Pirrie, an Irish Scot born in Canada, who owns the largest shipyard in Great Britain, and I had to add. that whenever he should see fit-may the day be long distant the control of Harland and Wolff would pass to the firm of J. Brown and Co. But who are J. Brown and Co. ? Under the cover of this English name we find the Scot lurking and the Welshman in ambush. For the chairman of J. Brown and Co., the head of the vastest industrial organisation of our time, is Lord Aberconway, better known as Sir Charles Maclaren, a Scotchman by name and by origin, who, with a Welsh fortune and a Welsh title, dominates the armour-plate industry of Sheffield, the Clydebank shipbuilding yards of Scotland, and who will in due course of time straddle the Irish Sea and control Harland and Wolff.

But why labour this point? Enough has surely been said to justify this lament over the dethroned sovereign John Bull. But one thing must be added. Those who have spent many hours pacing the outer Lobby of the House of Commons must oft have noticed, and perhaps sometimes have wondered at, the fact that no one can enter the House of Commons without passing under the window on which is emblazoned the arms and the picture of St. David, the patron saint of Wales. St. George guards the portals of the House of Lords.. The House of Commons can only be approached through the gateway guarded by St. David. Wherein there lies a parable. The most puissant Minister of the Crown and the supreme Lord of the Exchequer of the Empire is none other than the Welshman, David by name, better known as Lloyd George, who has been raised up in these latter days to wreak vengeance on the enemies of the Cymri and establish the rule of the Celt over the Saxon. The envious, blackhearted Saxon,*foreseeing the triumph of David, sought to slay him. in the streets of Birmingham, as Saul sought in old times to slay another David. But Lloyd George escaped out of the hands of his persecutor wearing the disguise of a policeman. Nowadays, casting off the constable's uniform, he reigns supreme over the national Treasury.

When we turn to the Colonies we find Scotchmen everywhere to the front. Last month Sir J. Ward, in New Zealand, had to give way to a Scotch Premier in the person of the Hon. Thomas Mackenzie. The Prime Minister of Australia is a Scotchman, Mr. Fisher, and the strongest State Premier in the Commonweath is Mr. McGowan. In South Africa the Prime Minister is a Dutchman. Canada only the other day had as Premier a Frenchman. All round the world the Englishman humbly takes a back seat.

over

And yet, as our spirited contemporary-the English Race-reminds us-" (a) England contributes 90 per cent. of the Imperial Revenue; (b) 80 per cent. of the personnel of the British Army are Englishmen. (four soldiers out of every five!); (c) above 90 per cent. of the personnel of the Royal Navy, the best in the world, are English!"

All that avails us nothing. We pay; others spend.

For John Bull is dethroned in the Empire which he created, and the Scotchman, the Welshman, and the Irishman occupy his vacant throne.

The Session is monopolised by the junior partners. Scotland and Wales have paralysed all legislation by the coal strike, which has cost the English working classes fifteen millions in wages alone. The rest of the Session is to be divided between the Disestablishment of the Welsh Church and the Bill establishing Home Rule in Ireland. Ever since 1868 Ireland has demanded and obtained the lion's share of the attention of Parliament. It does not matter whether Whigs or Tories fill the Ministry, the Irish piper sets the tune to which they dance. Mr. Redmond, with his seventythree obedient followers, holds the life of the Ministry in the hollow of his hand. Whenever a crisis arises the English Ministers must "toe the line" or surrender office. Money by the hundred millions is poured out on the conversion of Irish tenants into Irish freeholders. Labourers' cottages, light railways, a beneficent Providence in the shape of a Congested District Board, a new university, anything and everything that Ireland asks for Ireland gets, while John Bull humbly stands hat in hand in the corridor waiting his turn. When Old Age Pensions are distributed the Irish, who need them least, receive the most. Wherever we turn it is the same old story-" The Irish first; you can wait."

Some day, perhaps, the worm will turn. But then it may be too late.

Now that we have realised our subjugation, we find on every hand symbols of our conquest by the Celt.

The commonest objects which meet our eye when we take our walk along the riverside blazon forth the story of the triumph of the exultant conqueror. The Monument, which like " some tall bully lifts its head and lies," with its lying legend of the Fire of London, is comparatively unnoticed. On the other side of the Thames far loftier towers rise skyward, to attest the victories and enforce the dominance of the Irish and the Scotch. On one side of Waterloo Bridge one lofty pile proclaims to the subject race that if they want the cup that cheers but never inebriates they must purchase the teas of an Irishman. But it is on the other side of the Bridge that the supreme Scot dazzles the eye from eventide till midnight by the most glaring and insolent assertion of the ascendency of the North Briton. Disdaining the commonplace resource of mere letters, the Scot assails and affronts the eye of every passer-by, the literate or illiterate, by an illuminated living picture of the triumphant hero, the embodiment of the national genius clad in all the romantic dignity of kilts, engaged the livelong night in filling his glass with Scotch whisky, and pouring it down his insatiable gullet. "Behold," it seems to say, "the cause of the downfall of John Bull !-the secret of Scottish domination. Where is there an Englishman among all your millions who can keep on drinking so much pure spirit and preserve a level head? But how easy it is to a Scotchman!" So let us bow down and worship the superior race.

III.--OLD KING COAL.

up the nation, and the nation has already decreed his deposition. The day of his monopoly is drawing to its close. His sun is setting. Never again will he possess the giant's strength which he has used after the tyrannous fashion of a giant. Already Oil is on the steps of the throne, and if King Coal is to save any remnant of his sovereignty it will be by entering into an alliance with his successful rival.

At present King Coal is the power-producer of the world. Electricity is only a method of distributing force. It is itself a manufactured article. But it renders possible the rise of a potent rival. Niagara harnessed drives the tramcars of a whole countryside, works the machinery of a thousand actories, and lights the streets of cities hundreds of miles from the Falls. Niagara is but the most

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into motive force. Sun-driven engines could not be worked in these islands, but there are a couple of hundred miles on either side of the Equator all round the world where, when the sun-engine is perfected, it will be as absurd to carry coals as it is now to carry coals to Newcastle.

Over two of his earliest rivals King Coal has scored decisive victories. Neither wood nor wind can challenge his ascendency. Wood is still used to generate steam in Russia, but the devouring maw of the furnace cannot be satisfied even with the spoils of the forest. Wind is too capricious. Holland still has its windmills, but until some better and more economical method of

outstanding application of the power of a combination of water and electricity to depose King Coal. All over the world "the costless drainage of the wilderness," the melting ice of the glacier, the rainfall on the mountain side is being utilised to do the work which King Coal in former times monopolised. We have not as yet learned how to yoke the tide to our chariot. But a day will come when the vast illimitable energy of rising and falling tides will be employed to generate power for the use of man. Coal is but bottled heat of the sun, as we are constantly reminded, but in the tropical belt man is using sunshine raw, so to speak, converting the sunrays direct

Shard Yartridge..

storing electricity can be discovered, by which the force of the hurricane and the tornado can be bottled up for future use in the driving of machinery and the smelting of metals, the wind is too fitful and capricious a servant to be relied upon in the service

of man.

The most formidable rival of King Coal is Oil, and if all that we hear be true, it is only by consenting to be converted into Oil that King Coal can preserve any vestige of his sway.

Oil is as yet but in its infancy. The combined coal production of the coal-mines of Great Britain and the United States is over 700 million tons per annum. The amount of oil produced annually is under fifty million tons. But a ton of oil burnt as fuel is said to have 80 per cent. more efficiency than a ton of coal, so that even when used as fuel the fifty million tons of oil of coal. If we reckon the saving in stoking this figure may be reckoned as an equivalent to ninety million tons should be largely increased. Although the British Navy already consumes 200,000 tons of oil as fuel every year, this is the most wasteful method of converting oil into energy. When oil is used to drive explosive motor-engines the value of a ton of oil is nearly five times as great as a ton of coal, and its use enables the user to economise so enormously in labour and in engine space as to convince most shrewd observers that the reign of King Coal is at an end.

At the opening of the Smoke Abatement Exhibition Sir W. Ramsay suggested that in future coal would

be converted into gas at the bottom of the pit. Shafts would be sunk to feed the fire which would convert the coal into gas in situ. It is difficult to conceive the burning of coal in the seam. It must still, I suppose, be worked by hewers and fed to the gasworks at the bottom of the pit. By this means the cost of lifting and handling coal would be minimised. It is doubtful whether the transfer of the gasworks from the pit's mouth to the bottom of the pit would be justified from an economical point of view. But that coal will be converted into gas at the pit's mouth there is little reason to doubt. This will revolutionise the railways, which at present have to haul 250 million tons of coal per annum. They would still handle the coals exported, but there would no longer be any demand for coal wagons for home consumption. The substitution of gas for coal would be an immense saving. Seventy-six thousand tons of soot are said to be thrown every year into the atmosphere of London. A million and a half gas stoves are now in use, and their number is likely to increase. London in time may be as smokeless as Paris used to be when Mr. Gladstone, surveying the Ville Lumière from the heights, lamented there was so little smoke. Gas can be made from oil as well as from coal. At present King Coal reigns supreme in the gasworks. But his reign is threatened. In Newcastle, of all places in the world, they are preparing to substitute oil for coal as the source of their gas supply.

The most formidable engine for the destruction of King Coal's sovereignty is the Diesel engine. I referred to the arrival of the Selandia last month as the little cloud no larger than a man's hand which threatened with destruction the sovereignty of coal.

[Elliott and Hry. Mr. D. A. Thomas.

Chairman of the Cambrian Combine of Coalowners.

Dr. Diesel wrote to me, pointing out that I took too alarmist a view of the case. Her engine can be worked efficiently with any kind of oil, and he predicts that its general adoption will enable us to extract twice as much power out of coal as we are able to evoke at present. "I double the power product of the world," says Dr. Diesel. This means that, instead of raising 267 million tons of coal per annum, we could generate all the power we need by raising 140 million tons. In that case 50 per cent. of the million miners who have been holding up the country will find their occupation gone.

The Diesel engine, which promises to prolong the life of our coalfields from 175 to 350 years, was first built in 1898. It has since then been improved and. developed. Thousands of Diesel engines are now at work all over the world. It is a motor engine which is self-igniting. It can be worked with any kind of oil except petrol. When all our coal is done, we can work it with earth-nut oil, castor oil, blubber, or any other kind of oil. But Dr. Diesel thinks it will for some time to come depend chiefly upon tar oils, or oils extracted from coal tar. He told the London Institute of Mechanical Engineers last month that tar and tar oils are from three to five times better utilised in the Diesel engine than coal in the steam engine. What will happen in the future, possibly in the near future, is that in place of the colliery village inhabited by the miners, a small industrial town will spring up round every pit mouth. The coal, instead of being put into trucks and carried all over the country, will be at once converted into coke, gas, and coal tar. Chemical works will spring up at the pit's mouth for extracting the aniline dyes and other by-products