The Review of Reviews

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. THERE are many good articles in the North American Review. Of these Max O'Rell's study in cheerfulness, the Hon. Hannis Taylor's onslaught on the Peace Commission, and Dr. Abbott's suggested solution of "Our Indian Problem," are quoted elsewhere.

THE NEWFOUNDLAND BAIT TROUBLE.

The Atlantic Fisheries question is discussed by Mr. M'Grath, editor of the Newfoundland Herald. The deep-sea fisheries, open to all nations, depend, he explains, on the supply of bait to be found almost exclusively in Newfoundland waters. The United States, with fisheries worth 20,000,000 dols. dependent, want to establish reciprocity with Newfoundland, obtaining the colony's bait, and admitting the colony's fish free to their ports; but object to extending that reciprocity to Canada, which would flood American markets with low-priced Canadian fish. Canada naturally objects to being kept out of a reciprocity enjoyed by Newfoundland. The writer's own solution of this pretty problem is thus briefly stated :

The United States should grant Canada some special concession on some of the other issues before the conference, with the understanding that Canada shall offer no obstruction to a fisherics arrangement between the United States and Newfoundland. "THE FIGHTING ENGINEER."

The first place is accorded to a symposium by leading naval experts on the proposed Bill for the "reorganisation of the naval personnel." The measure was drafted by a special board of naval officers, and its chief aim is thus expressed by one of the writers, the Hon. Theodore Roosevelt :

Every officer on a modern war vessel in reality has to be an engineer, whether he wants to or not. Everything on such a vessel goes by machinery, and every officer, whether dealing with the turrets or the engine-room, has to do engineer's work. There is no longer any reason for having a separate body of engineers, responsible for only a part of the machinery. What we need is one homogeneous body, all of whose members are trained for the efficient performance of the duties of the modern line officer.

The naval officer is to be the fighting engineer. The Bill will, he believes in common with most naval officers, give a navy whose efficiency will be far ahead of that of any other country." It also would secure "the rational promotion" of officers.

THE PRICE OF A FRENCH DOOR ON THE NILE.

Lieutenant W. Spencer-Churchill writes with sprightly vigour on the Fashoda incident. His picture of our newly-conquered territory is not too attractive :

I do not myself believe that our generation will get much value out of the Nile Valley. For in what does the Soudan consist? It is, as it were, a single thread of blue silk drawn across a great brown nugget; and even the blue thread itself is brown for many months in the year. Where the waters of the Nile soak into the banks, there grow thorn bushes and poisonous weeds. Where the inhabitants splash the water over their scrappy fields-perhaps fifty yards square-there are hard-won crops. This belt of vegetation is rarely more than a few hundred yards broad. And the rest is desert-miserable, aching, desolate desert. There is plenty of room to lie down and die in. But it is no place for a man to live in.

Passing to the French desire for a door on the Nile, he argues :

We English are a free trade nation. Our doors are open. It is as easy for the French to send their merchandise up and down the Nile as it is for the English or the Egyptians or the Americans. Nevertheless, it is clear that the more traffic that passes up and down the Nile, the better for the peoples that dwell on its

banks; and if the possession of a door of their own w"! encourage the French to increase the traffic on the Nile, the does not appear to be any reason why they should not be give their "door"-at a fair price. . . .

What is the price? It is scarcely likely that we should be s stupid as to abandon the substance of Bahr-el-Ghazal for the shadow of Fashoda. We do not mind how much Fren merchandise passes up the Nile, provided that the French w recognise that that river flows between banks on which the Union Jack is firmly planted. If France is prepared to recognis that our occupation of Egypt is likely to be indefinitely pro longed, and as an earnest of that recognition will abandon be power to interfere in and obstruct the financial arrangements o bargain, which might be satisfactory to both high disputan's that country, then we may perceive the groundwork of .

OTHER ARTICLES.

The Hon. T. L. James argues that the National Bank examiners have done their work silently and well, an have made the National Bank system a great success Mr. C. M. Stadden, writing on the latest aspects of the ! Nicaragua Canal project, presses for the determination o the Clayton-Bulwer treaty by diplomacy or decree of the Senate, and for an enabling treaty with Central Americı "The United States alone is master of the situation," and in the writer's opinion should forthwith build the cana Dr. A. H. Doty, health officer of New York Port, writes in support of the Spooner Bill as a means for the prevention of yellow fever.

CORNHILL.

THERE is much readable matter in the January number. The anniversary study in history is wanting The sketch of O'Connell supplies stories given elsewhere in these pages. The first place is given to " an eclogue' on Giovanni Dupré by Mr. Robert Bridges. The point of the poem is that Dupré succeeded as a writer where he failed as a painter :

While in vain the forms of beauty heaped
A perfect spirit in himself he shaped.

Lady Broom contributes a delightful study in bird life.
THE "HOVELLER.”

Mr. Frank T. Bullen describes "hovelling" and the hoveller." The words he derives as a Kentish corruption from the verb "to hover." He thus portrays the class:However strange the word may sound in a landsmin's ears, it is one of the most familiar to British seamen, especially among our coasters, although the particular form of bread-winning that it is used to designate is practically confined to the Kent and Sussex shores of the English Channel, having its headquarters at Deal. Briefly, a "hoveller" is a boatman who follows none of the steady orthodox lines of boatmanship-such as fishing, plying for passengers, etc.-but hovers around the Channel, a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles, a pilot, a wrecker, or, if a ghost of a chance presents itself, a smuggler.

WOMEN AS LETTER-WRITERS.

Miss Edith Sichel prefaces a study on this subject with the generalisation :

Letter-writing seems, indeed, an art especially invented to suit the talents of women, and (since their defects are often thei graces) even to suit their foibles. Women are not creators; they are interpreters, critics; their best qualities, sympathy and insight, are the essence of criticism; and good letter-writing & criticism-of life, of people, of art, as the case may be. The quick perceptions and elusive grace that are natural to women, their habit of producing and their gift for expressing themselves. their mastery of detail, their power of subtle suggestion and of intuition, their very inability to sustain thought, and therefore to become heavy, their faculty for intimacy which sums up all the rest these are so many qualifications for the writing of letters, and of personal letters in particular.

THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. THERE is not much of pre-eminent interest in the January number.

HOW TO CHECKMATE THE PEERS.

The House of Lords comes in for a considerable amount of hostile attention. One writer declares "the coming struggle" to lie between the democracy and the Peers, and expects it to be more arduous than that for the first Reform Bill or Corn Law Repeal. He hopes for some as yet unknown Cobden to form a league for the abolition of the veto of the Peers, and to rally the people around him. Mr. F. G. Thomas, writing on The Liberal Party and the Peers," rejects other methods of warfare in favour of the Crown summoning only a few of the Peers. This is his scheme :

The course of action which would have to be pursued by the Liberal Party in order to give effect to this constitutional change would be that, having obtained a majority in the House of Commons, the Liberal leaders should refuse to accept office unless they had received an assurance from the Sovereign that only such Peers as the Ministry should nominate would be summoned to the House of Lords, or, if summonses had already been issued, they should be withdrawn on the advice of the Ministry. A certain number of Peers who possess a statutory title to their writs of summons would necessarily remain. They are the Representative Peers, five of the Bishops, and the Law Lords. In addition, all Peers who had held high Ministerial office would undoubtedly be summoned, and also any Peers with special qualifications. It is probable, therefore, that a certain number, perhaps thirty or forty new creations, of Liberal Peers would be necessary, a very different matter, however, to three hundred and seventy-nine new Peerages. Having thus secured a majority in the House of Lords, a Bill would probably be passed through both Houses withdrawing the writs of the Representative Peers and the remaining Bishops, and possibly securing a right of summons to all ex-Ministers who were also Peers, and removing the disabilities of Peers, not members of the House of Lords, to sit in the House of Commons.

THE UNITED STATES THE GREATEST EXPORTERS. Mr. Mark Warren is afraid that the scare of German competition will give place to a scare of American competition, now that the annual total of exports from the United States has exceeded the corresponding total of exports from the United Kingdom. As exporters of manufactured goods we are still altogether unrivalled, but the United States are advancing. The writer is confident our manufacturers need never lose their proud position, if only they show elasticity of adjustment to changing conditions. He says:

The conclusions arrived at by the consideration of the ascendency of the United States' export trade should not give rise to any dejection as to the future of the United Kingdom's industrial supremacy. It is too often forgotten that we had a great start over the other nations, and that while they were warring we were building up a mighty trade, with the result now evident. The other nations are now awake to the importance of that trade, and are endeavouring to become more independent and more self-contained. They start at a low level and consequently make a greater relative progress. The United Kingdom is but a small country in area, but it possesses capital, labour, skill, and natural conditions not surpassed by any nation. ordinary language, it has money and brains unapproached by any nation-with the important exception of the United States. It is well to note that if the whole Empire be included the whole circumstances are vastly altered. The British Empire occupies a commercial position which is altogether uncqualled, and which is persistently being improved.

AN AGNOSTIC AGAINST DISESTABLISHMENT.' "An Agnostic on the Church Question opposes disestablishment as likely to send large reinforcements

into the Roman camp, and pleads for liberal reforms. He further argues

Hasty disestablishment would tend to the injury of the country, by the disappearance of that protection to freedom of theological thought which a national Church undoubtedly affords. If, however, the nation were to come into possession of a considering mood, it might, perhaps, be seen that there is nothing to prevent the enlargement of the national Church by the inclusion within it of the great bodies of Evangelical Nonconformists, having their due representation in Convocation, and, while agreeing with the most advanced Anglican section in all essentials, tolerating differences in respect of matters of ritual. A Church thus enlarged, and with its various sections exercising tolerance towards each other, might well deserve the appellation of "national." And in such a Church even the Agnostic might possibly find a footing.

EDMUND SPENSER DIED 300 YEARS AGO. Mr. A. E. Spender calls attention to the Tercentenary of Edmund Spenser, who died January 16th, 1599. After pronouncing a discriminating eulogy on the poet so rich and rare in talent, so versatile in thought, and so superabundant in unpurloined originality," he closes with a remark which may be commended to the London County Council:

Sidney loved Spenser as a scholar, Milton praised this "sage and serious poet as a moralist, and Dryden upheld him as a man of genius than whom none knew better how to use his gift to the best advantage. Other men than these have also given their full meed of praise, yet London has forgotten him. If her citizens wish to redeem their disgrace, the tercentenary of his death provides an ample excuse for the metropolis to perpetuate the fame of Edmund Spenser in some substantial form.

An unsigned article on Parnell laments the "mistaken morality" which led his followers to renounce him. A Volunteer Colonel of thirty-five years' service pleads for many reforms in our Volunteer system, and as a means to that end suggests that a Volunteer officer of experience should be attached as assistant at the War Office to the Inspector-General.

Scribner.

Scribner's for January contains Colonel Roosevelt's account of the raising of his own regiment—the now famous Rough Riders." This title he opposed at first, but public opinion made it inevitable. Mr. S. Colwin contributes the first batch of the letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, descriptive of his early engineering expeditions in the extreme North of Scotland. Captain Cairnes tells American readers about our army manoeuvres. Dr. C. R. Gill recounts how he took relief into the country districts where food and medical attention were terribly lacking. He had some difficulty, he says, in persuading the people that Cuba was free. Major Stuart Wortley, who commanded the Arab friendlies in co-operation with the Sirdar, narrates his experiences.

THE Woman at Home for January, like other illustrated magazines, remembers the infirmities of the season, and serves up very light fare for Christmas-worn-out readers. Mrs. E. T. Cook gives chatty advice to husband and wife for their year of honey," and observes in a note that honeymoon is "so called from the practice of the ancient Teutons of drinking honey-wine or mead (hydromel) for thirty days after marriage." Frederick Dolman talks over the leading women of Canadian society, and enables one to form an idea of the social union the Countess of Aberdeen has created among them. Marie Belloc takes occasion from the Kaiser's tour to gossip about royal pilgrims to the Holy Land.

THE FORUM. THE December number of the Forum is full of strong meat. The present turning-point in American history naturally claims chief attention. Professor Lombroso's paper on Venice is quoted elsewhere, as also several other papers.

"PROPERTY, NOT PART, OF THE UNITED STATES." Professor J. B. McMaster, of Pennsylvania University, writes on "Annexation and Universal Suffrage." He points out that the political doctrines of the Declaration of Independence were not forthwith put into practice, even by the Fathers of the Republic, but were regarded as "ideals to be lived up to and gradually attained" :--The very men whose lips were constantly heard demanding the rights of man, the inalienable rights of man, went carefully to work and set up State governments in which the rights of man were very little regarded, in which manhood suffrage was ignored, the ballot given to men who owned property, and office-holding restricted to such as owned lands and houses and were members of some Christian sect.

Only gradually were these restrictions removed. The writer next traces the way in which annexed regions have actually been dealt with by the United States, and offers this summary conclusion :

A review of the history of suffrage in the Territories thus makes it clear that foreign soil acquired by Congress is the property of, and not part of, the United States; that the Territories formed from it are without, and not under, the Constitution; and that in providing them with governments Congress is at liberty to establish just such kind as it pleases, with little or no regard for the principles of self-government; that in the past it has set up whatever sort was, in its opinion, best suited to meet the needs of the people, never stopping to ask how far the government so created derived its just powers from the consent of the governed; and that it is under no obligation to grant even a restricted suffrage to the inhabitants of any new soil we may acquire, unless they are fit to use it properly.

A RICH MARKET FOR UNCLE SAM.

Another of the idols of the old Americanism is deliberately renounced by the Hon. Charles Denby, late United States Minister to China. Non-intervention he pronounces as a doctrine out of place, and boldly substitutes "the doctrine of intervention": "that it is our duty to intervene in all matters occurring abroad in which it is our interest to intervene." He specially urges this policy in China and the Pacific. He says:

The misfortune of the United States is that we do not know our real greatness. We do not know our riches, our force, our actual influence in the affairs of the world. It is good to reside abroad. It is glorious to come back after a long absence. . . . The returning American is struck with the general well-being of the people. He does not see, the world over, such crowds of well-dressed people, and I cannot forbear saying-such hale and hearty men and such beautiful women. I desire particularly to allude to the suburban system of electric railways which has grown up in recent years. Remember that there is not a single street-railroad in China, and then look on such perfect systems as exist in all our cities! . . . The resident of Washington is a king compared to the native or foreigner in Peking.

The contrast seems intended by the writer to suggest the immense scope offered in China to American exploitation.

JAPAN AND AMERICAN EXPANSION.

Mr. D. W. Stevens, Counsellor of the Japanese Legation in Washington, treats of "The Relation of Japan to other Nations." He remarks on the approaching resumption of sovereign rights by Japan, and exclaims on the fact that in less than fifty years from the time when Commodore Perry anchored in Japanese waters, and Japan was virtually terra incognita, she will stand on a footing of

equality with Western nations. He declares that there is no danger of her retrogression. The friendship of the United States, once based chiefly on sentiment, is no seen to have solid interest behind it. Recent events hav made this abundantly clearer :

The whole tone of public utterance in Japan shows that the Japanese people contemplate the acquisition of the Philipp Islands by the United States with cordial approval. The themselves have important commercial interests in the Islandfor the protection and increased prosperity of which they ample promise in American control. But, what is even mur. they welcome a neighbour against whom they need erect ni safeguards, and whose interests in the Far East are practically identical with their own. I am not now hinting at an alliance that we know would be foreign to the policy of both countries The United States and Japan have, however, the same dep concern in the unrestricted development of commerce in th Far East. . . . The example of two such nations presenting: firm front to aggression may very well serve as a warning others less scrupulous in a part of the world where so much a heard of aggression.

PASSING THE PLATE" TO THE PRESIDENT. Mr. Perry Heath, first Assistant Postmaster-Genera reports the glad news that the country has taken su strides in the purification of politics during the last te years as to raise the question: Have we not sufficient restrained the political activity of civil servants? “W have eliminated machine politics from Federal positions We have restricted activity in partizanship to prope conduct." To show that there are other political influence which the citizenship of the civil servant might be used: | check, the writer tells this story :

About a year ago I removed for incompetency a man occupy ing a prominent place in the classified service. He had be given the required charge in writing and had submitted b answer, but he failed to disprove incompetency. On the on which my removal order became effective the man's pastr called upon me. He was very much provoked over my action even after I had made it clear to him that the removal wa purely on the ground of the man's glaring incompetence & perform his official duties. "Suppose he is incompetent," s the pastor, "he is one of the best men in my church. He has been an usher and a deaccn, and he passes the plate!" Inquin disclosed the fact that this man was appointed at the instance President Cleveland, upon the request of the pastor of the church which the President attended, and that the incompete of the man was so well known to the postmaster prior to the appointment that he protested against receiving him into the service. The President sent for the postmaster, and insisted that the man should be given the position. When the postmaster still hesitated, the President is said to have stated, with a smile, but with firmness: "Why, this man puts the plate under my nose every Sunday at church; and, if I do not give him this place, after he and his pastor have insisted, I shall be ashamed to look into that plate again!"

OTHER ARTICLES.

Among other articles may be mentioned one on the youth of the Comte de Lisle by M. Tiercelin; a study of Richelieu in his diocese-that is to say, the years 1617 and 1618, by M. Anatole, a statesman who does not disdain to be also a historian; the conclusion of M. Lamy's description of the Emperor William's tour in the East, and a careful study of the recent strike in the building trade, which alarmed us on this side of the Channel with the fear of a revolution, by M. Grandmaison.

THE CENTURY.

THE Century for January is an excellent number. Its chief attraction is Lieutenant Hobson's account of his sinking of the Merrimac, which, along with the articles on Carlyle, demands separate notice elsewhere. Captain Sigsbee completes his narrative of the Maine. Captain Crowninshield extols the advantages of the Nicaragua Canal, of which a graphic panoramic view is given. The Bill now before Congress gives a United States guarantee to the Maritime Company, whose concession would otherwise expire next October. The Company in return gives the United States Government seventy per cent. of its stock, and nine out of eleven of its directors; while Nicaragua gets only six per cent. of the securities issued. Mr. Edmond Kelley describes his experiences as an American in Madrid during the war, and speaks in the highest terms of the courtesy with which he was treated. He says: "It is not the Spanish people which has degenerated; it is its governing class." But he confesses that Spain is industrially as much in the hands of the foreigner as Egypt." He says that Barcelona intended to hoist the French flag had the American fleet threatened. In the thick of the war Spanish policy-holders crowded an American Insurance Company's offices in Madrid, eager to pay premiums early. The pretence of international hostility seems to be wearing very thin. The historical papers are studies of Alexander the Great and Benjamin Franklin.

PHOTOGRAPHS of models of our English Cathedrals-all in deep black and snowy white-form a very attractive feature of the January Sunday Magazine.

THE REVUE DE PARIS.

M. CHEVALLEY has a most entertaining article on the bellicose poetry of England. He is quite convinced that what he calls the "recent explosion of Jingoism" in England is the natural outcome not of the famous pinpricks, but of those men of letters whose Jingo muse has caused the whole nation to see red. M. Chevalley devotes much of his article to a study of Mr. Wedmore's excellent collection of " Poems of the Love and Pride of England," but he reserves the privilege of examining other books by the way. He is struck by the part which the sea plays in English patriotic poetry, in which the sea and the country seem to be regarded as single entities, so that it is not so much the love of England that her poets sing, as the empire of England on the seas. M. Chevalley willingly concedes to England a place amongst the first nations of the world in the eternal war which humanity wages against error, evil and oppression; but when he goes on to say that other nations who have done as much have not this overflowing self-satisfaction, it is not so easy to agree with him. In conclusion, M. Chevalley quotes an extremely unflattering description of England which Mr. Bernard Shaw puts into the mouth of Napoleon, and he actually adds that Mr. Bernard Shaw is the enfant terrible of British Society, which both adores and fears him.

In the spring of 1865, when the revolution of Naples broke out, Alexandre Dumas chartered a vessel of eighty tons and went to join Garibaldi at Palermo. After the triumphal entry of Garibaldi into Naples on September 5th he went there and was nominated superintendent of the Fine Arts and Director at Pompeii; he founded a newspaper in which, up to the date of his departure in. 1864, he advocated the ideas of the Garibaldean party with great eloquence. The Revue de Paris now publishes a number of letters which Dumas received in 1862 from 11, Bessborough Gardens, Pimlico, then the headquarters of the Græco-Albanian Junta.

THE FRENCH FLEET.

M. Tournier has been inspired no doubt by recent events to discuss the naval strength of France. He begins by laying down that naval power is for France a historical necessity, an essential part of her greatness and of her prosperity, but he does not explain satisfactorily how France is to support both a strong army and a strong navy. He prefers to emphasise the necessity of a strong fleet in view of what he calls the insatiable ambition of England, which is ezerywhere entering into competition with France, and also in view of a possible combination of the fleets of the Triple Alliance in French waters. At the same time he realises to the full the objections which experts have urged against the existing French fleet, its lack of homogeneity, and its fashion of radically contradictory systems of naval construction and armaments, and he urges by way of remedy the exercise of ordinary common sense in the organisation of the squadrons, the provision of secondclass cruisers and of torpedo-boat destroyers.

THE ITALIAN REVIEWS.

THE Italian reviews do not devote much space to t peace prospects of Europe. The only important art bearing on the Tsar's Rescript is from the pen of. Italian deputy, Signor Branca, in the Nuova Antel, (December 1st). While hoping much from an in national policy for Italy, he sums up the European situati from a distinctively Italian point of view. The classi tion of the six great Powers he declares to be a thing the past. To-day the four predominant Powers of 2 world are England, Russia, Germany, and the U States. Two great causes of conflict loom in the future the rivalry of England, Russia in the Far E and the disruption of the Austrian Empire. Branca is of opinion that the time may come England will regret her present policy of encourag the United States to intervene in international pol and he questions whether "the immense British Emp scattered over five continents, may not, in less that century, undergo a fundamental transformation by growth of the various parts and their desire for comp autonomy." As regards Italy herself, he points to South American States, whither vast numbers of It emigrate every year, as the natural field for her f colonial expansion. He sums up as follows:

Sign

Fresh problems and unsuspected germs of conflict arise e day. The salvation of States, more especially of the minor cal may depend upon a vigorous effort of human conscience: uphold the ideal of right and to circumscribe the domini force. To this vigilant work of peace and of progress It thought and Italian policy ought to contribute all their inf if the prestige of the country is to be regained and its i welfare secured.

To the same number Professor Lombroso contribes a learned and suggestive article on the causes-ratul climatic, and political-which contributed to the media. greatness of Venice, together with those which index her decline. He introduces many of his favourite thes into the discussion, and from his conclusions he dr appropriate morals both for the United States, whom he regrets to see suddenly imbued with a desire for conques and for modern Italy, "from which glory, wealth, industry justice, and prosperity are lacking more and more The old grievance of the obligatory abstention a Catholics from the ballot-box is trotted out once more a "Catholic," and goes to prove that feeling in Italy a more and more in favour of untrammelled political actio The Civiltà Cattolica, with some pardonable sat faction, points out that whereas Catholics have always been accused of reactionary tendencies for advocating a certain measure of Press supervision, to-day it is a so-called Liberal Government which has been imprisonin. editors wholesale, and which has given the widest possib.. application to existing Press laws. The same number (December 3rd) contains the annual appeal on behalf e poor communities of Italian nuns, whose property his been confiscated by the Government, with the usua pathetic stories of want and poverty.

The Rassegna Nazionale has an interesting study a the moral teaching of Father Hecker, the apostle of "Americanism," whose orthodoxy of late has been s unfortunately impugned in certain ecclesiastical circlesan attack mainly based, it is only fair to add, on an exceedingly inaccurate French translation of his writings Any one who is interested in the question of the reform of the Italian University system will find an exhaustive study of the measure which is being advocated by Professor Baccelli, the present Minister of Public Instruction in Italy, in La Riforma Sociale.

« Anterior Continuar »

Libros

The Review of Reviews, Volumen19