THE

A WEEKLY REVIEW OF POLITICS, LITERATURE AND ART.

THE EVERLASTING PARADOX.

NEW AGE

74 T H E NEW AGE NOVEMBER 25 , 1909

CONTENTS PAGE

A CARTOON : The Everlasting Paradox. By Dudley Tennant 73 NOTES OF THE Week ... ... ... ... ... 74 VASHTI : A Poem. By Beatrice Tina ... ... ... 76 LE Jardin DU TREPAS. Bp W. L. George ... ... 76 PETER THE PAUPER. By E. H. Visiak ... ... ... 76 FOREIGN AFFAIRS. By Stanhope of Chester ... ... _- PERKS ! By O. W. Dyce ... ... ... ... 78 F. E. SMITH : An Appreciation. By Montagu Brixton ... EQUALITY AND OPPORTUNITY. By Francis Grierson

79 ... ... 80 A CONTINENTAL TRIP. IV. By Bart Kennedy ... ... Sr

77

All communications for the Editor should be sent to 88, Cursitor Street, Chancery Lane, E.C.

NOTES OF THE WEEK. W R I T I N G on the eve of the Second Reading Budget debate in the House of Lords and with Lord Lansdowne’s motion for rejection before us, we are still doubtful among the doubtless of the issue of the threatened crisis. Lord Lansdowne’s motion may have been designed as a sop to the Cerberuses of his beery supporters, or it may be seriously meant. Of that we shall never be certain even when the debate is over : €or the psychology of party leaders is always past dis- covery. On the other hand we will assume the worst. W e will assume, that is, that the Lords on Thursday reject the Budget and throw it back in the face of the Commons with a command to dissolve. What is then to be done? * * *

All the journals on both sides have apparently made up their minds that there will remain nothing for the Government to do but to dissolve. No alternative is supposed to be conceivable, still less desirable. For reasons which we stated last week, the Unionist journals might be expected to conclude in this way, since they stand to lose nothing and to gain something by a General Election at any moment. The Liberal journals, on the other hand, hope to gain; but what they hope to gain is in our view annulled and cancelled by what they are certain to lose. In short we are of opinion that for the Liberal Government dissolution at the behest of the Lords, even on so serious a matter as the rejec- tion of the Budget, would be gross and irretrievable folly. * * *

There are so many considerations involved that it is impossible to discuss them all ; but we will name a few that have weighed with us. Dissolution on the rejection of the Budget would admit, in the first place, the very subject of contention, namely, the right of the Lords to order a n appeal to the country. For that right there has never been in recent years the shadow of a foundation, nor should it be admitted now to be only problematically denied to-morrow. Depend upon it, if the Lords can compel the Government to dissolve to-day in the heydey of their majority, they can compel them to dissolve on any to-morrow they choose to select. * * *

But it will be urged that should the Government be returned after a General Election they will then be able to proceed to cut the claws of the Lords with the mandate of the people. This involves as many fallacies as assumptions, and one of them so dangerous as to require to be instantly killed. W e have heard a good deal lately of what is called the Mandate theory of government. The Liberals, we believe, were the first to resuscitate this fly-blown formula during the post- bellum administration of the Unionists under Mr. Balfour. Then it was contended that in introducing a drastic (and let us add, wise and salutary) Education Rill, Mr. Balfour was exceeding the limits of the in- structions he was supposed to have received during the election which preceded his office. W e denied the man- date theory then, and we deny it now that it has come home to the Liberals to roost. So far from being either popular or democratic, the Mandate theory, like the Referendum, would strike a blow at the very conception

PAGE

THE ART OF HOME Making. I l . By W. Shaw Sparrow ... 82 THE SOCIOLOGIST UPON THE STREETS. I I . By Prof. Patrick

THE PASSING DISPENSATION I . By Judah P. Benjamin ... 84 ON CONSUMPTION. By the Right Hon. John Burns, M.P. ... 85

Geddes ... ... ... ... ... ... R3

BOOKS AND PERSONS. By Jacob Tonson ... ... ... 88 SOME DISREMEMBERED LESSONS. By hl. D. Eder ... ... 89 REVIEWS : In the Net of the Stars, etc. ... ... ... 90 BLIND : A Poem. By Wilfrid Wilson Gibson ... ... 91 ART. By Huntly Carter ... ... ... ... ... 92 CORRESPONDENCE ... ... ... ... ... 94

of Representative Government. What can be more obvious than that Representative Government implies Government by Representatives? And what can be more fatal to Representation than the admission of the principle of Delegation? Yet Delegation is precisely the implication both of the theory of the Referendum and of the theory of the Mandate. In the name of Representative Government which is Democracy, we therefore reject them both : on the double ground that both of them, singly or jointly, would reduce at once the status of the representative and the freedom of public discussion.

***

The notion that after a General Election in which they were successful the Liberals would be better equipped for an attack upon the veto of the Lords is equally indefensible. The Government at this moment commands a majority in the Commons of between two and three hundred. They certainly cannot hope to increase that figure nor would it be of any avail could they do it. What a Government with such a majority cannot do, a Government with a slightly increased majority could not do. And if the majority, as is probable under the most favourable circumstances, is considerably reduced, the moral effect of the reduction will still further weaken the case of the Commons against the Lords. In other words, the Government is as well equipped at this moment for an attack on the veto of the Lords as it can ever hope to be. Abso- lutely no new power could be added to it by a General Election, and its present powers might easily be reduced. What, then, has the Government to gain that it has not already got? Nothing and less than nothing.

***

The details are well worth a moment’s thought. Let it be supposed that the Government dissolve on the present issue and are returned : how would they proceed against the Lords? A resolution by the Com- mons declaring the future immunity of Finance Bills would be no more effective than resolutions in the past have been. For fifty years the Commons’ resolu- tion on the subject restrained the Lords, but in the fiftieth year the Lords have ignored it. How can a Commons resolution bind in perpetuity the Lords, over whom their jurisdiction is not and cannot be final? Or suppose the Commons proceed by Bill. To become law the Bill must be passed by the Lords. Would the Lords after a General Election in which the Liberals had lost part of their present majority be any the more prepared to assent to their own execution, and, in fact, to sign their own death-warrant in legal form? It is unthinkable. Precisely the same difficulties would con- front the Commons then as now, and no devices that do not now exist would exist then. For an attack on the privileges of the Lords the Commons have, there- fore, at this moment exactly as much power and pre- cisely the same means as they can hope to have even if they were returned in undiminished strength.

***

On these grounds, we absolutely dismiss as impolitic any suggestion of immediate dissolution in consequence of the threatened rejection by the Lords of the Budget. That rejection can be dealt with as well now as after an election. What is more, we shall refuse to believe that the Liberals are really serious in their campaign against the Lords’ veto if when the opportunity for a battle is offered they run away to fight-another day.

NOVEMBER 25, 1909 THE NEW AGE 75

Concerning the procedure to be adopted for immedi- ately dealing with the Lords without a General Elec- tion we are not so clear. There are plainly many factors to be taken into account : and most of them are persons. I t is useless to disguise from ourselves the obvious truth that as much now as ever person- alities count for more than anything else. Every- thing depends in our judgment on the attitude and action of a few persons, most of whom can be named. What secret strings may determine their conduct we need not now speculate, but the point is that should the Lords actually reject the Budget the subsequent proceedings will depend on the precise actions of Lord Crewe, the Speaker, Mr. Asquith, and the King. This quaternary is the British square between the Lords and the country, and on their behaviour will depend the question whether or not an election is held.

* * * Of Lord Crewe we cannot under the circumstances

hold much account. He is compelled to move the Second Reading of the Finance Rill in the Lords and to defend the Bill against the attacking amendment. But he must beware of discussing Lord Lansdowne’s amendment as if it were legitimate, which it is not. Nothing, indeed, will ever make it legitimate in view sf the fact that for fifty years by unwritten consent, by form of address in the King’s Speech, and by number- less admissions and implications on all sides of politics, the power of the purse resides in the Commons and in the Commons alone. We shall look with the greatest interest to the reports of Lord Crewe’s speech for indi- cations that he has taken his stand on this ground. Any other ground is a morass and a sinking sand. The exclusive and absolute control of finance by the elected House is a principle which must be regarded as not merely beyond discussion, but beyond dispute. If that pillar of the Constitution is shaken, the Constitu- tion itself totters. In all seriousness we declare that the admission by Lord Crewe, even by so much as a phrase, of the right of the Lords to determine the fate of the Money Hill would he tantamount to an act of surrender at the very moment of the declaration of war.

***

But let us suppose that Lord Crewe has avoided that pitfall, and that the Budget is returned to the Com- mons for reconsideration. What is then to be done? It may be remembered as a significant fact that already this Session, and not once but twice or thrice, the Speaker has of his own responsibility as the custodian of the privileges of the Commons, ruled out certain amendments of the Lords, notably in the Housing- Bill, which trenched on the subject of finance. Not a soul in the Commons disputed the Speaker’s rulings on these occasions, nor indeed was there any ground for it. The amendments by universal consent were dis- allowed, and not a dog harked. Are we to suppose that the Speaker on behalf of the Commons strained at a gnat and will now swallow a camel : that having ruled out of order Lords’ amendments which altered the incidence of rating a halfpenny or so, he will now accept an amendment which abrogates the entire power of the Commons to tax at all? It is not easily to be thought of outside the journals of a lunatic world. The plain and straightforward duty of the Speaker of the House of Commons faced with the rejection of the Budget by the Lords is instantly to declare the rejection illegal, an infringement of the privileges of his Cham- ber, and an act of studied insult and defiance. Short of that, the action of the Speaker himself is an illegal act; and we do not know that a strong Premier would not prepare to move a Bill of Attainder against a Speaker who failed to discharge his chief function of preserving the rights of the Commons.

***

The decision to dissolve, however, does not lie with the Speaker, but with the Government, and here it is that the third person of our square must be considered. Mr. Asquith has been sometimes regarded as a poten- tial Cromwell by his intimate friends, and we are

inclined to say to him : If you are Cromwell prepare to show it now. As the leader of a Government strong in numbers and not weak in popular support, face to face with a threatened attack not only upon the authority of his party, but upon the credit and stand- ing both of his Government and of the Commons, Mr. Asquith’s position is such as would, i n Tom l’aine’s words, try the soul of any man. If ever statesman was weighed in the balance before the eyes of the world, Mr. Asquith will be weighed on this occasion. Various of his henchmen are clamouring for a fight, to-morrow and to-morrow, but as we have urged the moment for the fight is to-day. Not on the devious, obscure and doubtful issues of a General Election mill the fate of the Liberal Party and the Commons de- pend, but on the instant decision of the Government voiced by Mr. Asquith within countable hours of the revolutionary act of the Lords. What will Mr. Asquith do, what will he say?

***

W e pause for a moment to remark the fatuity of every single one of the Government organs. But in truth there are no Government organs. Each of the Liberal papers is the paper of a clique and a section. Not one of them speaks the authentic mind either of the Government or of the Liberal Party as a whole. Nothing, in fact, could be more disgraceful than the chaos of misunderstanding, interested and sectional advice, and purely mischievous notions of the various Liberal journals. Every one of them apparently is in fa\-our of taking the decision of the Lords lying down, for that is what the dissolution of the Government would amount to. Each prays Mr. Asquith to dissolve nt the. command of the Lords in the vain hope that a new Liberal Government might do what the present Govern- ment cannot or, rather, will not do. What criminal folly and what ineptitude ! What sage counsel to offer at the moment when the actual crisis is upon us ! I t is not even prudence, it is rank cowardly despair. We should have thought that the very fact that the Union- ists also were clamouring for an election would have opened the eyes of Liberal journalists to the peril of clamouring for the same thing. After all, both parties cannot profit by a General Election. If Unionists win, as they may, Liberalism becomes extinct.

***

The “ Nation ” is perhaps the most foolish of all the Liberal journals. Apparently it has been stampeded with the least thoughtful of the Liberal camp-followers. W e cannot believe that its editor has devoted an hour’s meditation to the situation, or what are we t o make of the “ Nation’s ” naive reply to Mr. Arthur Chamber- lain’s suggestion that the King should be asked to create 500 new peers for the purpose of passing the Budget? The “ Nation ” admits that such a course may still be necessary, even if after a General Election the Liberals are returned. Rut if necessary then why not advisable now? Is the “ Nation ” also srnit-ten yellow with the Mandate fever; or does it hold that the Government has ceased to represent the country? What earthly object is there in postponing to a perilous rid- venture the very course of action which might save us now? “ No Liberal Government,” says the “ Nation,” will again take office without the necessary security for overriding the veto of the hereditary Con- servatives.” R u t that security can be a thousand times more certainly obtained now than by waiting on incalculable events. The Government has its bird in its hand. Why let it go to catch it only possibly in the bush ? * * *

There remains the King. Y e s , democrats all there remains the King. When the Speaker has declared that the action of the Lords is a trespass upon privilege; when, further, Mr. Asquith has declared that he refuses to recognise the right of the Lords to dissolve a Govern- ment, the question arises : what will the King be pre- pared to do at the suggestion of his Ministers? He can. it is clear, be asked to assent to the Budget over

76 THE NEW AGE NOVEMBER 25, 1909

the heads of the Lords. And why not? In the very form of the King’s Speech to the Houses of Parliament there is a break to admit the principle of the sole control of the Commons in matters of finance. “ Gentlemen of the House of Commons ” is the address prefixed to the section of Finance, when “ My Lords and Gentlemen ” is the form of address prefixed to every other command a n d request. Surely that is enough to demonstrate that the King, at any rate, concerns himself solely with the Commons in the matter of a Money Bill. And it follows that Mr. Asquith would be quite entitled to request the Royal Assent to the Budget even should the Lords at the threat persist in their attitude of rejection. This is only one course open to Mr. Asquith ; and the resources of civilisation are not exhausted thereby.

***

Or let us suppose that this is too high-handed a policy. What, we ask, is wrong with the ancient device of creating new peers to carry the Bill in the House of Lords? The very threat of this should be effective, since the increased supply of peers would considerably lower the value of a title in the fashion market Dukes might be bought for a “ Daily Mail.;’ Surely the prospect would be enough to induce the Lords to pass a halfpenny tax on land. However, we will not attempt to enumerate the resources the Com- mons have at their disposal. What is clear is that the way exists for the will. Nothing should induce Mr. Asquith to permit the Budget to be annulled or even delayed. He has in front of him the Speaker, and at the back of him the King, and around him every demo- crat in England worth his salt. To consent to a disso- lution would be an act of treachery to the Commons from which we may hope that not only the Liberal Party may not recover but the Lords as well.

VASHTI PRINCE beside prince sat when Ahasuerus

Boasted his queenly gem.

I-to disport for them !

“ Summon her E ” cried they. “ Bring her before us.”

I , Vashti scorned them. “ Return, thou, my answer,

Say Vashti queries : “ Is left no dancer In all of Babylon? ’’

Briefly, O Memucan,

Leap ! To the walls ye slaves ! Away ! blind and halt ing.

Breathless, the eunuch shall tell my defaulting. O K i n g , live for ever ! ”

Kings’ horses halt never.

“

Lonely I wait. Hushed my women around me, Hushed all this dais’d room,

Hushed the wild music, as though Death had bound me Yesterday ! in the tomb.

Courage heart ! Though men may enter this chamber, Signing me forth to die-

So that, in days to be, none dare remember My name was Vashti :

To-night I am Queen ! See the blue, green and white,

And silk cords of purple. A thousand lamps light The tassels all golden,

The Feast I have holden.

Rise up, O Women ! and sound out your chorus,

Leading the Banquet of Freedom before us, Lift high each head serene :

Vashti, this night, is Queen. BEATRICE TINA

LE JARDIN DU TREPAS. IL est un jardin clair dont la senteur trop forte Livre un assaut furtif au coeur halluciné, Révélant à-demi son secret, deviné Comme l’odeur étouffée d’une jacinthe morte. Là tout le jour durant, se carre la pivoine, Ondoie le liseron et fleurit l’églantier E n ce repos profond s’alourdit l’espalier Et, dans tous les recoins, verdit la folle avoine

Mais ce jardin si doux vit cent ans de batailles Et leur clameur rugit au rouge de ses fleurs, Et saisit mon esprit d’un étau de terreur, Et hurle tout leur crime aux échos des murailles. Autour de moi s’élèvent des armées de fantômes, Sombres comme leur fin, parés de tubéreuses, Enguirlmdés de roses et d’orties vaporeuses, T o u t couverts de corolles aux menaçants arômes

Glacé je veux les fuir . . . mes forces se rebellent . . . Les clairons étouffés renforcent leurs échos Et font frémir soudain, la moelle de mes os, Car je le sais enfin, c’est pour moi qu’ils rappellent. Alors, étreint d’horreur, comprenant mon destin, La face ensevelie dans les herbes damnées, Je maudis mes espoirs, mes trop courtes années, E t mon étoile pâle à l’horizon s’eteint

W. L. GEORGE,

PETER THE PAUPER. To Peter belonged, in Peter’s sight, Living and lands and heart’s delight : So Peter took what Peter might, All in the middle of the night. . . . . They put him in a mansion great With men to stand and men to wait, Silent and sedulous as fate, All in a livery of state.

They kept him close they kept him tight ; They barred the sun, they gagged the light (For suns do blast, and moons do blight), May Heaven their tender care requite !

They watched by night, they watched by day ; They watched him till his head grew gray, And all his kith had passed away : May Heaven this vigilance repay !

When he came out, they watched him still Through the valley and up the hill ; For friends in need may find and fill, But donors pay the Devil’s bill.

But fools rush in where angels fear : A fool gave Peter chance and cheer. They stole along, they crept anear, And whispered in the dotard’s ear.

Now Scripture saith that Satan fell ; And Satan’s damned by book and bell : ’Tis so on earth as ’tis in hell- For men are damned, if men will tell.

And ’tis most right ; for Scripture told . . . So Peter slipt from hold to hold : They watched him hot, they watched him cold, Till Peter stole a hag of gold.

They carne behind, they came before ; And Peter turned and cursed and swore : They took him in, and shut the door. May Heaven their vigilance repay !

E. H. VISIAK

NOVEMBER 2 5 , 1909 THE NEW A G E 77

Foreign Affairs THE Republican Party in Portugal is profiting by Queen Amelia’s surrender to the Clericals, so the success of King Manoel’s visit is vital to the House of Braganza. The Portuguese Throne is tottering, and an English Princess has been sought in alliance as a buttress ; but the negotiations are not proceeding very harmoniously. Queen Alexandra supported by the King, is anxious to unite by marriage the English and Portuguese thrones. The Duchess of Fife, on the other hand, has flatly refused so far to allow her daughter to be sacrificed for political considerations. King Manoel is a young man of very little ability. H e is almost a puppet in the hands of the Queen-mother. The Portuguese army and navy are honeycombed with Republicanism, and the miseries of the Portuguese people are unremedied by legislation. Political life in Portugal stagnates in the slimy pool of corruption. Education is at a standstill, and the proportion of illiterates is 72 per cent. Hardly a pleasant prospect for a charming well-educated English girl !

* * * The most notable event of the week in Spain has

been the return of Señor Lerroux, the Republican leader, from exile in the Argentine. He addressed an enthu- siastic meeting of 10,000 people nt Barcelona, receiving a great ovation. The constitutional guarantees have been restored ; but the poverty of the people is as pitiable as ever. Threatened kings live long ; but whether King Alfonso will hold his throne is doubtful. Well-informed publicists are of opinion that, notwithstanding the efforts of the English Court, the flame of Republicanism will be again kindled in Barcelona, and will sweep the Peninsula. King Alfonso and King Manoel may save themselves ; but their thrones will probabIy be sub- merged unless the two Courts are freed from Clerical influences. Catholicism, so much admired by that sturdy upholder of the democracy, Mr. G. K. Ches- terton, has given Spain a percentage of 68 in illiteracy.

* * * Mr. Joseph McCabe has rendered many sen-ices to

the cause of education, but none better than his investi- gation into the Ferrer case (“ The Martyrdom of Ferrer,” Watts and Co., 6d. net). The “ Revista Cristiana” is cited as stating that the SUM spent on wax and incense burned in Spanish churches reached £1,500,000 for one year, which nearly balances the Education estimates. This book should be studied by those who have criticised the various charges made in THE NEW AGE against Jesuit methods in Spain. Mr. McCabe has destroyed for ever the theory that the execution of Ferrer was merely a bad blunder. Docu- ment after document is quoted as shewing- the deter- mination of the ruling oligarchy to slay Ferrer. On the educational purity of Ferrer’s teaching some striking testimony is produced by Mr. McCabe There is a letter from Gregorio Aglipay, Supreme Bishop of the Independent Philippine Church, dated March 1 0 t h 1909, addressed to Señor Ferrer, Director of the Modern School, Barcelona : “Accept, Sir, the assurance of my most distinguished consideration. My delegate at Bar- celona, Señor Isabelo de los Reyes, has sent me most of the magnificent works edited by you. I have been agreeably surprised by the modern, scientific, and civi- lised tendency of their teaching.” The last sentence reiterates this favourable episcopal opinion : “ In your person, I respectfully salute the whole of the. professors of the Modern School in Spain.’’ Mr. McCabe has justly commended the gallant efforts of Ferrer’s counsel, Cap- tain Galcerán who, in his final speech, stated that in the preparation of his case he had experienced so much fraud and vile passion that he was completely over- whelmed. Captain Galcerán did his best ; but his fate is most uncertain. Ferrer’s counsel has disappeared. Mr. McCabe remarks : “ H i s magnificent audacity and honesty took the court by surprise. The civilised world should interest itself in the obscurity that has fallen on that brave officer.” The fate of many upright men in

Spain is still veiled in mystery. A heavy responsibility rests upon King Edward for attaching England to Spanish Clericalism. However that may be, the Spanish Government’s reluctance to defend its reputation is ex- plained by Mr. McCabe’s book. The verdict of history will be that Señor Ferrer was deliberately murdered for trying to penetrate the darkness in Spain by means of scientific education.

* * * As was pointed out in these columns a fortnight ago,

a t a time when the English Press was announcing that the only Russian troops remaining in Persia were a few Legation guards, the true situation in Persia, especially at Ardebil is contained in the admission of the Russian Foreign Office that there are over 2,000 Russian troops in Persia. About 3,000 more are being concentrated for emergencies on the frontier. The Anglo-Russian Treaty on Persia, dividing that country into “ spheres of influence,” has been regarded by the Russian Government in the same light as the Treaties of Gul’is- tan and Turkomanchai as an excuse for perpetual stir- ring up of internecine strife. Russian policy is un- changing- in its incessant advance. Prince Gortcha- koff’s Circular Note of 1864, defending the Russian annexations in Central Asia, and implying that Russia would proceed no further, was followed in a few months by the fall of Tashkend, Khokand and Samar- cand. In 1879, Count Schouvaloff informed Lord Salis- bury “ that the Russian Government had no intention of occupying Merv.” ” Lord Dufferin received similar assurances by especial sanction of the Emperor. In 1884, Merv was taken by Russia. Sir Edward Grey has probably never heard of Merv.

* * * M. Briand has been strengthening his influence in

the Chamber of Deputies during the past week. His speech on the Budget motions was a n eloquent appeal to the patriotism of Frenchmen. A similar appeal in the House of Lords would pass unheeded. The Eng- lish aristocracy keeps its patriotism mostly in its pocket. ’The religious difficulties in France arc being smoothed over. T h e Catholics have not been too well treated ; but that has been due to priestly interference in politics. M. Briand wil have performed a great action i f he can persuade the French Bishops to consent to a divorce between religion and politics in France. The decree of divorce has been already pronounced. The Vatican is the body which can prevent the decree nisi being made absolute, hut as the French Bishops are showing- some independence at last , a settlement between the Freemasons and the Catholics is possible.

***

The Congo meeting at the Albert Hall was an impos- ing protest at first sight ; but, on examination, the pro- test becomes an imposition on European opinion. Of those who appeared on the platform, only the Bishop of Hereford, Dr. Clifford, and Mr. Mackarness have any humanitarian record. The protest was a sectarian one. Do the people associated with this movement realise their own hypocr i sy The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London gave their epis- copal blessing to Chinese labour and hence to the vice consequent upon the Chinamen being herded together without any women. Can one be surprised that the hypocrisy of England stinks in the nostrils of Europe?

X recent article in THE NEW AGE urged that the British Government should acquire new inventions such as taxi-cabs and aeroplanes, in their early youth, and then develop the industry. The cities of Hamburg, Munich, and Frankfurt have subscribed £25,000 each to the share capital of the Zeppelin Airship Construc- tion Co. The British Government receives a handsome revenue from the Suez Canal Shares. If this policy of profitable investment were carricd on in acquiring promising inventions, the British Government would not be troubled with Budget controversies as the re- venues could be raised out of dividends. These German municipalities are t o be commended for their public spirit. “ STANHOPE OF CHESTER.”

* * *

78 THE NEW A G E NOVEMBER 2 5 , 1909

Perks ! By O. W. Dyce.

ALTHOUGH the prospect of a General Election in January has started a thousand pens scribbling about the probable result, not one of these scribblers has allowed for a certain new factor that stands to give a splendid lift to the Government side. Thus it falls to me, no camp-follower of Mr. Asquith, to cheer up despondent Radicals, if such there be, with the assu- rance that the new factor-the retirement from Parlia- ment of Sir R. W. Perks-is an omen of victory. I may be wrong ; it will be objected that whether a parti- cular man goes or stays matters little. What is one among so many.? If, however, the passing of Perks prove in any way the end of Perksism, there is reason to think that the Radical Sindbad, freed from his Old Man of the Sea, may cheerfully embark upon new and more propitious voyages.

I t would not be right to put the case higher than the facts justify or to speak of Sir Robert Perks as if he were Sir Robert Peel. This sixty-year-old solicitor and railway director does not control a party; he is not the leader of anything bigger than a group. But what is significant is that his withdrawal is based on the belief that the Radical Party has made up its mind to travel no longer on his lines. He sees social reforms, a t which he shies, usurping a front place hitherto occupied by educational wrangles, in which he revels. He asks for moral coercion for the working-man, and he is offered super-taxes for the rich. He gets a Bill to secure taxes on land when he wants a Bill to shut off access to beer Wherefore he marches away, protest- ing that he will fight no more for this Government

After all, he has had a good run for his money. I t was to please the Perkses that the Government devoted enormous slices of its valuable time to an Education Bill and a Licensing Bill, of which I for one am pre- pared to say that it was a fortunate matter for the Radicals that they never got upon the statute-book and revealed their unworkable character to an indignant nation. The Lords threw out the Education Bill; the country was indifferent to its fate, and the Lords felt pleased with themselves. They threw out the Licensing Bill ; the country showed the greatest elation, and the Lords felt themselves braced up with a new vitality. Incalculable mischief was wrought by those Bills, for, at a time when it was important to demonstrate that the Upper House was out of touch with democratic opinion, the Government, to oblige Perks, provided it with the very justification it wanted. Thus we know what Perks signifies in one direction. Perksism means a stronger House of Lords.

But, says Perks wrathfully, that Education Bill was not the genuine article. Exactly ! However anxious to oblige, the Government was not so lost to all sense of honesty and logic as to bring in a really out-and-out Perksian measure. There is no space available here to describe in full what such a measure would have pro- vided. One feature may be mentioned ; it would have stopped all State subsidies for schools where the reli- gious teaching was unacceptable to certain Dissenting bodies, and it would have exempted the Dissenter from i all payment for what he disapproved of, whilst making everyone else pay for a certain brand of religion. Some- thing common to certain denominations was to be State- established, apparently with Perks as the common denominator. A blend of several sects, it was to be called unsectarian. Thus Catholics would continue to pay for what was unacceptable to them, Freethinkers would pay for dogmas, Unitarians for Trinitarians, Jews for New Testament teaching. Only the Passive Resister’s conscience was to be studied. Children un- lucky enough to have had Churchmen allotted to them as fathers would have been left to suffer from leaky- roofed schools undrained playgrounds, and under- staffed classes. The Government, scenting some of the trouble in store for it, compromised. I t chose Mr. Birrell as Bill-drafter, knowing that he was the one Nonconformist who could see through the illogicality of

the Nonconformist demands. The second step taken was to make concessions during the debates on the Bill, but even then the Bill never pleased the public, whilst every concession infuriated Perks. Perksism means more fevers for Churchy children.

As for the Licensing Bill, let u s see what that has done for the Government. After making due allow- ance €or the swing of the pendulum and any other influences at work, try to estimate the damage done by the teetotalers, as shown by the following figures :-

Conservative gains. By-elections in 1906 (February to

December) .. ... ... ... . . . ... .. . ... I

By-elections in 1907 .. .. ... . ... ... ... I By-elections in 1908 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

I t is unnecessary to remark that the Licensing Bill occupied a vast portion of the Session of 1908. The solitary Tory gain in 1906 was due to the diversion of 1,500 votes to a Labour candidate, whose poll, if added to the Radical poll, would have put the Tory in a. minority of more than 700. The Tory gain in 1907 was due to the fact that the resigning Liberal member had caused a scandal-a magnificent electioneering ad- vantage for the Tories. As we should expect, the Trades Disputes Rill and other early measures of this Parliament gave the Tories no advantage. The country was even ready to walk faster, as was shown by the capture of Liberal seats by Pete Curran and Victor Grayson. Then came the plunge into the turbid stream of coercive legislation, the turning aside after the tem- perance will-o’-the-wisp, legislators otherwise sane becoming obsessed with such notions as that a man who got drunk in a street that had twelve ginshops would keep sober if the number were reduced to eight.

After that came Peckham, where a Liberal majority of 2,339 in 1906 was transformed into a Tory majority in 1908 of 2,494. If that gigantic turnover represented the position to-day, we should be faced with a seven years’ Tory régime. I t is not the position ; the dis- appearance of the Licensing Bill has brought the Government into smoother water. Bermondsey was unpleasant, but the figures of that by-election do not point to overwhelming disaster, as Peckham’s figures did. The moral is as clear as crystal. The working- classes have no more intention of allowing themselves to be deprived of their houses of call than the rich have of losing their clubs or the pious of losing their chapels. A national beverage is not destroyed in a day. Perksism means more sherbet and soda-water.

It would be easy to show that the Liberals have always been smashed when they touched the debateable questions that concern the private morals and daily habits of the people. In 1895, although a Liberal Government had established Parish Councils, amended the Factory Acts, and done much to make itself popular, the Local Veto Bill cancelled the whole record and returned the Tories to power with an even bigger majority than they obtained in the great Khaki election of 1900 Perksism in those days meant eleven years of Tory rule.

If the Budget meets with a hostile reception from the electorate two months hence, it will not be because the millions of tenants object to the taxation of landlords, but because the price of beer and ’baccy has gone up. Were it not for that tax on the poor man, the Lords would never dare to ask for an appeal to the country. Perksism means interference with the Budget by the Lords.

A catalogue of the meanings of Perks would fill several pages. There are, for example, all the con- notations of Liberal Imperialism. “ Scatter the nations that delight in war,” Perks used to pray on Sundays, and on Mondays he would support a policy of blood and bayonets in South Africa. Perksism means more dis- embowelled Boers.

How many others there are in the Nonconformist ranks who ought to be accompanying Perks on his journey to an obscure place in the background ! In this spectacle of a lonely old man turning away sorrow- ful there is one sorrowful element for us-the fact that he is lonely.

NOVEMBER 25, 1909 THE NEW A G E 79

F. E. Smith : An Appreciation. By Montagu Brixton.

In writing of Mr. Smith I shall endeavour to suppress all such personal sentiments as might lead me into too violent an enthusiasm for my subject. I would guard, if possible, against any suspicion of servility in my praise which the malevolent, recollecting that Mr. Smith will doubtless exercise considerable influence in the future might ascribe to motives of self-interest. By way of hedging against any ascription of this kind, I will begin by admitting that Mr. Smith is regarded by many of his own class, and even by some of his own party, as merely a loud-mouthed “bounder.” Surely it is not necessary to refute this? I need only indicate the obvious truth that “bounder ” is a word very ready in the mouths of the younger members of the class which Mr. Smith belongs to and represents, and that those who fling the epithet oftenest at others are generally best entitled to it themselves-and pass

The class Mr. Smith represents ! I t is the chief merit and distinction of F. E. Smith that he represents the upper middle-class uniquely, in a way it has never been done before, in a way that no one else could do it. He not only represents it, he is it-is middle-class in thought, word and deed. He is a man-type. His genius, great as it may be, is still not of that quality which lifts a man above all social classification ; it is, on the contrary, the outcome of his class consciousness and prejudice. H e is typical of the whole middle-class from those absurd little clerks who have been at one of the public schools, and to whom their capitalist employers pay about twopence a year to keep a wife and family on, and who yet refuse to be Socialists on the ground that i t is “bad form,” and that “ a gentle- man can’t be a Socialist ” ; up to the capitalists them- selves, the wealthy families who live amid all the com- forts of life in the restless expectation of a baronetcy or a peerage. Mr. Smith is the typical middle-class man in just the same way as the last Lord Salisbury was the typical Tory aristocrat. You have only to look at Mr. Smith’s thin face, with its intelligent and (it must be added) rather conceited and pretentious and insolent look, to know where you are. This young- looking man with the neat well-brushed hair, the neat clothes, and cocksure air of assurance that England and all belonging to it are at his mercy, is the ideal representative of suburbanism and villadom, of well- housed, well-fed, well-to-do people. These are the people who if they live in or near a town take a fur- nished house by the sea or mountains for a few months in the summer, and if they live in the country put up at one of the London hotels for some weeks during the season ; who believe that Paris is rashly wicked, and the stage a delicious glittering haunt of sin, which does not prevent them from going to one, or their womenkind from wanting to go to the other ; who read the novels of the well-known, guaranteed novelists, and patronise theatres which offer light amusing plays ; who are inaccessible to ideas; who dread innovation like arsenic ; who take worldly success such as Mr. Smith’s as the one sound test of worth. Their sons are sent to the public schools and to Oxford and Cam- bridge, whence they emerge with sterilising notions about what makes a gentleman, and morbid on the point of gentility and the importance of their own family, and with a vitriolic contempt for working-men, small tradesmen and all such scum. The mental atti- tude of their daughters is suggested by the sixpenny ladies’ papers : I need say no more. Sons and daughters alike share a deep and rather pathetic rever- ence for the aristocracy, which they disguise sometimes under a patronising and familiar tone in speaking of Lords and Honourables, but which is nevertheless pro- found. F. E. Smith himself, the hero of the middle- classes and of this article, having occasion not long

on.

ago to attack a member of Parliament, a Mr. Hem- merde, I think, who had in his turn attacked the Duke of Norfolk, declared with his telling, effective and original way of putting things, that if the Duke should condescend to ask Mr. Hemmerde to dinner that com- pliant person would dance with joy from London to Newcastle. Alas, how “man imputes himself ” ! Of Mr. Hemmerde and his belongings I know nothing ; but although I am not quite lacking in imagination my mind altogether refuses to picture any middle-class English family whatever, Mr. Hemmerde’s or Mr. Smith’s, or any other, sitting tranquil under an invita- tion to dinner from a Duke. In this matter at least our Mr. Smith bears an honourable resemblance to Thackeray, who for all his middle-class nosing after snobs, was probably, as Disraeli pointed out, a s big a snob as any. Whenever Mr. Smith is invited to dinner by a Duke-and God knows it is the least the Dukes can do for such a henchman-we don’t say he dances-no ; but we are confident his breast must swell-and no shame to him !--with an honest, English middle-class pride ; and doubtless he mentions that he is dining with a Duke in a few of his letters. He among us who would not do the same, let him cast, the first stone !

Upon his entrance into political life, my hero, if I may call him so (my admission will peep out sometimes despite my efforts to write with cold impartiality)- Mr. Smith, I say, perceived with his customary acute- ness that the old courtesy and mellifluous phrases of a Gladstone or John Bright were played out. Cham- berlain and Lloyd George had made their way by “slanging ”; he too determined to “ slang.” Upon tho discrepancy of brain-power between a Chamberlain or a Lloyd George and an F. E. Smith I need not dwell : it leaps to all eyes. Therefore we are not surprised to find that the “slanging ” powers of F. E. Smith are vastly superior to those of his two distinguished models. Chamberlain did sometimes draw the line, and so does Lloyd George ; but our gallant Mr. Smith stops at nothing : watch how his lambent wit plays about a subject like the water in a duck-pond round the pole stuck in the middle; or as that figure may be deemed invidious, let us say like the flame round a match of British manufacture. Chamberlain had no wit, and the wit of Lloyd George is intermittent, but the wit of F. E. Smith is always there to delight us. Was i t not he who declared that Lloyd George’s speech at Lime- house should be called “ the Slimehouse speech ” ? Did he not lately set his hearers in a roar by surmising genially that the Labour members slept three in a bed? You can say what you like : this is genuine wit and of a high order.

Up to this time the newspapers, I regret to say, have refused to treat F. E. Smith quite as seriously as he deserves. He has been looked on by them as a useful party hack, but h e has not been what they call in their jargon “featured.” Should this present article come under his eyes, he will probably welcome it not only because praise is dear to the greatest and strongest of us, but also because it is a preliminary sign that he is arriving. May he arrive soon ! All those who, finding themselves personally comfortable under the present dispensations can see no reason for change, must ardently desire that. For I can promise them, arguing from the principle that imitation is always more emphatic than the original, that Mr. Smith when he gets to be a Minister will be a more intolerant, narrow- headed re-actionary than any old Tory aristocrat of them all. But he must not disappoint us ; we could not bear that ; and in my extreme solicitude about his career I am led to deal plainly with him for his own good before it is too late. It pains me thus to drift into bitter waters of remonstrance and blame ; but after all, most of our great men have had their faults, and Mr. Smith is not yet too old to correct his. I must urge him, then, to drop his present tone as soon as he conveniently can. His speeches read rather too like the articles in an undergraduate magazine. He must try to be less the young man at a lawn-tennis party. That was all well enough when Mr. Smith was callow and irresponsible and there was nobody to be pleased

80 THE NEW AGE NOVEMBER 25, 1909

but an Oxford debating Society and the Walton electors ; but those days are gone. It is as discon- certing to see a man whom we know to be well on in gears keeping up the tone of youth, as it is to witness the antics of the stout and elderly party who would still be Don Juan. Mr. Smith must ship some ballast. Easily as we take our statesmen in this country, he can’t expect to arrive solely by vulgar abuse and re- crimination, however good the quality may be. There must be something else ; not much, but something. He must make an effort to introduce some solid argu- mentative stuff into the mixture-we don’t say often, as that might be too great a strain, but now and then at all events. For of late I have heard it said freely among Mr. Smith’s warmest admirers that his abuse has come to be without consequence, because it is monotonous and what everybody expects. I appeal to Mr. Smith’s most partial friends if what I have here written, inspired by the tenderest anxiety on his behalf, does not make for his benefit. It was time that some one of u s should get up and respectfully, but firmly, point out to our leader where we believe his weakness lies. And we have the infallible conviction that the sooner or later Mr. Smith adopts our advice, by so much will be hastened or retarded the happy day when he will repose on a bench in that Upper Chamber, at last the equal politically a t any rate, of those he has served so faithfully. Sublime spectacle ! There has been a play running in London lately called “The Servant in the House ” ; some one of Mr. Smith’s admirers, one of those wealthy Hebrews, say, proficient in the arts, who have hung their harps on flourishing trees in our pros- perous suburbs, may yet write a drama round Mr. Smith’s career and entitle it “The Servant in the House of Lords.”

Equality and Opportunity. By Francis Grierson.

PERHAPS the most discouraging thing of the present time is the increase of knowledge and the decrease of wisdom. There never was a time in the history of the world when people with a little learning had so much on their tongues and so little in their brains.

In Shakespeare’s time wit was closely allied to wisdom, and the wits of both sexes could think for themselves. In Pope’s day wit and wisdom came together as naturally as the meeting of two streams; but with the French Revolution the wits and the wise- heads parted company Voltaire’s sarcasm was imbibed or imitated without Voltaire’s inherent culture, with the result that all the hest people were hurried off to the guilIotine. Culture and common sense were more hated than wealth and titles. Witty cynics showed neither patience nor reverence for the counsel that fell from the lips of the orator of the greatest days and supremest moments. The populace, headed by the sansculotte were fed with leaflets instead of books, extracts f r o m the most superficial utterances of the most popular thinkers, and from that day on it became the custom everywhere to read quickly, imbibe quickly, and forget

Unassimilated knowledge is as dangerous as un- assimilated food, and the disease most prevalent to-day is mental indigestion.

There is a law which many capable thinkers seem unable to grasp, a law regulating the advancement of the thing men call progress. At no special time has the world progressed more rapidly than at any other time. Swift progress is an illusion. Many brilliant thinkers have fallen over this stumbling-block, and the populace have followed them. All history, recent and remote, pro\-es the impossibility of the world’s rapid advancement. Each new discovery brings with it new mysteries, each step forward new problems each new promise renewd disappointments

There is good proof tha t Utopias are positive set-

quickly.

backs. And this seems reasonable, since all delusions are signs of weakness-it makes no difference how much eloquence and persuasiveness are used in their dissemi- nation. The reader in a hurry to attain both knowledge m d wisdom never stops to think how beset the philosophers are with error.

It is not difficult to become a specialist; the calling fits the moods and ambitions of an age which demands an immediate result under the eternal illusion that a novel result is a manifestation of progress. Each new invention is apt to bring with it a train of unsuspected disorders and unknown discomforts. At a time when the outlook of science is more hopeful than ever, the masses have attained a level which corresponds to that at the beginning of the French Revolution. We a re in a period of irreverence and persiflage. One class of the populace is tired from excitements, the other is tired from work ; and between these two the prophet has a voice, but no audience, the preacher an audience, but no influence. And a curious paradox of the situa- tion is that never were people’s bodies so well fed, while their minds were never so nugatory. The masses are suffering more from spiritual impoverishment than from lack of material nourishment and opportunity. The majority of the people display an inquisitiveness which is in no way related to philosophical or relevant curiosity. Thousands are aping what they cannot reach and what Nature never meant they should attain. A spirit of mimicry characterises the inquisitive human machines of the board-schools, while the young dream- ers of the so-called aristocratic schools dawdle through books and big banking accounts with a nonchalance that proves how far off from their thoughts is the idea of the superman. Certainly the spirit of this ueber- mensch is in the air, imminent with menace and suggestion, although his material form may be as yet undistinguished amidst the phantoms and the ghostly isms of a passing world.

The people are suffering from the effects of an in- verted meaning applied to the words “equality ” and “ opportunity” A world of superstition has grown up around these two words, springing in the first instance from the shibboleths of the French Revolution and the astounding declaration of 1776 that all men are created equal. Opportunity, in the minds of a good many people, means, not freedom to develop the best that is in them, but freedom to follow the bent of their whims. With the ambitious housemaid opportunity means what- ever will give her a chance of imitating the foibles and follies of her mistress. On the other hand, the wealthy but illiterate mistress is haunted by the notion that she is the equal of all others who are wealthy, seeing that she can buy her way to most of the places frequented by women of talent and refinement. Neither will ever be made to understand that it is not position, but con- dition, that makes the inexorable difference in society as in everything else. There never was a time when opportunity brought forth so many insignificant results. In Paris it has developed the Apache on the one hand, and on the other an ugly and vulgar art the like of which was never known before in the history of French painting. In New York opportunity has made the ” freak banquet ” an admitted institution. The typical millionaire cannot see that the freak entertainment places him on an intellectual footing with his cook and his butler, who could do exactly the same if they possessed the same means.

The notion of equality, then, springs, in most cases, from a false notion of what wealth and position will bring, and not from the supposed benefits of a common fraternity. We have arrived at a time when inequality w i l l become more and more pronounced, for science is only beginning to lay bare the crudities and supersti- tions taught under the aegis of equality. It will soon become impossible for the incompetent and irresponsible to frame laws for the government and control of the scientific and philosophical. One by one the supermen will arrive. They will bring with them, perhaps for the first time in some thousands of years, the much- abused and little understood thing known a s common sense.

NOVEMBER 25, 1909 THE NEW AGE 81

A Continental Trip. IV.--In the Kursaal.

By Bart Kennedy. A TENOR with a resonant sobful voice was sobbing forth the famous song from “ Pagliacci.” I listened with much unenthrallment for if there is anything that makes me more tired than usual it is the having to listen to a soulful, sober tenor. Why, oh why, is there not a law for his suppression? And here let me put in a word for the English tenor. He may not have a vast amount of temperament, but at least he refrains from lacerating your soul with sobs. He may shout out his top A’s like a navvy, but he will refrain from inundating his voice with tears.

The last sob from the tenor died a natural death, and-well, there were thunders of applause in the great concert-hall. Why, I don’t know. But evidently the audience lilted this sobbing business, for they applauded and applauded till the tenor came forth to sob again. I personally would have presented him with a well- aimed orange, but I didn’t dare. I had to put up with it and look handsome.

And then there came a baritone, one Jean Notè And made up for what I had had to endure from the sobster. How beautifully he sang. He got his effect by thetelling of the story. He remembered what so few singers remember : that the voice, however beautiful, is after all but secondary. I t is the story that must come first, always first. The ear soon tires even of the most beautiful voice-if there is nothing behind it. The singer must tell you something.

But not only did this Jean Notè tell one a story. His voice in itself was beautiful-a clear, fine, powerful, ringing, man’s voice. And a voice of strange and individual timbre. I should say that he was the finest baritone I ever heard.

How beautiful was this great concert-hall here in the Kursaal ! I t held thousands of people, and still the softest tones of the singer could be heard. As I sat I could hear the low, deep sounding of the water out beyond the Digue. I t came, a curious under monotone.

Here in this hall the people of the great world were taking their ease. Here were well-dressed men and beautifully dressed women of all nationalities. And children. All enjoying themselves, listening to the music. The people here represented the apex of the vast, human pyramid. At the base of the pyramid, down beneath-But what was the use of thinking of that? Darkness exists as well as light, and someone must work. And I felt that I had hardly the right to cavil. For was I not here myself?

The concert was over and the vast crowd was moving away. But there was now the ball. There was now the dancing. And I strolled towards the ball-room.

Some of the people went off to gamble. But they were, so to speak, only the privileged few. For before you were allowed to gamble you had to belong to the club. You were not allowed to lose your money in a free and easy and casual fashion. You had to be named and labelled and docketed. The casual stranger’s money was very much at a discount. Public gaming had been stopped in Ostend.

Here was the ball-room. It was enclosed, as it were, in a vast room. From this room you could look through beautiful arched spaces in upon the dancers.

Ah ! Here was the lilt of a waltz. One of the divine waltzes of Strauss. Surely are the waltzes of Strauss amongst the greatest achievements in music.

They picture the very soul and spirit of movement. And movement is life. These divine, moving, music- dreams of Strauss ! They are movements etherealised.

A man was holding a beautiful woman in his arms. They were waltzing to the wonderful, sensuous music. This music was a spiritualising of the glorious and enchanting mystery of sex. Sex in its wondrous essence. This dance was as a beautiful phallic rite. Yea, it was an echo of the religion of a time gone thousands of years. Of a time when was worshipped the profound mystery of sex.

Couples were going around and around. How joyously contented looked the women. A true daughter of Eve loves dancing above all things. She would give her soul to dance. Around and around to the spiritualised sensuousness of the divine music-dream. Yonder was a girl with fair, beautiful hair. Her eyes were shining as she moved round with the young man who was holding her. He was a fine young fellow, a fitting mate for her. And here was a woman upon whom the hand of time had fallen. But her eyes too were shining. The spirit, aye ! and the actualness of youth were with her. She was dancing now as she had danced in the long years ago. The wonderful, lovely, mazing music was carrying the couples along. How the diamonds of the women flashed and sheened as they circled round and round. There was a woman with glowing, wondrous, red-gold hair. She was gone, and here again was the fair-haired girl with the fine young man. Here were women dancing together. And the music stopped, and the dancers streamed out from the ball-room. Merry voices were rising.

Again they were dancing. The music was now going faster. And it went faster and faster. There was a madness in it. A reckless gaiety and devilry. The dancers whirled around with flushed faces. Their eyes reflected the meaning of the music. They reflected strange abandonment. How strange was the face of that girl as she whirled past. And the face of that man. There was something in it that was sinister.

Back again to one of the divine music-dreams of Strauss. Back again to the waltz. I knew these people by now. I knew the woman with the glorious, red-gold hair. I watched and watched for her amongst the dancers. I wondered about her. Who was she? What was her life? I would like to have known her. And I would like to have known the woman with the bright, beautiful face. And yonder beautiful woman. I would like to have known her. I began to single out the women amongst those who were dancing whom I would like to have known. No, I would not care for her. There would be no consonance between her temperament and mine. True, she looked de- sirable. Rut she would be in consonance with some other than me. But this woman. I would like to have known her. And her. Here was a woman whom I had not noticed before. A dark-haired, strange-faced girl who was dancing with a man with a hard, reckless face. I would like to have known her. Her face was lit up with the glow of the magical music-dream to which she was dancing. I would like to have known her.

Beautiful were the blending lines of the figures of the women as they danced. Beautiful were their passing faces. Beautiful was the flashing of their jewels and the sheening of their silken dresses.

Moving to the divine, entrancing music I could have watched them for ever.

To be here with this magical scene of light and music and moving, beautiful women was to be inspired with the glow and the fire and the power of youth !

To be here with this divine, moving music-dream was to live !

82 THE NEW A G E NOVEMBER 25 1909

The Art of Home-Making. II.

The Socialism of Design and Craftsmanship. By W. Shaw Sparrow.

SINCE the Newspaper Press gained ascendancy Over the popular mind, and began to shriek for pence and ha’pence from breakfast to bedtime, the whole finance of trade and manufacture has been upset by a mania for advertisement. If advertising were put under control, instead of being a reckless free-lance without discipline, it might easily become a necessary econo- mist, bringing to public notice the best work and the most reasonably fair prices. As things are at present, unfortunately, advertising is nothing less than a national danger, and it ought to pay to the State a heavy tax to be used for Old Age Pensions. The socialism of art has much to say on these important matters.

We start out with two principles : (a) that news- papers are in a position of trust towards their reading public, and (b) that the people suffer wrong when they are tempted by newspapers to invest their money in the work sold by mendacious advertisements. These principles, in one great field of public finance, are acted upon with watchful care, each newspaper having a City editor, whose duty it is to hook the occasional sharks of swindling finance, and to give expert advice and warnings. It is recognised, in other words, that when City gamblers appeal for money to the people their aims cannot be taken at their own valuation, but need the most thorough criticism from expert journal- ists with a full knowledge of the money market. Yet, no sooner do we pass from this careful justice to the world of advertising, than we meet with a general laxity on the part of newspapers. Putting aside ad- vertisements of lewd photographs and books, is there anything that reputable dailies will refuse to advertise a t their current rates? And is it not often argued that they have no responsibility here? If so, then they have no responsibility either in devious tactics of the money market, and their City editors and staffs are journalistic philanthropies. Advertisements of house- hold things are public appeals for money, and newspapers by accepting payment for them become sharers in their worth or in their trickery. Even one announcement of bad work may mean a loss of many shillings to each of a hundred thousand readers.

Every now and again there have been scandals in Court on this very point, and a given commodity, after being profusely advertised for several years, has been proved a sham, a product of cheating. During those several years newspapers competed for its advertise- ments exempt from risk, fighting the battle of their announcement columns. The socialism of art objects to that, and asks the public to protect itself in three ways :

I. By remembering that daily newspapers owe their great sheets and their low price to the fact that they gain their profits on advertisements ; hence journalism is to a great extent the obedient servant of advertisers ;

2. By refusing to buy any household things which are boomed in the Press unless their advertisers will give a written guarantee as to the wearing value of the goods ; and

3. By recollecting always that successful advertisers do not bear the cost of their unlimited sell-praise ; it is their customers that pay the piper, but forget to call the hest tunes. In other words, advertisements belong to the cost of production. Consequently, when house- holders get second and third-rate furniture from extrava- gant advertisements, they reimburse trade speculators for poor work plus immense bills for printed bombast. Who gains invariably by that? Newspapers and the cheap-jacks of shoddy trades. As to the public, it learns, I hope, that ill-spent money is a double loss : it is gone, and there’s nothing good to represent the worth of its earning.

Many suites of furniture are sold for less than it would cost to make a good plain dining-table in a thorough manner; and this fact is mentioned here because the mania for cheapness by which the people are possessed has several points of interest, all anti-social and ludi- crous. We are told, for example, that we moderns are so poor that we cannot afford to buy good household things, and that even when we pay for inferior goods we ought to get them on the hire-purchase system, accompanied by free insurances against fire and death and toothache. What next? W e may be certain that the average family of to-day has at least as much money as the average family of the eighteenth century, when good furniture for every class in the community was not less common than blackberries are in autumn. Large quantities of it have come down to our own day, a charity of thoroughness often unharmed by time and use. Think of your great-grandchildren then when you buy furniture. That is thrift. Only fools should believe that aviation aims in cheapness are winged and useful.

W e pride ourselves on being a practical nation with old traditions of common sense, yet we degrade crafts- men and ruin trades merely in order to learn that bad work is dear at any price, however small. A bad shil- ling’s worth is ever a good shilling lost. Yet the aim of most advertising is to convince the many that a bad shilling’s worth is a philanthropy of cheapness devised by benevolent speculators, whose consciences often appear to be as limited as their companies and liabili- ties. You buy a teacup for sixpence ; hot tea cracks it in a week or so, and you get another, which plays the same trick upon you. That loss of money occurs week by week in thousands of families. Yet china sixpences made to be broken more easily than walnut shells are still bought, for not one housewife in a score asks for a written guarantee on the essential point of economy : “ Is this cup properly annealed? Is it fit for its pur- pose? ” The public does not guard itself, so trades- men go from bad to worse. For example, a few weeks ago the bread for my little household of four was weighed for seven consecutive days, as my wife wished to know whether the 2lb. loaves were true or false. They were lies, one and all. The underweight came to 1lb. 13oz. on the seven days. That being the loss borne by four persons, what is the yearly income tax on bread that British homes pay to bakers? We are thriftless here because bread is inexpensive, unlike tobacco.

Oh, the luxury of cheapness ! No sane person would go to a bank in the hope of receiving twenty-five shillings for a £1 cheque. Yet most of us expect to buy in work for our homes the most astonishing money bargains, as if rent, rates, taxes, wages, interest on capital, deductions for the wear and tear of machinery, plus the cost of materials, were all agents of cheapness and very well fitted to transform gambling specula- tors into charity merchants. How many things succeed to-day unhelped by the magic of the word “cheap ” ? W e want too much for too little, and get too little in too much. Even authors, who ought really to be men of thought, boil down their books in meek obedience to a gambling Trust that desires to issue “cheap ” a long series of potted brains from the world’s literature ! And the public is told that potted brains are warranted to digest themselves in even the most enfeebled minds, so that cheapness has leagued itself with Harley Street. Mental dyspepsia has gone for ever !

Now that the mania for cheapness pretends to have united philanthropy with the science of medicine, and become the magician of democracy, its real effects on life are worth noting ; it has weakened Labour to the advantage of Capital, lowered the ideals of the home, and enslaved us to a Monte Carlo of Shams. And we shall see how it prevents the best work from becoming known, thereby injuring the finest craftsmen ; and we shall follow its influence on the greatest curse of to-day, the Trust System of Competitive Trade, which, by massing Capital into big battalions, lessens the number of employers, so as to handicap the appeals for justice that Labour has often to make..

NOVEMBER 25, 1909 THE NEW A G E 83

The Sociologist Upon the Streets. By Professor Patrick Geddes.

I I. Fleet Street. PLACE, Work, Folk ; these are the triune elements of the phantasmagoria of social life around us. There, before us, are the dramatis personae of the human comedy ; here around us is the scene ; while their alternate. action and reaction is not hard to see, that of the place upon its people, that of the people upon their place. The place was moulded by the people of yesterday, yet is being changed, be it worsened or bettered, by those of to-day, while the people commonly bear yet more plainly the stamp of their place ; for though “ every spirit makes its house, afterwards the house confines the spirit.” Hence that general impression of the environment, that collective type and stamp of the community, so hard to describe, yet so easy to see, and even caricature, which is our first impression of each and every human hive, and which so far exceeds in its prominence, and even in its intelligibility to the fresh-eyed spectator, those innumerable interactions of folk on folk, those detailed constrasts of place here with place there, of which the inhabitants are naturally so much more conscious, in which they are accordingly so much more interested, and in which they therefore think themselves practically alone concerned. I t is all their actions and reactions which made up that stir and hum of activities, which rises and falls, indeed, yet goes on without ceasing.

Happily, however, for mental survival no less than for bodily, this consciousness of life a s a stream of new and ever-renewing situations becomes especially forced upon us in the streets, else our second crossing might also be our last. Not a little, indeed, in such simplest mechanical ways, by such directly locomotor experiences, by such clamant sense-impressions and such urgent responses to them, as those of the crowded street, do we at times become more and more fully awakened from our routine of habit-lowered life. Admittedly from this ever-sharpening scout-drill of ’bus-dodging comes great part of the smartness of the gamin as compared with the slowness of the country boy ; hence we are but recognising its value as part of the training of the sociologist ; indeed, since this new age is not overburdened with shyness nor with undue reverence for any age or authority, we shall not deny that we are implying that even the professed philosopher might do much towards unstiffening his system, and .facilitating its bearings by thus bringing it out into those varied emergencies of life which are compressed or suggested by the swiftly changing current of the street. Hence the wisdom of Dr. Johnson and of Elia, each in his own day and way so super-eminently the field-sociologist of Fleet Street ; and here the redeem- i n g element in the cockney’s popular legend of Hodge, as of Kitty’s matronisings of her country cousin. Hence even, however unadmittedly, that superior air of knowingness, which is such a main asset of the tipster generally, which to the provinces so recommends his prospectus as promoter, or assures his auguries as “Our London Correspondent.”

‘This whole view-of street impressions generalising into thought and accumulating into character-may .above all be studied in the human type of all these, not only juvenile and embryonic, but synthetic, even ideal- Mercury in person, god of observation, message and communication, and now of bold advertisement, yet again of deeper initiation-we mean, of course, the newsboy, winging along the pavement edge, with, of .course, his elder and more outwardly dignified adult developments. W e see then how naturally it has been that the successful popular press has kept so well to the front in Fleet St-ret, and how often i t has been the more meditative the less ambitious, or the ultimately unsuccessful which have allowed themselves to be

cloistered apart in its eddying lanes. If the bustle of traffic were deflected, or these outlooks turned river-

ward, what might not happen? Mercury would surely

oftener pause to reflect upon his news, his course, his message, as whether Olympian or otherwise. Even the stray sociologist might sometimes slip in his word between the louder voices of wrath, or before the mani- fold buzzings of rumour-but all this is but dreaming and musing in some new age.

Rubbing our eyes, then, and looking out over the morning scene once more, our experience of incessant adaptations, or continual penalty of physical or other dangers and ills, tends to make u s increasingly awake, and this, not only to the situation of the moment, but in some cases a t least to the larger stream of life. Beyond the phantasmagoria of the bodily ages, there may appear increasingly to the mental eye, the larger life stream around us, the many life streams beyond ; and so, from the local situations and surrounding events, we may survey our city with the reporters, appreciate more vividly the contents of telegrams and mails with the sub-editor, and at length reflect upon the situations which these disclose, with their chief. Each of u s is thus so far his own newspaper, and ranges from reporter to leader-writer in every conversation. And even if we do not always thus extend and develop our experience, it is much to be thus continually aroused upon the streets to that consciousness of the life-pro- cess, both individual and social, which our school or college life (save for its rambles or games), our studious or philosophic leisure also has trained u s rather towards forgetting (as perhaps always where danger recedes)-that of a situation, say, rather of a moving complex of situations, material and vital, social and in varying rhythms, some easy to detect, indeed, yet not a few obscure. In the street for social science, as surely as by the hurrying stream for geology, we see how the situations of the moments are making up those of the day and the season and year, as these the lustrum and the decade, the half-generation and generation, till these become manifest as the greater waves upon the stream of history.

All this may be but common-place, no doubt, when set down in so many words, yet not habitual enough in thought and feeling, still less in application and practice ; else the photographic reporter and the patient annalist, the statistician and the historian, the leader-writer and the social forecaster would be by this time uniting their forces here in Fleet Street, in ways our timid little Sociological Society would as yet hardly dare to dream of, yet must assuredly some day do. For the Press- Cuttings Bureau has a larger future than its present task of providing politicians and actors, musicians and other players or playwrights, with their matutinal gar- land of overnight fame ; its present minor function of recording and documenting current events, already in every newspaper office grows up into a reference file, while in some cases-that of the recent “Tribune” especially-this has tended to grow into a larger infor- mation bureau, accessible to all comers. This move- ment has gone farther in other cities ; in Brussels especially it is pressing on to fulfil the strictest require- ments of arrangement and detail, in fact, to keep pace with international bibliography itself, so that the sociologist upon the main street of Brussels has but to turn in under the great Art Galleries to find in spacious, well-lit crypts the continuous and growing dossier of this and that‘ subject in which his ramble may have made him interested indeed, increasingly to find not only references, but much of the actual printed matter, often even a wealth of photographs, upon almost any sub- ject his memory can recall or his ingenuity can name. In short, our interests of personal observation and in daily papers are here co-ordinated into the innumerable dossiers of a “ Musée de Documentation,” and all this with the catalogues of the Institut International de Bibliographie, which already numbers some ten million references, more, if we mistake not, than those of the libraries of London and Paris, Oxford and Edin- burgh all put together. In such ways the field sociolo- gist upon the streets is not so far from his encyclopaedic base of operations as he may seem, and instead of hav- i n g strayed away from the world of serious and detailed studies, is on his way to return to them by a fresh approach, and even upon a vaster and completer scale.

84 THE NEW A G E NOVEMBER 25, 1909

The Passing Dispensation. By Judah P. Benjamin.

I. NATIONS del-elop according to fixed law, stages of advancement being plainly marked on the map of pro- gress. And we know what material progress and prosperity mean. The merest tyro can tell the differ- ence between a country which has everything in its favour and one which has everything against it.

The popular signs of conquest are the trumpet and drum, symbols of pride and hollowness, the two things which have always led the unthinking multitude to de- struction. National misfortunes are never avoided by the excitement of change and the realism of war. On the contrary, misfortune follows in the train of every victory gained for the sake of personal aggrandise- m e n t Seek where we may in history, the note of warn- ing is there : the futility of dominion for the sake of dominion

In order to see things as much a s possible a s they are, it is necessary to consider the lessons of history. What are the earliest signs of national decadence? How are they manifest to the minds of thinkers and philosophers? There is but one answer : in the dis- integration of social, religious, and political forces. Wherever decadence has already set in there you will find the hand on the milestones pointing towards the vale of ease and lethargy, where the mind may dream in the lazy afternoon of life, and where the flight of time has no longer any meaning. The descent may be slow ; it may proceed in a joyous and a merry mood o r it may laugh and weep by turns, but the descent never ceases

Dickens depicted the happy-go-lucky mood of the typical Londoner of his time with masterly fidelity in photographic word-pictures, by which he uncon- sciously exposes the helplessness the impotence, and the illusions of the people of London. The works of Dickens all point toward municipal and social decrepi- tude. The principal characters manifest a sentimental humour or a cynical selfishness which belongs to the early symptoms of national helplessness. They live in a world of illusions, never fully realising their condi- tion as working, thinking entities. " Micawber," among the people, is the living symbol of that undis- cerning optimism, now so general, in which, at last, many leaders of the state-craft and religion are steeped. Dickens depicted men, things, and conditions as he found them. The significance of his work lies not in his plots and his style, but in the faithfulness of his characterisation And here, as elsewhere, everything moves in groups. With the age of Dickens came dis- sensions in the Established Church. Episcopalianism was undermined by the democratic spirit of the Salva- tion Army, while in the world of politics a band of men appeared whose chief business lay with the chimeras that hover about the horizon of the dusky future. They sought excitement and glory in distant countries, in questions and interests that in no way concerned the welfare of the people at home, in regions that touch the romantic, and in adventures that touch the fabulous. There was nothing real in all this, except the slow and certain movement towards material disintegration.

A certain capricious humour, on the one hand, and a strained, stoical demeanour on the other, precede and predict national disruption. Nor can it be denied that writers who foresee disaster often turn to cynicism or stoicism for relief. Grecian ascendency was brought to an end not so much by what philosophers taught as by what the politicians and generals did. The cynics and the satirists, headed by Antisthenes and Aristophanes, appeared just at the time when Athens thought herself secure against civil and military decadence ; but Alexander followed, with his feverish orgies of con- quest in distant lands, and material disruption began. In a like manner the humoristic and satirical element in Dickens and Thackeray marks an epoch in the social history of England. Here, too, we find the spirit of melancholy seeking relief and distraction in comical

description and cynical humour. For genius can do no more than observe and depict contemporary man. The, great delineators and caricaturists of history invented nothing; their types are real, their portraiture is taken from nature, their philosophy from actual experience. There is no such thing as the creation of a type. The writers of every age, be they satirical, philosophical, or sentimental, are impressed and impelled by the persons. and events of their own epoch. Thus we find Juvenal. satirising decadent and Imperial Rome, while a little later Epictetus and Aurelius took refuge in stoical courage and resignation. Under the Republic there was no need for stoicism and no occasion for satire. So, too, Epicurus appeared when Athens had witnessed her greatest triumphs, and not very long before Greece became a province of Rome.

Thinkers, prophets, philosophers, and novelists all make their appearance at the proper time. Men of genius never appear; too soon or too late. Dickens represented the happy-go-lucky, sentimental humour of the people ; Thackeray the cynicism and the snobbery of the middle classes ; George Eliot the philosophical element of the cultured few. She represented modernised stoicism. It was Seneca and Aurelius clothed in Victorian romance; i t was the science and resignation of Epicurus and Epictetus brought down to our very doors, speaking through the illusions of im- perial power, evading to the last the secret presenti- ment of social and political disruption. For nothing happens without a cause, and thinkers are the legiti- mate outcome of the age in which they live. Thus we find ourselves face to face with two formidable signs, the like of which Europe has not seen since the begin- ning of the Roman decline : a cheap stoicism and puerile cynicism. These symptoms of decadence, long a p - parent in Continental Europe, are now palpably visible. in England, where cynicism has assumed a form that is almost devoid of sensibility, and where pessimism is attaining the last limits of moral resignation.

In the Elizabethan age there was no place for the cynical, the satirical, and the stoical. An age of action, and progress is an age of hope and contentment and the idea that poets, writers, and artists spring up here and there like spurts of capricious Nature is a super- stition. Nowhere is there a manifestation of intellect which has not a direct bearing on the political and social world of fact and experience. Blind as the forces of Nature appear to be, yet there are laws regulating these forces. 'The optimistic prophecies of Walt Whit- man, for instance, were no haphazard production of a dreamer, but of one reasoning from cause to effect in a country teeming with intellectual and physical energy. Had Whitman produced his poems in London they would have mirrored the doubts, the sorrows, the lethargy, and the indifference of the larger part of its.. inhabitants.

The art-world has furnished similar examples of the- close of the optimistic period in British productivity. Burne-Jones and Rossetti were masters in the ideal ex- pression of the unattainable, the illusive, the immaterial. The sadness which crowns the summit of national achievement, the melancholy which is coeval with per-- fection attained, the longing for the things that are no more, all this was transcribed on canvas with singular beauty and vividness. This is why the pictures of these masters give the impression of artistic dreams, of some- thing belonging to another age.

In contrast to this we have the art of the carica- turist and the satirical symbolist, typifying an age of cynical demeanour and national callousness. In England and France caricaturists are not only doing with the pencil what Dickens and Thackeray did with the pen, but they have arrived at a far closer intimacy with human deceits and chimerical ambitions. Never in the history of English art has anything appeared at all comparable to the drawings of the late Aubrey Beardsley. With an artistic insight into the social foibles and the follies of the epoch he added something that went straight to the heart of character, and by a sort of Mephistophelian penetration depicted the naked soul of the time. This, too, was an art that attained,

NOVEMBER 25, 1909 THE NEW AGE 85

the apex of delicacy and precision, a perfection which laughed a t perfection, a consciousness turned in upon itself, mindful at once of power and decline.

.And it is not only art that has furnished bitter examples of the breaking up of old ideals and old systems. Music has been evoked in the cause of sarcasm, irony, and ridicule. In the world of music we are confronted with the trivial on the one hand, and on the other with the Wagnerian symbols of the futile and the chimerical. The first stands for the persiflage of the masses, the second represents a hopeless struggle against the irremediable. For Wagner’s final pro- nouncement is Renunciation. Parsifal, for example, means negative pessimism. Parsifal renounces the struggle for life, and this, after all, is the Schopenhauer hauerian philosophy distilled into music. An earthly Nirvana is evoked by a combined musical and verbal magic in which all the arts have a place, in which illu- sion is followed by ‘disenchantment and weariness. In- deed all Wagner’s work, mighty as it is, stands before us as the symbol of the disruption of the old civilisation. He scaled the heights of long-tried systems, and from the last pinnacle sounded the bugle-call of disillusion and retreat. The call was heard by Germany, France, and England, who recognised in it a solace for ful- filment, error, and deception. When, in Parsifal, the walls of the palace of illusion fall to the ground with a crash, something more than, mere personal disen- chantment is symbolised. The plain truth is this : the falling of the walls of the house of pleasure and sense typifies the fall of material power, the dislocation of every system and thing founded on material dominion. How comes it then that such a work was produced during the ascendency of a man like Bismarck, and under the very eyes of the new Bonaparte? Genius everywhere has an ascendency over all other manifesta- tions of intellect. Its business is to see as well as to act. The man of transient dominion acts, but he can- not see. Genius does what the forces of destiny com- pel it to do, but the man of mere power blunders as much from blindness as from ambition.

(To be concluded.)

O n Consumption, [Address by the Right Hon. John Burns, MP. , President

of the Local Government Board, at the Whitechapel Tuber- culosis Exhibition, June, 1909. Printed here with the ex- press permission of Mr. John Burns.]

This disease, called appropriately “The White Scourge,” but in my judgment more beautifully ex- pressed by John Bunyan, who called consumption “The Captain of the Men of Death,” has been challenged in its stronghold in recent years, is being fought, and ought to be subdued by all responsible authorities, societies, and individuals. Happily Britain leads in this crusade, and, true to its public health traditions, it must accelerate its power of attack upon this evil, which has existed too long.

In the past forty years tuberculosis has been reduced some 50 per cent. In the past thirty years great advance has been made in the methods of its treatment, and in the past five years the greatest progress of all has been made.

Every year the world loses 5,000,000 of people through the scourge of tuberculosis. Remember that figure. A London perishes annually from one disease, tuberculosis. Britain loses a population from death by tuberculosis equal to the annual extinction of a town like the City of York-some 80,000 people-and numbers nearly equal to the combined populations of Oxford and Cambridge are wiped out every year. And worse than that tremendous death-roll we have sick, lingering and suffering, a population of 300,000 in England and Wales alone, or equal to more than the whole of the people in the county of Wilts. London alone has 9,176 deaths, or more people die from con- sumption alone in one year than officers and men were killed in the three and a quarter Years of the South

African war. And here is an extraordinary figure with which I conclude the statistics on the subject. In the six years ending 1903 for seventy expeditions and one or two wars, there have been fewer officers, soldiers and sailors killed and wounded than there are deaths from tuberculosis in England in one year, and the hundred years of European war, with all its horror, with all the burden of death and sickness that Napoleon and others imposed upon the Continent ’in the last century-all that loss of life is eclipsed by only three years’ bills of mortality of the whole world from con- sumption and its attendant complaints.

So much for the facts and figures. I come now to one or two cheerful signs of progress being made. There has been great progress made in recent years. The death-rate was 247 per 100,000 in 1861-70 ; it was but I 15 per 100,000 in 1906, o r 53 per cent. decrease in forty years. But notwithstanding this improvement, i t is still true that one out of every eleven deaths that occur is due to tuberculosis. This drain on human vitality is greatest at the working years of life ; 56 per cent. of the total deaths from consumption are between twenty and forty-five years of age-the prime of life physiologically, economically, and reproductively-and those terrible death-rates at the working period of life illustrate the need there is for rapid advance being made.

Take, for instance, my own trade, that of a working engineer. Consumption shortens the life of the con- sumptive engineer by no less a period than fourteen years. One-seventh of the total deaths in friendly society experience are due to this cause, whilst 25 to 33 per cent. of all deaths in many of the large friendly societies are due to this complaint at the ages of twenty to forty-five, and the effect of i t is that we have wages wasted, contributions dissipated, and homes destroyed to an enormous, almost incalculable, extent. So much for the direct loss in death and sickness.

But there is another loss, an indirect loss-a widow- hood an orphanhood, a loss on the ‘dependents of the bread-winner who is taken away-which is enormous. Nearly three-fourths of the deaths from consumption in London occur between the ages of twenty and fifty-five years. No wonder it is that 40 per cent. of our total pauperism, in- and out-door, is due to widowhood and to orphanhood. It is probable that one out of every three widows under sixty-five who becomes chargeable to the Poor Law or to some form of public funds, becomes so as the result of consump- tion. This is more clearly understood when i t is known that from some areas where casual labour, bad housing, and heavy drinking permits, 60 per cent. were paupers because they were consumptives. It is difficult to esti- mate the economic waste, the social loss to society, to relatives, trade unions, and friendly societies, by the sickness, death, and disability that this complaint causes. It means countless millions in money; it means health--the only wealth-wasted to an incalculable degree. What is more, it affects the temper, it de- presses the spirit, and it clouds the outlook of everyone who sees this dread complaint in process of exhausting the individual.

Now there is no single cause for the ravages of con- sumption, but the chief cause is social inequality. Generally speaking, consumption is the child of poverty, the daughter of ignorance, the offspring of drink, the product of carelessness. The death-rate of London proves that, because in London the death-rate from con- sumption is 132 per 100,000 but i t is only 78 in happy, prosperous, and healthy Hampstead. But it is 215 in Finsbury, with its one and two-roomed tenements, its low wages, its irregular work, and all the disadvan- tages that low wages and poverty mean. “The destruc- tion of the poor is their poverty,” said Solomon, cen- turies ago. It is powerfully true with regard to con- sumption, but consumption adds a bitter drop to the cup of sorrow of the poor, and it is to all of us a duty- we might even make it a religion-to mitigate the suf- ferings as soon as we can, whilst we are permanently removing the bed-rock causes of this terrible complaint.

It can be fought by many forces in many ways, led by

86 . THE NEW AGE NOVEMBER 25, 1909

general well-being, higher wages, cheap and abundant food better housing, increased sobriety. As pauperism diminishes consumption declines; a s food cheapens tuberculosis disappears. The cost of food, its abun- dance and its variety, has great influence on the de- cline of consumption. Except where bad housing and drink counteract the effects of high wages and cheap food, tuberculosis recedes as the general standard of comfort advances.

Some will say in this connection, “But if that is true of London, what about other countries?” Well, it is customary for us to jump from London to Germany, or Berlin, for our illustrations. Well, there, with all their progress, and none is prouder of it than myself, with all their improvement, a t which none rejoices more than myself, what helps Germany profits us ; what bene- fits the rest of mankind in the advance of general pro- gress helps every nation, by example, reaction, and by stimulation. But look at Germany’s record, and in this respect we have some surprising figures. The figures as to invalidity pensioners in Germany show that of every 1,000 German workmen between the ages of 2 0 and 45 who are unfit for work, 545 per 1,000 are unfit owing to tuberculosis alone ; and between the ages of 25 and 30, 521 out of every I ,coo-that is, more than half of these cases are due to consumption ; whilst the statistics of the German Health Insurance Board show that for the year 1893, of all the persons who died at the ages of 15-60 33 per cent. were victims of con- sumption. And it does not matter whether it is in the barrack dwellings of Berlin, in the tenement dwellings of New York, in the slums of Dublin, Glasgow, and Paris, consumption to a greater extent than here in England is to be found. And this is the general rule and law ; as the living room is scanty, as the rent is high, as the food is dear, where drink prevails, and dirt and infection abound, there consumption finds its morbid hunting-ground.

Now, it will be asked, “Why is it that London leads the great cities of the world in its record of combat against tuberculosis?” It is due, in the main, to our system of small houses. W e have only eight persons per house on an average in London; in Berlin it is 77 per tenement, and it is safe for me to assure you that as the rooms of all tenements increase in size and number, so does the infant mortality, zymotic disease, and consumption proportionately diminish. Finsbury, Glasgow, Berlin, Paris, New York, all prove that the one-room tenement, above all, is the haunt of disease, because, as a rule, it is the abode of poverty and misery.

And if one wants an illustration of the way in which disease can be combated, you have only to go to Sir Shirley Murphy and ask him for his observations and averages of the prevalence of certain diseases in the old common lodging-houses of twenty or thirty years ago in London, and contrast them with the condition of things either in the County Council or in the Rowton Houses which now prevail, and there is an argument for sanitation, for progress, and for dealing a still further deadly blow at the old-fashioned lodging-house, and getting rid of the one-roomed tenement altogether for a married man, his wife and his family.

I am myself a Celt by race, and I am going to say something of Celts in general, and Irish Celts in parti- cular. Bad though consumption is in London and else- where, it is an awful scourge in Ireland. Apart from climate, housing, wages, food, the alleged Celtic sus- ceptibility to chest complaints, there is another reason in Ireland, which Irishmen, to their credit, are doing their best to remove, and i t is illustrated by this fact, that in seventy years the Irish population has diminished by four millions, but I am sorry to say that its licensed premises have increased in the same period by four thousand. Perhaps it is not altogether an accident that 1.6 per thousand die from tuberculosis in England, 2.1 in Scotland, and 2.7 in Ireland, and 3.8 per thousand in the urban centres of Ireland. What is more, we workmen-and I am one-have got to realise that until we reciprocate the advice of the

--doctor, the help of the State, the support of the

municipality, the help they give to us on behalf of our class, by spending our wages more wisely than the average workman does, selecting his food, having better food, paying higher rent for healthier houses to avoid this scourge for his wife and family, we are not reciprocating the duties and sacrifices that other classes are making on our behalf.

Apropos of alcohol, I have this to say : I t is a fact, as three celebrated doctors testify, that alcohol pre- disposes the individual to tuberculosis by its paralysing action and its asphyxiating influence on the cellular protoplasm, which is no longer in a condition to resist the invasion of a parasite. Professor Brouardel says the public-house is the purveyor of tuberculosis. In fact, alcoholism is the most potent factor in propagating consumption ; and a celebrated French doctor, Professor Baudron, says it is now generally admitted by those who know, that the most potent factor in the spread of consumption is the public-house. In all probability at least one-half of all cases of consumption are due to infection in the public-house. Where twelve litres of drink are consumed, there it is 32 per thousand; where thirty-live litres per head are drunk, there it is 107 per thousand.

After those figures it is not necessary on the state- ment of authorities like these to dwell any further upon the evil that drinking habits have upon the predisposi- tion of the people to consumption and tuberculosis.

Now I come to one or two more direct and practical proposals for combating consumption, and it is mainly by the common-sense of most, operating through im- mediate, personal, practical, and direct remedies, and often small things, that tuberculosis can be most effec- tively combated. Let me give one or two illustrations.

Infection of healthy people by the sputum from con- sumptive victims is one of the most prolific sources of this disease. Anyone who goes through the streets of London will see, and must admit, that this is less so than formerly. It is less so than formerly, but it is even now very bad in certain districts. In London there is little, if any, excuse for this practice in the streets. There arc over 100,000 public spitoons in the stleets of London. Let me repeat : there are over 100,000 public spitoons in London that are very rarely used. There are fifty for every mile of street in the Metropolis of London. They consist in the ever-open, night and day, street gullies in the gutter. These should be increasingly used by asthmatic, bronchial, and consumptive people, and I hope the day is not very far distant when to this shall be added as an auxiliary what I saw with delight and pleasure, as an engineer, in Salt Lake City three years ago : that is, to dampen the dust, and dispose by water of the detritus that Ries about everywhere-that is, the dust which increasingly is lifted off impermeable street pavements, more so than with the old granite or flint macadam, into the gutter, and through the absence of water to retain it in the gutter, it is blown about the pavement into the mouth, eyes, ears, and nose. I hope the day is not far distant when the wealthiest city in the world, which is rapidly becoming the healthiest city in the world, will be able to command such a generous water supply, as in Salt Lake City, as to have a continuous trickle of water running down every gutter, night and day. And I a m convinced of this, that if that were done, not only con- sumption, but a number of other infectious diseases would be considerably diminished-many of t h e n removed.

But I now come from that to a more immediate and homely, but a very useful, remedy. Go into the aver- age working-class home. I t is the same as many others in this respect; they are nearly all alike. What do you find? You find the stove register at the back of the grate always shut-nearly always shut. It ought to be always open, so that the up-draught will take the air from the bottom-the floor--of the room.

And then when you go into the average house you find the window never down, and doctors tell me that when a window is down, generally speaking, it is better than a window being up.

But there is another reason, and one which discloses

NOVEMBER 25, 1909 THE NEW A G E 87

a very creditable motive. You see it in every working- class district. I suffered from it when I was a boy; I mean the fetish of the workman’s best front parlour. I will tell you what it was in my day. In my day the workman’s best front parlour was a mausoleum for wax fruits, stuffed birds, and china dogs. It was a museum sacred to the landlord, the insurance man, the under- taker, and the doctor, where children dared not enter, and where even father was a trespasser ; and the chief function it discharges is to overcrowd the other portions of the tenement, to the discomfort of everybody and the loss of temper of the whole household. If every parlour were used for the children to read or play in when it rained, or, better still, for mother to tear off its sacred character by resting in it-as she ought to more than she does-when her work is done; if the fetish of the front parlour were broken up, it would add 25 per cent. at least to the breathing space of every workman’s home, add to the comfort and the happiness of the woman and the children, and I am convinced that father’s tea would be more congenial a t night-time if this were done than it now i s

Now I come to another practical remedy ; that is the abolition of the comforter and the soother. This is a very serious thing. The bomb, the pistol, and dynamite have killed their scores, but I believe the comforter has killed its tens of thousands of little children. What is more, doctors tell me that it subjects, apart from con- tagion, the baby’s mouth and throat to malformations that disclose themselves in subsequent years. I am told this is-and I believe it is-a special cause of bad teeth. Later on it means impaired digestion, and the relationship of impaired digestion and consumption between twenty and forty-five years of age is a very serious one. I express it as my opinion as a layman, that to a great extent the comforter or soother is re- sponsible in many cases for adenoids which we are told is an increasing complaint. I would endure the charge of being a bureaucrat with pleasure and with equanimity if with one order I could make the comforter a public nuisance, and schedule it as a dangerous instrument for the children of our towns and cities.

Now I come to one or two other remedies. Recently, in London particularly, we have seen a housing crusade. Well it is a good crusade. The consumptive is found in the slum, the tuberculous person in the back-to-back house, and in London I am glad to say that builders have taken our advice, which I have publicly given them in and out of season, in never building new houses in London with the damp and dirty basement that has made more consumptive “ slaveys,” more tuberculous general servants, who have to live in the gas, with their front window opening on the dust-bin, and the back kitchen window probably on a damp and airy court or area, than anything else. The damp and dirty base- ment of the house has got to go. The intolerable cellar dwelling, I am glad to say, is doomed and I welcome as one of the indirect remedies against disease among women and work-girls the abolition of homework, the institution of a minimum wage by the Trades Boards Bill ; and by all means let us encourage the Home Office to get rid of the insanitary factory and workshop increasingly as the years go on.

We cannot, I am sorry to say, wave a wand and get new houses to-morrow for everybody; we cannot even in a year or two get rid of the cellar, the basement, and the one-roomed tenement, but I do appeal to the poorest to counteract the consumptive tendencies of the over-crowded tenement in London by resorting increas- ingly, as they have done for the last four or five years, to their credit, to the public parks and open spaces, to the recreation grounds, to learn-as I am proud to say they are doing-the rationale of open-air enjoyment, which they now have an opportunity of securing through the parks and the trams, and, I am sorry to say, not by the steamboats of London--these floating sanatoria-one of the best agencies for providing fresh air that was ever invented in this great Metropolis.

Then wherever there is little light, wherever there is .damp, or wherever there is dirt and laziness, tuber- culosis find its lair, and I beg all of you to remember

that cheap food is essential to the decrease. What is more, I say here, not being a doctor, that in my judg- ment a good kitchen is the best pharmacy, a good table the best doctor, and cleanliness is the best cook ; and as food decreases in price, the tables of tuberculosis generally respond by diminution.

Now, what have we all to do in this crusade against consumption? First, the Government has got to lead the way. My Department is particularly responsible for this particular portion of public work. What has it done? What is it doing? What is it going to do? Well, first-and doctors will follow me here-we have issued, may I call it, a monumental report by Dr. Bulstrode on this particular subject. What is more, my present chief medical officer, Dr. Newsholme, who is here to-day, has written a book, and what Dr. Bulstrode’s report has not achieved, I trust Dr. News- holme’s excellent book has secured, and the Royal Com- mission on Tuberculosis should be of great service.

W e believe we have done a great deal by our Food Regulations Bill, to stop unsound meat coming into this country, and tuberculous meat. W e believe that by the more rigid administration of that Bill, and the Food and Drugs Bill, through the agencies of the Local Authorities, who I am sure will co-operate, much good can be done.

I hope we shall have our Housing Bill upon the Statute Book, and that by wiser planning of towns, the better laying out of new communities, we can avoid the organic defects of our big towns and cities, that are the result of prescient co-ordination and arrange- ment of places where people shall live.

I am glad to say that our Milk Bill has been more favourably received than I had ever hoped it would be, and that Milk Bill, coupled with the excellent Tubercu- losis Order issued by the Board of Agriculture, ought to do a great deal in the next few years to diminish tuberculosis in particular, and infant mortality in general.

The crusade which has taken place against infant mortality has already shown itself in a wonderful diminution in the last three years. May I illustrate the progress that has been made? In thirty years my own parish has trebled its population and halved its death- rate ; reduced it from 26 per thousand to 13 in thirty years ; and in the last ten years the infant mortality of Battersea has dropped from 163 to 107 per thousand births. Do you know why mainly? Parks and open spaces, and fewer public-houses than in nearly every other parish in the whole of London ! That is not an accident. Medical inspection by the Board of Educa- tion, if developed and stimulated as it ought to be, will do an enormous amount of good, and I trust I shall be able to issue soon a circular to follow up, if I may say it, our great Notification of Tuberculosis Order that was issued in January of this year-I hope to issue a circular to Poor Law Authorities on the conditions of the receipt of Poor Law relief by out-door consumptive recipients, accompanying that with methods of self- treatment, removal perhaps to another place, advice and guidance, perhaps other and extended help, all in the direction of cure and prevention, which we have made up our mind to do.

Now may I be allowed to give you another reason why we lead in fighting consumption in London ? I t is a simple but significant fact ; it is due almost to an accidental cause. The isolated treatment of advanced cases in Poor Law Infirmaries has been a great factor in reducing consumption in London. What does it do? I t removes the case of infection at the most dangerous period from the poorest tenements ; it is helpful to him, and it removes contagion from others ; it saves the family from infection, it helps the bread-winner to recover, and by the segregation of con- sumptive patients in our Poor Law Infirmaries, England has been put at the head of the crusade against con- sumption of the countries in the world.

Now, this must be extended and improved upon, from humanitarian as well as from social and preventive reasons. When I tell you that 35 per cent of the. total

88 THE NEW AGE NOVEMBER 25, 1909

deaths from tuberculosis in all London take place in our Poor Law Infirmaries, you have an idea of the extent to which segregation in the Poor Law Infirmary by proper treatment has made London lead in this benevolent crusade.

Wha t other remedies are there, apart from the sanitary, the medical, the State, and the municipal? I repeat ; higher wages, with wiser spending ; less drink, less betting, the money spent on both to go to the home, the wife, and family ; better food, more house room, or more leisure in the shape of rest and holidays ; above all, employers of labour, more regular work. I t is not more artificial work we want, it is not more work we require ; it is the better organisation and regulation of the total work which is now imperfectly, improperly done, in an unorganised and thoughtless way. And one of the best things that rich men could do, one of the wisest things that captains of industry could do, would be to raise the wage, give regular em- ployment, as a means of fighting the disease, and even of protecting himself, to the general labourer, the casual labourer, the charwoman and the poor, lone widow in the streets of London, who puts up a brave, noble, and enduring fight on behalf of the children of whom she is the protector. Raise their wages, fill up the swamps of low wages by pulling down the peaks of dispropor- tionate, unorganised, and wasteful expenditure on the part of foolish individuals.

My last word, my summing up, is this : Consump- tion is a house disease ; we are here for simple remedies -here is my summary. Consumption is a house disease, almost it is a bedroom disease, and preventable. I t is hereditary only-and this is the glad tidings the doctor conveys to us-so far as predisposition is con- cerned. Spitting is the chief cause ; dust is a carrier of infection ; milk a source of contagion mainly amongst children ; want of light, air, and sunshine, foul air in bedrooms, courts, alleys, and living rooms. The best, simplest, cheapest remedy is to open your windows day and night. Sir William Broadbent, shortly before he died, came to see me, and when he was ill he put his hand on my table and said, “ Mr. Burns, if windows were kept open day and night, if many of the simple remedies were carried into effect, consumption might be stamped out in a generation.”

Consumption is not so deadly as feared if early and adequate precautions are taken. The Germans say that every one at the end has a touch of tuberculosis- another way of expressing what the post-mortems prove, that many have it and most recover from it. It is a question of dosage ; if repeated under bad conditions the last dose is worse than the first ; if disregarded fatality may ensue, and if combated in its early stages by fresh air and the best of all disinfectants, which does not want a Government inspector to testify its purity, namely sunlight, it can be resisted, subdued, and, I believe, ultimately removed.

Books and Persons. (AN OCCASIONAL CAUSERIE.)

THERE is a reason why the critic who usually deals with verse in THE NEW AGE should not discuss Mr. F. S. Flint’s “ In the Net of the Stars ” published by Mr. Elkin Mathews (2s. 6d. net). Nevertheless, the volume should specially interest the readers of this paper. I t is always piquant, after having heard a man talk of how a job ought to be done, to see him attempting the job. In a short prefatory note Mr. Flint says, “ This book is one poem.” It is more, it is one love- poem. It is also an exceedingly intimate and personal document. Artistic courage and simplicity of an ad- vanced kind are needed in order to be one’s self as Mr. Flint is himself in this book. The artist runs all sorts of risks, of getting laughed at, of not being un- derstood ; he is indeed absolutely certain to be mis- understood. This courage and this simplicity-which together constitute artistic shamelessness-are invari- ably the mark of a true vocation. Mr. Flint is a poet. H e is a poet because he has known how to reveal his

personality in musical rhythms. As a revelation of per- sonality the book is quite remarkable. You may not wholly like the personality. What does that matter? I myself find in it an occasional querulous and mournful weakness, and an exaggerated preoccupation in the phenomena of secondary importance, such as the mis- tress’s gold hair ; I find in it further idolatrous attitude towards the mistress which chills my sympathy. But what business is that of mine? The revelation is authentic and convincing, and on the whole very sym- pathetic in its youthful wistfulness and its fine idealism. My first impression, gained in the opening pages, that some of the book was trivial, gradually disappeared, and on p. 36 I found this, which enlightened my sensa- tions :

No, dear, nothing is foolish W e two may say, and yet all, all is foolish.

The book may be judged as a single organism. So judged, it will solidly stand up against criticism. If one may question whether Mr. Flint has always escaped the banal, the reason lies in the honesty, originality and completeness of his intention. I was demanding lately a new love-poetry. Upon my soul this may be it. The originality of the work may after all be its leading quality. And mind, I do not pin myself to the view that any of it is banal. Naught is easier than to confuse extreme originality with banality. I must add that the lyrical quality of some of the poems is high, and at the same time disturbingly curious. But what captured me in the book was its human interestingness. I said to myself : (‘There is a man in this book.” And I could almost see him lacing his boots of a morning. If poetry is to be kept truly alive, by the periodic con- quest of new material for it, and by a queer, bland daring in the use of that material, then (‘In the Net of the Stars ” is one of the books which help to keep poetry truly alive. * * *

Readers who follow the tortuous course of French verse will be perhaps surprised to learn that Stuart Merrill has published another volume of poems, “ Une Voix dans la Foule ” (Mercure de France). Mr. MerrilI has never been prolific, and it is nine years since the appearance of his previous volume. In twenty-two years he has issued six slim volumes of verse. His admirers had begun to think that he would never publish any more. “ Une Voix dans la Foule ” is quite as fine as any of its predecessors. It contains things even as impressive and unforgettable as the magnificent “Chan- son des Vieillards.” When we find ourselves apt to assert that the United States has produced no first-rate poets since Whitman, we should remember Stuart Merrill, who was born on Long Island, of pure American blood, though he was entirely educated in France and uses French with more ease than English. I must permit myself to quote the exquisite sonnet in which he dedicates his new book to the illustrious and noble Emile Verhaeren :-

Verhaeren, nom qui sonne comme un fracas d’armes Qu’un roi barbare aurait laissé choir dans la nuit, Verhaeren, glas qui tinte, le soir, et poursuit Ceux qui sentent entre leurs doigts jaillir leurs larmes ! Verhaeren, tocsin dans la flamme, cris, alarmes, Ou fanfare rélatant sur la horde qui fuit, Verhaeren foudre d’or dont la lande reluit, Nom terrible où soudain tonnent tous les vacarmes ! Vous évoquez l’effroi, la bataille et la mort Et la rage de l’homme en lutte avec le sort, La cité qui flamboie et la fôret qui brule. Mais parfois, Verhaeren, votre nom devient doux Comme un appel de cloche au fond du crépuscule : Nous écoutons alors rêver l’amour en vous !

The book shows throughout that the appeal of bar- baric kings has lost none of its curious appeal to Mr. Merrill’s imagination.

***

I predicted (‘a bad press ” for Mr. Frank Harris’s (‘The Man Shakespeare and His Tragic Life-Story.” I was quite wrong. The book is having admirable reviews, which I admit still surprises me, for it is a masterpiece. However, the chief Shakesperean man- darins have not yet spoken, and I am hoping that Some of them at any rate will have the courage of their.

NOVEMBER 2 5 , 1909 THE NEW AGE 89

stupidity and try to destroy the book. “ Hope ” is not a misprint for “ fear.” No spectacle is more diverting to a sanguinary and cruel heart like mine than that of .a handful of mandarins engaged in being ridiculous. Mr. Harris has really flattered me by writing an article in answer to the two criticisms which I offered. I cannot reply to that article ; to do so is not within my competence. In what I wrote about the book I merely described the sensations of an artist in reading it. After considering Mr. Harris’s article I am rather more disposed to admit the propriety of the word “snobbishness ” in Shakespere’s regard. But I still cling to the idea that in the sixteenth century snobbishness was an almost universal characteristic, and therefore should not be a subject of serious reproach in an individual. As to Herbert, my mind remains open. All I wrote was that Mr. Harris seemed to me to have “less clearly estab- lished ” Shakespere’s innocence in this affair. I am not convinced either way. Unhappily, as THE NEW AGE is now read by many quite respectable people, I cannot say all that I should like to say in this column concern- ing a matter so excessively delicate as the relations between Shakspere and Herbert.

JACOB TONSON

Some Disremembered Lessons.“ THIS is the people’s story of the revolution ; the people who suffer everything, the people who hope everything, the people who obtain so little. I t is not a story of passionate harangues, of beautiful phrases-we hear nothing about the magic of property,-of flashing deeds. Hunger and misery, dirt and despair, wide aspirations and partial failure do not set themselves picturesquely. Peasants perish by the score, they die of starvation, of wounds, in prison, on the scaffold. In dying they forge no cunning words which may render them im- mortal to bookish persons. But though they seem to have perished utterly their work is not lost; the spirit of the world has not forgotten them. Nay, their memory remains among the people, and when the world-spirit next calls forth their children and their children’s children to uprise and beright themselves it calls in the name of the nameless martyrs who have preceded them, who have made a stage in the age-long war against oppression and starvation. The great French Revolution is, as Kropotkin shows us, one of a series of battles waged by the people. They won much in that fight, but much remains to be conquered ; they are pressing onward to another battle which per- chance may be the crowning victory. Where will that revolution take place? Kropotkin writes : “ One may have thought for a time that it would be Russia. But if she should push her revolution further than the mere limitation of the imperial power ; if she touches the land question in a revolutionary spirit-how far will she go? Will she know how to avoid the mistakes made by the French Assemblies, and will she socialise the land and give it only to those who want to cultivate it with their own hands? W e know not : any answer to this ques- tion would belong to the domain of prophecy." I will not shoulder the mantle that Kropotkin refuses, but certain happenings in France during the last few years in the South and in Paris, merit careful study. I cannot help thinking that France, as ever in the van, is destined to cleave the way again for humanity. “ As we advance,” says Kropotkin “ towards those wide horizons opening out before us, where, like some great beacon to point the way, flame the words--Liberty Equality, Fraternity. ”

Whilst for the middle classes the paramount ques- tion in the French Revolution was the attempt, in which they succeeded, to gain political supremacy, for the people the main endeavour was to obtain the where- withal to live. They were hungry, and they wanted of the food which they gave up their lives to win for

* “ The Great French Revolution, 1789-1793 By P. A. Kropotkin. (Methuen. 6s. net.)

others. They were naked, and they wanted of the cloth they wove for others.

It was the junction of these two forces which made the Revolution so formidable. I t was the betrayal of the people by the middle classes, when these had gained the political power they required, which made the Revolution to fail, which led to the Terror and to Napoleon. There are arm-chair historians, doctrinaires like Mr. Belloc, who persuade themselves that economic conditions play no part, or but a very minor part, in history. These are the views of middle-class persons, amiable and well-meaning, who only come into surface contact with the life of the workers, who even though the contact be physical are cut off by a veil of prejudice from a really intimate mingling. History has been written by gentlemen for gentlemen’s sons, and so we find the question of food is wholly ignored or treated as if it were not a nice idea and the sole consideration that actuated the people.

Peter Kropotkin, perhaps because from a Russia without a middle-class, understands how much food and warmth and clothing mean, but understands also that ideas of liberty, equality, of justice, of religion, are among the people’s most cherished possessions.

It is to the people, then, that is due whatever suc- cess, and it was much, the Revolution had : “ I t is to this true fount and origin of the Revolution-the people’s readiness to take up arms-that the historians of the Revolution have not yet done justice-the justice owed to it by the history of civilisation.” Whilst the philosophers of the eighteenth century had furnished the conceptions for their time, and for all time, of the. rights of man, whilst the politicians of the Revolution were making speeches and promises, it was the people who acted, the people who gained the victories that abolished the feudal system for France and ultimately for Europe. But let us not imagine these were the only benefits, great as they are, which accrued to France. “ France became a country of well-to-do peasants, and in respect of her productivity was the richest country in Europe. Her wealth, indeed, is not drawn from the Indies or from her foreign commerce : it comes from her own soil, from her love of the soil, from her own skill and industry. She is the richest country, because of the subdivision of her wealth, and she is still richer because of the possibilities she offers for the future. Such was the effect of the Revolution.”

Indeed, in reading this book, with the new light it throws upon the Revolution, one realises that France came within an ace of accomplishing even more. “ Two fundamental ideas-the equal rights of all citizens to the land, and what we know to-day under the name of Communism-found devoted adherents among the more popular writers of that time, Mably, d’Argenson, and others of less importance.” “ The rights of the workers to all landed property, and to all natural wealth-forests, rivers, waterfalls, etc.-was not this the dominant idea of the pre-Revolutionary writers, as well as of the left wing of the revolutionary masses during the period of upheaval? ” Everywhere the villages tried to retain possession of the communal lands which they had retaken from the lords, to fix prices for bread and for other commodities of daily life.

Wherein lay the cause of the failure of the people on this side? Kropotkin’s answer is all-important for us to-day. “ Unfortunately, these communistic aspira- tions were not formulated clearly and concretely in the minds of those who desired the people’s happiness.” . . . . “ This want of clearness in the mind of the people as to what they should hope from the Revolu- tion left its imprint on the whole movement. While the middle classes were marching with firm and de- cided steps towards the establishment of their political power i n a State which they were trying to mould, according to their preconceived ideas, the people were hesitating. ”

There is no more serious question than this to lay to our hearts. If the people want to take full advantage of the nest revolution, which must happen when many chains of circumstances which we hut dimly perceive

90 THE NEW AGE NOVEMBER 2 5 , 1909

shall converge to that end, the people must understand clearly and definitely what shall be their aim, what kind of a world they mean to have. Now in the days that precede the revolution is the time to enlighten ourselves, to hammer out our hopes, our aspirations, into clearly formulated schemes. This undone, we shall be undone again, as were the people of France, or, like them, we shall but accomplish the smaller part of our task. Says Prince Kropotkin : “ In their hurry to push on to the day of revolt they (many Socialists and Anarchists) treat as soporific theorising every attempt to throw some light on what ought to be the aim of the Revo- lution. ”

More than once it seemed as if the people were to triumph, but ever were they pushed back by the reactionaries, the wealthy, now by the Girondists now by the Montagnards, again by other com- binations. The suppression of the Communes, the fight carried on by the Convention against the Paris Commune, the attempts to restore feudal rights, the suppression of the Sections, the laws passed by the Assembly against communal ownership of land, are the acts by which the revolutionary movement was brought to an end. By gathering the power of the State into the hands of a few persons in the Convention the Com- munist movement came to an end and the modern centralised form of government was born.

‘‘ I t is much to be regretted,” says Kropotkin, “ that there was no one among the educated men of the time who could formulate the Communist ideas in a com- plete and comprehensive form, and make himself heard. Marat might have done so had he been allowed to live.’’ ‘‘ Marat saw more clearly and more justly than the others. From the day that Marat threw himself into the Revolution he gave himself to it. . . . He saw from the outset that the Convention, having a strong Girondin party in its midst, would never be capable of accomplishing its mission. . . . If he had lived, it is probable that the Terror would not have assumed the ferocity imprinted on it by the members of the Com- mittee of Public Safety.” The middle-class detested Marat, and their historians have shown their hatred ln the calumnies they have spread about him.

Kropotkin in a few sentences shows us the type of man he was. He was killed before he had quite realised the nature of the work to be done.

This book must be read by everyone who stands for the people; those who are styled revolutionists will have their faith quickened, those who believe that reform, political and social, can accomplish aught of moment without the seal of a revolution must recon- sider their views in the light of Prince Kropotkin’s history. The pieces justificatives for the revolutionist will be found in this study. I must not close this im- perfect notice of a great book without quoting Kropot- kin’s summary of what we owe to the Revolution two great triumphs : “ The abolition of serfdom and the abolition of absolutism, by which personal liberties have been conferred upon the individual undreamt of by the serf of the lord and the subject of the absolute king, while at the same time they have brought about the development of the middle classes and the capitalist r é g i m e

Forward then to emancipation from the middle classes and to the downfall of the capitalist régime

M. D. EDER.

REVIEWS. In the Net of the Stars. By F. S. Flint. Elkin

Matthews.) Come with me, love, and through the Milky Way, From cloud and dust, into the golden day: Come with me, love, and we will hark away Into the shining knotted net of the sky; And the wide space will lose our lonely cry.

The above stanza we consider most representative of Mr. Flint’s verse ; yet instantly we say that, in this very volume, he has far surpassed the obvious limits of the collection of poems which lends its title to the book. The “ Swan Song ” will be believed by many readers

to have a claim upon immortality. The lovely lyric beginning “ Bramble and fern ” is a true song ; of the higher mood, also, is a poem in free rhythm containing many good lines.

A little murmur in the leaves- A cold, calm night of many stars.

Time and change creep over the earth. And red rot sucks us back to clay; But the stars shine ever and a day, Little knots in the net of light That holds the infinite dragon, Night.

There are enough of these lines to justify the giving of a more enthusiastic welcome to their maker than the average of the volume allows. The fault of most of the poems is a fault of youth-sentimentality ; the short- coming a shortcoming of youth-inexperience. W e bear too little of the golden-snooded Muses and too much of earthly amber hair. One almost comes to dread a line ending in fair or despair or rare. We a re not even given the illusion that the golden-tressed lady is beyond our own possible vision. The poet addresses her in terms of grateful condescension.

The burden of too many of the verses is a bitter hatred of cities. Dead trees, grey skies, gaunt streets, smoke, grime, and

squalor. That is true, but it is not poetry; and to behold Mr. Flint wasting himself on such stuff makes one hope that when that millionaire patron comes along for whom we are all praying, he may be able to discern in this young poet a being worthy of transportation to some “ rarer clime.” He loves the sea and the bracken. Beside these he should dwell. What he sings about them is of longing, not of realisation. He does not sing as if he knew them, and he cannot tell u s their secrets-only his yearning to be initiate among their mysteries. The “ Palinode ” and “ The Heart’s Hunger ” throb with this yearning, and bid us forget much that is really sentimental and wasteful. We are made to understand, as few writers can make understood, the limiting chains of false environment.

Among the lesser verse there is a dialogue upon the familiar theme, “ Unto us a child is born.” A woman longs for a girl-child which may take a name she admires. “ Ianthe, violet-blossom ! ” If we are rightly informed in these days, women have wanted children for less worthy reasons than even to have a pretty name. The beginning of this dialogue is un- wieldy. “ Breathes on our burnished hearts ’’ is heavy nonsense. “ The Vow ” is better, and contains some fine couplets.

Inexperience of life and poverty of cIassical form cannot fail to be noted, but the command of these lack- ings may be gotten. There are several perfect examples of the four-lined lyric and an indication of power over the difficult rondeau, and although the sonnet “ Once in Autumn ” is neither strong nor polished, the one entitled “A Country Lane ” shows both inspiration and workmanship. Some of the poems read as though they were meant to be sonnets but had gained a superfluous line or two. Constantly one finds here, in following two successive phases of one thought, just the line or couplet too much which destroys the strength of the poem. Perhaps it will be agreed that the best lines in free rhythm are these making the “ Foreword ” :

* * *

I drink Of that cold flagon of the Moon: Wherein my sun-sweet heart is crushed t o nine For me to sup ; And as I drink it up, Pale blossoms of silver rhyme, With the green damask leaf And rhythmic line Of verse Through my brain creep, And twine and intertwine.

Villa Rubein, and Other Stories. By John Gals-

I t is a fact that we could be more interested in, or rather less bored by, a tale out of “ Home Chat ” or the history of “ Queechy ” than by these stories from the pen of an author whom, nevertheless, we admire

worthy. (Duckworth. 6s.)

NOVEMBER 2 5 , 1909 THE NEW A G E 91

and respect. The explanation is simple, and we hope that it may justify our very frank expression of opinion. In immortal works such as “ Queechy ” common-

place people are written about in a proportionate way ; that is to say, in a commonplace way. This principle

o f treating small things in a simple fashion is taken for granted also by the Harmsmorthian journalist. In odd moments we have found ourselves reading on and on over pages of home journals and domestic annals-- maundering certainly, but rarely becoming irritated Precisely that irritated feeling has seized us when, as in the present case, we have taken up a book, a long volume, by some well-known author, only to find it all an interminable attempt to make the robes of tragedy or the golden ring of spiritual friendship fit these very same people who can only seem lifelike in human spun wincey and tweed trousers.

In the volume under review there is scarcely one character really worth Mr. John Galsworthy’s attention. There is an atmosphere of suffocation and repression all through. W e feel that there must be vast and deep volumes unwritten still within the power of this author. The petty characters dance or droop or crawl, but none of them has the stride and the majestic voice which would find fit expression through the imagination and the vocabulary of so able a writer as Mr. Galsworthy. He is too big altogether for his people. He chokes among the parlours and the domestic scenes where these people are so Comfortable, where such a lady as Miss Louisa Alcott was quite at home. Throughout the story entitled “ Villa Rubein ” he tries in vain to make commonplace persons act up to great moments. What could he do with Nicholas Treffry but let him die; or with Hartz, the artist, wanted by the police for some mysterious crime, but stand him down at last ln a studio in St. John’s Wood, with the vacillating Christine for a wife, to sit in the room and sew while her husband painted ? “ The Man of Devon ” discloses plainest perhaps the

heights which this author can climb by himself and the dens wherein he must inevitably sink with his charac- ters. “ Her small, high voice came to us in trills and spurts as the wind let it, like the singing of a skylark lost in the sky. . . . I caught a glimpse of her face like a startled wild creature’s, shrinking, tossing her hair, laughing, all in the same breath. She wouldn’t sing again, but crouched in the bows with her chin on her hands and the sun falling on one cheek.” A moment later the delighted reader is to be treated to this in- formation : “ For lunch we had chops.”

Again, in “ The Silence ” : “ For what can be sadder than to see the forest spreading its lengthening shadows, like symbols of defeat, over the untenanted dwellings of men ; and where was once the merry chatter of human voices, to pass by in the silence. . .” That, whether one like or dislike a certain morbidity in the sentiment, is thoughtful and rhythmical writing, and unallied with such stuff as the nest sentence : “ On an afternoon, thirteen years before, he had been in the city of London, a t one of those emporiums,” etc. W e look to writers of Mr. Galsworthy’s order for descrip- tions of the grandiose scenes of life and for testimony of the high behaviour of men and women.

The Son of Mary Bethel. By Elsa Barker. (Chatto

To write the Life of Christ in the form of a modern novel is, to say the least, daring. However well the work may be done-and Miss Barker’s book is a remarkable achievement in its way-it is bound to cover its author with spume and contumely. Protestants will maintain that the proper place for such a theme is the pages of Josephus or Dean Farrer or a half-a-crown theological review, certainly not a six-shilling novel. While Catholics will carefully guard their young from contact with a book that reincarnates Jesus as the son of New England parents, reproduces all the principal events of his life, repeats his miracles interpreting them in terms of symbolism and will-power, provides him with disciples, and finally would crucify him in the New Testament manner, but that the authoress’s ingenuity fails her on this point.

and Windus. 6s.)

Scientific Idealism. By W. Kingsland. (Rebman.

Messrs. Rebman are acquiring a reputation for pro- moting the new school of metaphysic, which is, to say the least, enviable. Hence, thinkers have reason to interest themselves in Messrs Rebman’s publications. “Scientific Idealism ” is the latest addition to the neo- metaphysical literature. What, it may be asked, is this neo-metaphysics? In Mr. Kingsland’s able, sound and honest essay, it is really in itself the simplest of philosophic standpoints ; it is merely the perception of a unifying principle as a pathway between Scylla and Charybdis, materialism and supernaturalism, for the ultimate escape of the human soul to its unity with the Universal Soul. Thus : “ Intellectually it is seen that all science and all philosophy tend more and more to correlate and unify all phenomena and all Nature both subjective and objective ; and the immediate de- duction which we must make from the fundamental principle of the Unity of the Universe is, t ha t our own nature, in all its heights and depths, in all its relations and proportions, is one with the Self-Existent Reality which must necessarily lie at the Root of all things ; that Principle-by whatever name IT may be called- which is the Universe.” That is the key to the author’s position. In a brief review it is impossible to do full justice to a work of this magnitude. We can only in- dicate the demand of the author-a well-tried mystic- for a rounded doctrine of spiritual truth. “ W h a t is true,” he seems to say, “is adaptable, otherwise it is only relatively true.” To reach truth there must be a passage between science and religion and metaphysics and ethics and so on, a reconciliation between Berthelot and Galton and Bradley and James and Bergson a n d Poincaré. Finally, an enlightened age will discover that “Religion must be scientific in as far as nothing which is known as scientific fact shall be found to be antago- nistic to it, and philosophical in so far as it shall be rational and logical instead of authoritative.” Though the book puts forward no startling theory and aims but to offer a sound working hypothesis, nevertheless, it has the great merit of dealing with vital problems- from a new and stimulating point of view.

7s. 6d. net.)

Blind. Because I am blind, and would eat That I may not die, All day, I must sit in the street, Making a show of my blindness, And starving on casual kindness ;

Making a show of affliction For indolent passers by : Reading the word of the Lord, your God, In a weary, monotonous mumbling- Reading the word of the Lord, your God, With frozen fingers and fumbling- Reading the word with my fingers- I, that could work with my hands, I, that could work with them still, I, with the strength and the skill, I , with the wit and the will, If any would give me work. “ But, a blind man cannot earn so much, ‘‘As a man with all his senses. W e ’ r e losing money, every day ; “ And must cut down expenses : “ As the poor-rate’s risen to such-and-such, “And it’s money thrown away “On louts that loaf and shirk : “And we can’t afford, you know . . .” And so, Because I am blind, and would eat That I may not die, All day, I must sit in the street- Making a show of my blindness- Reading the word of the Lord, your God- And starving on casual kindness.

WILFRID WILSON GIBSON,

92 THE NEW A G E NOVEMBER 25, 1909

ART. SCENE. A crowd at the Elephant. A child has been almost run over, but its toy banjo has saved it. Some- one is consoling the little fellow, and someone is repair- ing the banjo with cotton. Banjo and cotton. Southern Carolina and Degas. Another scene. Noon- day in the temperate zones of the States. I am stretched side by side with some broad-chested, sun- produced nigger. I am in love with the nigger’s love of the sun-bath. Hour after hour we two lie dozing and dreaming, dreaming and dozing in the bronzing sun. All the joy ever sung by the great sun-men-- Lamb, Southey, Goethe, Whitman-who thus were also God-men, is in our hearts. The sun holds u s in its universal embrace, divided, yet linked by a noble sym- pathy-a black and white symphony expressing love. So bathed in the splendour of its stimulating sweetness we are happy as no sunless City man ever was or could be. Ever before us, awake or dozing, there is the vision of our fellow-bathers at work in the field. All day magnificent blacks and browns, with an occasional white, continue to rise and fall in natural harmonies, and the play of coloured draperies is perfect in the dark landscape pervaded with soft white cotton. Earth never held superber sight than this of the rhythm of liquid forms and flowing cotton plantation as they appear under the influence of sunlight. Then night comes, dark blue transparent night splashed with faintest stargold, and the moon suffuses space, filling it with poetic mystery. I reach down my banjo-as Ballantine has taught me, a powerful enchanter-be- neath the moonlit shades of a log cabin way down South. I play softly, leisurely. I hum the opening bar of a coon song. Leisured figures come up out of the silence; they float into the magic patches of moon- light. They are caught up in the mystic atmosphere, bathed in night’s tender ecstasy. So sauntering in sun- baths and moon-baths in Carolina, in Virginia, and elsewhere, I conceive those emotions which came to Degas when first he saw those wonderful cotton-bales drenched with light. Degas and his contemporaries have dragged the painters from their dark studios and split them into three-sun, moon, and limelight men. They have created a world of wizards wielding the magic wand of light. * * *

At the Exhibition of the Royal Institute of Oil Painters one may see how closely modern painters have entered into the question of colour and light as they appear in Nature. Here the pictures, when they are not mechanical pictures of pictures, are first-hand studies of colour and light, or light as it appears as colour. Certain of them display a stronger love of life and men under the innumerable influences of light, space, and air than others. Missing dawn altogether, I come into the full glare of John Lavery’s “ Girls in Sunlight ” (59), an admirable study of an open-air effect. I then pass to James Gibbon’s refined canvas (299), in which the sense of enclosed space, of warm captive sunlight, of perfumed air is charmingly ren- dered. I like, too, these two studies of subdued light- ing effect-Charles Ince’s beautiful “ Green Lane ” (49) and H. Hughes-Stanton’s clever “ Woodcutters ” (51). Passing to fading sunlight, I pause to note Neils. M. Lund’s clever treatment of a reticent landscape bathed in evening mist (234). Thence to excluded daylight in “ The Edge of the Black Country ” (19), wherein H. Davis Richter has caught the dense grey pottery atmo- sphere with its suggestion of hell. As a study of night, Miss E. G. Court’s very effective espression of Embankment lighting (25) appeals to me. Next, noting effects of interior lighting, I am arrested by Cyrus Cuneo’s “ The Curtain ” (106) in which the changing light entering through the window and re- flected in the mass of white draperies is very skilfully treated. Also, by Miss Flora Lion’s “ Farmhouse Dresser ’’ ( I 19), another very successful study. It is,

however, hung too high to allow the details of its care- fully observed effects of light and colour being seen. In his careful study, “ After the Morning Dip.” (223), Edgar Bundy has admirably expressed the effect of light striking through the canvas opening of a bathing tent, in colour contrasts and a series of movements seized instantly and fixed on the canvas. Miss I. L. Gloag’s decorative canvas (155) is worth noting for its quiet harmonies of greenish-blue and white. D. Meeson‘s clever treatment of a head exposed to a red light (16) is obviously meant rather to surprise than to convince. The best things in portrait work are by Sir James Guthrie ( 3 3 3 ) , the late R. Garrido (337) and Harold Knight (94). The worst thing in the show is the Hon. John Collier’s brutally ugly canvas ( 3 15).

* * * For a complete contrast to the methods of the modern

sun-men one may go to the Baillie Gallery. The Exhi- bition of the Society of Painters in Tempera takes us back to that early period of the history of painting before the utility of oils became apparent, and to which the pages of Kugler, W a a g e n and Crowe and Caval- Cavalcaselle refer. On the artistic side not much need be said. Tempera painting is a materially beautiful art which lends itself to the subtlest expressions, the finest gradations, and the most delicate modellings. Success- ful individual achievements of note are seen in the charming and finely coloured heads of Robert Anning Bell ( I T , 21 ) , the studies i n fresco and tempera of Mary Sargant Florence (13 , 15), the effective decorative land- scapes of Maxwell Armfield (29, 45), and in Arthur J. Gaskin’s “On the Cotswolds ” ( 3 5 ) . The Hon. Neville Lytton’s “ Jockey to the Fair ” (73), though a conven- tional and almost impossible canvas has certain arrest- ing features. Those quaint old-time dancing women in their landscape setting keep one interested and amused. Altogether the exhibition includes much fine work, and, moreover, it affords another convincing proof of how well women are doing.

* * * I should have liked, had space permitted, to consider

more fully here the question of the painter’s language of light in which so much of the training, theories, and aspirations of the present generation of English painters is expressed, and the means whereby it may receive that recognition and appreciation to which it is certainly entitled. To ask, in other words, what is being and what ought to he done to assist the artist to do good work and-to sell it. The subject is not a new one to me. I have threshed it out in the only spirit, in the only conditions, in the only way such a subject may be considered. The spirit is that of the reformer; the conditions, artistic poverty ; the way, grim truth that makes the heart ache. This spirit came to me in a studio, one of a group of studios-together they formed the centre of a republic of poverty. The place was packed with starving artists, whose work was never seen, whose names were never mentioned, all working with a note of despair in their hearts, all representing so many wasted lives, all looking forward more or less to being thrown on the rubbish heap of neglected art. My own studio--what was it? Imagine a boarded-off portion of a once lecture-room of a decayed school of medicine, with dirty walls, on which the damp brown paper hangs in strips, with dust-packed rafters and gal- lery, with holes i n the floor through which rats pay calls, with frowsy canvas curtains marking off one corner €or kitchen purposes, and a faded screen another €or sleeping purposes, with a crazy north-light through which the winds descend in clouds of soot and coke- fumes, and with a festering sink supplied with pestifer- ous water. Imagine all these horrors with butonecharm to relie\-e them-a small grimy window framing a painter’s hit of old London-some russet roofs, an olive-green tree or two a slice of blue sky with a yellow- flag athwart it, and a grey opening-symbol of the grey tragedy of many an artist’s life-between the houses through which comes the drift of the colour and movement of human scenery beyond. In these sut- roundings I spent many a long day cursing my wicked

NOVEMBER 25, 1909 THE NEW A G E 93

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conceived writing on Shakespeare that our times have known, or are likely to know.--The Nation.

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94 THE NEW AGE NOVEMBER 2 5 , 1909

landlord and the weal thy amateur who sends up the ren ts of thé possible studios and thus f l ings penniless a r t i s t s into sheds, stables, lofts, garrets; in fact, every place in slums and back-streets that if pu t to any bu t art purposes would be ruthlessly condemned as unfit for human occupat ion. In these circumstances, it was not difficult to dream of reform, and in moments not devoted to cursing I mas busy drawing up plans of beautiful blocks of model studios which starving art ists might ren t for a mere song, in which they might live l ike f ighting cocks, and not like rats any longer, and which should each contain a permanent gaIlery open at all t imes to all-comers. Thus one t iny avenue of artistic liberty shone through the rosy mists of the imagina- tion, a n d a l i t t le gold gli t tered amid the drab of wasted souls. Then, plans in hand, I approached one money- lord who subsidises the picture dealers and begged him for a c h a n g e to subsidise the artist. And he-fled.

HUNTLY CARTER

CORRESPONDENCE For the opinions expressed by correspondents the Editor does not

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the Editor and written on m e side of the paper only.

Many letters weekly are omitted on account of their length.

WOMAN‘S SUFFRAGE IN AMERICA. To THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.”

On arriving in New York, Mrs. Pankhurst said to a reporter, “ I have come to America to speak on the subject of equal rights for women, and to study the situation in this country. I think we are away ahead of you in this matter. :’

If Mrs. Pankhurst has a receptive mind she will soon change it on this point. By any test you like to apply, American women have much more nearly attained equal rights with men than the women of any European country have done.

The right to work is, perhaps, the most important of all rights. In England women are still, to a great estent, ex- cluded from remunerative occupations. They cannot become barristers, solicitors, parsons, or professors, and they are debarred by public opinion from holding high positions in any other occupations. In America all these positions are open to women, not only in name, but in reality. Many prominent preachers are women and so are many of the most successful lawyers at the Bar. A good many University professors are women, and in many large schools for boys and girls every member of the teaching staff is a woman. Canada is behind the United States in this matter, yet in the little Canadian town in which I live, the four teachers in the public school are all wornen, al- though half the pupils are boys.

English women are always complaining that the divorce law discriminates against women. In America it is exactly the same for both sexes. Noreover, divorce is very easy and very cheap, and the large majority of those who apply for it are women. In most of the States you can get divorce for almost any imaginable cause. A few months ago a woman in Seattle was granted a divorce from her husband because he snored. In the San Francisco papers there are advertisements from lawyers who undertake to get anybody a divorce for $12 (about 50s.).

In England a married woman has no right to her own children while the father is alive. In at least twelve of the States, the father and mother are equal guardians of the children.

Suffragettes should know that the right to sit on juries is an important one. In many States women have it,, and use it. Moreover, all accused persons have the right to a jury trial in America. If the suffragettes lived in America, they would be tried by juries which would probably contain some women.

I t is true that women have the franchise in only four States out of forty-six. But that is better than not having it at all. Moreover, woman suffrage means vastly more in America than in. England. It means that every woman can not merely vote for every elective position, from President down, but also that she can hold every office within the State. In these four States women can be elected to the Legislature, a n d many have been elected. An American woman would feel the most withering scorn for a law which merely per- mitted her to vote for men. I t is always understood ln America that woman suffrage means the total abolition of all political distinctions between the sexes

I hope some enterprising suffragette will publish a list of rights which women have achieved in England, but not in America.

INDUSTRIAL ASSURANCE *** R. B. KERR.

T O THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW AGE.” For several months there has been considerable ferment

regarding the Assurance Bill introduced by Lord Hamilton of Dalzell in the Lords, and tended by Mr. Churchill in the Commons. The source of the Bill is to be found in the Association of Industrial Assurance Companies and Friendly Collecting Societies, a combine which is likely to play a big part ln the near future. This association has no affect- tion for collecting societies based on representative govern- ment and owned b y the members, and the few societies of that nature attached to the association are more or less in- clined to cut their connection with the Registry of Friendly Societies, and to creep under the wings of the Board of Trade, where members and delegates cease from troubling,, and shareholders are at rest. Unfortunately, Mr. Churchill has received his insurance education at the hands o f the asso- ciation’s executive, and therefore it was made possible for such a clause as Clause 37 to appear in the Bill.

The clause referred to makes it easy for a collecting society to convert into a proprietary company, the only obstacle being the objection of 25 per cent. of the member- ship. For example, a society with 120,000 members could be converted by the committee of management making appli- cation to the Court, provided 30,000 members did not rise in their wrath and poverty to protect the society. The intro- duction of this clause into a Rill, which otherwise had no- thing to do with industrial assurance, has shown the public that certain parties have designs on collecting societies. Mr. Churchill has got enlightenment since the Rill was intro- duced, and doubtless he mill move in committee an amend- ment on the lines of the undertaking which he gave on the Second Reading, and make it necessary to show 55 per cent. of the adult membership in favour of conversion before sanction being secured.

During recent years, quick changes have been common ln the insurance world. Amalgamations and conversions have been numerous, and it would not surprise us if, seven years hence, we found industrial assurance concentrated into a few hands. The aim and tendency seems to be in that direction, and there are no richer morsels within the vision of company promoters and amalgamators than friendIy coi- lecting societies. Within those societies there is at present great. unrest, the unrest in some cases being similar to that of the young lady who, being supplicated by crowds of courtly wooers, cannot make up her mind which suitor to choose. Taking everything into account, we would earnestly advise all trade unionists, members of the I.L.P., and other Socialist bodies, who are policy-holders in collecting societies to take a keen and active interest in the societies to which they belong, and especially in those societies where the delegate system pre- vails. The district meetings at which delegates are elected should be attended, and men of collective tendencies appointed. In no other way can the existence of those societies be assured of continuation, for they will be centres of uncertainty so long as they are controlled by people with individualistic proclivities. They are essentially co-opera- tive concerns, and should be delegated to the care of men who have the spirit of co-operation.

In a paper on “Occupation Mortalities,” read to the Faculty of Actuaries at Edinburgh, Dr. J. C. Dunlop, superintendent of the Statistical Department in the Regis- trar-General’s office, said that the twelve occupations with with the smallest expectation of life at age 25 were: General labourers, 27.8 years ; tin miners, 28.5 ; costermongers 29 ; inn and hotel servants, 29.4 ; publicans and innkeepers, 30.4 ; seamen, 31.3 ; file makers, 31.5 ; general shopkeepers, 32.4 : cutlers, 32.6; dock labourers, 32.9 ; messengers, 33 ; and potters, 33.5. The clergy at age 25 have an expectation of life of 42.8 years. That is to say, the general labourer hands in his checks at the age of 52, and the clergyman ,mutters amen at the age of 67. As far as the general labourer is concerned, there is not much likelihood of him encroaching unduly on the Old Age Pension Fund.

ST, PAUL’S CHURCHYARD * * *

GERMANY IN T H E M E D I T E R R A N E A N TO THE EDITOR OF “THE NEW A G E . ”

Merely in the interest of accuracy, may I mention that the German attempt to secure a port in the Mediterranean has nothing, as THE NEW AGE seems to suggest, to do with the solution of the Cretan question.

The statement of fact set forth in the “ Week End “ was based on diplomatic materials in my possession, as to the authenticity of which there is, if I may say so, no question.

I am sure I may appeal to your sense of fairness to give this point publicity in your columns, and I offer you my best thanks in advance. T H E MANAGING EDITOR.

‘‘ The Week End.”

NOVEMBER 2 5 , 1909 THE NEW A G E 95

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ZION’S WORKS, with Catalogue in Free Libraries

Unitarianism AN AFFIRMATIVE FAITH,” “ The ’‘ Unitarian Argument” Bliss “ Eternal Punishment “ [Stopford Brooke). “Atonement ” (Page Happe), given post free.- Miss BARMBY Mount Pleasant, Sidmonth

ANTED : NEW AGE. First Five Volumes, second-hand, ~~-

\“v cheap.--CRIPPS, Arcana, Shelley Road, Worthing.

Y O U N G MAN (21), well educated, Knowledge French, Spanish, shorthand, Typewriting Literature, seeks cleric-l or literary post British

Museum experience G.W.C., 31: Daneville Road Camberwell

RESTAURANT

FERRER MAGNIFICENT PORTRAIT has been issued

by the New Age Press. It is reproduced in Four Colours, and mounted Suitable for

Framing. Size 12 ins. by 17 ins. Price ONE SHILLING EACH. By post (in roller) 1/2 Five

or more copies sent post free.

HALF THE PROFITS from the sale of this

the daughters of the late Senor Ferrer to use at their discretion print will be given to

This portrait should be hung in every Socialist Club, So satisfied are the publishers that purchasers will be pleased with the print that they guarantee to refund the purchase money in the event of

dissatisfaction.

THE NEW AGE. LAST WEEK.

X CARTOON. NOTES O F T H E WEEK. A SONG WITHOUT A NAME.

BY ALFRED E. RANDALL BALLADS O F HECATE. II . - -

BALLADE O F T H E DOOMED LONGHEAD FOREIGN AFFAIRS. BY STANHOPE OF CHESTER THE BIRTHDAY HONOURS. BY-O. W. DYCE THE ART O F HOME-MAKING.

BY W. SHAW SPARROW ON GOVERNMENTS. BY LEWIS RICHARDSON THE NYMPH AND THE STAG.

BY BEATRICE TINA A CONTINENTAL TRIP.-III. BY BART KENNEDY ENGLISHMEN AND AESTHETIC

SENSIBILITY. BY HOLBEIN BAGMAN FROM THE CHILDREN TO DEATH: A

SONNET. BY E. DE TIEL BOOKS AND PERSONS. BY JACOB TONSON THE SOCIAL HALF-WAY HOUSE.

BY FRANCIS GRIERSON J I N N Y : A COMEDY. BY ASHLEY DUKES BOOK O F THE WEEK : THE ART OF LIVING.

BY M. D. EDER DRAMA: RECENT PLAYS. BY ASHLEY DUKES RECENT MUSIC. BY HERBERT HUGHES A R T BY HUNTLY. CARTER. CORRESPONDENCE.

THE NEW AGE. NEXT WEEK.

A 4-PAGE LITERARY SUPPLEMENT.

A CARTOON : SEARCHERS AFTER REALITY. BY DUDLEY TENNANT

“ CHRIST ” : AN INTERPRETATION.

BY ALLEN UPWARD

A PROLOGUE FOR “EAGER HEART.” BY ALFRED E. RANDALL

T H E PASSING DISPENSATION. II. BY d P. BENJAMIN

T H E ART O F HOME-MAKING. III . BY W. SHAW SPARROW

A CONTINENTAL TRIP. V. BY BART KENNEDY

BRIAND AND HERVE. BY MARGARET HOUGHTON

A DREAM. BY ALFRED MARKS

SEARCHERS AFTER REALITY. BY T. E. HULME

ETC. ETC.

FRANCISCO