194 



I he Keview of Reviews. 



February 10, 1906. 



THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER. 



Of the articles in the Ninet enth Century not separ- 

 ately noticed, one of the most generally interesting is 

 Mr. W. B. Robertson's paper on "Les Octrois," and 

 the exceeding vexatiousness of the operation of these 

 duties in Prance, especially in Paris, where, av is 

 shown, they add enormously to the cost of food, and 

 come very hardly indeed on the poorer classes. A 

 law passed December 29th, 1897. gave municipal au- 

 thorities the power to suppress octroi duties, advan- 

 tage of which power was speedily taken by many 

 towns, which, however, seem never to have abolished 

 duties on alcohol. In other towns, again, all octroi 

 was abolished except on alcohol and butcher's me 

 Lyons, with 500,000 inhabitants, can proudly congratu- 

 late itself on having been the first French city to 

 abolish the octroi. It has a Municipal tax on alcohol, 

 and various replacement duties, however, on auto- 

 mobiles, buildings, land, clubs, etc., but not on food. 

 Only now are the full benefits of the suppression he- 

 ginning to be realised: — 



Food is both cheaper and better. Since the octroi was 

 abolished, t lie inhabitant <>f Lyons drinks fifty-one more 

 litres of wine per annum, ami eats twelve pounds of meal 

 more than he did under the old order Bo it will he in 

 time through the length ami breadth of Prance. The les- 

 sons of experience have only to be made convincing, and 

 the 1500 octrois of France will be i elevated to the -hades 

 of t he has-beens. 



THE REAL SECRET OF JAPANESE VALOUR. 



Mis. Arthur Kennard. in an article on Lafcadio 

 Beam, quotes from his chapter headed -The Religion 

 of Loyalty." in which lie affirms that the splendid 

 courage and unconquered heroism of the Japanese are 



not the outcome of any ancient code of honour, hut 

 of the living, ever-powerful, ever-present influence of 

 the supreme cult, Shintoism, or Ancestor Worship. Not 

 Bushido, but Spiritualism. .Mrs. Kennard quotes the 

 following passage from the reply of an old Japanese 

 to a remark made by Mr. Beam that the dead in the 

 Chinese-Japanese war would never return: — 



The old man answered with simple earnestness: "Per- 

 haps by Western people it is thought that the dead never 

 can return. But we cannot so think. There are no Japan- 

 ese dead who do not return. There aie none who do not 

 know the way. From China and from Chosen and out of 

 the hitter sea all our dead have come back, all! They 

 are with us now. In every dusk they gather to hear the 

 bugles that call them home, and they will bear them also 

 in that day when the armies of the Son of Heaven shall 

 be summoned against Russia." 



CURIOUS CONSTITUTIONAL ANOMALIES. 



In his paper on "The Making of Parliament." Mr. 

 Michael MacDonagh comments on various curious 

 anomalies in the English Parliamentary and voting 

 system. Members of Parliament, he sa\s. no longer 

 represent constituencies, but political principles. A. 

 nominally sits for Hodgeshire. but in reality he sits for 

 the Tariff Reform League, the National Liberal Federa 

 tion, or the Conservative Central Office. As illustrat- 

 ing the absurdities in which the law sometimes lands 

 us, Mr. Chamberlain in 1895 remarked that his son. 

 Mr. Austen Chamberlain, who lived at the parental 

 house, was therefore neither a householder nor a 

 lodger, and had no vote. Yet he might become not 

 only a member of Parliament, but a member of the 

 Government. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer, 

 therefore, was not on the burgess mils of the King- 

 dom. 



NEW ZEALAND FOOTBALL. 



Mr. E. P. Osborn, writing on this subject, says that 

 the New Zealand team have revolutionised the theory 

 and practice of Rugby Cnion football. Even at its 

 best the Welsh system is not s scientific as that of 

 the New Zealanders. No British fifteen, except pos- 

 sibly one or two public school teams, have yet mas- 



tered the New Zealand style, yet " we are gradually 

 learning our lesson." as he proceeds to show. On the 

 one occasion on which the New Zealanders were beaten 

 (at Cardiff) they wen palpably stale and listless. 

 However, he says that " it is the height of folly to 

 prate about the degeneracy of physique of Rugby 

 Union of the four nations at home." In this there is 

 nothing to choose, according to Mr. Osborn, between 

 the home and the Colonial teams, and the individual 

 home players are as good as the best Colonials. He re- 

 marks, however, that the strongest fifteen of the New 

 Zealanders were beaten by a provincial team in New 

 Zealand just before leaving — he shoul 1 have s a id were 

 beaten by two Colonial teams, in Wellington and in 

 Ohristchurch — so that they do not really represent the 

 full strength of the colony. 



Lady Burghelere's article on '"Strafford as a Letter- 

 Writer presents the redoubtable politician in a light 

 curiously unlike that in which we are accustomed to 

 view him. In his letters his human side is uppermost, 

 like that of Bismarck's. 



THE WESTMINSTER REVIEW. 



Tiie Westminster Review's most interesting articles 

 this montb are the literary and non-topical. '' Rus- 

 ticus Expectans " discusses Mr. Winston Churchill and 

 Democracy. Inability to say "No" when ambition 

 asked the quest ion may account tor his premature ap- 

 pearance in the ranks of Whig-Liberal officialdom. A 

 purgatorial period, the writer thinks, lies still before 

 him. 



Mr. W. I). Macgregor makes various suggestions as 

 to the next Budget, especially as to the iniquities of 

 the income tax. the abolition of ce'tain food taxes so 

 as to secure a tree breakfast-table." and the im- 

 position of a in or 11 per cent, duty on property to 

 make up the amounts lost. The article on "The. 

 Ethics of Patriotism" is marked by that persistent 

 misunderstanding of Colonial sentiment too often seen 

 in Liberal writings. 



The most generally interesting papers are Mr. Henry 

 Scarth's en " Mental Training." advocating, among 

 other things, the use of expert phrenologists in State 

 school- in report on children's individual capacities: 

 Dr. Hollander's on "What is the Use of a Brain?" 

 and Mr. George IVobridges on " Coventry Patmore 

 and Swedenborg," in which he shows plainly by many 

 beautiful quotations from both writers how much the 

 poet was indebted to the mystic for the ideas in "The 

 Angel in the Souse." Dr. Hollander supports his 

 theory that the primary mental powers have separate 

 centres in the brain, a ]K>int of the highest importance 

 in the treatment of early stages of mental derange- 

 ment. But. he says, there is so much diversity of 

 opinion as to the elementary functions of the brain, 

 that it is no wonder so little advance is made in 

 treating the insane and feeble-minded. Royal Com- 

 missions to inquire into the case of the increase of 

 lunacy are of little use when those in authority are 

 not agreed on the fundamental question. "What is the 

 use of a brain ?" 



Blackwood's Magazine, besides the papers separately 

 noticed, contains chiefly pleasant and chatty articles, 

 as agreeable to read as thev are impossible to quote. 

 They deal with 'Old Galway Life,'' an Old Canton- 

 ment, shooting, fishing, and the like; but there is also 

 some good verse. Mr. Charles Whibley continues his 

 articles on "William Pitt." and there is a curious 

 article by Joseph Conrad on ships, and to some extent 

 on they that go down to the sea in them. Only one 

 feeling the fascination of ships will feel the fascina- 

 tion of the writing 



