We have hardly yet grasped the importance of the Trans-Siberian Railway in the development of the Pacific. Take China alone. In the mind of the average Briton, Pekin is dimly pictured as probably the remotest city on the globe. At present, by the fastest methods of conveyance, it takes five weeks to go from London to the capital of China. But, as Mr. Moreing pointed out in the September number of this Review, by the railway one will be able to go from London to Pekin in seventeen days and to Shanghai in twenty days. The one will be brought as near to us as Bombay, the other as near as Calcutta. To expedite transit is to multiply trade, to create new trade, and to stimulate social evolution.

It has been said that history is but the register of the follies and crimes of mankind. If this is true of any part of the globe, it is true of the Pacific, from the American slopes where the Spaniards plundered and blundered only to be plundered in turn by blundering hybrids, to the China Seas, where for centuries the barrier reef of barbarism has broken the European wave into dangerous surf. And this vast Pacific basin, which is to be the future battleground of nations and the great area of racial development, is bordered in China as in Peru with the relics of some of the oldest civilizations in the world. The Incas have come and gone, the Aztecs are but a name, the Spanish conquerors of both have left but a thin veneer on an Indian framework, and new nations are working out their salvation or otherwise-in South America. But in China, we thought, the old order changeth not, and giveth place to new only in name and for a time. In her national senility China seems to have lost the natural forces that make for regeneration. Her conversion will have to come from without, and the oldest empire in the world can only be saved by being destroyed. She has four hundred millions of people who know nothing of that mysterious thing called "prestige" which we are every now and again told we are losing; who care nothing for treaties; who are unable to distinguish one European from another; who are amenable only to a government by force; who are

naturally and nationally adepts in industrial and commercial pursuits; and who only need the "open door" (so men say) to entice them forth from their long sleep. Yet it is two hundred years since the wicket-gate of British trade was opened on the Canton River. Two hundred years! and we are still striving to open the door! This long delay cannot be correctly ascribed entirely to Chinese exclusiveness. Our own intercourse with China has been filled with sins of omission and commission, by John Company's "Tyepans," by zealous and indiscreet missionaries, by rapacious and unscrupulous traders, by non-compromising and tactless political agents.

We have never understood China, and are amazed that the Chinese as yet do not understand us. We have too often shown the iron hand when we should have offered the velvet glove, and too often put on the glove when we should have presented the mailed fist. But at least if we have sinned we lay the flattering unction to our souls that we have not sinned as these others

Russia and France-who have carried out a policy of spoliation at the point of the sword. How many political blunders we have made between the days of Lord Macartney and those of Sir Harry Parkes--and since-it would be a weary task to recall. But, at any rate, we have so far kept the larger commercial hold, and the Chinese are essentially a people whose development will be effected by and through commerce. As a political force China is a cipher; as a commercial entity her potentiality is illimitable. But in China we are between the devil and the deep sea; the relentless policy of Russia, which, generation after generation, ohne Hast, ohne Rast, pursues its way to its goal, and the instability of the Manchu, with neither the ability to frame a policy nor the strength to carve one out. The part which China has to play in the development of the Pacific is, in the meantime, conditioned on the one side by the restless ambition of Russia, and on the other by the ambitious restlessness of France. But one day she will cease to be an instrument, and will become an active agent.

Probably no one is more familiar

with the commercial aspects of the Yangtse Valley than Mr. Archibald Little, and this is what he says about Szechuan :

"The surface of this vast region lying mainly between the 28th and 32d degrees of latitude is covered with every sub-trop

ical product which the most painstaking and capable agriculturists on the globe can elicit from the soil in a succession of crops, two or three in rotation, during the year, forced on by the stimulating manure obtained from the thickly crowded towns and villages of the basin. Thus we have opium and wheat sown in November and gathered in April; rice sown in April and harvested in August; maize and the tall millet sown in May and gathered in September. The sugar-cane, an excellent tobacco, indigo, with the sweet potato and the taro, also cotton, may be added to the list, which is still not half exhausted. All but the very lowest stratum of its thick population are elad in silk grown and woven in the province, which also yields a considerable surplus for export to the coast and to France. The celebrated insect-wax is a product of Coal and Szechuan and of Szechuan alone. iron abound everywhere, the former mineral forming the sole fuel of the natives. Petroleum accompanied by natural gas, which is led through the town in bamboo pipes, cooks the daily rice of the inhabitants of Tze-liu-Ching, a town and district renowned throughout China for its productive brine wells, which have supplied the province with salt for two thousand years past, besides supplying many of the neighboring provinces. Thus Szechuan is self-sufficient, and we have here a province 220,000 square miles in extent, inhabited by some forty or fifty millions of industrious, intelligent, and mostly prosperous people.'

And to this promising emporium of trade the Yangtse Kiang is the only serviceable highway. Besides Szechuan the Yangtse traverses, or serves, the large and populous provinces of Hupeh, Hunan, Kiangsi, Ngan-hui, and Kiangsu. It is, roughly speaking, the main highway of an area of 600,000 square miles, inhabited by the most naturally industrious and commercial people in the Eastern hemisphere, if not in the whole world. And the Yangtse flows into the great Pacific basin at Shanghai-" the coming New York of the Far East "-whose foreign trade even at present exceeds £15,000,000 sterling per annum. The entire trade of the towns in the Yangtse Valley, in so far as reported to the Imperial Maritime Customs, exceeds £30,000,000 sterling per annum, but a very large trade is, in addition, carried on

by the native junks, which do not re port to the Maritime Customs. The population of the region is at least 180,000,000, and with such a population, with such natural resources, and with such a magnificent waterway to the outer world, it does not seem extravagant of Mr. Little to predict that the annual value of the trade of the Yangtse Valley will be soon not 30 but 300 millions sterling. And yet this is only a portion of China-one corner of the great Pacific area.

With what is called the new birth of Japan a new era opened in the Pacific -a new factor appeared in the worldproblem. If the revolution which began some thirty years ago were solely the result of contact with European civilization that is to say, of purely external influences-we might have doubts about the constitutional strength of this new Power in the East. But it was not so. However large a part foreign contact may have played in the regeneration of Japan, by stimulating the art of a naturally mimetic people, the causes of the change lay deeper. Mr. Tokiwo Jokoi warns us that the political or historical canons formulated for Europe are not to be applied to politics or history in Asia. And he states the case thus :*

"Japan being an Asiatic country, any random reason seems to suffice in the minds of most observers to explain one of the most momentous events in her history. The Japanese are gifted, it is said, with a supreme imitative genius, and their recent civilizing activity is a great achievement of this genius. That so much has already been accomplished by this Oriental people is worthy of all commendation: nevertheless, these critics go on to say that the new civilization in Japan remains an imitated article, and, with all its splendid exterior, is but skin deep. The adjectives 'Asiatic' and 'Oriental' have, in fact, peculiar associated notions which largely shut out peoples under their category from fellowship with the peoples of the west. Now, no mistake could be greater than such a wholesale characterization. The Japanese are, for instance, an insular people, and as such have characteristics quite distinct from those of other peoples in Asia. But the chief thing which separates Japan from China or India is the fact that the civilization of Japan is young, being no older than that of England or France."

* The Contemporary Review, September, 1898.

In other words, then, Japan is not oppressed with any burden of pre-historic splendor. She is not a new-born nation of the East in the sense that China will be, when she has that "awakening" which the Marquis Tseng announced years ago as about to begin. She is, in fact, a modern nation of the East, to be ranked rather among the modern nations of the West than among the ancient relics of the Orient. The great industrial movement, we are to understand, had its impetus in a political ideal created by the uprising of democracy. Now, this is a view of Japan that is much more wholesome and satisfying than the view that is commonly entertained in the West. The growth of Japan is natural, and therefore healthy, and the chief danger as regards the future is not that Japan will break down as a constitutional Power, with a right to a controlling voice in the Pacific, but that her industrial expansion may proceed at a greater pace than her political development. In that case she will be weak, because her risks will be greater than her influence. But Mr. Tokiwo Jokoi has no fear of this. He is confident that before another generation has passed away Japan will be as firmly and naturally settled under constitutional government as either France or Germany is to-day.

In considering the future of the Pacific, the subject of cable communication cannot be ignored. At present we are linked telegraphically with our Eastern Empire by four lines of wire (1) via Lisbon, Egypt, and the Red Sea, (2) via France, Italy, Egypt, and the Red Sea, (3) via Germany, Turkey, Russia, and the Pacific Coast, (4) via Lisbon, West Africa, the Cape, and the Indian Ocean. The recommendation of the Selborne Conference of 1896 in favor of an all-British cable to the Pacific has not been acted on, mainly perhaps owing to one reason that has never been mentioned in public discussions of the matter, which is that the overland telegraphs in Canada, which must form the connecting links between the two ocean cables, are "controlled" by a powerful United States telegraph combination. So long as that control exists, a telegraphic con

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nection between West and East via North America would be all-Britisn** only in name. If cables are no longer to be regarded as immune from attack in times of war, we might have very serious complications in American rights over Canadian land lines. Are they in present circumstances any more dependable for Imperial purposes than is the Russo-Siberian line of communication, on which Lord Wolseley has said that it is "suicidal" for us to depend? It may, however, be argued that the very fact of this American impact upon the all-British line of Imperial inter-communication emphasizes the necessity for an Anglo-American bond of what Mr. Chamberlain calls "permanent amity." The four existing lines of telegraph with the East all pass through the dominions of several foreign governments. The enmity of one of these governments would sever two or more of these lines. The cables in the Red Sea would be at the mercy of any belligerent. In fact, in the event of a war with a European maritime Power we would be absolutely dependent on the very precarious link round the Cape, round the Cape, which might be broken at many different points. Russia makes no secret of the fact that in the event of a war with us her first task would be to cut off all our wire communications with India and Australia; and it is known that she has had ready cable-cutting ships to despatch on short notice. There seems little room to doubt that a cable laid in the great depths of the open Pacific would be much less open to attack than any existing, or perhaps any possible, alternative line. But a little reflection will show that, desirable as is this allBritish bond of wire by way of North America and the Pacific, its value will depend on the preservation of "permanent amity" with the United States. We cannot yet count on that, and therefore we cannot afford to reject the plan for a complete system of entirely British cables connecting all our naval stations with London, India, and Australia.

It is a curious thought that in seeking to reach the Orient by a canal across Nicaragua, and by a cable across the Pacific, we are just carrying out

the design of the old Spaniards to reach the East by the West. We have successfully followed the Portuguese Vasco da Gama, round the Cape of Good Hope, to Mombasa and India. And now we are following upon the westward track of Columbus when he went in search of Zipandu ; and of Alvaro de Mendaña when, setting sail from Callao, he plunged into the wide Pacific in search of the Islands of Solomon. In noting this movement, moreover, let us not overlook the curious fact that the entire set of migration of

the Latin races of Europe (for French Tongking and Italian Erythrea are not true colonies) is westward to the great. South American continent which flanks the Pacific. The future of South America is a vast and deeply interesting problem, but while it is, as we have seen, only one of a series of problems associated with the opening of the Far East, it is one which emphasizes and accentuates the necessity for the maintenance of a British hold on the western outlet of the Pacific.The Nineteenth Century.

That

LITERARY reputations have often been rapidly won. To wake one morning and find himself famous has been the lot of many a writer besides the poet, the England of whose time-the England, that is to say, of the Peninsula and Waterloo-the England of Wellington, Scott, and Castlereagh-is pronounced by Mr. Stephen Phillips to have been "for the most part petty and hypocritical !" (See the Cornhill Magazine for January, 1898, p. 21.) Our fathers were almost as much on the alert as ourselves for the appearance of a new genius; but never have men of letters succeeded in reaching the substantial honor of a "collected edition" so early in life as at the present day. That distinction used to be jealously reserved for veterans. Now it is liberally bestowed upon authors who (one hopes) have at least as many years of at least as good work before as behind them. We do not grumble at the innovation. The old style of "édition de luxe,' whose inconveniences were so feelingly portrayed by the late Mr. Du Maurier, has fortunately gone out of fashion; and the new style is sure to be convenient for reading as well as ornamental to the bookshelf. The resources of typography are freely drawn upon for its production, and the result is something eminently pleasant to the eye, whether the contents of the volumes are to be desired to make one wise or the reverse. From our lips, therefore, no word of disparagement shall fall

NEW SERIES.-VOL. LXVIII., No. 5.

Mr.

with reference to the edition of Mr. Kipling's works, the publication of which has just been completed.* The printing is all that could be desired, though no more than was to be expected from the celebrated house. founded by the late Mr. Robert Clark, that "warrior" and hero of a hundred well fought golf-matches. Kipling, too, has done well in refraining from introductory prefaces-a sort of writing which calls for a touch of the Magician's own wand. But were the edition as mean and unworthy in externals as it is handsome and sumptuous, we should none the less welcome it as supplying a convenient pretext for attempting to weigh in the critical balance the productions of the most remarkable writer of his generation.

It is not much more than ten years since the attention of the English public was first attracted to an unknown author (with a name suspiciously like a nom de guerre) by the appearance of some spirited prose sketches and of one or two ballads, possessing the gen uine ring of poetry, in the pages of a contemporary. The attention so drawn was riveted by certain poems from the same pen in which a new and original note was undoubtedly struck, and

*"The Writings in Prose and Verse of Rudyard Kipling." 12 volumes. London: Macmillan & Co., Limited, 1897-98. "Departmental Ditties and other Verses." By Rudyard Kipling. London: W. Thacker & Co., 1898.

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which Mr. Henley was the means of introducing to the world in a vivacious. weekly periodical. Thenceforward, Mr. Kipling's literary career is matter of common knowledge. It has been his portion to gain the ear of the great non-literary reading public, and at the same time to win the enthusiastic applause of that limited body of men whose pleasure in a work of art is derived from a perception of the means as well as of the end. Such good fortune falls to few. There are writers whose work is keenly appreciated by their literary brethren, but who make little or no impression upon "the great heart of the people." Of such, Mr. Stevenson was a typical representative. There are others, again, who sell their tens of thousands, yet whose glaring faults of taste effectually repel the sympathies of the educated minority, the cachet of whose approbation, while they profess to despise, they secretly long for. But the critic to whose palate the works of Miss Corelli or Mr. Caine are as ungrateful as a meal of dust and ashes, is well aware that from the point of view of literature neither the lady nor the gentleman exists. Their performances will have as much significance for the competent critic of the future as the "Dagonet Ballads" or Captain Coe's finals. So, too, the reviewer to whose hardened sensibilities the pathos and the humor of the Kailyard alike appeal in vain, has more than a suspicion that Messrs. Crockett and Maclaren will not enter into the reckoning of our sons' sons. But he knows that Mr. Barrie is certain to count. And even so it is with Mr. Kipling. You may lay your finger on faults real or imaginary; you may find his verse flashy and his prose irritating. But you cannot (being in full possession of your senses) pass him by; you cannot maintain that, in estimating the literary forces and tendencies of our age, it is possible to leave him out of account. As well ignore Dickens in a review of Victorian literature; as well ignore Keene in a review of Victorian art.

Perhaps the most striking feature of Mr. Kipling's works is the wide range over which it expatiates. Subjects the most diverse are handled with the same

air of ease and intimacy; and no other writer is so well entitled to repeat with proper pride the most familiar and the most hackneyed of Terentian sentiments, "For to admire and for to see, For to behold this world so wide"that is his métier; and we may proceed with the quotation and add that "he can't drop it if he tried." How or where Mr. Kipling acquired his "extensive and peculiar'' knowledge of the physical world, of the human heart, and of animated nature, is no business of ours. As he himself sings

"When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre
'Ed 'eard men sing by land an' sea;
An' what 'e thought 'e might require

'E went an' took-the same as me!

No doubt in "The Three Musketeers" he allows the world a glimpse of one of his methods of collecting raw material. But there are matters innumerable in his writings for which there is no accounting unless we are prepared to concede to him a full measure of that faculty of divination which is heaven's best gift to a chosen few.

It is a commonplace that Shakespeare was accustomed to handle with astounding felicity and correctness the technical phraseology of the law, of the manège, of venery, and of many other departments of human activity. It being, of course, impossible that a Warwickshire yokel, whom we know to have been but imperfectly educated, could have acquired so minute a knowledge of so many complicated subjects, a sapient school of critics has not hesitated to assure us that the author of the Shakespearean plays was not one but many-was a lawyer, a Jehu, a Nimrod, a Papist, a Protestant, a Jesuit, a Puritan-was anything you please, in short, but a man with an unrivalled flair for the niceties of language, and an unequalled share of IMAGINATIONthat quality of all others most abhorrent to the dunce. Let us adopt this singular fallacy for a moment, and see to what conclusion it leads us in Mr. Kipling's case.

It is plain, to begin with, that Mr. Kipling must have studied long and ardently at all the best schools and universities in the world. How else could he have acquired his thorough