174 



The Review of Reviews. 



SHOULD ESPIONAGE BE ABOLISHED? 



A French Symposium. 



Is Ztt Revue oi January i5tli M. Paul Gsell has 

 edited a symposium on the subject of espionage. 



The questions addressed to a number of writers 

 and tluni<ers considered tiualified to express opinions 

 on the problem were : — ■ 



What do you think of espionage? Do you believe that it is 

 indispensable to the security of States? Is it not desirable that 

 it should be suppressed by an agreement between nations ? 

 INDISPENS.'^BLE TO ARMED PEACE. 



M. d'Estournelles de Constant writes that in case 

 of war, all the rules of morality being more or less 

 abolished, espionage is an inevitable coinplement of 

 invasion, and of defence. It is puerile to think of 

 suppressing it so long as we live under the regime of 

 armed peace, for it would be unreasonable to 

 maintain armies and deprive them of the means of 

 information. In times of peace espionage is useless 

 and unworthy of a civilised nation. 



At the present day it is in titnes of peace that war 

 is made by the invention of new military engines, and 

 since war properly so called is but a trial of strength, 

 espionage is indispensable to the security of States, 

 replies M. Emile Faguet. As to the suppression of 

 espionage, the day when an agreement among the 

 nations would bring it about would be the time to 

 suppress war itself. 



M. Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu considers espionage 

 one of the disgraces of our age, and thinks that it 

 may become a danger to peace both at home and 

 abroad. He doubts whether nations would desire to 

 suppress it. Notwithstanding all desires for peace 

 among nations war preparations have never been so 

 great .as at the present lime, and espionage is 

 evidently part of those war preparations. 



A RELIC OF BARBARISM. 



The opinion of M. Charles Richet is very simple. 

 It is an inept custom, as disloyal as it is useless, he 

 says. Such a relic of barbarism should be suppressed. 

 The chief advantage to be gained by its suppression 

 would be to abolish the fear of spies, a fear which is 

 childish and which has caused so much mischief. 

 An international enlaile could be easily realised, and 

 if routine did not govern the world like a tyrant such 

 a disgrace as a service of spies would have dis- 

 appeared long ago. 



M. Frcde'ric I'assy thinks that while espionage in 

 certain instances may be of service, it is most mis- 

 chievous to those who make use of it. 



A QUESTION EOR THE HAGUE CONFERENCE. 



M. Gsell, in summing up, adds that in the condition 

 of antagonism in which nations now exist each one 

 has the right to try to find out the strength of the 

 war preparations of its possible adversary. These 

 are the views of Messieurs Jules Claretie, Alfred 

 Fouillee, and Victor Marguerittc. But espionage is 

 repulsive to such minds as Messieurs I'aul Hervieu, 

 Paul Marguerilte, Frederic Passy, and Charles Richet. 



Other writers fear that the first nation which had the 

 courage to suppress it would find itself in a weaker 

 position than other nations which continued to profit 

 l)y this means of obtaining information. M. d'Es- 

 tournelles de Constant thinks the question of suppres- 

 sion ought to be brought before a Hague Conference. 



HORRORS OF BIRMINGHAM SLUMS. 



In LoHiion Herman Scheflauer begins a series of 

 sketches of " human grist," women and children 

 toilers in England's underworld. He describes the 

 condition of the chainmakers at Cradley Heath, and 

 then he says : — 



Deeper and darker depths are (o be plumbed, circles, like the 

 infernal ones of Dante, that plunge suffering flesh and spirit into 

 pits where the simplest human comforts and decencies cease to 

 exist. Such places may be encountered in the slums of the 

 bleak and sordid streets and lanes, whose denizens slave in the 

 countless little shops which turn out the vast variety of articles 

 on which the wealth and fame of Birmingham are built. 



But lying in strata still lower than the victims of these sweated 

 trades are those unhappy beings who are dependent upon an 

 off-fall of "home" work from such minor industries. Of such 

 are the hook-and-eye carders in the slums, the wrappers of hair- 

 pins and buttons, and other workers. — 



These toilers may be found in most of those abominations of 

 courts which are entered by narrow passages between the houses 

 fronting on the street, a system of human warrens very common 

 in the poor quarters of Birmingham. Here these plague-spots 

 may fester, in the very midst of surroimding houses, almost 

 isolated from the life of the street. Here, in courts off lanes, 

 which themselves lie oflsuch gloomy roads as Newton Row and 

 Summer Lane, I felt myself suddenly transported, as it were, 

 into a lime of sodden savagery, face to face with primitive life 

 waging its grimmest battle with hunger, dirt, and disease. Or 

 one should rather say that life, under its awful handicap, h.id 

 ceased to wage war with these, and had accepted them as 

 terrible guests to be entertained from birth to death. Human 

 beings were existing here under what might be thought some 

 deliberate system of prison torture rather than a mere outgrowth 

 of industrial life in a rich and in many ways progressive metro- 

 polis. 



The note of desperate and savage poverty was to be met witli 

 everywhere in these hovels. Chinese dens, negro cabins, Indian 

 mud-holes, shacks of Mexican peons, the congested foreign 

 tenements of New York's East Side — all these I had seen, as 

 well .as some of the horrors laid bare a few years ago by the 

 PitlsbuighSiii-H-y in the States, but never yet had I encountered 

 anything quite so brutal and appalling as this. Kven the blue 

 tattooing <m the scrawny arms of many of the women added 

 something barbaric to the scene, as well as the stark-naked 

 children of both sexes who crouched with cats and dogs under 

 the tables. On the tables were remnants of food— and the 

 work which furnished the food. Dirty plates held scraps of lard 

 and a few dry or mouldy crusts. This for some had been dinner. 



Vet American visitors have described Birmingham 

 as the best governed city in the world. 



One of the smallest sixpenny magazines published 

 is The Liberal Magazine, which is published by the 

 Liberal Publication Department, 42, Parliament Street. 

 It is a kind of Review of Reviews of all the impor- 

 tant political speeches, and Parliamentary debates of 

 the month. For purposes of reference the Diary of 

 the Month is invaluable, and the quotations from the 

 month's speeches are simply indispensable to jour- 

 nalists and public speakers. It is altogether an 

 indispensable magazine for politicians. 



