SPECTATOR SUMMARY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 23, 28 January 1911, Page 14

SPECTATOR SUMMARY.

(For the week ending 10th Dec, 1910.)' "BY MUTUAL AGREEMENT ONLY." j Lord Ro&ebery, in addressing a nonparty group, at Edinburgh, surveyed the political eituation. Mr. Redmond was trying to impose his will on th© United Kingdom with the help of foreign gold, and his method was rightly described as a dictatorship. The Unioniete offered reform of the Lords, and he himself had been faithful to that cause for very many jears. But the Government had openly adopted the policy of shirking reform. They had adopted the policy which Sir Edward Grey had previously described aa "a policy of death, disaster, and dam"nafcion." Theirs was unquestionably a scheme for single-Chamber government, a principle denounced alike by Cromwell and Mirabeau. The party manager" —the federations of cancusee —would decide what was to be thruet on the country in the name of democracy. Under the single-Chamber government promised by Air. Aequith it would become the object of the House of Commons to prolong its existence, and to increase the salaries of its members. Ac to the ultimate solution of the Constitutional question, Lord Roseb'ery said: —"lt is only by the mutual agreement of both parties, however arrived at, that any definite Constitutional arrangement can be come to." AMERICAN NAVAL DISCIPLINE. Admiral Murdock, who replied to the toast of the American officers, at the City of London, banquet to American officers, said that the United State* Navy was recruited from the middle classes of tho whole country east of the Rocky Mountains, and no one physically or morally unfit was accepted. When he was a Midshipman he discovered that among a crew of one hundred and forty in his gunboat no less than nineteen nationalities were represented. To-day no one could enter the Navy who was not an American citizen. It had often been noticed that discipline was less strict in the American Navy than in some other navies. But the object of what was called discipline was- to develop the fighting capacity to the highest degree. American officers deliberately encouraged the personality of every young sailor recognising that in America they could best work through a spirit of independence. Different countries must have different methods; Americans had only chosen what was the best for themselves. BENARES A NATIVE STATE. Sir Prahbu Narayen Singh, the hereditary holder of the Benares zemindari, addressed a memorial to the United Provinces Government in 1905 asking that he might be given a defined and permanent status among the ruling chiefs of India. This request has now been granted, and the greater part "of the family domains held by the Rajas of Benare3 will pace to his direct rule. The Native State thus constituted has an arc,a of 837 square miles and a population of 362,000. Sir Prahbu Narayen Singh, who has given signal proof of his public spirit, philanthropy, and devotion to the British Raj, comes of an ancient house, who under the Moguls, and until 1794, administered the whole province which Benares was the centre; and since then the family have enjoyed a unique status within their extensive family domains. These claims, coupled with his fine personal record, have now been acknowledged by the conferment of a limited sovereignty under various safeguards guaranteeing the rights of British subjects transferred to Native State rule. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. Mrs. Eddy, the leader of Christian Science, died at Boston last Sunday, in her ninetieth year. In the" '"sixties" Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patterson) became a "mind-healer." In 1875 she published her well-known book, "Science and Health," which has been sold in vast' quantities at a high price, lan,d is supposed to have brought her I considerable wealth. In 1879 tho "First Church of Christ, Scientist," was built in Boston at a cost of nearly half a million pounds. We need not trace here the spread of Christian Science in many lands. The inherent principle that the mind has a .tremendous influence on the body is of course true. But it is not new. It might, indeed, be said of Christian Science as was said of an opponent's speech by Brougham : "It contains both what is new and what is true, but, unfortunately, what is new is not true, and what is true is not new." All the peculiar teaching and practices of Christian Science which have gathered round this principle seem to us to ba most dangerous follies and superstitions. THE POLL OF THE PEOPLE. We are confident that the more tho question of the Poll of the People is studied, the more clearly will it be seen how weak are the objections to it, and how strong the arguments for it. That it deals no blow at the best part of the representative system we are certain. What it does do, as we have tajd again and again, is to provide a corrective to some serious evils of that system. Representative government, like many other political institutions, is showing a tendency to destroy itself by means of its own waste products, waste products immensely increased by the fierceness of the party fever. By placing the veto in the hands of the people themselves by means of a popular reference, we are able to get rid of the poisonous effects of these waste products. TURKEY'S FUTURE. There are points in the policy speech of Hakki Pasha, Turkish' Grand Vizier, which Englishmen can read with some satisfaction. The statement that Turkey will not lean on any alliance, but will take her own course, knowing that the Powers all sympathise with her desire to maintain the status quo, is exactly what Englishmen, anxious for the safety of Turkey, would wish to be told. It is bo'u reassuring, however, to 'earn that this promise* of caution was received in dead silence. The announcement that exxpeiditure cannot be reduced is serious, as the revenue does not meet the present needs, and the system of loans, if continued on the present scale, must end in bankruptcy. In the debate which followed the Grand Vizier's statement there was much criticism of the barbarity with which the Government have enforced disarmament. We note that the Sofia correspondent of The Times says in Tuesday's paper that he is able to confirm the assertion of Pavloff Effendi that in Macedonia nearly 5000 persons were beaten or tortured during the disarmament. Pavloif Effendi said that 54 of these were maimed for life, and 11 nad died. The correspondent thinks the latter figure below the mark.