THE NOBEL PRIZES.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 12972, 27 November 1907, Page 6

THE NOBEL PRIZES.

Th© Board of Control who have to docitle annually upon tho recipients of th© five great Nobel prizes as is the ©aso with th© administrators of so many trusts, must often find it difficult to" mako their choice. The fact that they are not (hampered by any restriotion as to the nationality of the candidates only makes their task more onerous, for they have to scrutinise the claims of distinguished men of every country in the world, and compare the value of their work in the five widely separated fields of medicine, 'physics, science, literature, and the promotion of international peace. The list of prize-winners during tho 6oven years since tho prizes were first distributed has earn© claim to be regarded as the most distinguished roll of honour in the world. The recipient whose reputation is literally world-wide is, of course, President Roosovelt, who was awarded the' Peace Prise Inst year in recognition of his services in *■'"• cause of international arbitration generally, and especially of tho part he played in bringing tho Russo-Japanese war to a close. It mny be doubted whether, after President Roosevelt, any name is more widely known than that of Mr Rudyard Kipling, who receives this yiear's prize for literature. . In his stories and veree he addresses ah audience that comprise* in tihe first place the English-speaking races, end beyond that rasfc aggregation of readers many in other countries. The Literature Prize ia awarded for distinguished work of an idealistic and imaginative tendency, and to those who ere accustomed! to regard Mr Kipling as the prophet of realism, hie selection may ioero strange. But Kipling admirers will hail the award as recognition of the auitihor'e best work. Realistic ho is, to a degree that hae been stigmatised as brutal, but even hie most realistic work, no less than the extremely technical style of *om« of hu writings, is permeated in almost all oases by the most powerful imagination, and in many by <tHe purest idealism. For striking example* of these qualities we have only to remind the reader of such stories as "Puck of Pook's Hill," "The Finest Story in the World," "The Brushwood Boy;" "Wireless," the mystic "They/ , and that wonderful fea£ of imagination. "With tho Night Mail," describing the voyage of a mail airship across the Atlantic as it may be in years to come. The list could be extended to cover roost of the best that Kipling has written, but no one can deny that he had at least a claim to tho award if these feate of imagination had been his only work. Ho is in good company in the list of winners of the prize, for it includes the names of Sully Prudhomme, the French litterateur, Professor Momrasen, tho great 'Gorman . (historian, Bjornstjerno Bjorason, the Norwegian novelist, Mistral, the poet of Provence, and Echegaray, tJie Spanish poet and dramatist, Sienkiewicz, tho author of "Quo Vadis," and) Carducci, the Italian poet. It will be seen that Mr Kipling it* the first Englishman to receive the award for literature. Our successes, of which ! wo have had our fair share, have been I gained chiefly in the fields of science, and the names of Sir William Ramsay and Lord Raylergh, the 00-diecoverers of argon as a constituent of the atmosphere, Professor Thomson, Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge, and Sir W. Crookes, who gains tho chemistry prise this year and i* one of the meet famous analytical chemists and electricians of his time, are not the loast notable on tho roll of honour. Other British prize-winnors have been Mr Cremer, 31.P., Secretary of tho International Arbitration League, and Major Ronald Rose, head of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, whose researches aro helping to make habitable for the white roan some of the most pestiferous regions of tho world. It is easy to think of others who hare deserved honour at the hands of th* Nobel Prize Committee. King Edward has probably done more than any Irving eoul towards the maintenance of the world's peaco and the strengthening of international Lord Kelvin

and Lord Lister are conspicuous among the stars of the scientific world; Mr Swinburne has claims to be regarded as tho greatest oP living poets; and Mr Moredith towers far above the swarms of modern novelists. The roll of winners is, however, a great one, and the fact that these others worthy of the distinction can be named off-hand only proves our original statement that the selectors have no easy task.