Review of Reviews, $012/08. 



History of the Month. 



1x7 



In the future as in the past " The 

 What of the Review of Reviews " will be faith- 

 future? ful to its ideals, and will support 



or oppose the Government of the 

 day not because of its party colour, but because 

 of its fidelity or the reverse to the great principles 

 the " Review " was founded to maintain. The cause 

 of English-speaking unity is now almost a realised 

 ideal, and we are in a much better position to de- 

 fend the cause of international peace than we have 

 been for years past. At home the time has come 

 for resuming that vigorous combined forward move- 

 ment in the cause of social reform which ignores 

 points of difference, and concentrates all the avail- 

 able forces of the community in a resolute effort to 

 achieve those reforms upon which all are agreed. 

 The Helpers' Association should be revived in some 

 shape or another, and if the name of the Civic 

 Church must be abandoned, we shall be well content 

 to pursue the old ideal under a new name. There 

 is one question which has ever been kept to the fore 

 in these pages, and which it is necessary now to 

 put in the first place. In the last sixteen years 

 several of our Colonies have recognised the citizen- 

 ship of women. In Russia the Liberal movement 

 ignores differences of sex. In the New Constitu- 

 tion of Finland universal suffrage is rightly defined 

 as including both men and women. The time has 

 come when in this ancient home of freedom and 

 self-government the injustice of excluding half the 

 nation from the duties and responsibilities of citi- 

 zenship shall for ever cease. There is some talk in 

 some quarters of manhood suffrage. We shall 

 oppose it as resolutely as a proposal to recall the 

 Stuarts or to restore the rotten boroughs. Not one 

 single step further must be taken in enfranchising 

 the unenfranchised that does not make the enfran- 

 chisement of women its point of departure. Make 

 the suffrage adult or universal if you will, but to 

 limit it by statute to the male moiety of the popu- 

 lation — never ! 



That issue was not, as is commonly 



I Th f th asserted, for Home Rule, or 



Elections. against Home Rule, for Protection 



or against Protection. It is prim- 

 arily and in its essence the passing of a verdict of 

 •Guilty or Not Guilty upon the Unionist party and 

 its leaders for the way in which they have go- 

 verned or misgoverned the Empire for the last ten 

 years. There are no doubt many issues — political, 

 social, and religious. But they are all subordinate 

 to the supreme determination of the immense ma- 

 jority of the electors in all the four nations to ' 

 record, in the most emphatic manner possible, their 

 intense dissatisfaction, disgust, and indignation with 

 a party which, with such unexampled opportunities 

 for doing good, misused them either to do nothing 

 or to do evil on a scale of almost unexampled 

 wickedness. 



IOM»*UU li 



Westminster Gazette. ~] 



Found Out. 



—■a- 



JOHN BULL: "I'm surprised at your conduct, sir. You got 

 a cheque from me at the 1900 General Election, and you 

 promised to pay it into the war account. What do you 

 mean by using it to help the Church and the Trade?" 



MR. BALFOUR: "Well, when I'd got the majority I could 

 do just what I liked. {Defiantly) I've done nothing uncon- 

 stitutional." 



JOHN BULL (angrily): "You've done something much 

 worse. You've broken the promises you and Mr. Chamber- 

 lain made me — promises I was foolish enough to believe 

 that, as honourable men, you meant to keep. I know better 

 now!" 



The first serious question which 

 The Crux confronts the Liberal Cabinet is 



e„..th'1f-:^, not Ireland, but South Africa. 

 south Africa. _ _, . Hi j 



C.-B. began well by giving orders' 



that as far as practicable no more Chinese coolies 

 should be brought to South Africa. But it would 

 have averted some disappointment if he had been a 

 little more explicit. If. for instance, he had pointed 

 out that not even the most Radical Government can 

 repudiate the contracts of its predecessors, and that 

 his hands were tied bv agreements entered into be- 

 fore his accession to office, but that he had ordered 

 that not a single fresh agreement should be entered 

 into for the importation of any more masculine 

 machinery into South Africa, he would have stated 

 the truth in a way that would have obviated a good 

 deal of misunderstanding. After all, the Chinaman 

 is a man and a brother, and when he has signed a 

 contract which he is willing and anxious to execute, 

 we cannot break faith with him merely because we 

 do not like the bargain. What we can do is to 

 refuse to engage any more Chinese, and we can 

 also offer to release those already engaged from 

 their contracts if they should prefer to accept such 

 release, but beyond that we cannot go. For the 

 crux in South Africa lies just here. Is John Bull 

 a man of his word or is he not? Hitherto' it must 

 be admitted that he has not kept faith with those 

 who trusted him. He has promised and he has not 

 kept his promises. He has given pledges and 

 violated them with the utmost cynicism. And in 

 that lack of good faith lies the taproot of all our 

 difficulties in South Africa in the past, in the pre- 



