Rerifw of Keneat, lO/i/OS. 



The Reviews Reviewed. 



413 



THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. 



There are a number of good articles in the March 

 number, but there are none of exceptional eminence. 



BKRNACD SHAWS WOMEN. 



The brightest paper of the lot is that by Miss Con- 

 stance Barniooat on " Mr. Bernard Shaw's Counterfeit 

 Presentment of Women." She describes the women of 

 the popular dramatist as, on the whole, an unlovable, 

 unpleasing collection. She wants to know where Mr. 

 Shaw met them. There is hardly one amongst them of 

 whom other women could make a friend. They are 

 generally either hard a.s nails, or colossally .selfish, or 

 merely bleating old sheep. Most of them are young, 

 many good-looking, some endowed with a mysterious 

 quality which Mr- Shaw calls vitality, which Mis.s 

 Barniooat thinks a very deadly characteristic. She 

 says : — 



Fiat voUmt.as mea. per&at mundua!" is tlie guiding 

 principle of Mr. Shaw's women endowed with vitality. 

 Then " Pereat vitalitas:' 



Miss Barnicoat is prepared to forgive Mr. Shaw for 

 Candida's sake a little and for Major Barbara's much. 



A POSSIBLE FUTURE FOR MR. UALFOUR. 

 An anonymous paper, with an unexpected conclusion, 

 on Mr. Balfour and the Unionist Party, opens the 

 Ueriiic. It is a very searching and severe criticism 

 of Mr. Balfour's feats of Parliamentary legerdemain. 

 The writer says that nothing can be clearer than that 

 the ex-Premier overrated the value of the dialectical 

 and tactical devices in which he excels, and under- 

 estimated every genuine force, personal and national, 

 w ith which he had to deal. As a result of the Valen- 

 tine letters, the writer finds that the fiscal fog has dis- 

 appeared, and the Unionist Party is united on the 

 basis of Mr. Balfour's leadership and Mr. Chamber- 

 lain's policy. As he returns to the House of Com- 

 mons, the writer unexpectedly ends: — 



The presumption is as much against him as it was when 

 he went to Ireland If he re;vd8 " S.vhil, " studies the 

 Ijahour Party, and reads " Sybil " again, he may survive. 

 If he survives, it will be as the executor of Mr. Chamber- 

 lain's policy: and thoiich he may be as slow and reluctant 

 in his processes as Peel himself, he will probably live to 

 undo the work of 18^6 and make the Empire one. 



NOT FOR JOSEPH! 

 A different outlook is offered by Mr. W. B. Duffield. 

 writing on Toryism and Tariffs. For the time it seems 

 that the Conservative Party i.s to be democratised, that 

 is. '' Ciesarism is to take the place of Oligarchy, Union- 

 ism is to become a plebiscitar^• Republic." But the 

 writer verv much r|uestions whether 'Tariff Reform will 

 permanently dominate the Conservative Party. Tlie 

 Conservative bedrock is rather represented by men 

 like Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord St. Aldwin and Lord 

 Ctirzon ; — 



The fortress of Unionism, if captured, is to be garri- 

 soned, when the force can be recruited, not by a party 

 seven-tenths of whom are Conservatives, but by a motley 

 crew of free-lances consisting of the Birmingham body- 

 guard, Irish Nation-alists. Independent Labour men. and 

 perhaps a .sprinkling of Trade Unionists, with such a 

 section of Conservatives as may prefer Tariff Reform to 

 Unionism and Conservatism, tammanyfied into cohesion 

 on the Birmingham plan. It is not creditable that the 

 Conservative Party can look forward with satisfaction to 

 such a future. 



THE FUTURE OF THE LABOUR PARTY. 

 E. Hume writes on the advent of Socialism, and con- 

 cludes with this forecast: — 



The Labour Representation Committee have no domina- 

 ting chief. Their machine, though it has done its work 



well under exceptionally favourable conditions, is of a 

 makeshift and patchwork character. They do not possess 

 a single daily paper, and only one weekly of any weight. 

 Their creed is yet to formuljvte. and there are many rival 

 dogmas, from the crude Marxism of Mr. Hyndman to the 

 philosopliical subtleties of Mr. J. R Macdonald. which, 

 creditable as they are both to his intellect and tempera- 

 ment, are about as suitable for the purposes of proselytism 

 aa a treatise on the different calculus would be for teach- 

 ing the multiplication table. If the Lilierals wholly redeem 

 their half-promises and restore to the trade unions the 

 italut quo ante the TafT Vale judgment, the new party will 

 have to pass its severest test. If it survives that, it may 

 struggle along, but there is a tremendous job for some- 

 bodj- if it is to do more than merely exist. 

 OTHER ARTIOI>ES. 

 '• A Journalist " pleads for legislation in peace time 

 to restrict the possibilities of mischief by the Press 

 in war time, and asks for a Bill making it a penal 

 offence to publish any news of naval or military move- 

 ments, except such news as might be authorised by 

 the responsible authorities, the Bill to be made opera- 

 tive by Order in Council. Miss Gertrude Tuckwell 

 presses for improvements in the law in the interest 

 of women workers. Mr. J, A. R. Marriott contributes 

 a study of Williatn Pitt, and Mr. Henry James gives 

 hi.s impressions of Boston. 



Til WIN»S*R MAGAZINI. 



The TUi/k/s'., Zliina-.iiie open.s with a long illustrated 

 article on Herbert Dicksee and his work. Mr. Herbert 

 Dick.see is a cousin of Mr. Frank Dicksee, and is 

 chiefly a painter of animal.s — lions, tigers, dogs and 

 horses. He studies his models at the Zoo. sometimes 

 taking casts of the limb of a dead animal. The 

 '■ Chronicles in Cartoon " are even more interesting 

 than usual, portraits being given of Mr. Burns, Mr. 

 Will Crooks, and Mr. Win,ston Churchill, among many 

 others. Mr. Bryce's article on " The Relations of 

 Civilised to Backward Races" as respects Labour was 

 written before the introduction of Clunese labour iiito 

 South Africa, and will strike most readers as contain- 

 ing nothing new, and being highly academic. 



C. B. FRY'S MAGAZINE. 



Hockey, golf, football, cycling, rifle-shooting, and 

 |)elota are the sports most to the fore in C. B. Fry's 

 for March. "A Candid Critic" makes a serious com- 

 plaint of the way in which Scotland treated the "All 

 Blacks" from Xew Zealand. Scottish hospitality. 

 Scottish sportsmanship and Scottish fair-play are all 

 severelv animadverted upon. Mr. P. A. Vaile is less 

 severe." but not less critical. He declares that one 

 of John Bull's worst features is his calm assumption 

 of the superiority of everything English. He very 

 strongly rebukes both Oxford and Cambridge for their 

 behaviour, and quotes the Gra;ifa that ''Cambridge 

 is degenerating and the cad is omnipresent." Of the 

 two Universities, he says, they are the best places in 

 the world to unfit a man for the serious battle of life. 

 Mr. Vaile ends by saying that he sees on all sides in 

 England, in trade, in religion, in sport, in thought, 

 signs of inactivity and of stagnation. 



SCRIBNER'S MAGAZINE. 



Seribnir's Mar/aunc opens with a long, fully illus- 

 trated article by ilr. Henry Norman on an automobile 

 journey through five European countries, and totalling 

 1300 niiles. The countries were France, Switzerland, 

 Italy Austria, Germany. Other articles, an impor- 

 tant feature of which is often, the ilUbstrations. are on 

 • \ Dav with the Round-up," cattle-ranching; Jef- 

 ferson and the All-star Ca,st in 'The Rivals,'" and 

 some impressions of Lincoln. 



