BRITISH ATROCITIES IN THE SOUDAN.

GRAVE ALLEGATIONS BY AN EYE-WITNESS.

MR. ERNEST N. BENNETT writes a painful paper in the Contemporary Review, entitled "After Omdurman." He recites various provisions of the Geneva Convention of 1864, and of the Brussels Conference of 1874, and then alleges serious contraventions by British or Egyptian soldiery of these agreements of the civilised world.

SLAUGHTER OF THE WOUNDED.

The first count in his indictment concerns treatment of the wounded, and opens with a statement which is simply not true, if by the wounded all the wounded are meant. Some of the wounded have, no doubt, always been killed after every battle. He says:

It is, of course, an open secret that in all our Soudan battles the enemy's wounded have been killed. The practice has, ever since the days of Tel-el-Kebir, become traditional in Soudanese warfare.

Immediately after the repulse of the first Dervish attack at Omdurman our troops advanced in échelon towards Omdurman, and as I marched with Colonel Lewis' Native Brigade on the right we soon came across dead and wounded Dervishes. On our left, along the lower slopes of Gebel Surgham, a large number of camp-followers and native servants were already busy amongst the white-clad figures which lay stretched in little groups as our shell fire or the long-range volleys of the Lee-Metfords had struck them down. These looters had armed themselves somehow or other with rifles, spears, and even clubs, and made short work of any wounded man they came across.

"IT WAS STATED ”—BY WHOM?

This wholesale slaughter was not confined to Arab servants. It was stated that orders had been given to kill the wounded. Whether this was so or not I do not know, but certainly no protest was made when the Soudanese despatched scores of wounded men who lay in their path.

Now there does exist a full and ample justification for some of this slaughter of the wounded. It has always been found, throughout the whole series of our campaigns in the Soudan, that great risk was incurred in approaching an armed Dervish lying wounded upon the ground. Instances are undoubtedly on record of British troops having been shot by wounded Arabs, sometimes in the most treacherous fashion.

A GRUESOME STORY.

But no justification whatever exists for the butchery of unarmed or manifestly helpless men lying wounded on the ground. This certainly took place after the battle of Omdurman. Dervishes who lay with shattered legs or arms, absolutely without weapons, were bayoneted and shot without mercy. This unsoldierly work was not even left to the exclusive control of the black troops; our own British soldiers took part in it. At one place, on the western slopes of Surgham, I noticed a fine old Dervish with a grey beard, who, disabled by a wound in his leg, had sunk down on the ground about eight yards behind his son, a boy of seventeen, whose right leg had also been lacerated by a bullet. Neither the father nor the son had any weapons at all, yet a Highlander stepped out of the ranks and drove his bayonet through the old man's chest. The victim of this needless brutality begged in vain for mercy, and clutched the soldier's bayonet, reddening his hands with his own blood in a futile attempt to prevent a second thrust. No effort was made by any comrade or officer to prevent this gratuitous bit of butchery, nor, of course, could any officer have interfered very well, if the soldier-as was said to be the case-was only acting in accordance with the wishes of the general in command. On the other hand, I am certain that many officers heartily disliked the slaughter of the wounded, and would have forbidden it, if left to their own initiative. . . As the soldier above-mentioned was driving his Lee-Metford bayonet through the old man's body, the son raised himself and gazed with dilated eyes on the cold-blooded butchery of his father. He clasped his hands together in suppliant fashion, expecting, no doubt, the same treatment. Two soldiers from

another battalion gave some biscuit and water to the boy, who, to show his gratitude, offered them his blue and white gibbeh.

LEAVING THE WOUNDED TO PERISH BY THOUSANDS. No attempt was made, either on the day of the battle or next day, to do anything for the wounded Dervishes. Thousands of these, who had feigned death or else escaped it by having fallen well out of the line of cur advance, were left lying on the desert without food or surgical help-and, worst of all, without water. To lie for two days without water in the heat of a Soudan August is bad enough, but when the natural thirst is augmented by the fever which invariably accompanies gun. shot wounds, the torture must be terrible. On September 4 a number of British soldiers were sent out to count the dead, and they carried with them water for the wounded. This somewhat belated generosity helped to alleviate the misery of several hundreds of Dervishes who were found to be still alive, but no attempt, I believe, was made to afford them surgical assistance or to convey them to a place of shelter.

LOOTING A SURRENDERED CITY.

The second count in the charge is our ruthless disregard of the rights of non-combatants and of the surrendered town. On the march of the Lancers up the left bank of the Nile any contributions in the way of food which were secured from the poverty-stricken villages were taken without payment." After the surrender of Omdurman and peaceable entry of the Sirdar—

What followed? All that night Soudanese troops roamed at large about the city. All night long shots were being fired. What precisely happened nobody will ever know, but when a Soudanese soldier goes looting with a rifle in his hands he pays little attention to "the honour, family rights, life, and property of individuals"! For the three next days the pillage of the surrendered city continued. As one entered the town one was continually met by little groups of soldiers carrying loot of all kinds. On September 3rd I came across two British soldiers who had forcibly seized a bag of money and were carrying it off to the camp. . . . In short, all the blacks and many of the British soldiers were apparently permitted to loot as they liked in a city whose surrender had been accepted by their General! DESECRATING THE DEAD MAHDI'S TOMB.

The third count deals with our bombardment of Omdurman. Mr. Bennett is rightly horrified at our desecration of the Mahdi's tomb, in face of the fact that Moslems regard the violation of a grave with the utmost religious repugnance :

Yet at the close of the nineteenth century a British commander, not content with desecrating a tomb, actually orders a dead man's body to be torn out of its grave! The embalmed body of the Mahdi was dug up, the head wrenched off, and the trunk cast into the Nile.

mass

SHOOTING WOMEN AND CHILDREN.

Mr. Bennett objects to the gunboat firing on the "chaotic of unarmed men, women and children that fled into Omdurman with the defeated Dervish troops :When a vast crowd of non-combatants accompanies the flight of the soldiery, a terrible responsibility is undertaken in opening Maxim fire on such a multitude indiscriminately. Next day some five hundred dead bodies lay scattered about the streets of Omdurman, and amongst them were corpses of women and little children. A little group of two women and a man were standing on the bank. "Let's separate the man from the women, ," said a gunner. "Ta-ta-ta!" went the Maxim, and all three figures fell prostrate Two women were bending

sorrowfully over the dead body of a Dervish, when a non-commissioned officer went up and deliberately shot one of the women with a revolver.

It is only right to add that Mr. Burleigh, of the Daily Telegraph, gives the lie direct to most of the assertions of Mr. Bennett.

1798. IRELAND. 1898.

"THE NEW REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT." UNIONISTS and Liberals alike who regard Home Rule as defunct, or suspended, or deferred by the grant of County Councils to Ireland, will be startled out of their easy-going security by Mr. F. St. John Morrow's paper in the National Review on "The New Irish Revolutionary Movement." This writer deplores the strange ignorance of the people east of St. George's Channel about most things Irish, and in especial of the Centennial Commemoration of the rebellion of 1798. The memories of that dismal year have, it seems, aroused the revolutionary spirit and have shown it to possess unsuspected vigour and volume. The Chairman of the Centenary Committee was John O'Leary, the ex-Fenian sentenced to twenty years' penal servitude in 1865 :

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The New Year was ushered in by a "grand demonstration of unparalleled magnificence" in Dublin, and equally imposing gatherings elsewhere. During this year, and throughout the length and breadth of the country, '98 clubs have been formed, and '98 Centenary celebrations have been attended by thousands and tens of thousands of the townsfolk and peasantry. "Sound national teaching" was provided at all these assemblages. manhood of Ireland was sternly enjoined to "promote physical development by means of national games," and to "form boys' brigades in connection with each '98 Club with experienced drill instructors." Resolutions pledging the respective meetings "to carry on the struggle for the attainment of our country's rights till we see Ireland a self-governing nation" were common form.

The

The prospect of war between England and France has been hailed with shouts of "Vive la France!" and with threats of a fighting alliance with the French. The methods of '98 have been rapturously approved and applauded.

THE NEW ENGINE OF REVOLT.

These speeches, celebrations and clubs, Mr. Morrow feels to be relatively insignificant :

There is one organisation, however, which has been called into existence this year, the formation of which is viewed with serious apprehension by all who desire peace and quietness and political freedom in Ireland. It is styled the United Irish League, and its motto is "The Land for the People." It was born in Mayo, the birth-place of the Land League, its prototype, and like that conspiracy it is eminently practical. The only constitution possessed by this Irish revolutionary movement is contained in the resolution passed by its founders :

"That, in the words of the constitution of the first Club of United Irishmen in 1792, this Society is constituted for the purpose of forwarding a brotherhood of affection, a community of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen.

"Taat membership be open to all Irish Nationalists without reference to any sectional differences, and all controversial subjects as between Irish Nationalists be excluded from discussion at meetings of the League."

THE LAND FOR THE LABOURERS! The tenant farmers who were the backbone of Parnellism are now contented men, eager only to mind their farms and "put a bit by." They cannot be reckoned on for another land agitation. So the new League hopes to reconcile Parnellite and anti-Parnellite by a new political objective, and aims at roping in the labourers in support of a new agrarian programme :

The League holds out to labourers the certain hope that the grazing farms will ultimately be divided up amongst them, pro

vided only a vigorous enough crusade against the graziers of Ireland is waged. . . . Mr. Pierce Mahony, ex-M.P., speaking at Dromin in September, declared that "economically and socially the present state of affairs is a great evil which can only be remedied by the purchase by the State of all the grazing lands, and their redistribution amongst the surrounding occupiers of holdings too small to support life."

THE LARGE GRAZIERS THREATENED.

Mr. Morrow roughly estimates the grazing land as one-half of the area of Ireland, the other half being divided about equally between tillage and bog or other waste land. This is the source of the valuable Irish cattle trade, which exports to Great Britain about a million and a half sterling more than all other nations combinednearly £12,000,000 as against nearly £10,500,000. result of the suggested subdivision of grazing lands would, in Mr. Morrow's judgment, be the extinction of the Irish export cattle trade, small owners being unable to bear the cost of transportation or to raise the requisite capital. He admits certain significant conversions:

The

At a meeting held in September last at Glencastle, County Mayo, after spirited denunciations had been indulged in by Mr. William O'Brien and Mr. McHugh, M. P., a grazier came on to the platform and meekly announced, amidst loud cheers, his The intention to hand over all his grazing land to the tenants. County Mayo also furnishes another instance, for Mr. Davitt is reported to have announced at a large meeting in Ballinrobe, in October, that a local magistrate and landowner had already surrendered to the League, and had given up his grazing farms. A PLEA FOR COERCION.

Mr. Morrow attributes these things to "outrageous intimidation." Several meetings have been "proclaimed " by the Government, but by a slight change of place or time have been successfully held. "The political work proper" of the League is to capture the forthcoming County Councils for Nationalism. Mr. Morrow concludes :

The aims of the United Irish League are identical with those of the Land League, and the only method by which the Executive can defeat them is by resorting to the method by which Mr. Arthur Balfour successfully combatted the Land League, and boldly proclaiming the new Irish Revolutionary movement as an illegal conspiracy.

Mrs. Haweis: In Memoriam.

THE death of Mrs. Haweis, which occurred last year, has left a gap in the ranks of those who work for women, and who take a keen interest in all matters relating to their sex. Mrs. H. R. Haweis was not only a philanthropist, but she was also a woman of letters, whose ready pen was eyer at the service of all good causes. She died in harness, dictating her last contribution to the press to her husband from her death-bed. Those who knew her, and loved her, and admired her unfailing courage and her unwearied efforts on behalf of her sex, propose to perpetuate her memory and her example by raising a fund, to be called the "Mrs. Haweis Trust Fund for Working Girls,” the object of which is to enable English and American girls between the ages of twelve and twenty to learn a self-supporting trade or engage in a remunerative occupation, either by paying for their instruction; providing them with board, lodging, or outfit; supplying them with travelling money, or a premium for obtaining employment." These grants are to be paid yearly or half-yearly, at the discretion of the committee. Particulars of the scheme will be issued shortly. There is a scheme here to fill in the outline of which would require a great endowment. However, the Trust Fund will begin on a small scale, and who knows what dimensions it may ultimately reach?

THE UNITED STATES AND THE CUBAN DEBT: SEVERE STRICTURES BY THE LATE UNITED STATES MINISTER TO SPAIN.

THE HON. HANNIS TAYLOR, late United States Minister to Spain, writes in the North American Review for December on "The Work of the Peace Commission." He recalls with patriotic pride the treaty of the Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which the United States offered to conquered Mexico for ceded provinces fifteen million dollars in cash. As one who foresaw and welcomed the war which freed Cuba, he regrets that the Mexican precedent has not been followed by the Peace Commission :—

At the last accounting, the war has only cost us directly about 165,000,000 dols., and as compensation for that outlay we have appropriated Porto Rico, which can hardly be valued at much less than double that sum. There was no reason, therefore, why we should have been so unwilling, in dealing with Cuba and the Philippines, to recognise those reasonable and natural equities which, under the laws of nations, follow acquired territory.

In my humble judgment our Commissioners made a fatal mistake and lost a precious opportunity, through the narrow, technical and uncandid spirit in which they refused every proposition made by Spain looking to a recognition by somebody of some part of the Cuban debt as a charge upon that island. We have frankly admitted in the case of the Philippines that, so far as the debts of those islands represent pacific expenditures, that is, expenditures for the betterment or improvement of the country, they must, as lawyers say, "run with the land," and in that way constitute a charge upon it. Upon what ground have we attempted to reject the application of that elementary principle of law and common honesty to the case of Cuba?

66

THE "JUGGLING DEVICE" OF THE COMMISSION. He deals sternly with the Commissioners' plea that we do not intend to accept sovereignty over that island." But he urges as a matter of fact the sovereignty does pass into the hands of the United States the moment Cuba has been evacuated by Spain. England in Egypt is adduced by him as a case in point. If England in Egypt by virtue of conquest does not repudiate the Egyptian debt, why should the United States in Cuba by right of conquest repudiate the Cuban debt? England in one case, the United States in the other, are trustees :—

When we view the question in its true light, our contention that we should disavow the entire Cuban debt, and refuse to recognise any part of it as a legal charge upon the revenues of the island, because perchance our control over those revenues may some day cease, is a mere juggling device. Our Commissioners should never have belittled either themselves or the country by making such a specious contention. They should have frankly admitted the same rule for Cuba that they admitted for the Philippines-that the amount of "pacific expenditures" made by Spain for the permanent improvement of the island should be recognised as a legal charge upon it.

$100,000,000 DUE TO SPAIN.

It was

How could that amount have been ascertained? reported in the newspapers, without contradiction, that the revolutionary government of Cuba offered not long ago, if it were permitted to deal directly with Spain, to assume a hundred millions of the so-called Cuban debt as a just burden upon the island, in the event its absolute independence should be recog. nised. Apart from that admission it is quite certain, when the immense work done by Spain in Cuba during centuries is taken into account, that some such sum as a hundred millions would be a very moderate estimate of that part of the Cuban debt that really represents pacific expenditures. If Spain had been met upon that proposition in a broad and equitable spirit, instead of with that juggling device as to sovereignty that no international lawyer can justify, the whole matter might have reached a consummation that would have pacified Spain and have vindicated

us in the eyes of the world, without the imposition of any burden whatever upon the Treasury of the United States.

GOOD SAMARITAN OR HIGHWAY ROBBER? Mr. Taylor puts the embarrassing case: Suppose Cuba is annexed, "as it no doubt will be," to the United States, how will repudiation of the Cuban debt on the ground that American sovereignty was not intended, appear to the conscience of posterity?

This may become a case in which honesty will prove to be the best policy, and the Senate should be careful to see that no treaty of peace shall be concluded that may prove a stumblingblock in the near future.

Mr. Taylor concludes :

Spain lies broken and distracted at our feet, with no navy, no money, no friends to aid her in the hour of her calamity. At such a moment shall we rise to the dignity of the situation and treat her as the good Samaritan treated the wounded traveller by the wayside, or shall we make her the victim of a spoliation that will pass into history as the most heartless that has happened since the dismemberment of Poland ?

LOMBROSO'S WARNING TO THE UNITED STATES. THE PERILS OF EXPANSION.

66

THE great criminologist contributes to the December Forum a paper on "The Sociological and Ethnical Sources of the Greatness of Venice." For nearly sixteen pages out of seventeen it seems to be a purely academic study, interesting to the student of history, but remote from present day problems. The writer first describes the ethnical grafting," the blended growth of Roman, Greek, Slavonic, Byzantine and Saracenic elements: then "the climatic inoculation,"-change of habits due to living on coasts and islands, the transformation of character effected by the sea then the changes wrought by "selection and the struggle for existence -a struggle against invaders, but more particularly against the sea: then the growth of commerce and wealth: the presence of these varied influences during "the formative period" of Venetian life, and the greatest factor of Venetian progress "-the high degree of freedom which prevailed. General conclusions are drawn and compared with what has occurred in other States. So far the writer has stood on the high and distant level of merely historical research. But at the beginning of his seventeenth page he plunges suddenly, even abruptly, into the vortex of American politics, when he bids us see in Venice a prototype of the United States, and in her downfall a warning to them. The learned Professor has all the while been getting his Venetian guns into position, in order to open fire on American imperialism. So the academic mind works.

THE VENICE OF THE MODERN WORLD. This is the Professor's conclusion:

In view of these facts, we may already catch a glimpse of the day when New York, so great a centre of commerce, liberty, wealth, and science, shall concentrate within herself, as once before did Venice, the true power of the world—the power of progress.

The principles involved in this article are applicable to the dangers now besetting the United States; and in view of my affection and admiration for that great country—a_veritable paradise in the minds of thinking men of old Latin Europe-I cannot refrain from stating a few ideas which, in this connection, suggest themselves to me.

Those who have read the preceding pages will be convinced that the greatness of the Venetian States must be attributed primarily to the liberty they enjoyed, and that the decline of their liberty was brought about chiefly by conquests in distant landsconquests entailing tremendous expenses, hateful taxes, enormeus

armaments, and the surrender of the supreme power into the hands of men who ended in tyrannising over them and in completely suppressing their liberty.

HOME FREEDOM DRUGGED BY FOREIGN VICTORY.

The latter purpose was the more readily accomplished because the masses, who were always inclined to war, were suffering from the complacency of vanity resulting from the glory of victories and conquests, and were therefore rendered less sensible to the gradual loss of freedom. The country being exposed to invasions by hostile forces, the suppression of liberty became a necessity; which suppression, though temporary, yet accustomed men to the idea of dictatorship.

Conquests, it is true, afforded a temporary wealth, and were fascinating to the people; but this wealth exhausted itself by its own excesses tending toward idleness and irremediable poverty. To the populace, conquest is fascinating; it is a drink which exhilarates. But precisely because it exhilarates the people, it intoxicates them, rendering them always ready to commit new blunders and quick to take offence; thus urging them on to foolish and shameful wars, in some one of which they finally lose their prestige.

BEWARE OF THE CUP OF CONQUEST.

Let the citizens of the United States carefully consider thes? facts before drinking the intoxicating, but poisonous, cup of conquest. Let them remember that the greatness of their country lies in its perfect independence of the rest of the world; that, once embroiled outside of America, it will, at the very least, obligate itself to alliances which will bring in their train formidable masses of adversaries. Let them bear in mind that there is nothing more dangerous for a nation founded on popular suffrage than to enter upon the descent toward war, down which declivity the popular instincts of all countries push and slip, in spite of the most powerful restraints. The breaking through of these restraints is, alas! fraught with the most imminent danger to America's greatest blessing, which is liberty, and the richest fruit of liberty-the absence of every form of militarism. Let them beware of militarism; for this is the source of all the evils that are ruining our Latin races.

THE MAKER OF MODERN IMPERIALISM: BISMARCK.

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Mr. WILLIAM CLARKE has an interesting and suggestive paper on Bismarck in the Contemporary Review. He describes him as one of the chief statesmen of the Counter-Revolution," who carried out the general ideas of one of the greatest philosophers of the CounterRevolution-Hegel, to whom man exists for the State, not the State for man. "Bismarck in politics has his contemporary parallel in literature in Carlyle." The effect of his life-work is seen in German democrat and reactionary alike. The current political philosophy of Germany is that of strong government and of one-man rule."

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THE DECLINE OF PARLIAMENTARISM-HIS WORK.

Parliamentarism, the method of national unity proposed by German Liberalism at the Frankfort Diet in 1848, was deliberately rejected by Bismarck, and his success has widely shaken the old Liberal creed :

The danger of gazing on tyrants with a dazzled eye, to which Wordsworth has referred in a fine sonnet, is a real danger to-day. It is only in the small States of Continental Europe that the old idea of liberty and self-government finds a home. France is, indeed, a republic, but more in name than in fact. Italy is a constitutional monarchy, but she does not admit the simplest guarantees of personal freedom, liberty of press, of combination, of free speech. The other Great Powers embody, more or less completely, the principle of autocracy. Now, it is the Parliamentary countries among the Great Powers that show serious signs of weakness, as it is the autocratic Powers that have been leading decisively in Europe. There is no more patent and significant fact in contemporary Europe than the failure, if

1

not the absolute collapse, of Parliamentary government. France ani Italy the Chamber of Deputies is half-dreaded, ha despised. In Austria, fortunately, the Reichsrath does not govern, or the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be dissolved in, a week. On the other hand, we must admit that in Germany, however strong may be our dislike to its political forms there is a sense of solidity which the Parliamentary régime due not show except in England; and even there a visible decline in the esteem in which Parliament is held, and of the genuin authority which it possesses, must gives us pause before we pronounce the success of Parliamentary government in the har of its birth. We cannot help admitting that Bismarck divinei the tendency of his time better than the Liberals of 1848, that he perceived the hopelessness of building German federa! institutions on the basis of Parliamentarism.

THE VANQUISHER OF LIBERALISM.

That resolve has in great measure brought about the situative in Europe to-day. Bismarck's armed Prussia, with its signal triumphs, followed by an armed Germany, has changed the whole condition of Europe, and is the cause of the dominance of militarism at this moment. Bismarck, more than any other public man, has changed the ideals of Europe, has made a militant imperialism the prevailing creed, has undone the liberalising influences which had been at work obliterating the effects of Napoleon's iron rule, has led, more than any other influence, to the present cult of a hard cynicism, has weakened humanitarian aims, and has done more than any other single cause to increase the armaments of Europe. The United States, so long outside the circle of militarism, has now been drawn in, as a result of the doctrine set forth by believers in intense nationalism and the "mailed fist." It is a striking testimony to the universality of Bismarckian principles.

...

"THE GRIP OF THE FINANCIER."

An incidental outcome of this policy has been the tightening of the grip of the financier over Europe. The question of whether! the financier makes for peace or not has been much discussed The answer seems to be that he makes for armed peace, for a state of things in which, while war would mean a tremendous risk. yet preparations for war are necessary in order that the power of the international financial class may be sustained. The huge indebtedness of Europe. . . places immense powers in the hands of a small class who can never be open, as kings may sometimes be, to humane impulses.

MATERIALISM RAMPANT, GENIUS DEAD.

It cannot be doubted that the career of Bismarck, like that of Napoleon, has furthered the cause of Machiavellism in Europe... The doctrine of the armed nation, born of romanticism and nationalism, has, by a strange and yet intelligible paradox, produced the most rampant materialism of life and thought.. Idealism has given place to materialism. Genius is almost as dead as liberty. Outwardly, indeed, Germany makes a splendid show, surpassed only by the United States. . . . But the result has been bought at a mighty cost. Gone is that old German contentment and charming simplicity of life; gone are the "peace, the fearful innocence, and pure religion breathing household laws."... One might have thought that the new empire would have inspired formative thought and a literature of power, but it has not. The militant imperialism of the new Germany has given us pessimistic criticism; and while German arms and commerce are the envy of the world, the German mind "is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

IS THE REACTION AT HAND?

Mr. Clarke expresses doubts of the permanence of this rule of matter and force :

Is the present wave of militant imperialism which Bismarck did so much to foster likely to last? The Tsar's Rescript already hints at the reaction. The nations have been enjoying their debauch, and the sober grey of the morning is beginning to bring calmer views and cooler heads. . . . Must we not say in the last analysis that the stone which the builder of the German Empire rejected is the head-stone of the corner in any healthy and well-conditioned State? This is the stone of liberty.

MR. GREENWOOD ON FRANK FOREIGN POLICY. Macmillan's for January enjoys the rare distinction of a paper by Mr. Fredk. Greenwood. He writes on "Public Opinion in Public Affairs." The national feeling over the Fashoda incident seems to have greatly raised the spirits of the writer. He speaks better and more cheerfully of his countrymen than has been his wont of late. He actually raises the cry-in foreign affairs-of "Trust the People-and the Press." begins by complaining that, "precisely at the time when the Government was enjoying redemption from the responsibilities of a great war by the good sense and courage of the country, complaint was raised against the meddling of the country with the duties of the Government."

TRUST THE SOVEREIGN PEOPLE.

He

British diplomacy had been disregarded and practically dead-what with "Gladstone's recedent," and "Salisbury's concessional" policy, and would have had to be revived at the cannon's mouth "but for the saving interference of the country"

The whole nation rose, and by word and look made known that on this occasion the British Government would certainly stick to its point, would on no account be allowed to retreat from it, in fact. Quite peacefully, the desired result ensued; and with it the further consequence that the Government was equipped anew and at once with an effective diplomacy.

The Government, which now takes its mandate directly from the sovereign people, and not from an effete House of Commons, ought, in the writer's judgment, be in closer communication with the people on foreign policy.

JOURNALISM VERSUS DIPLOMACY.

As befits one of the chief press-diplomatists of the age, Mr. Greenwood is not prepared to concede that the press has been as harmful to diplomacy as is now contended. Events, he boldly argues, show journalism to have been in the right and diplomacy in the wrong. Mr. Greenwood thus magnifies the office of the pressman :

Is it the question of national defence, the need of mighty fleets if the nation is to live in peace? There he was right in his forecasting apprehensions when two or three all-knowing Governments, one after another, would not listen to a word of them. . . . These great fleets have saved England from disaster. Is it the long series of questions,-questions of honour, questions of policy that rise to view at the words "Gordon," "Khar"""Soudan"? Then whose prevoyance, whose calculatoum, tions and instincts were the more prompt and true? Is it the grand question of policies of graceful concession? When did the newspapers approve of that sort of thing? When did they preach the wisdom of meeting aggression not by keeping a stiff upper lip but by dropping the lower one? Never!

Glancing back over the last fifteen years, it will be seen that the errors which the statesmanship of the country is now finding out and gloriously repairing were all its own; that they were always suspected and never shared by the Press-instructed nation itself, and that, whenever the newspapers were wrong, they were wrong less by judgment than through a mistaken sense of obligation to leadership and deference to its superior. information. But even that was only for a while.

Foreign Governments listen, not merely for the voice of the Foreign Office, but for the voice of the people, and it is the latter which they fear. The much-blamed newspapers have brought the nation to declare its resolute adhesion to "the continuity of foreign policy."

66 THIS SOLEMN TATTLE ABOUT STATE SECRETS." Mr. Greenwood eloquently protests against the thickening veil which has been drawn over the Foreign Office for some years now:

For many generations the English people were never in such ignorance as to their standing in relation to other Powers, nor of what to expect from the cogitations and the plans of their rulers. . . . Experience seems to prove that the new way is not serviceable... It is a system which should be changed. And considering the gallant and effective manner in which the country rallied to the help of the Government the other day, what better occasion for the change could there be than the present? . . . The world would be clearer of cant if all this solemn tattle about State secrets were dropped. Most of it is imposture, imposture of the sacerdotal kind precisely, inner mysteries, guardianship of sacred deposits in consecrated pigeonholes, and so forth. What is not imposture is willingly respected. Confidences are not sought, but confidence permission to know the outlines of what the Government is aiming to achieve or resolved to avoid; as much as every German knew of Bismarck's bent, or every Italian of Cavour's, or every intelligent Russian peasant of what the Tsar means to make of Russia. . . . . . No Government in Europe could so safely expose the whole body of its hopes and aims as could the English Government.

WHAT A FOREIGN MINISTER SHOULD Dɔ.

.

Why, then, should not the Foreign Office consent to hoist the veil, drop the mystic, quit the cloister, and come forth and be human, and take the magnificent reward that awaits the Foreign Minister who throws himself upon the country? He is to find out, as he easily may, that it is a people that can be instructed without fear of panic in whatever danger may threaten, can be uplifted by the lesson and not cast down, keeping their hearts high and their heads cool; that he can earn for himself in the process of instruction respect and more than respect, trust and more than trust; and that after a little traffic of this sort, he can make himself perfectly comfortable about any little bit of defensive diplomacy that he may have on hand. Of course he will have the backing of his fleet, but he will also have another backing such as has not been seen in England since the days of Cromwell.

{ BROWNING AND DISRAELI.

A "MUCH-CANVASSED story" is thus related in Blackwood's by "Looker-on." At a dinner-party, at which "Looker-on" was present, Mr. Gladstone was spoken of, and it was said of him that he mostly took things up by the solemn handle and rarely so much as saw the humorous handle. To illustrate, as he said, this remark, Mr. Browning told the story thus :

Mr. Disraeli presided at a Royal Academy dinner whereat Browning was a guest. After dinner Mr. Disraeli made the customary "speech of the evening," in the course of which he held forth in this wise: "When I look upon these walls nothing strikes me more than the abounding invention, the copious Brownimagination, displayed in the works that adorn them." ing thought that pretty good. "Twenty minutes afterwards," he went on to say, 66 we were on cur legs and going about the rooms in the usual way to view these fine works. Presently, some one hooked his arm in mine from behind. It was Disraeli, who immediately said, 'When I look upon these walls, Mr. Browning, nothing strikes me more than the paucity of invention, " There!" the barrenness of fancy--

From the laughter that followed-none of us taking up the tale by the solemn handle-I fancy we must all have thought the story ended, as I myself did. But no the promised illustration was to come. "Now some time afterwards," said Browning, proceeding as the singer docs whose song has been applauded too soon, "I told that story to Mr. Gladstone. As I went on I noticed that his face gradually darkened, and when I got to the end he said, 'Mr. Browning, I call that hellish !"

ONE of the pleasantest papers in Gentleman's for January is Pauline Roose's study of "The Poet's Heaven." It is a string of pearls from the treasurehouse of verse.