THE "SETTLEMENT" OF SOUTH AFRICA.

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THE New Liberal Review for June contains an interesting causerie on The South African Settlement." It is interesting, not for any light which it throws on the only vital question-how to bring about immediate peace-but for some side lights which it casts upon the present position. This is notably the case with the contribution of Sir H. Gilzean Reid. Sir Gilzean Reid says that the Boers in Europe are thoroughly informed as to the state of affairs in South Africa, and that they are kept in constant communication with the leaders in the field. He makes the following very interesting statement :

At the very time when the oft-reiterated reports were appearing in the English Press that De Wet had become mentally irresponsible," the audacious and redoubtable General was in close communication with them, describing his plans, obtaining confidential information, and receiving the counsels of diplomatists abroad and of other officers in the field. As to his mental condition, it was added, "The wish was father to the thought, and I think most of the honourable British officers on the spot would be able and willing to testify that there is method in his madness." It is indeed a mystery how these restless delegates moving over the Continent obtain their early and reliable information from the various centres of action and inaction throughout South Africa. But that they habitually do so is indisputable, and strangely significant of the sympathetic atmosphere in which the operations are conducted. For instance, in the peace negotiations between Botha and Lord Kitchener-for whom marked respect is always manifested-I was shown, days before the official announcements appeared in London, the exact purport of the terms offered and the specific reply given, even down to the Colonial Secretary's belated announcement in the House of Commons as to the Boer aversion for the High Commissioner; and it was asserted with emphasis that "General Botha did neither claim nor possess the power to treat for peace, as was constantly represented, on behalf of the entire forces; even had he been forced to submit, it would only have affected himself and those immediately under his command, and would not have materially changed the position or ended the war, which can only be done by representatives authoritatively delegated for the purpose."

SELF-GOVERNMENT SOON.

I

fresh

The Boers bitterly resent the falsehoods published in the English press as to their condition and intentions. quote the following from Sir Gilzean Reid's conclusion :It is surely time to pause and consider. With the High Commissioner deploring in official despatches our retrograde position in South Africa, and the incessant demands for " men, fresh blood; " looking at the deplorable sacrifice of human life and the oppressive taxation which has been imposed, the imperious question is how to secure an honourable peace without throwing away the fruits of victory or giving our enemies the world over cause to rejoice. The stern realities must be faced, however disagreeable. If the end is to come soon and in satisfactory form, it is being made very clear that some measure of self-government will have to be conceded as the basis of an early and assured settlement. It may test the wit of statesmen to devise a workable and well-guarded scheme; it will have to be done if we are not to go on indefinitely squandering lives and money.

FEDERATION AT ONCE.

Mr. Charles Trevelyan's contribution is not very illuminating, but the following passage is worth quoting :If the best hope for South Africa is Federation, with its consequent unity, twenty years hence, there is a great deal to be said for establishing it at once. If all the small rival States are re-created, there is no end to the race antagonism. One will be British, another Dutch in the preponderating sentiment and nationality. The Transvaal and Orange Colonies will, under closer control it is true, try to perpetuate their rivalry with the

more British States. Their local parliaments may be centres of veiled national aspirations. But abstract from those local parliaments all the larger issues which now in Australia are the province of the Federation Government, and interest will be compelled to centre round the united Parliament where the collective greatness of South Africa will be represented.

Mr. Reginald McKenna, M.P., evidently thinks brevity is wisdom as well as wit, for all he says is :- "The immediate necessity is-carte blanche to Kitchener."

THE FALLACY OF COMPULSORY ENGLISH.

Mr. Arnold White also takes part in the symposium. It is a funny thing that Mr. White, who has been exposing the delusions and imbecilities of our rulers, should cherish such an imbecile delusion as that stamping out the Dutch language will make the Dutch loyal. He ought to be aware of two things: first, that you cannot stamp out a language; and secondly, that if you could it would not make people your friends. The English language reigns in Ireland, but are the Irish the more friendly? The French language has not been stamped out in Canada, but the French there are our good friends. Yet Mr. White says, " Enforce the English language, and the Dutch of 1930 will bless you." But what can you do with a man so ignorant of the teachings of history as to declare dogmatically " English is the world-language o the future"? Mr. White has also a great scheme for wasting £8,000,000 on settling Britishers on the best available lands," and also for suppressing the Dutch laws. • AN ASCENDENCY PROTEST.

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Mr. Sydney Brooks, in the National Review, condemns vehemently what he describes as Our Next Blunder in South Africa," the blunder being toleration of the Dutch language. He is overwhelmed with sorrow because French has survived in Canada; and it will amuse Sir Wilfrid Laurier to learn that by the test of the new Imperialist Inquisition the loyalty of himself and his French compatriots is not sufficiently firm. They would have been better subjects if they had been forced to speak English. Mr. Brooks tells us that "the Russians with a sound instinct are resolutely proscribing Finnish," which is not true, of course, but is worth quoting as characteristic of the new Imperialism. How many of Mr. Brooks' Jingo colleagues have exhausted themselves in denunciation of Russia's policy in Finland! Of Mr. Brooks' absurdities I will quote one more. page 531 he declares that it is necessary to suppress these alien tongues because appeal to the "bread-andbutter argument" is useless. Referring to Ireland, he

says:

On

Mr. Wyndham might study the history of Bohemia with profit, for there the Czechs-who, by the bye, are a nation of Healys -were not only not to be moved by "the bread-and butter argument" that German was a good commercial asset," but passionately discarded it for a bastard dialect, confined at the outside to four million people, and utterly useless beyond the limits of Bohemia.

Yet on the very next page he declares :

There is no need to proscribe the Boer taal in the Russian sense-to forbid its use in churches or at the market-place, or to suppress newspapers published in Dutch. All we have to do is to ensure the supremacy of our own tongue by making it worth while for the Boers to learn it, and it can only be made worth learning by becoming the business and political language of the country. When the Boers find that without a knowledge of English they will be unable to enter the legislature, or to practise in the law courts, or, as a necessary condition to rise to any large commercial position, they may grumble at first; but if we are firm, they will sooner or later make shift to learn it. Of such is the logic of Jingoism!

THE DRAGON'S TEETH WE ARE SOWING. Allen Sangree, in the May Cosmopolitan, gives a racy and powerful sketch of General De Wet and his campaign. Two stories he tells may be taken as a sample of the deadly seed we are sowing for a dread reaping by-and-by. He quotes the remark a Pretorian mother made to her little son when he disobeyed her in some household command :

66

Johnny," she said, "from now on you must do exactly as I tell you, for when you get big you are to fight the English, and the first thing a soldier learns is to obey."

Another youngster-by way of illustrating the intense feeling against England-when saying his prayers the night after Lord Roberts entered Pretoria, suddenly turned to his mother and asked if Jesus Christ was an Englishman. "My child," said the mother, "I don't quite know what he was, but I feel pretty sure he wasn't English.' "Oh, I'm so glad!" exclaimed the little chap with a sigh of relief.

"AN ARMY SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE." Yet Rev. Philip Young, late Dean of Nassau, allows himself to slop over in this style in the United Service Magazine for June. His title is The Most Humane of Armies." He says:

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Altogether it has been a sublime spectacle-this Empire's army in the field. The world has gained immeasurably by so grand an object-lesson. It has raised the standard of civilised warfare; it has shown the almost infinite possibilities of restraint; it has vindicated the high hopes of an Imperial race. We believed, when we sent forth our troops- —our warriors by sea and land-that they would bring no dishonour upon the uniform they wore. Our trust was not misplaced. There have been wars in which demoniacal fury possessed the combatants. It has remained for the twentieth century to open out the magnificent vision of an army of 220,000 men, exhibiting what is possible in war. An army this, of which its utterly beloved commander-in-chief could say it was alike his duty and his honour to command. "Heroes in the field and gentlemen at all times." Drawn, as we proudly feel, from every quarter of the Empire, its record is so clean, so free from rapine and lust, so chivalrous towards woman, so charged with patriotism, so imbued with the feelings of humanity, its very virtues have been misunderstood and too frequently abused.

Ultimately, he says, the world will give its verdict and recognise the virtues of "an army sans peur et sans reproche." Alas! "the world" will not be able to forget that this is the army which has burned hundreds of farms in flat violation of the laws of civilised warfare.

Lectures Pour Tous.

Lectures pour Tous is an excellent non-political magazine, popular without being frivolous. There is no English magazine exactly corresponding to it, its nearest relatives being probably Harper's or the Century. Its illustrations are some of the best and clearest in any contemporary publication.

Other

The May number contains several very readable articles, notably one on cave-dwellers of the Twentieth Century, illustrated with numerous views of picturesque rock homes. The writer says that, according to an American economist, more than two millions, or over one-twentieth of the whole population of France, use rocks either as dwellings or for stables or granaries. interesting papers are on homing pigeons, their use and training, and a review of marriage customs From forced marriages to marriages by consent." Most readers will consider the feature of the magazine is the sketch of Pasteur's life and work. Another paper is on the French expedition to Yun-nan-all alike admirably illustrated. There are also stories, though not a large proportion, and One feature of the magazine is a couple of pages of original music.

BOER COMMANDOS ADAPTED TO BRITISH SOIL. DR. CONAN DOYLE'S IDEAS IN PRACTICE. CAPTAIN PHILIP TREVOR, in the June Strand, records a visit paid by him last Easter to Dr. Conan Doyle, in Surrey. Dr. Doyle is in fact trying to engraft the Boer commando system on British soil. A whole morning he and his guest had spent fixing targets-" Boers' heads "on Surrey hills, to be shot at at unknown range. His commando-practically a civilian rifle club-already numbers 130, and with the aid of other similar clubs, Hindhead could furnish over 300 fighting men.

The men are drawn from all classes, and are on an absolute equality :

"How then," asked Captain Trevor, "would you work it as a military unit in time of war?"

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"It would no longer exist as a military unit," said Conan Doyle. "It is a training school for higher things. The spirit of the men, if invasion were threatened, would carry them at once into the ranks of the Regulars, the Militia, and the Volunteers, which, instead of raw recruits, would be gaining trained riflemen."

"Do you think they would all volunteer?"

"I think the greater number of them would. The residue would act as local guides, scouts, and irregulars."

“Then in that way,” said I, “you get over all criticism as to transport, commissariat, and discipline?"

"Exactly: they would find all that in the corps which they joined. The lesson of the South African War is, speaking roughly, that the best soldier is the best shot."

Each commando has its own Field-Cornet, Dr. Conan Doyle being Field-Cornet of his own riflemen, with no officers under him. The men willingly pay for their own cartridges, but the cost of rifles comes rather heavy for many of them. Some hundreds of such clubs already exist. Asked who would bear the expense of founding them, Dr. Conan Doyle said :—

That is the duty of the country gentlemen. They are the natural leaders of the people. In every district it is they who should be organising clubs and laying out ranges in their parks and grounds.

Given land, the cost of targets and mantlets to protect the marksmen need not exceed £15. £30 or £40 should cover all preliminary expenses. In time, Dr. Doyle thought, the Government must give these men ammunition and rifles. It is particularly important, he thinks, that such clubs should be kept free from any political association.

Captain Trevor thinks that the rifle club movement has undoubtedly come to stay, and will be of immense value to the country; but at the same time he thinks much of the success of a commando will depend upon the energy and ability of its Field-Cornet.

THE Religious Tract Society is heartily to be congratulated on the attractive guise under which it issues its magazines. There is no reason in the world why religious periodicals should be less brightly got up or tastefully adorned than periodicals which are not religious; and it is pleasant to find the publications of the R. T. S. offering as pleasing and taking an exterior as any of the other illustrated monthlies on show at the bookstalls. This June, for example, both the Leisure Hour and the Sunday at Home light up their covers with beautiful girl faces, in appropriate setting; and increasing use is made in the interiors of decorative tint and illustration. The Sunday at Home contains portraits, sketches or sermons of Archdeacon Sinclair, Canon Fleming and Dr. Parker; and in its series of "Men who Reach the Masses" gives a prettily illustrated account of the work of the Browning Settlement.

JINGO TRIBUTE TO THE PRO-BOERS' POWER.

"THE MASTER OF THE SITUATION."

MR. C. DE THIERRY, who is an able writer, will in after years regret that he ever permitted himself to write as he has done in this month's Empire Review on "Modern Chivalry." It is a belated echo of the time when the delusion prevailed that we were conducting war in South Africa on humanitarian principles-an echo rendered shriller with wrath at the awakening which has since begun. The great fault the writer has to find with the war is that our conduct of it has been too cruelly humane. He says:

It was the duty of the politician to retire into the background until the soldier had done his work. But modern chivalry, more selfish and cruel than the most ruthless of conquerors, made this impossible. The South African War must be humane, it said, and it was obeyed. Peace and war went hand in hand, and a campaign that should have been brought to an end in a few months is now eighteen months old, a hundred and fifty millions of treasure have been spent, and English Colonies raided by the enemy. As for the indirect losses in South Africa they cannot be estimated. The present struggle is a trial of strength between Briton and Boer, and until the latter acknowledges himself beaten there can be no lasting peace in South Africa. True mercy would have brought this home to him by swift severity. Sham humanity has prolonged the agony until the veldt has run with rivers of blood.

This position makes the following recognition of the power of the pro-Boer the more picturesque :

The fault lies at the door of the people, with whom the Boer is a pet protégé. That is why the pro-Boer is a power in the land. He is wrong only in not seeing that independence must not be conceded to the Boer, and in his methods of showing his friendliness to the enemy. On all other points he is at one with the mass of his countrymen. . . . Both before the war and since, England's policy has been an astounding mixture of Imperial principles and pro-Boer sentimentality. The struggle between them has paralysed our generals, prolonged the war indefinitely, cost millions of pounds, and thousands of precious lives. The master of the situation is the pro-Boer, who is powerful because morbid sentimentality is universal. It is fear of him which demands these conciliatory methods that prevent Lord Kitchener, as they prevented Lord Roberts before him, from taking measures to render treachery a dangerous game to play. The pro-Boer cannot prevent the assertion of the Crown's supremacy in South Africa by a United Empire, but he can paralyse military effort by screwing the political wrench at Westminster. In other words England looks calmly on while her resources in men and money are being squandered in South Africa under the influence of fanatic partisans at home. To say that they are beneath contempt because they are powerless to work mischief is belied by the conduct of the South African campaign. Men who can make themselves feared by the Ministry so as to cause it to forget what is due to Imperial interests, patriotism, and mercy, are anything but powerless.

OTHER SIGNS OF THE TURNING TIDE. When Mr. Chamberlain complains that he is accused of too great truculence against the Boers, and suggests re-opening the whole question of Old Age Pensions, it is pretty clear that, in the judgment of the astutest Jingo of them all, the Khaki cry is played out. Another straw in the changing breeze is a paragraph in the Londoner's Log Book" in Cornhill-a monthly chronique designed to reflect the ways of London suburban life. The writer remarks:

It surely is a parlous sign of the times when, in a district so eminently genteel and patriotic as ours, it is found possible to hold a Pro-Boer Meeting. A year ago, strong in our righteous cause and our superior numbers, we should have broken the head of a South African delegate as heartily as the bravest citizens of Scarborough, or the merriest medical students in Trafalgar Square. . . . To-day the meeting is held in the lecture-room of

the Parochial Club. Mr. Soulsby presides; and Mr. Bounderley sends a letter imploring his friends to give the speaker a fair hearing. Mr. Soulsby, turning to scorn with lips divine the falsehood of extremes, mellifluously enunciates the doctrine that there are probably at least two sides to almost every question; and, without wishing to commit himself or to prejudge, he hails the "League of Liberals for the Disintegration of the Empire' as being, in the Baconian sense, a light-bearing institution. Under the auspices of the League to-night's meeting is held.

SAVINGS BANKS AND HOUSING.

MR. HENRY W. WOLFF writes in the Westminster Review on the Housing Question and the Savings Banks. His problem is twofold: how to employ the immense sum closed up in our savings banks, and how to house the masses. Mr. Wolff makes out a very good case for his solution. This is best stated in his own words :

Everybody now seems agreed-as almost everybody in 1897 was of the opposite opinion-that Consols alone are not a suitable investment for savings bank money. In the interest of our

working classes and of thrift, we shall have to look out for some new investments, paying, if possible, a higher rate of interest. . . Under Government compulsion we lay all these millions up unprofitably in a napkin. We use them to drive Consols up and keep them out of the hands of the capitalists who are eager to bid for them. In all this we lose sight altogether of the depositors' interest. Manifestly, if a legitimate working-men's want can be shown for such working-men's money, if a productive use can be provided for this money taken away from production, such employment ought to have the preference.

Even

There are openings in plenty. County Councils and other public bodies affording absolute security, pay for their loan money a rate of interest which would enable the savings banks to keep up their old convenient rate to depositors, while still retaining a considerable portion of Consols in their possession, which it is, of course, desirable that they should have. the London County Council borrows, on an average, at as much as 3 per cent. . . . Could the London County Council borrow from the savings banks at 2 per cent., both itself and the savings banks would be better off and the building of workingmen's dwellings might be proceeded with in good earnest. Co-operative societies and co-operative building societies could afford to pay even more, up to 4 per cent. Now, a 4 per cent. loan would enable the savings bank to invest nearly four times the same amount in 2 per cent. Consols and still maintain its deposit rate at 2 per cent. There seems here, indeed, a great opportunity for doing good. Lord Salisbury complains that the want of proper dwellings makes working folk"Radical." Let him by the means here shown turn them into Conservatives! The new departure would, as has been made clear, be anything but "a leap in the dark." All the pioneer's work has, in fact, been done. The country to be cultivated has been explored, and the French, Belgian, and German Caleb and Joshua have brought back magnificent samples of fruit. Out of the £200,000,000 now accumulated in our savings banks one would say that £40,000,000, or £50,000,000 might perfectly well be loaned out for building working-men's dwellings at a rate of interest which would fully compensate the fall of per cent. which is to take place on Consols. If there should be difficulty about what is already invested, there is no reason why we should not begin with the new receipts.

How to live on £800 a year is the problem which Mr. G. Colmore considers this month in Cornhill as his next "family budget." He allows £50 as annual saving, and his other totals run :-Rent, rates, and taxes, £130; housekeeping, £208; servants' wages, £38; husband's allowance, £70; wife's allowance, £70; repairs, £50; holidays, 50; doctor, £30; wine, £20, tobacco, £10; coal, £12; gas, £9; stationery, £5; postage, &c., £13; entertaining, amusements, and charity, £35.

THE EDUCATION CRISIS.

SIR CHARLES ELLIOTT'S PROPOSALS. SIR CHARLES ELLIOTT, Chairman of the Finance Committee of the London School Board, discusses in the Empire Review for June the Education Bill of 1901. He laments the Government's attempt to combine the rectification of the defect in law revealed by the Cockerton judgment with the establishment of the muchneeded secondary authority. What is wanted for the first is a brief amending Bill of two clauses to provide :

(1) That the Whitehall Code shall be the authority for all instruction in day and evening Elementary Schools, and shall be sufficient to legalise any expenditure incurred in such instruction. (2) That there shall be no superior limit of age for students in evening schools, the lower limit being fixed at the period when compulsory attendance at a day school ceases.

WHY ORDER THE TAIL TO WAG THE DOG? Passing to the proposed secondary authority, Sir Charles says that in London "the School Board might easily take over the business of the Technical Board in its stride and would only feel that it had one committee the more; but to adopt the reverse process would be to order the tail to wag the dog." So in the great county boroughs :

Leeds, for instance, has 60 board schools, Birmingham 57, Manchester 55, West Ham 43, Nottingham and Bristol 40 each. Can it be wise to take the control and organisation of these schools, which now occupy the time and attention of the experienced men who compose the School Boards, and place them under a mere committee of the Borough Council?

THE DOOMED RURAL SCHOOL BOARDS. The conclusion of the article is to this effect :

For London and the County Boroughs the School Boards should be maintained and the Educational Committees should deal only with secondary instruction, but in rural counties the new authority should supersede the small School Boards, and should control both primary and higher education, the larger counties being subdivided so as to provide that the areas are not too extensive for proper supervision, local knowledge, and efficient control.

WHAT RURAL SCHOOLS REQUIRE.

In Longman's Mr. R. R. C. Gregory writes on the mission of Mr. Rider Haggard and Rural Education. He disagrees with Mr. Haggard that the education prescribed by the Department unduly favours the city child at the expense of the country child. The prescriptions, he shows, are excellent, but these excellent prescriptions simply cannot be widely carried out for want of more liberal equipment in staff and apparatus. The bulk of the cost should, he urges, be borne by the national exchequer, education being a national concern like the Army and Navy. To show that farmers are alive to the value of progressive measures, the writer quotes from proceedings of the Derwent District Agricultural Association, at Stamford Bridge :

One speaker, who was desirous of brightening village life, strongly expressed himself in favour of teaching instrumental music in the village schools, in addition to vocal, and utilising the skill thus acquired in the formation of village bands, and the revival of the old May-day festivities and dancing on the village green. Another speaker advocated in all seriousness, and his views were shared apparently by those around him, the addition of dancing to the rural school curriculum.

66 EDUCATIONAL HOME RULE RUN MAD." To show the folly and injustice of the present rural administration, he quotes the following piquant utterance of Dr. Macnamara, M.P., at Yarmouth:

Leaving out the county boroughs of Yarmouth and Norwich,

there were in Norfolk 140 School Boards for 22,000 School Board children. London had one School Board for 550,000 School Board children, and whatever did they want 140 School Boards down there for? Look at the incidence in the local rate. In the parish of Firsfield, Norfolk, it was a 1d. in the . In the parish of New Buckenham it was 2s. Id. Then take the village of Little Fransham, also in Norfolk. In that village there was one Board School with an average attendance last year of thirty-six children. That Board School, and that average attendance, necessitated the triennial election of a School Board of five members, and it had a paid clerk. See how that worked out. A Id. in the in Little Fransham raised a precept of £4 175. If they wanted a pupil-teacher there was a fourpenny rate gone. The election cost £6 19s. Id. That was nearly three halfpence gone. The clerk's salary was £8. That was nearly twopence gone. The legal expenses were £3 Is. Id., so that the total administrative charges in Little Fransham amounted to £18 2s.; thus a threepenny rate out of the sixpenny rate they had levied-or one-half of the local support— was gone before they had got to the school at all. This was educational home rule run mad.

Viewed as a complete scheme standing alone without supplement, the Education Bill is a failure; viewed as a proposal for organising secondary education, and as the foundation for one single authority, it is a distinct step in the right direction.

The Hon. E. Lyulph Stanley undertakes the task of dissecting the Government Education Bill in the Contemporary Review for June. His dissection is not much more interesting than the Bill itself. As might be expected, his judgment is distinctly adverse. He gives at considerable length the reasons for deprecating the changes proposed by the measure, and strongly objects to any supersession of the School Boards by the new educational authority. The following sentence sums up the gist of his contention :

If this Bill becomes law the people, both in towns and in rural districts, but especially in the latter, must give up all hope of further progress in the schools available for the mass of the community, they will see them stunted and crippled through the jealousy of feeble schools, nominally Secondary, but often inferior in all but the fee charged to the best Board Schools, and they will see the combination of this jealousy with clericalism and sectarianism carry out a successful conspiracy against the aspirations of those who look for brighter days for the people of England, which never needed more than now, in these days of keen international competition, the best, the broadest, the most popular and the most expansive system of public schools for the whole community.

EDUCATE! EDUCATE! EDUCATE !

Prof. Ernest H. Starling, in an article in the Nineteenth Century entitled "The Need for more Universities," suggests that London University should have three centres in North, West, and South London, with a fourth in years to come in East London, which might become in time the most important of all. He estimates that the 10,000 students of the University of London would need an annual income of, at least, £400,000, altogether apart from the capital sum necessary to build and equip the university institutes.

Dr. Macnamara, M.P., writing in the same issue upon the related subject of the Education Bill, severely condemns the ministerial Bill as most inadequate, and urges. that it would be much better to have passed a short enabling Cockerton Bill, leaving over the very difficult question of the constitution of an effective local authority for the further deliberate consideration of next year.

There is thrown into the business world, to be used as a trading medium, millions upon millions of new stocks, the real value of which is yet to be determined. As soon as this is thoroughly realised, we may look for trouble, pending a readjustment. This can be predicted with perfect safety. If no other cause bring this condition about, it will come when the great volume of railroad bonds now being prepared for public subscription is offered. . . . If any of the men in whom we very properly have confidence should die suddenly, everything would be disorganised. Even as it is, things may break at a critical period, and then we shall have to find a new level with considerable trouble and agitation to ourselves. Just at present, no one can say, with anything like accuracy, where we stand. The great railroad combinations we have had thrust on us recently I consider only less dangerous than the industrial combinations, because they are based on sounder considerations. Their stocks and bonds have not, in general, been doubled or trebled, nor

unduly inflated. But they are bad, nevertheless. They are sure to arouse the people. And the people once aroused, are more powerful than the railway combinations.

Mr. Sage dreads the increase of popular hostility to great monopolies like the Standard Oil Trusts, whose chiefs, he says—

dominate wherever they go. They can make or unmake almost any property, no matter how vast. They can almost compel any man to sell them anything at any price.

MR. J. J. HILL ON THE BENEFITS OF CONSOLIDATIONS. Consolidations, says Mr. J. J. Hill, are not trusts. Under the latter the old plants and staffs were maintained and the public paid :

Under the new system, a different usage prevails. Operating expenses are reduced by combining a number of institutions under one management. Useless officers and unproductive middlemen are cut off. The systems of purchasing and distributing are simplified. Economies are effected by the direct purchase of material in large quantities, or, better still, by adding to the combination a department for the acquisition and control of the sources from which raw material is drawn.

Mr. Hill thinks the increase in value shown in the value of the consolidated stocks is real and not fictitious. The value of property is its earning capacity, and that is often doubled and trebled by consolidation. It is bad for the middleman but good for the consumer :

Against the alleged injury that is intangible, can easily be put the benefit that can be shown by figures-benefit to the workingman, benefit to the consumer, benefit to the capitalist. Wages are higher, prices are lower, investments are safer, more productive and more certain of return. We have reached a period where the old-fashioned methods will prove inadequate, if the masses of the people are to continue in the enjoyment of the prosperity to which they are entitled. There are too many people to be fed, housed and clothed to permit of the wasteful system which would maintain a horde of idle middlemen. The road that can give the longest haul in its own cars over its own lines, can make the lowest rates, and yet earn more money than could be made on a haul of the same length where the cars have to run over half a dozen lines, each separately operated by a staff of expensive officials. If, at the end of the haul, the railroad can transfer the goods or passengers from its own cars to its own steamships for carriage across the ocean, the process is continued. Having no separate company and office organisation to be supported out of the earnings of the steamships, it can give better service for less money than its competitor less fortunately situated. That is a self-evident business proposition.

MR. C. M. SCHWAB: CONSOLIDATION MEANS

CHEAPNESS.

Mr. Schwab, the manager of the Steel Trust, says :

The larger the output, the smaller, relatively, is the cost of production. This is a trade axiom. It holds good whether the output consists of pins or of locomotives. Where the output is produced by fixed processes the rule applies with especial force. It is much more economical, proportionately, to run three machines under one roof than it is to run one. It is cheaper to run a dozen than it is to run three, and cheaper still to run a hundred. Therefore, the large plant has an undoubted advantage over the small plant, and this advantage increases almost indefinitely as the process of enlargement continues.

One of the most considerable items of cost in manufacture has always been the labour of supervision. This class of labour produces nothing, yet, in a measure, it is the most important division in the industrial scheme. Under the system of concentrated management this item is considerably diminished. Useless officials are lopped off in all directions, and that without impairing the efficiency of the service. On the contrary, the efficiency is increased; for the new system brings a specialist of a high class to do the work that was performed under the old by a dozen or two dozen men who had no special fitness for the