unification of the various Socialist sections into one body, with a unified policy towards the objective of Socialism. Let us have those virile differences of opinion by all means as regards method, but let us thrash out these differences within the party, the minority loyally abiding by the decision of the majority, in the same way that varied currents of thought blend, at the International Congress, into one broad world-policy. But for the sake of humanity, let us avoid personalities. What a travesty upon the spirit of Internationalism is the sectarianism of our movement. Too frequently the British Socialist carries in his veins the malarial virus beloved of the theologian-which results in the intermittent fever of sectionalism.

If our Socialism is not a name only, why not have a Con- ference of the I.L.P., S.D.P., Fabians, and “ Clarion ” organisations, with the object of evolving a conscious scheme for the calling into being of a Socialist Party, which in the first place working through the country will naturally lead in the fulness of time to a Parliamentary Socialist Party?

Let us take our courage in both hands, and, as Mr. Hobson says in his suggestive article, go forward “ uncon- querable, fanatical, dogmatic.” Let us break down the terminological barriers and the phantom divisions which to-day stultify us.

Revolutionary tactics are practical tactics. If we are not evolutionists, in Heaven’s name what are we? Revolution is our raison d’être. Let our revolutionary tactics be the tactics of the rapier as well as the broad-sword. Let our

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fighting be scientific. But let us aim at the sun. In our star-ward course the meaner things will come to us. We need the propaganda of the fiery cross.

CHARLES N. L. SHAW. * * *

ENGLISH FOREIGN POLICY. To THE EDITOR OF "THE NEW AGE:"

Your correspondent, Mr. E. Wake Cook, falls into the very error against which my letter was meant to warn him- that this policy of the isolation of Germany is a peaceful proceeding: he may rest assured that it is not so regarded by the Germans, more especially since the attempt,-which they believe to have been made, to seduce Italy from the Triple Alliance.

If, as Mr. Cook admits, this is a “life and death ” matter, surely the English people should have the issue clearly stated, and should not-misled by the glamour of a royal diplomacy-entrust its defence to paper treaties with broken reeds, whilst its own army and navy are deliberately starved into inefficiency to provide the unscrupulous economies of the present Government.

There may be others of your readers who distrust the “two front bench people!‘, and doubt their collective cour- age to be loyal to the nation in opposition to royal influence.

HOWARD INCE. * * *

THE INDETERMINATE SENTENCE. To THE EDITOR OF of THE NEW AGE."

How gloriously Irish is Mr. Louis J. McQuilland’s letter in its contradictoriness. First he deprecates the “ indeter- minate sentence ” because it may lead to Irish political crimi- nals being sentenced for life, and then decries the opposition to death sentences and to the punishment of “indubitable criminals ” as being due to “ sickly sentimentalism.”

Neither Mr. Cecil Chesterton’s article nor Mr. McQuil- land’s letter is in the least logical in decrying the ” indeter- minate sentence ” and the punishment of political criminals, and yet defending the general principle of punishment and the arbitrary sentencing of social criminals, whom Mr. Mc- Quilland distinguishes as “indubitable.” What is an “in- dubitable ” criminal ? LEONARD J. SIMONS.

JUVENILE DANCING v.

x-

ETHICAL MOVEMENT. To THE EDITOR OF THE NEW AGE.”

Mr. W. R. Titterton had better give Little Puffball a friendly tip. Has he twigged “The Meaning of the Inter- national Moral Education Congress ” in the current “Fort- nightly ” ? The Devil, it seems, is not to take X+Y: X+Y is to take Little Puffball. List, list, oh list ! ” Mathematics, too, which at first sight may not appear to have any connec- tion with the moral life, is, on the contrary, identical with sound thought. Truthfulness is inexorably interwoven with arithmetical accuracy. Real illustrations, vibrating with human interest, can be borrowed for algebraic problems, which will clutch the hear: and mind of the child in a way that the hum-drum apportioning of eggs and apples has no power to do. ”

EDWARD HARRISON. * 9c

ROBERT OWEN. To THE EDITOR OF " THE NEW AGE.”

Your reviewer, in his kindly notice of my little book, inquires why Owen, “an ardent pacifist,” insisted on mili- tary drill for both boys and girls in his schools at New Lanark. Well, there were no rifles or weapons of war em- ployed, and no uniforms were provided. The children marched together and were taught to walk upright, and keep in step, Surely this co-education must have discouraged any aggressive military ardour ; it certainly was not instituted to make soldiers of the boys, Owen’s Quaker partners objected to this drill, but they objected even more to the dancing of the children.

As to spiritualists being deaf, Owen was over seventy when he became a spiritist, and, as a matter of fact, did suffer from deafness, and was consoled by the messages rapped out on the table. Possibly a certain deafness to the voice of human reason would quicken whatever organ is required to discern the greetings from departed celebrities. Who can tell? JOSEPH CLAYTON.

* + *

SWORD AND BLOSSOM POEMS. To THE EDITOR OF (( THE NEW AGE.',

While thanking you for the kind things you say about “Sword and Blossom Poems ” in your review of last week, may I point out that these translations are not “by T. Hasegawa,” as you state. Mr. Hasegawa is the publisher of the book, and Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall and Co. are his English agents. The translations are by Mr. Shotaro Kimura and myself, CHARLOTTE M. A. PEAKE.

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