LEADING ARTICLES. 



285 



BRITISH PREFERENCE IN CANADA. 



In the Quarterly Review Edward 

 Porrit explains the forces that have been 

 working against Preference since it was 

 first adopted, and also the forces that 

 have combined since 1905 to secure its 

 maintenance, and if possible to extend 

 it and to widen the market for British 

 manufacturers in the Dominion. The 

 interests hostile to Preference are solely 

 those of the manufacturers. Con- 

 sumers generally are heartily in 

 favour of it ; but the only organ- 

 ised forces that have made any 

 fight for it are the farmers of Ontario 

 and the grain-growers of the three west- 

 ern provinces. The grain-growers will 

 become a much stronger factor in Dom- 

 inion politics after the redistribution of 

 electoral power that is now due follow- 

 ing the census of 191 o. The prairie 

 provinces, which now have twenty-seven 

 members in the House of Commons, 

 will have at least forty-two after the 



redistribution, and, however much the 

 manufacturers may press for further 

 curtailment of preference and for in- 

 creases in the duties in the general list, 

 any Government, Conservative or Lib- 

 eral, must pay heed to the growing de- 

 mand of the \\'est for lower duties in 

 the general tariff, and for the increase 

 of the British preference to fifty per 

 cent. Canada for half a century has 

 been much influenced by the tariff leg- 

 islation of the United States. It may 

 now be assumed that duties in the 

 American tariff have reached their 

 climax. The tendency is now in the 

 direction of lower duties ; and any 

 general reduction in the duties in the 

 American tariff, such as is expected at 

 the coming revision, will react on Can- 

 ada and strengthen the demand for 

 freer trade with the United States, and 

 for further reductions in the duties on 

 imports from Great Britain. 



THE BRAIN THIEF. 



The English Reviezv contains a very 

 notable article from the pen of Haldane 

 Macfall. 



Under the arresting title, " The Brain- 

 Thief," the writer lays about him and 

 piles up a goodly heap of slain. ]Mr. 

 Macfall opens his phillipic in fine 

 style : — 



All the arts arise, flourush, hurst into full 

 song, and die. They are part of the eternal 

 mystery of life and death. They have, by 

 consequence, all the attributes of life and 

 death. Born in life, rooted in life, their 

 whole significance being in that they are the 

 communion, through the senses, to our fel- 

 low-mcn of the impressions aroused in the 

 artist hy life, tliey die .as vitality passes. 

 Their .slayer is academism-- always. 



To the writer life itself is impossible 

 without art, and fierce is his passion of 

 interpretation : — • 



One tiling is denied to Art — it lias no 

 power not to be Art. The. moment that he 

 who would essay to utter art attempts to 

 show the ugly as beautiful, or the beautiful 

 as ugly, vital art in him is dead — art ceases 

 to be. The moment that -art attemi)t.s to lie, 

 it is liideously or prettily a dead thing. 



Illustrating his argument with exam- 

 ples drawn from the history of paint- 

 ing, he says : — 



What further need to follow the rise and 

 fall of art? The slayer is always aoademism. 

 Decadence is lalwavs mimicry — iiisinceritv — - 

 the art of the Braiii-Thief. the Brain-Tliief 

 is the filoher of the genius of another ; had 

 he the gift to create he would not need to 

 thieve. The Brain-Tlidef is the assassin of 

 art. . . . The Brain-Thief is [honoured by 

 the State. He is kiiiglited and belauded and 

 banqueted, and pours forth his unwisdom. 

 80 Art gathers up her skii-ts, buries her 

 face in her mantle, and departs. She dare 

 scarcely speak — for the Censor ; slie is sliouted 

 down when .?(lie speaks — by the censorious. 

 The Brain-Thief ever filches all the viirtues. 



What an appalling state of affiaire! 



Yet Art is the most vital function to a 

 ])eople — more vital than parliaments or 

 l)rinccs or bis]ioi)s or editors. It is the voice 

 of Art tliiat impels the peo})le t-o tlie highast 

 <lestiny and to their fullest fulfilment. \\'itli- 

 out tb<^ arts of oratory, of liberature. of the 

 (communion of the as])irations and feelings 

 of our fellow-men. we were little alxive the 

 beasts. 



Mr. Macfall is stimulating, and we 

 may be permitted to hope that the seed 

 will not fall on stony ground. 



