fesses to believe that the Eastern Question can be easily solved when certain illusions can be dispelled. That the writer himself harbors many illusions may be seen from the following summary of his conclusions:

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Europe can never put an end to the dangers and daily complications of the Eastern Question until she has the wisdom, the courage, the firmness and righteous determination to say that the Sultan shall no longer rule within her borders. When that sentence is given and executed—and it might conceiva bly be executed without much bloodshed, with less than the bloodshed of the August massacre, with incomparably less than that of the massacres in Anatolia, and in any case with an incalculable saving of bloodshed and misery in years to come-it is possible to imagine the recuperation of Armenia as an autonomous province of Russia, the organization of Albania under the suzerainty of Austria, the establishment of a guaranteed state on the shores of the Sea of Marmora, extending from the Black Sea to the borders of Macedonia, and such rectification of the frontiers of Bulgaria and Servia as policy might seem to demand. As for Macedonia, it could not with justice or safety pass, together with Epirus and the islands, into the possession of any state but Greece."

VI. The Lion in the Path.

The editor of the National Review, discussing the various proposals that have been made for the solution of the present problem in the East, deprecates any isolated action, and, generally dwelling upon the difficulties which Great Britain has to face, he says:

"Generous indignation is a creditable emotion, but the rescue of Christians is a practical undertaking. Have we the means for effecting it should we decide it to be the duty of the British Empire to come forward? There is no doubt that ultimately we could smash up Turkey, but that is not the object. The object is to prevent the extermination of Christians now in Turkish clutches. Mr. Labouchere has put the problem very pithily: 'We could, it is true, force a passage though the Dardanelles. But what next? Should we bombard Constantinople? If so, the entire town, which consists mainly of wooden houses, would be burnt. To occupy the town would require an army of 100.000 men, for it must not be forgotten that the Turks have a large, well armed, and brave army. The bombardment would not only let loose against the Christians all the Turkish riff-raff of the capital, but it would serve as a signal for their massacre in all parts of the Empire.' Russia is willing, we know, to take charge of Armenia when its Christian population has been destroyed. Great Britain's policy is the exact reverse; she has no project of aggrandizement, but desires to prevent extermination. She is confronted at the threshold by the fact that if she crosses it the one and only thing she desires to prevent will at once take place."

VII. Other Suggestions.

The Rev. Guinness Rogers, Lord Meath and Professor Salmoné have their say on the subject of the hour in the Nineteenth Century. Mr. Rogers' article is wordy and fumbling. England can, at least, he says, withdraw her ambassador—a lame and impotent conclusion indeed! Mr. Rogers sees clearly enough that nothing can be done in the East unless England keeps step with Russia, but beyond this he does not see anything very clearly. Mr. Salmoné is quite certain that the deposition of the Sultan is the one way out of the difficulty, and, according to him, it is as easy to depose the Sultan as it is to snap your fingers. He says:

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The deposition of Abdul Hamid could be effected in a single night without the shedding of one drop of blood; for should it be felt that Europe would even only stand neutral the whole nation would openly rise, and the Sheikh-ul-Islam, the chief Turkish Muhammadan dignitary, himself would be at their head and readily grant the necessary fetwah for his deposition."

Lord Meath is indignant with the Sultan, apologetic for Lord Salisbury, and he deplores the selfish jealousy of the powers which frustrates Lord Salisbury's best endeavors.

VIII. Why Russia Distrusts England.

Sir T. Wemyss Reid, writing in the Nineteenth Century, adds his voice to the chorus that is going up on all sides, recognizing the justice of Russia's distrust of British policy. Sir T. W. Reid says:

"No Englishman trying to put himself in the place of a Russian, and remembering the events of 1876-78, can feel surprised that Russia is distrustful of our present policy, and is even cynically unmindful of the protestations of absolute disinterestedness with which we accompany our expressions of sympathy with the Armenians. The misfortune is that, whether well or ill founded, so long as this is the temper of the Russian people—so long as they believe in their hearts that Great Britain, whatever policy she may appear to be pursuing, is thinking only of herself and is chiefly desirous of procuring her own aggrandizement at the expense of her great rival in the East-there can be no real security for the peace of Europe, and the nightmare of constant anxiety must continue to weigh upon the statesmen of Great Britain.

"Is it not time for us to do something to convince Russia that we have changed our views with regard to her position in Europe?

"At present the Russian people stand upon the unpleasant memory of the Berlin treaty, and with that memory enshrined in their hearts they listen with sullen indifference to the cries of distress which reach them from Turkey. If we could pluck that memory from their breasts, if we could give them reason to feel confident that if they undertook, either single handed or along with others, the work of liberation and chastisement in the dominions

now given over to the Sultan, they would not find that when the work was done England would snatch the fruits of victory from them, they might assume a different and nobler attitude. So far as one can understand it, the opinion of this country would be warmly in favor of such a pledge being given by our statesmen. Are our statesmen themselves of the same way of thinking?"

That is all very well, but that is not enough. Pledges are words. The time has come for acts, and the one indispensable act that is required at England's hands is the repudiation once for all of the policy of defending the Sultan against the consequences of his crime, which policy finds diplomatic expression in that illegal document, the Anglo-Turkish Convention, and which has the occupation of Cyprus as its visible territorial expression. IX. The Russian Point of View.

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'Diplomaticus'" article in the Fortnightly Review for October, on The Russian Ascendency in Europe," points out that this ascendency is due to the conviction which has at last gained possession of all the European Courts that the Russian Empire means peace. The French Alliance was concluded chiefly in order to enable Russia to borrow money whereby to devote herself to the pacific development of her enormous industrial and agricultural resources, and also to enable her to restrain France from plunging into war. The ascendency of Russia being therefore based upon the belief that it is her policy and her interest to maintain peace at almost any price, she finds it necessary to avoid any unsettling of the Eastern Question, which would expose her to suspicion and might jeopardize the peace of Europe. "Diplomaticus" states the Russian case fairly well. He is, however, dubious as to the possibility of anything being done with the Czar during his visit to Balmoral. He says:

"The Czar is not entirely his own master in the empire of which he is autocrat; still less has he a free hand as the leader and mandatory of the European Concert. The condition of his ascendency is, as I have already said, his uncompromising hostility to breaches of the international peace, and the test of his sincerity in this respect is his attachment to the status quo in Turkey. What chance can there be of our moving him from this position? I have reason to know that even among the best informed Russians the agitation in this country has been honestly interpreted as conceived less in the interests of the Armenians than with a view to the creation of difficulties for Russia in her internal affairs, and her embroilment with powers with whom she is now on a friendly footing. What remedy does it suggest? The deposition of the Sultan? Surely those who glibly make this proposal can have formed no conception of the difficulties and dangers of carrying it out. Do they think it is to be managed by the landing of a few boat loads of marines from the guard ships? Turkey is not Egypt or Zanzibar. The

first step in such an enterprise would be an act of war against an empire which, if it can do nothing else, can certainly fight. Before the Dardanelles could be forced probably not a Christian would be left alive in Constantinople, while the provinces would be given up to anarchy. Moreover, as Prince Lobanoff told Count Goluchowski, before you depose Abdul Hamid, Russia would like to know who is to take his place. In these circumstances it would scarcely serve a useful purpose to inquire which of the powers would or could undertake the task of forcing the Dardanelles and landing at Constantinople without exciting the suspicions of others. The difficulty of an agreement on this point, however, would not be inconsiderable. This, as I understand it, is a brief summary of the views of the Russian Foreign Office on the present crisis in the East. These views embody practical considerations of great weight which the advisers of the Czar cannot treat lightly."

M

PROTECTION PREVAILING.

Is Cobdenism Dead?

"The

R. ERNEST WILLIAMS, author of “Made in Germany," comes out in To-Morrow as an unblushing advocate of protection. What is more, he begins by declaring in effect that we are all protectionists now. "Protection is the elliptical form of the state protection of private industry." utter elimination of protection is not possible so long as the state exists; "it has not been eliminated even as far as was possible. Mr. Williams pronounces Cobden discredited or disproved. "The principles dear to Cobden outside international commerce have now been generally discredited." The Radicals of today, except "the attenuated and belated remnant led forlornly by Mr. John Morley," are believers in widely extending state action, and are, therefore, anti-Cobdenite. "The free trade promises were illusive." "Corn law repeal had an ignoble though appropriate origin in panic. "The jubilee feast celebrated by the Cobden Club was "rather the eating of funeral baked meats."

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Cobden omitted from his calculations the rise of manufacturing rivals to-day; we have to face it. Those rivals penalize our manufactures, making it hard for us to sell at all in their markets, and easy for their own manufacturers to sell at a good profit. We, on the other hand, admit their goods free of duty to our market, where they compete on more than equal terms with our home produce, because the profit foreigners can make in their protected home market enables them to cut their export prices; also, the bounties and subsidies which they receive gives them further advantage over the English manufacturer. And these advantages are operative in the neutral markets of the world as well as in England."

Thus Mr. Williams arrives at his fourth and final point:

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A

AN IMPERIAL CUSTOMS UNION.

Are the Times Ripe for It? STRONG affirmative is given to this question in To-Morrow by Mr. John Lowles, M.P. He recalls with joy that of the projects discussed at the Ottawa conference in 1894, the Pacific cable, completing the all British telegraphic girdle of the earth, and the line of steamships between England and Halifax, Nova Scotia, have also attained realization. The next item to be realized will, he avers, be commercial federation. Of the three important Colonial groups-Canada, South Africa and AustralasiaCanada has officially declared for it, and South Africa, as voiced by Mr. Rhodes and Mr. Hofmeyr, is for it. Australasia, of whose "deep unswerving loyalty no doubt can exist," has been somewhat unpronounced. But Mr. Lowles reports the reassuring results of his Australian tour. He put to the governments and chambers of commerce in each colony the two questions:

"1. Is it desirable and practicable to establish closer commercial intercourse between Great Britain and her colonies ?

"2. Will you co operate in bringing about such a result, and, if so, upon what general lines ? "

He found the colonies unanimous in desiring Great Britain to free herself from the most favored nation clauses in the Belgian (1862) and German Zollverein (1865) treaties. Queensland, he reports, is ready for the proposed reciprocity with the mother country. New South Wales is promising. Victoria would warmly welcome the change. It would not be difficult to get South Australia to discuss a definite scheme. The proposals were everywhere received with favor in Western Australia. He did not visit New Zealand, but from the New Zealanders he saw, he infers that he may count on New Zealand also. Tasmanian ministers expressed strong sympathy. He concludes from this summary survey of the whole field that the time is ripe for action.

MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

From a Colonial Point of View.

HERE is a very rasping article on the Empire at Downing Street in the New Review for October, by an author who prefers to conceal his iden tity under the nom de plume of "Colonial." He sets forth as disagreeably as he knows how all the bitter things which colonists feel concerning Downing Street. It would be well if Mr. Fairchild could reply, anonymously or otherwise, to this diatribe. What particularly excites the wrath of " Colonial " is the assumption that Mr. Chamberlain was a heaven born colonial man, whose mission it was to save the Empire. He says that his appointment was not regarded with any particular favor in the colo nies, and that his twelve months in office has thoroughly justified a colonial estimate of his abilities.

"So far from Mr. Chamberlain having been regarded as a possible secretary of exceptional ability, it was exactly the reverse. To three parts of her Majesty's dominions he was a Radical, molded by Mr. Gladstone, in whose steps he was worthily or unworthily treading, and as such he was regarded in the same light as an Irish' boss' by a cultivated and well bred American. To the other part he was a stanch supporter of the disgrace of Majuba Hill -and after. It was, also, recalled that he had described Colonials as grasping and greedy, and their tyranny and aggressiveness as the sole cause of the Kaffir Wars-on what authority he was discreetly silent; and that he was a conspicuous member of one of those Aborigine Protection Societies, whose well meant but ill judged efforts have caused at least as much bloodshed and warfare in South Africa as the timid and vacillating policy of the Imperial Government. As Colonial Secretary. he was a sinister figure to many of the loyal Cape English. But their wildest predictions of coming trouble for the country of their adoption fell far short of the reality. Even with the history of the past sixteen or seventeen years not yet effaced from their memories, the humiliations, the inaptitude, the reckless blundering since the beginning of January have come to them as a series of shocks. The fact is. Colonials measure a minister by the im perial standard; and it is not one by which Mr. Chamberlain shows to advantage. His services, so far, have been on strictly party lines, and these are not recognized by the Empire, perhaps because they have been often at the expense of the country's honor. When Mr. Gladstone retired, it was sup posed that St. Stephen's had seen for the last time a responsible minister, whose whole career was a mass of inconsistencies, covered by more or less successful attempts to eat his own words, and to prove that a synonym is not a synonym. But Mr. Gladstone's place was no sooner vacant than it was filled."

The conclusion of the whole matter, according to "Colonial," is :

"In truth what is really wanted is, not a 'brilliant' Colonial Secretary, but a Society for the Protection of Colonials from Little Englanders."

MR.

THE IRISH QUESTION.

R. J. MCGRATH, writing in the Fortnightly Review for October upon "Ireland's Difficulty, England's Opportunity," appeals earnestly to Lord Salisbury to seize the present opportunity of settling the Irish Question. He says:

"The new and epoch-making elements in the situation, curiously enough, take the form of bluebooks. One is the report of Mr. Horace Plunkett's Recess Committee, the other the report of the Royal Commission on the Financial Relations of Ireland and Great Britain. Mr. Horace Plunkett succeeded in getting together a body of Irishmen of all parties and creeds with the object of endeavoring to discover some means by which the material condition of Ireland could be improved. The investigation had a curious result -the signing, namely, of a document which declared that the poverty and failure of Ireland were directly due to English-made laws, by men who, under ordinary circumstances, would rather have allowed their right hands to be cut off. The Financial Relations report came out about the same time. It declared that Ireland was overtaxed to the extent of between two and three millions a year. What was the result? Men, even Irishmen, could not believe their eyes when they read the statement in cold print. Irish Unionists saw at once how completely it took the ground from every argument they had been advancing during ten years; and they almost feared to refer to the sub ject. In England a journalistic conspiracy, headed by the Times, was at once entered into to pooh-pooh the finding, and to bluff public opinion. It is clear, however, that the conspiracy must fail. It has already failed in Ireland, largely through the magnificent stand taken on the question by one of the Tory journals of the Irish capital. Between two and three millions a year! Over a matter of less than £100,000, absolutely, Swift lashed Ireland into a frenzy of passion against England. Imagine the political possibilities of this colossal grievance. There has been much talk of Irish unity. What if the finding of the Financial Relations Commission land England into a position in which she will be face to face, not only with a united Nationalist party, but with a united Irish nation, Unionist and Home Ruler, Protestant and Catholic, North and South, demanding reparation for this great wrong!"

GOSSIP ABOUT THE QUEEN.

N the Woman at Home the ubiquitous Mrs. Sarah Majesty. In it we are told that her favorite flower is the rose, and that she has a bed of pinks at Osborne near which she often takes tea, and similar things. There are one or two items that may be quoted:

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The Queen gave her countenance to ladies riding the tricycle at a very early stage of the introduction of that machine. It was while taking her favorite drive along the Newport Road in the Isle of Wight that she for the first time saw a lady riding a tricycle, and she was so much pleased that she ordered two machines to be sent to Osborne for some of her ladies to learn to ride upon. When the more expeditious bicycle came into use, Her Majesty looked askance for a time at ladies riding it; but now she takes the greatest delight in watching the merry cycling parties of princesses which start daily from Balmoral in the autumn, and she has enjoyed many of her hearty laughs at those who were in the learner's stage, and had not mastered the mystery of maintaining the balance. That latest innovation in the way of vehicles-the motor car-is regarded by the Queen with special interest."

A more serious theme is touched upon by Mrs. Sarah Tooley when she says:

"It had always been the practice to forbid the attendance at drawing-rooms of ladies divorced, even though it was for no fault of their own, but the Queen, with her admirable sense of justice, came to the conclusion that this was scarcely fair, and decided that a lady of blameless life ought not to be excluded from court by reason of her husband's misdeeds. The matter was brought before the Cabinet some years ago, but allowed to drop without its being decided. The question was re-. vived in 1889, and it was arranged that ladies debarred by divorce may make special application for admission to court to the Queen herself, who decides on the merit of each case after having had the report of the trial laid before her. There is, I believe, a record of one lady who had obtained divorces from two husbands in succession gaining the Queen's permission to be presented on her third marriage."

ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS, in a new

chapter of her autobiography in the November McClure's, speaks of the ethical purposes which have characterized almost all of her stories and the creed from which they sprung. It is a distinctly serious chapter in which the novelist cites and at tempts to controvert Mr. Howell's objection to the art of the New Englanders on the score that their intense ethicism prevails too strongly over their esthetical sense. Mrs. Phelps-Ward gives her creed as follows:

"The creed is short, though it has taken a long time to formulate it.

"I believe in the life everlasting, which is sure to be; and that it is the first duty of Christian faith to present that life in a form more attractive to the majority of men than the life that now is.

"I believe in women, and in their right to their own best possibilities in every department of life. "I believe that the methods of dress practiced among women are a marked hindrance to the realization of these possibilities, and that they should be scorned or persuaded out of society.

"I believe that the miseries consequent on the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors are so great as to command imperiously the attention of all dedicated lives; and that, while the abolition of American slavery was numerically first, the abolition of the liquor traffic is not morally second.

"I believe that the urgent protest against vivisection which marks our immediate day, and the whole plea for lessening the miseries of animals as endured at the hands of men, constitute the 'next' great moral question which is to be put to the intelligent conscience, and that only the educated conscience can properly reply to it.

"I believe that the condition of our common and statute laws is behind our age to an extent unperceived by all but a few of our social reformers; that wrongs mediæval in character, and practically resulting in great abuses and much unrecorded suffer

ing, are still to be found at the doors of our legal system; and that they will remain there till the fated fanatic of this undeveloped 'cause' arises to demolish them.

"I am uncertain whether I ought to add that I believe in the homoeopathic system of therapeutics. I am often told by skeptical friends that I hold this belief on a par with the Christian religion, and I am not altogether inclined to deny the sardonic im peachment! When our bodies cease to be drugged into disease and sin, it is my personal impression that our souls will begin to stand a fair chance; perhaps not much before."

BOOKS THAT INFLUENCED ME.
Dean Farrar.

N the Temple Magazine Mrs. Tooley tells the life story of Dean Farrar in an illustrated article which is a kind of cross between our character sketch and the illustrated interviews of the Strand. In the course of her article she describes the books which exercised the greatest influence upon the mind of the Dean when he was a boy :

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'When quite a child he received a present of a small volume of Milton's poems, and this became his constant companion. He read and reread Paradise Lost,' until he could repeat many passages if the first line was given to him. Milton and Coleridge, he says, have exercised a deeper influence over his life than any other authors; and that little, worn copy of Milton, which first opened the treasure house of poetic thought and imagery to his mind, is still to be seen on the Dean's study table."

After he went to school" he became familiar with the poems of Goldsmith, Byron, Scott, Shelley, Moore and Wordsworth, as it was the custom in the school to learn poetry for recitation. He had a particularly retentive memory, and could repeat long poems like "The Deserted Village' and The Traveller' from beginning to end. In after years when the poems of Tennyson were first published, he was able to repeat "In Memoriam' and The Princess,' as well as the shorter poems, merely from reading and rereading, without any idea of memorizing them. But to a boy athirst for reading the supply of books was very inadequate, and the Dean frankly confesses that he resorted to his very improving' prize books, because he could not get his fill of anything more en tertaining. This accounts for the fact that before he was sixteen he had read such books as Hooker's 'Ecclesiastical Polity,' Prideaux's Connection Between the Old and New Testaments,' and Coleridge's 'Aids to Reflection.'

But although Dean Farrar read anything in the shape of a printed book, he was ever true to his first love, the poets. Mrs. Tooley says:

Among his most valued possessions is a collection of autograph letters received from the great poets of the time, many accompanied by original verse.