LITERATURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17216, 19 January 1918, Page 2

LITERATURE.

By Constant Readeb.

THE EVIL OF OVEREMPHASIS.*

A. STUDY IN POINTS OF VIEW.

Running my oyo over, a _ bibliography appended to a new historical work, I noticed tliat a number of volumes were starred, and attention was directed to tho fact that " these books are all controversial in tone or fact." In another place some pamphlets were described .as "interesting, but necessarily _ propagandist." Thus, from tho point of view of the impartial historian, thoso controversial or propagandist writings, while useful for reference purpose's, had to be approached with caution and used with ca.re bccause of the over-emphasis which is a favourite weapon of controversy and the usual instrument of propa-gandism. A large number of tho books now being issued from tho press which deal directly or indirectly with tho war suffer from this very defect, and tho thought struck mo that a brief discussion on tho ovil of over-emphasis, illustrated by extracts from some of thoso books, would not be without its value at the present time. It has long been a favourite theory of mrno that to get tho -proper value out of any book that is deemed worth reading

it is • essential, for tho time at least, to discover and adopt the standpoint of the writer. Afterwards that standpoint may, bo totally dissented from -or absolutely assented to, but it is sheer waste of time to quarrel with the author paigo by page; far better throw the book to the other end of tho room—and then pick it up again. Thoro aro two things which puzzle a great many people just now —tho ono the attitude of Ireland, and tho other tho attitude of tho Pacifists in England towards tho war. Mr Douglas Goldring's "Tho Fortune," which has for its sub-titlo " A Romance of Friendship," may bo regarded as an essay in tho art of understanding Ireland and tho Pacifists, and the author ha 3 written it as "a striving after truth," as ho sees truth. His standpoint is made manifest in a foreword in which he says: "No dotrbt tho book will bo dubbed by many elderly people as a mere Pacifist tract masquerading under a thin disguise of fiction. ... I havo tried to give a straightforward account of tho spiritual adventures of an average ' intellectual ' in tho first years of tho war, and to show how tho minds of persons of his ago and temperament havo become, almost inevitably, a battle-ground for opposing influences _ and conflicting ideals." Mr Goldring's conclusions aro also embodied in the samo foreword. "Tkno has, indeed, worked miracles," he writes. " The appoaranco of almost every ' established' theory has become transformed, and the cloaks of falsehood which for so long coverod up the unpalatable havo either befcn scratched to pieces or havo worn threadbare. Even our Wolves aro now discarding their little lamifceskin suits. We aro beginning to know where wo stand, and so, at i last, I think we havo a right to hope. Perhaps very soon now the bonds which for tliree ghastly years havo bound tlie youth of Europe to the camion's mouth will be broken for over. And soon, perhaps, the Winds of Freedom—Wowing from Russia, or maybe from Ireland—will disperse tho blade cloud whicsh overhangs our country. Already Liberty begins to raiso her drooping head, for she sees in tho eastern sky tho first flushes of the Dawn—of that great Dawn whoso loveliness will transcend all that wo con imagine." Mr Goldring describes his story as "the tragedy of many thousands of old publicschool boys who have taken part in the present conflict." Harold Firbank and James Murdoch are chums together at public school and at Oxford. On leaving the university Harold decided for a literary career, and "The Fortune" was the name of the play he liad written, which, thanks to Murdoch's discriminating criticism, brought himfame. Murdoch's original mind and dominating personality were the great influence in moulding Harold's career, much to the distress of Harold's wife. Then came tho war, calling Harold

to the colours in the face of the pronounced and convinced pacifism of Murdoch. Harold, yielding to the influence of wife and friends, enlists, and to that extent separates himself from his friend. Harold's natural gift is his intellectualism, _ and the deadening, thwarting effect, of military life and discipline is brilliantly worked out, Harold proving a notable _ example of the development of the physical at tho expense of the intellectual. Harold, wounded and invalided homo, was in Ireland at the time of 'the Dublin rising, and meets his death in a terribly tragic fashion. The story is full of side-lights upon English public' school and university life, and the pictures of the advanced literary coteries in London before the war —manifestly taken from real personages—are most cleverly etched in. Murdoch from the beginning opposed the modern 'trend in education, politics, and society, and his stinging comments upon the world in general form the backbone of the book. Of course, ho is against the "war, as witness the following outburst: —

This war is an abomination. The alliance with Franco was a bad blunder enough, but the joining: in of this country in tho present war is the worst piece of stupidity in tho whole of her history. It is sheer madness. Wo ought to be allies of Germany, not her enemies. The uprush of the world force is in Germany for all the world to see. You can't alter it or chango it or shut your eyes to it. Tho Germans, with all their faults, are a magnificent race, full of vigour, of imagination, and character. But the French are dying. They are the Greeks of the modern world. Paris is a reincarnation, if you like, of Athens. The French will be liko a corpse round the neck of this country in the future. There is a soul of Germany, a soul of England, but there is no soul of France— only a horror of being ridiculous. A nation which could have treated Napoleon in the way the French nation treated him deserves to expire. Treacherous, fickle, and corrupt—that's what they are. Their God is money. No, the Germans are our natural allies. Our francophilism is all a pose. As a nation I m not speaking of individuals—the French detest us. and we, at the bottom of our hearts, hate them. But with 'tho Germans, if it weren't for tho ha'penny papers, wo should get on very well indeed. ... As for Albert of Belgium, posterity will describe him as the most sentimental reactionary who ever had power to injure a whole country in order 'to preservo his personal mediaeval ideal of family honour" In order to be heroic and magnificent he has plunged his miserable country into no one knows what fate. We gush all over him now; history mav vomit on his memory.

Tho Vicar's daughter "was ono of James Murdoch's most ardent disciples. "Jessie W-arburton had red hair, blue ©yes, a dazzling white skin, and a 'temperament. Sho drank whiskies and sodas whenever sho could got them, and coald not be cured by her mother of smoking yellow perils in her ibodroom. She had reached the Oscar Wilde stage of Feminine Culture, and had ideas of a rebellious charactor. Whonoo she derived those ideas was a mystery to her parents, whose hearts sho was continually breaking. She was, in truth, an atrocious little slattern, very fond of bathing in tho sea, but with a rooted aversion from, washing her hands. Two of her fingers were a, perpetual bright yellow from ingrained nicotine. Sho delighted .Tamos at once by licr loathing- of tho British Empire. Her absurd face grow contorted with passion when tho words wore mentioned. 'Germany can have, tho dominions in which tho Onion Jack always waves and the win never sets, for all I care,' sho said, ' and a good job, too. Wo might havo peace then, instead of all tfiis fiag , -fl a PP' ni Pf* You should hear tho stuff they teach the poor children in the sohools—it's enongh to make anyone sick. Tho blobs of red on the map that crar Empire--bail dors acquired for us aro eyesores to me. And now everyone has gone khaki-mad. ... I think tho war is too stupid for words; but, of conrso, one daren't say so here. Poor father would expire ! Tho war is bringing out all his "onerous emotions —particularly as he'll never have to fight in it.- —and ho reads us bits out of tho Daily World at breakfast " Harold Firbn.nk's soliloquy at tho ond of tho book is tho best commentary on tho story. Harold was still suffering from the elfecrts of tho wound received on the western front, when he was cmlled upon to take part in the suppression of tho Dublin rising. As if conscious of the

* (1") "The Itertane: A Bonumcn of lYiendßhtp." Bv Douglas Goldring. London: Maunncl and 00. (is-) (2) " Nothing of Importance: A TCcoord of Eight Moitffofi at the Front with n 'Welsh Battalion, October 1915 to Juno 191 G." By Bernard Adams; with a portrait and t.htfeo maps. I/mdou: M-nt.lmfn and 00. (Cs net.) (3) " Christine." By AHcw Oholmondeley. LontLon: Macinillstn and bo. (5s not.) (i) "A Short History of England." By G. K. Ohestartaa. London: Chatto and Windus. (5s

imminent death n.'vvaitincr him, his thoughts went back over hia past and liia relations with Murdoch: —

Harold's bitterness of heart was almost more than ho could bear- Ho was part of a machine which ho had eomc to hate.. .That was the simple truth, of it. It was madness that he should 1 thus bo masquerading a.s a soldier. Why had ho shut his oars to James's advice at the b<\j>inninp of t.ho war, and so landed himself in Tiis present position? lie thought of tho story of the "Fortune" a.nd of old Mr Murdoch's playful warning- to him all those years ago at Mount Dore: "If Fate doesn't bring you exactly tho kind of fortune you expect or have been striving for, don't bo in burry to reject what you are given. . . ." Ilis Fate bad given him James, through whom all the good thing's in his life had come. And now it scorned to him, as he looked back over his life, that, at the first big tost ho had rejected James. Ever sinoo ho had done so he had been in o, false position, oil tho wrong side, untrue to himself. Ho could seo it all now so cleorly. He had mode the ono mistako which he thought ho could never make — ho had failed to appreciate tho fortuno which the Fates, 'wisely or capriciously, had given him. He had failed in insight at tho critical moment, put himself in tho wrong, thrown away his chance. Now it •was too late. Ho had set out on tho wrong road; but ho couldn't go back: lie must see it through. He was part of tho miaohino now: ho would never be ablo to get out of it till pcaco was declared. Always he would have to go on trying to kill his follow men unless ho were killed himself; and he now no longer believed that any of tho causes feu: -which any of the" nations were fighting was in tho smallest degree adequate. The newspapers did their best, but _ their atcmpts to justify tho war and give it glamour and magnificence were sorry efforts. The war should bo stopped at once; everyone was tiredi and sick of it. It wasn't necessary. Even, this pathetic, crack-brained rebellion could be endk'd by a little show of magnanimity without further bloodshed. If tho leaders wore parleyed with, and an amnesty were extended to all who surrendered by a certain diate, tho whole business would collapso at once, and all sensible Irishmen wouldl agree in discountenancing the action of tho reckless minority. AnyIxxly who had read even a scrap of Irish history or who had tho slightest imagination or sensibility to other people's feelings could see that a policy of forbearance and reconciliation was at oneo tho cleverest a.nd the most dignified which England oould possibly pursue. Tho Irish could never be cccrced; but a display of generosity would attack the most irreconcilable of them below tho bolt. Why "was it that the most generous people in tho world, tho English, should a.hvays behave so meanly and liarshlv to -Ireland, with such a brutal stupidity. It was the English gentleman again who was a.t tho root df it. all—the boy from the "good public school"— about whom every English jouniabst considered it noccssary to gush and slobber.

"One can't open a single newspaper," he reflected, " without finding reams of glucose about tho national heroic typo— tho English Junker." Those were tho men, with that "natural genius for governing," bred in them by tho public school spirit, who had shown _ their " gernius for governing" by shooting in Ceylon hundreds of "unarmed civilians who had collected to hold an authorised religious festival. And now they were going to make another display of "genius" in Dublin! Ah, it w;is contemptible work for a man who loved his fellows, this subservienco to a foul a.nd foolish system. Why hadn't he had some of James's plunk and insight in the first instanco and died rather 'than take part in it? Harold Firbank, after all, is but the creation of a novelist's brain. Bernard Adams was a real man, and a product of the English public school and university systems to boot. A distinguished career at Cambridge led up to an appointment in the India Office as Warden of the Indian Students Hostel at South Kensington. His ultimate purpose was missionary scrvice in India; but the war altered all that. "In November, 1914, he joined up as lieutenant in a Welsh regiment, and he a temporary captaincy in tho following spring. When he went out to the front in October, 1915, he resumed his lieutenancy, but was very shortly given charge of a company, a position which he retained until he was wounded in June, 1916, when ho returned 'to England. He only went to the front again on January 31 of last year. In the afternoon of February 26 he was wounded while leading his men in an attack, and died the following day in tho field hospital, being in his .twenty-seventh year." Bernard Adams represents a _ type of soldier that abounds in tho British army. "When the war came he had difficulties of decision as to the courso he should pursue. Like others who had no gust for war, and no animosity against the enemy, he took a commission, not so much to fight AGAINST as to fight foe; the principles at stake appealed to him, and with an inner reluctance against the whole business he went into it—onoe again tho quiet, thought--o lßefore he died Bernard Adams had arranged for the publication of_ a volumo_ of war impressions under the title ' Nothing of Importance," a phrase taken from the daily communiques which ran, "Nothing of importance to record." Of his book the I writer said: —

It is tho spirit of tho war as it came to me, first in big incoherent imprests sions, later as a more intelligible whole. Perhaps ft will seem that the first chapters aro somewhat light in tone and inclined to gloss over tho terrible side of the war. But that is just what happens; at first, the interest and adventure are paramount, and it is only after a time only after all the novelty has worn away', that one gets the real proportion. If the first chapters do not bite deep, remember tnat this was my experience. The book does not claim to be always sensational or thrilling. Ctao claim only I make for it: from end to end it is tho truth.

Tho chapters throughout aro interesting and instructive, but tho pith of the whole book lies in the conclusion. Bernard Adams, in company with other wounded soldiers, was " lazily eotrvalesoont" in ono of tho most licautiful parts of Kent, where "hop-picking was in full swing." He read in tho newspaper a correspondent's description of tho terrible fighting- on the Som.mc. and, listening, he seemed to hoar the steady vibration, tho distant growl, tho insistent 'mutter of the war. Ho read of fcho cheerfulness of the woniulfHl, and, dropping tho newspaper in disgust, gave himself up to reflection:

I -wondered why pcoplo endured such cheap journalism. , What right had men who have never soon war at all, who

creep upon bicycles to get a glim,pse of it through tclescopce, who pester wounded men, awl then out of their pictorial imagination work up a vivid description —what right have they to insult heroes by saying that " their wonderful spirit makes" up for it all," that " tho paramount impression is ono of glory" ? Aro not crar people ablo to boar tho truth, that war is utterly hellish, that, wo do NOT enjoy it —th;it wo liatc it. hato it, ha to it all? And then it struck mo how

ignorant people still were; how uncertainly they spoke, these people at homo. It was aa though thev dared not think things-out, lest what they hold most dour should be an imago shattered by another point of view. Somehow poople wore amazed at the olioorlulnrss, the dogigwine>ss. th© endairance, under pain, tho iixKfYaronoo to death shown every minuto during this -war. I thought of the men I Iwl soon in hospital. One imn had liad his right foot amputated: it usod to givo mo agony to see his stamp dressed every dav. Another man had lx>th less amputated above the knees. Yet they were so wonderfully cheerful, so apparently content with life! As though alone in tho blackness of night they did not long for the a-rrtivity denied them for the rest of their lifo. As thongrh thoir cheerfulness—(do not think I belittle its heroism) —AS THOUGH THEIR CHKEBmjLNBSS JUSTIFIED THE THING. Another thing T had noticed. An old maJi told mo he was so struck with tho heroism, tho oewnffo, the indifference to doath she "vn by the ordinary tmromantic man. Some men had lieen converted, too—their wholo lives ehanged, their viccs eradicated, bv the _ war. So imich good -was coming from it. People, too, at home were so changed, so soliered: they wore looking into tho selfishness of their lives at last. Again. I thought, AS THOUGH ALL THAT JUSTEI'IED THE ■ranja. Oh! yoii men and women who did not know iyforo the oanahilities of lmtnan nature, I thought, plonso take noto of it now, and n-ffct-r the war do not unrlerostimaio tlio quality of mankind. Did it nood iv vftLX to tell you th&t a IM.in

nan l)i' heroic. resolute, courageous, cheerful, ami capn.liti' of sacrriiioe? Tlwre wihto those who could have told you that before this war.

As a man risen from the dead, Bera/ird Adams calls upon men and women everywhere to face t.ho f;i.et.-s, aru 1 not t/"> fhneh from, any nspcct of tho truth. And tho appeal rif the man who lias given his life as a saori fioo to tho Moloch of War is sw.'h that no ono daro to pass by and r.ot give it. hoed. 11. rtrast bo read im a whole to givo it full force, but its general tone and drift may bo gathered from tho following paragraphs:—

War is evil—utterly evil. Let us bo fcuro of that lirst. It is an evil instrument. even if it bo used for motives that are good. I who have been through war and know it, say that it is evu. I knew it before tho war; instinct, vision, religion told me that war was evil; now experience has told mo also. War is evil. Justice is stronger than Force. Yet, was there need of all this bloodshed to prove this? For this war is not as past wars; this is every man s war, a war of civilians, a war of men who hate war, of men who fought for a cause, v*ho arc compelled to kill find hato it. That is another tluns that people will not face. Men whisper that Tommy does not hate Fritz. Again, I say, away with this whispering. Let us speak it out plain and bold. Private Davies, my orderly, iformerly a shepherd ol Blacnan Testiniog, has no quarrel with ono Fritz Schneider, of Hamburg, who is sitting in the trench opposite the Matterhorn eap; yet ho will bayonet him certainly if he comes over tho top, or if wo go over into tho German trenches; ay, he will perform this action with, a certain amount of brutality too, for I havo watched him jabbing at rats with a bayonet through tho wires of a rat trap, and I know he has in him a savage vein of cruelty. But when peace is declared ho and Fritz will light a bonfire of trench 6torcs in No-Man's Land and there will be an end. of their quarrel. 1 say 'boldly, I know... For indeed X knew Davics very well. Again, I say, was there need of all this bloodshed? Who is responsible? Who is responsible for Lance-corporal Allan lying in the trench in Maple liedoubt? Again I see yon glittering eyes looking down upon mo in tho arena. And Davios too, in his slow simple wayis beginning to tako you on and to ask you why he is put there to "fight ? ■ Is it for your pleasure? Is it for your expediency? Is it a necessary part of your great game? Necessary? Necessary for whom? Davios and Fritz alike are awaiting your answer. | It is hard to trace ultimate causes. It is hard to fix absolute responsibility. There were many seeds sown, scattered, and secrctly fostered: before they produced this harvest of blood. The seeds of cruelty, selfishness, ambition, avarice, and indifference, are always liable to swell, grow, and bud and blossom suddenly into the red flower of. war. Let every man look into his heart and_ if tho seeds are there let him make' quick to root, them out while there is yet time; unless ho wishes to join thoso glittering* eyes that look down upon tho arena. There are tho eeods of war. And it is because they knew that wo, too, are not free from' them, that certain men have stood out from the arena as a protest against war. These men are real heroes, who for their conscience's sako are enduring taunts, ignominy, misunderderstanding, and worse. Most men and women in the arena aro cursing them, and. as they straggle in agony and anguish. they beat their hands at them and cry "You do not care." I, too. have cursed them, when I was mad with pnin. But I know them, and I know that they were true men. I would not havo one less. They aro witness against war. And I too. am fighting war. Men do not understand them now, but ono day they

TJic publication of " Christine" has occasioned considerable controversy both in | England and America. The book purports to be a scries of letters written from Ger- \ many by an English girl to her mother in England, and is published to reveal' the strong anti-British feeling among the people o£ Germany for some time prior to the outbreak of war. Christine, haying shown musical promise, goes to Berlin in May, 1914, to study the violin under a famous professor. Staying at a middle-class pension she' has ample opportunity of coming into close contact with the people. She Extracts the attention of a young German officer, and, becoming engaged to him, is welcomed by hiS' family, who belong to the J linker caste. Then comes the war, the breaking of the engagement, and Christine's death at a hosnital in Stuttgart on the morning of August 8, 1914, of acute double pneumonia, induced by exposure while endeavouring to leave Germany. The letters are offered as genuine, but the publishers give no guarantee of authenticity, and the internal evidence points to the book being pure fiction. Rumour has attempted to saddle the responsibility of authorship upon a number of well-known lady novelists —Mrs Gertrude Atherton and tho Baroness von Arnim among tho number-but only to meet with indignant denial, and the authorship at present remains a mystery. All this has greatly helped the circulation of tho book. It has no great literary merit, but the writer knows her Germany well, and the interest centres around the revelation concerning tho German spirit, German manner, and Gentian character. Kloster, Christine's professor, is a keen critic of his country, and this is a sample of his conversation :

We arc still so near as a nation to the child and tho savage. To the clever child and tho powerful savage. We like simple and gross emotions and plenty of them; obvious tastes in our food and our pleasures, apd a great deal of it; fat m our food and fat in our women. And, like tho child, when we mourn we mourn to excess and enjoy ourselves in that excess; and like the savage, we are afraid, and therefore hedge, ourselves about with observances, celebrations, cannons, kings. In no other countrv is there more than one king. In ours we find three and an emperor necessary. The savage who fears all things does not fear moro than we Germans. We fear other nations, we fear other people, we fear public opinion to an extent incredible, and tremble before the opinion of our servants and tradespeople; wo fear our own manners, and therefore are obliged to preserve tho idiotic practice of duelling, in which. as often as not the man whoso honout- is being satisfied is the one who is killed; we fear all those abova us, of whom there are invariably a great many; ye fear all officials and our country drips with officials. The only person we do not fear is God.

Christine wrote of her fiance: "Ho told mo something that greatly horrified mo, Ho says that children kill themselves m Germany. They commit suioido,_ school children and oven younger ones, ; in groat numbers every year. Ho says they're driven to it by the sheer cruelty of the way they are overworked and made to feel that if they aro not moved up in the school at tho" set time they and their parents aro for ever disgraced and their whole career blasted, imagine the misery a wretched child must suffer before it reaches the stage of preferring to kill itself! No other nation has this blot on it." My last oxtraet is taken from Mr G. K. Chestorton's "Short History of England," a book unique in its way, profoundly interesting but most irritatinglv controversial. Its paradoxical character is best shown in the fact that while Mr Chesterton's sympathies all through are strongly with the historical position of the Roman Catholic Church; he sternly and strongly denounces Germany ar I all her ways. The book has many other points which claim attention, but for tho present this ono must suffice. Welcoming the modern trade union movement as a poping after a renrival of tho medieval guild. Mr Chesterton summarises recent social progress in Great Britain in striking fashion.

Hie trade union movement passed through many perils, including a ludicrous atcmpt of certain lawyers to condemn as a criminal conspiracy that trade union solidarity, of which their own profession is tho strongest and most startling example in the world. The struggle culminated in gigantic strikes which split the country in every direction in tho earlier part of the twentieth con-toy. But another process, with much more power at its back, was also in operation. Tho principle represented by the New Poor Law proceeded on it* course, and in one important respect altered its course, though it can hardly bo said to have altered its objoct. It can most correctly be stated by saying that tbc employers themselves, who already organised] business, began to organise social reform. It wis more picturesquely expressed by a cynical aristocrat in Parliament who saJd, "Wc are all Socialists now."_ Tho Socialists, a body of completely sincere men lod by several conspicuously brilliant men, had long hammered into men's heads tho hopeless sterility of mere noninterference. in exchange. The Socialists proposed that the Sltato should not merely interfere in business but should take over tho business, and pay all men as equal wage-earners, or at any rato as wage-canters. Tho employers were not willing to 6urrender their ovn position to

tho State, and this protest has largely j faded from polities. But the wiser ol | them woro willing to pay bettor wages, ; and thoy wcro specially willing to be- | stow -various other lienelits so long | as they wero bestowed after the ; manner of wages. Thus we had a series I of social reforms which, for good_ or ■. evil, all tended ill tho same direction; ; tho permission to employees to claim j certain advantages as employees, and as something permanently different from employers. Of these tho obvious examples wero employers' liability, old-age pensions, and, as marking another and more decisive stride in the process, tho Irisuraneo Act. Tho latter in particular, and tho whole plan of tho social reform in general, wero modelled upon Germany. Indeed ( tlio whole English life of this period was i overshadowed; by Germany. We had now reached, for good or evil, tho final fu 1filment of that gathering influence wluch began to grow on us in tho seventeenth century, which was solidified by the military alliances of the eighteenth century, and which in tho nineteenth century had been turned into a philosophy—-.not to say a mythology. Gerniatj metaphysics had thinned our theology, so that many a man's most solemn conviction about Good Friday was that Friday was named after Freya. German history had simply annexed English history, so that it was almost counted tho duty of any patriotic Englishman to be proud of being a German. The genius of Carlyle, tho culturo preached 'bv .Matthew Arnold, would not, persuasive as they wero, havo alono produced this effect but for an external phenomenon of great force. Our internal policy was transformed by our foreign policy; and foreign policy was dominated by tho moro and more drastic stops which tho Prussian, now clearly the prince of nil tho German tribes, was talfing to extend the German influence in the world. Denmark was roobedl of two provinces; Franco was robbed of two provinces: and though the fall of Paris was felt almost everywhere as the fall of the capital of civilisation, a thing like tho sacking of Rome by tho Goths,' many of_ the most influential people in England still saw nothing in it but the solid success of our kinsmen and old allies of Waterloo. Tho moral methods which achieved it, the juggling with the Augustenburg claim, the forgery of the Ems telegram, were either successfully conccalcd or were but cloudily appreciated. The higher criticism had entered into our ethics as well as our theology. Our view of Europe was also distorted andi made disproportionate by tho accident of a natural concern for Constantinople and our route to India, which led Palmerston and later Premiers to support the Turk and see Russia as the only enemy. This somewhat cynical reaction was summed up in the strange figure of Disraeli, who made a proTurkish settlement full of his native indifference to the Christian subjects of Turkey, and sealed it at Berlin in the presence of Bismarck. Disraeli was not without insight into tho inconsistencies and illusions of the English; ho said many sagacious things about them, and one especially when he told tho Manchester School that their 'motto was "Peace and Plenty, amid a starving people, and with the world in arms." But what ho said about peace and plenty might well bo parodied as a comment on what he himself said about peaco with honour. Returning from that Berlin conference ho should have said, "I bring you peaco with honour; peace with the seeds of the most horrible war of history; and honour as the d-upes- and victims of the old bully in Berlin." But it was, as we have seen, especially in social reform that ■Germany was believed to be leading the way._ and to have found the secret of dealing with the economic evil. In the case of insurance, which was the test case, she was applauded for obliging all her workmen to set apart a portion of their wages for any time of sickness; and numerous other provisions, both in Germany and England, pursued the same ideal, which was that of protecting the poor against themselves. It everywhere involved an external power having a finger in the family pie.; but little attention was naid to any friction thus caused, for all prejudices against the process were supposed to be the growth of ignoranoe. And that ignorance was already being attacked by what was called education —'an enterprise also inspired largely by tho example, and partly by tho commercial competition of Germany. It was pointed out that in Germany governments and great employers thought it well worth their while to apply the grandest scale of organisation and tho minutest inquisition of detail to the instruction of tho wholo German race. Ho government was the stronger for training its scholars as it trained its soldiers; the big businesses were the stronger for manufacturing mind as tney manufactured material. English education was made compulsory; j.t was made free; many good, earnest, and enthusiastic men laboured to create a ladder of standards and examinations, which would connect, the cleverest of the poor with the culture of the English universities and 'tho current teaching in history or philosophy. But it cannot be saidi that the connection was very complete, or the achievement so thorough as the German achievement. For whatever reason, the poor Englishman remained m many things much as his fathers had been, and seemed to think the higher criticism too high tor him even to criticise. And' then a day came, and if we were wise, we thanked God that we had failed. Education, if it had ever really"; been in question, would doubtless havo been a noble gift; education_in the sense of the central tradition of history, with its freedom. its family honour, its chivalry, which is the flower of Christendom. But what , would our populace, in our epoch havo actually learned if they had learned all that our schools and universities had to teach? That England was but a little branch on a large Teutonic tree; that an unfathomable spiritual sympathy, all-en-circling like the sea, had always made us the natural allies of the great folk by tho flowing Rhine; that all light came from Luther and Lutheran Germany, whoso scicnce was still purging Christianity of its Greek and Roman accretions ; that Germany was a forest fated! to grow; that France was a dung-heap fated to decay—a dung-heap with a crowing cock on it. What would the ladder of education have led to, except a platform on which a posturing professor proved that a cousin Germ,an was the same as a German cousin? What would tho guttersnipo have learnt as a graduate, exccpt to embrace a Saxon, because he was the other half of an Anglo-Saxon ? The day came, and tho ignorant fellow found he had other thing 3 t6 learn. And ho was quicker than his educated countrymen, for he had nothing to unlearn. Jle in whose honour all had been said and sung stirred, and stepped across the border of Belgium. Then were spread out beforo men's eyes all the beauties of his culturo and all the benefits of his organisation; then wo beheld under a lifting daybreak what light we had followed and after what imago we had laboured to refashion ourselves. Nor in any story of mankind has tho irony of God chosen the foolish things as catastrophically to confound tho wise. For the common crowd of poor and ignorant Englishmen. because they only knew that thev were Englishmen, burst through the filthy cobwebs of four hundred years and stood where their fathers stood when they knew that they were Christian men. The English poor, broken in every revolt. bullied by every fashion, long despoiled of property, and now being despoiled of liberty, entered history with a noise of trumpets, and turned _ themselves in two years into ono of the iron armies of tho "world. And when the critic of politics and: literature, feeling that this war is after all heroic, looks around mm to find the hero, he can poipt to nothing but a mob.