498 



The Reviews Reviewed. 



THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. 



The October number is a reminder of tiie diblance 

 that the mild Conservatism of to-day has travelled 

 from the rigid Toryism for which the Review was 

 once famous. The paper on the recent strikes, for 

 example, expresses much sympathy with the men, and 

 even finds there is some excuse for the uneducated 

 men who act as pickets. All must desire that wages, 

 which are in many cases too low, should rise. The 

 writer does not approve of nationalisation of railways, 

 but hopes much from the recent rapid advance of 

 profit-sharing. He has no drastic measures to suggest 

 — only the formation of an efificient volunteer service 

 which would destroy the possibility of the success of 

 a general strike. 



THE TWO CHIEF FORCES IN .^USTR.XI.IA. 



A writer on ten years of the Australian Common- 

 wealth devotes his attention chiefly to the two forces, 

 Mr. Deakin and the Labour Party, which have had 

 most to do with the moulding of Australia during its 

 first ten years as a nation. He predicts that Labour 

 is the force which will have most to do with the 

 moulding of the nation during the next ten years. 

 The writer warmly eulogises Mr. Deakin, and declares 

 that the Australian people have grown into a sober 

 and determined manhood mainly through the wisdom 

 and forethought of Alfred Deakin's administration, 

 and have accepted in all essentials the national policy 

 he framed, though rejecting finally, to all appear- 

 ances, the self-sacrificing framer. The policy of the 

 Labour Party is, the writer maintains, the choice of 

 the nation as a whole. He even speaks with favour 

 of the caucus rule of the Labour Party. 



ENGLISH CHURCH LAW ON DIVOUCE. 



That the Divorce Commission of 1853 was wrong 

 in holding that marriage was not considered indis- 

 soluble is the contention of a writer who concludes 

 thus uncompromisingly : — 



The Canons of 1604, while ihey lay clown no new lau- wiili 

 regard to divorce, afford important evidence that Ihe olil lau-. 

 as it stood before and immediately after tlie Reformation, was 

 still maintained in its integrity. In other words, marriage w.as 

 still treated .as indissoluble, and divorce a vinculo of a valid 

 marriage was unknown. As Church Law stood before the 

 Reformation, so it stood notwithstanding the " Reformatio 

 Lcgum," so it stood under the Canons of 1604, so it stood after 

 the Divorce .^ct of 1857, and so il stands to-day. 



THE NATIONAL INSURANCE BII.I,. 



Mr. .v. W. West thinks it impossible for the Hill to 

 be thrust through before ("hristmas satisfactorily. He 

 thinks the C.overnment should, if they wi.sh to make 

 a good workable scheme and to please all who take 

 a real interest in it, withdraw the Bill after the 

 Coinmittee stage and recast it with fresh actuarial 

 calculations based on the new census. He adds, 

 '' the unanimous apprehension of hospital managers 

 that the vohintary system, as we have known it in the 



past, is doomed if the State Insurance Bill becomes 

 law, is, in my opinion, founded on solid grounds." ^ 



OTHER ARTICLES. 



Mr. Morton Fullerton indulges in a warm eulogy 

 of " Gil Bias," which he describes as an encyclopaedia 

 of human types, including virtually every form of 

 human character, as one of the most perfect examples 

 of narrative prose in the world, a book of world-wide 

 popularity and an inexhaustible source of energy. 

 Its author is as a moralist in the sanest Latin and 

 French tradition. Mr. Percy Lubbock pronounces a 

 panegyric on the poetry of ^Villiam Morris, the man 

 who believed that life may be turned to immeasurable 

 beauty by every hand that works and every heart that 

 feels, though Mr. Lubbock feels that the form of 

 prose romance which Morris invented for himself lost 

 some strengthening influence with the abandonment 

 of verse, for " the cup of their aniorosity is too 

 lavishly, too perpetually rimmed." A study of the 

 history of submarines is given. M. Salomon Reinach 

 contrives to give in some nineteen pages a delightful 

 summary of the history of mythological study in its 

 genesis, and of the character of the chief schools- 

 Other articles have been separately mentioned. 



THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. 



There is singularly little in the Edhihurgh Rn'iew 

 of eminent interest. One of the most attractive 

 papers on famous autobiographies has been elsewhere 

 noticed. 



The Government is adversely criticised for con- 

 tenting itself with a Parliament Act instead of 

 advancing a proper scheme for the reform of the 

 House of Lords. The reviewer declares that the 

 salary paid to M.P.'s will almost certainly find its 

 way into the hands of the central or local caucus. 

 He demands a redistribution of seats, along with the 

 abolition of the plural vote. He believes that the 

 Parnellite-Gladstonian Home Rule cannot be revived, 

 and asks. What does the Government mean by Home 

 Rule ? 



The crisis in the history of the Republican party is 

 discussed in another article. When President Taft 

 signed the I'ayne-.Mdrich Bill on August 5th, 1909, 

 he thereby signed away the majority in both House 

 and Senate wliich was behind him. Not hdf a dozer 

 American industries would have been jeopardised hac 

 the duties been reduced all through the schedules to 

 20 per cent. The writer regrets the defeat of reci- 

 procity in Canada. 



The Camorra in modern Italy is fully sketched 

 and discussed by a writer who thinks that with the 

 Viterbo trial the knell of the Camorra has begun to 

 sound. What is needed is a great change in the 

 intellectual, economic, and moral conditions of the 

 people, in order to render the Camorra impossible. 



Most of the other papers are historical. The Duke 



