SPECTATOR SUMMARY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 47, 25 February 1911, Page 12

SPECTATOR SUMMARY.

(For wesk ending 7th January, 1911.) O1O 1 THERE WERE WAE. The January number of the German Marine Rundschau has an interesting article on th© naval strategy likely to he ! adopted by England in the event of an Anglo-German war. On the assumption that England would aim at a blockade to be carried out by landing on German, Dutch, or Danish territories, the writer argues that readiness for war and strong coast defences are indispensable on the German side of the North Sea. The military control of the North Sea thus becomes the strategic task of the English Fleet, and while Eosyth has an ideal central position for carrying out this task, it is not favourable for a close blockade of the German North Sea coast. Bases for a blockade of tho German ports must therefore be sought on the German North Sea islands. The inherent difficulties of thisstategy have encouraged tbe English advocates of an extended blockade, which, in the opinion of the writer, cannot \>e effective without a simultaneous commercial blockade of the North Sea, involving the implication of neutrals in an AngloGerman war. If England is ready to involve neutrals, it will be better for her "to break the North Sea Agreement, and by using neutral Danish or Dutch, coasts to carry through afresh her historic policy of a close blockade." AN IMPORTANT OMISSION. While we are dealing with the problem of the House of Lords we desire to mention one point which seems, curiously enough, to have attracted very little attention, though we have discussed it several times in these columns. The Veto Bill contains no provision which will allow members of the House of Lords to resign their membership of that body should the Bill pass. Surely this is exceedingly unjust. Why should a man full of political activity, merely Lecausfl he- has had what will then be the misfortune of inheriting a peerage, be imprisoned against his will in a Chamber to which the only power left will b& that of delaying the registration o£ the supreme decrees of the Lower House? Clearly a Peer ought, if the Bill passes, to be eligible for election to the House of Commons. For ourselves, we have always held that if a constituency wishes to elect a Peer to represent it, that wish should override all other considerations, and that the constituency should not be barred from accomplishing its desire. The case becomes immensely .stronger if the House of Lords has been reduced to the position to which it will be reduced by the Veto Bill. BRITISH NATIONAL INSURANCE. Tbe Government's scheme for insurance against sickness and invalidity is to be complsory upon the whole working population whose incomes are below £3160 a year, its minimum amount is to bo 5s a week, and it is to cover the years between sixteen and seventy. The cost will be met, one half by the workman, and the other half in equal proportions by the employer and the Slate. The insurance will be made through such of the. existing friendly societies as are approved, and, in so iar as the compulsory insurance is concerned, these Societies will be guaranteed by the State. This seems ,to imply a control by the State not only of their accounts but of their investments. The German plan will be followed of establishing a Central Administrative Council of representatives of the societies, employers, and Government for dealing with questions of detail that arise. It is further stated that, unlike most voluntary policies, the State scheme will not include medical or life insurance. SACREDNESS OF HISTORY. The Archbishop of Canterbury in the course of a sermon preached in his Cathedral recently impressed on his hearers the danger of tampering with the sacredness of history. He described how in his school-days at Harrow he and some other boys were looking at "Tho Comic Hittory of England," a wellknown work burlesquing successive scenes in English history. "Our housemaster, to be known in after years to the whole world as one of our present-day prophets — Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durhaitf — came into the room, and we called his attention to the book we were enjoying. He quietly and gravely refused to look at it, but all he said was to ask us in the piercingly suggestive way characteristic of him all through his life : 'Should you like somebody to write a comic Prayer-book V For me at least the shaft struck home, to my abiding profit." The comparison is perhaps extreme, but it serves to remind »s of the difference between legitimate satire and wanton, purposeless travesty. /THE CONSTITUTIONAL CEISIS. Here is the fact which controls the whole situation. Resistance, no matter how drastic, to the proposal of the Government to alter the Constitution fundamentally and to establish single-Cham-ber government, in spite of the damning precedent of the Long Parliament, would be justified if there were a reasonable prospect of success, but at present we gee no such prospect. Lord Hugh Cecil (in his -letter) very properly says nothing in regard to the action of the King. Nevertheless, his argument is only too likely to induce" men to accept the conclusion that they would be justified, should things come to the worst, in putting pressure — the pressure which the public opinion of so large a section of the nation as that which belongs to the Unionist party cah undoubtedly exert — upon the King to induce his Majesty to refuse to create Peers. That is a condition of Unionist public opinion which we most earnestly hope will not come into being.. .... It is clear, as we have so often pointed out in these columns, that the King must wish to act automatically and impersonally — to let the mechanical operation of the Constitution guide his action, and uot to side either with ths Unionists or with the Liberals on the merits. GEEMAN DIPLOMACY. The New Year's reflections of the Ber. lin press hays given a wholly new colour to the events of March, 1909. . . . We have, of course, been told nothing that we did not know already. Englishmen have never doubted that the choice offered to the Tsar was between recognition and war, and that he had to make his decision without tns loss of a moment. Bat why should the disclosure have been made now — and, indeed, why should it have been made at all ... Tall: about the German sword and the Kaiser's shining armour can neither please nor frighten the Russian Government. They ! know the worst that these phrases imply, and they have no doubt considered the duties which the employment of them by a neighbour, however friendly, imposes upon the State against which they are pointed. If this language has any meaning at all, it musb be intended for home use. .It must be the German taxpayer v,ho is meant to study it, and. to draw the moral that when such whirling words are in the air it will be prudent for the nation whose rulers have thought fit to utter them to raise without delay whatever it is asked to spend on preparations for war.

!Teachor : And now, Willie, who holds tho a&cension rooovd nt ths present time? Willie •(instantly) ;. Elijah \