The Progress of the World. 



345 



the Home Rule Bill will be a great measure. It will Ix' 

 adequate lor the purpo.se of those who promote it. . . . 

 W'c have e\erything to encourage us. Believe me, 

 Hume Rule is winning. We will have a Parliament 

 -iuing in College Green sooner than the most sanguine 

 and enthusiastic man in this crowd believes." These 

 be bold words. Hope springs eternal in the human 

 breast, and it is never well to discourage optimism- 

 -Ministers at Westminster seem to be almost as con- 

 fident ; the\- talk airily about the financial difficults-. 

 they pooh-piioh the problem of the representation of 

 Ireland in the Imperial Parliament, and they assure their 

 illowers that all is going as merry as a marriage-bell. 

 Again I say it is well ; it is always good to expect the 

 l>est, but to prepare for the worst ; and when the 

 Thing happens which the Destinies decreed, to make 

 the best of it. saying " Kismet ! Hallelujah ! " A good 

 many people can say " Kismet," but very few are able 

 to say " Hallelujah ! " when the will of the Lord has 

 been revealed in the wreck of their hopes, the defeat 

 of their policy, the loss of their cause. 



The Socialist, said Mr. Lloyd George, 



is the policeman of the Syndicalist. 

 Syndicalism. tu c r » i i ' .• r 



The socialists would nationalise 



all property for the benefit of the 



rnmmunity. The Syndicalist would have the miners 



'ize the minis ; the compositors the newspapers ; the 

 cotton-spinners the mills ; the railway-men the rail- 

 ways. In short, that every union of working-men 



!iould steal or appropriate — " convey, the wise it 

 ■ .dl " — all the property of its employers, and use it for 

 tlieir own benefit. It is theft e.xulted into a religion ; 

 a kind of European Thuggee minus murder. We are 

 .ill .Socialists nowadays, plus common-sense and the 

 ten commandments. Syndicalists are also Socialists, 

 but their Soi ialism is minus common-sense and the 

 ten commanilinents. The chief exponent of this old- 

 i.ishioned doririne of plunder is Mr. Tom Mann, who 

 in 1891-4 wa^ a member of a Royal Commission on 

 Labour whi( h made many recommendations that 

 still wait i.irrying out. Tom Mann believes that 

 Plunder will abolish Poverty, and being a first-class 

 demagogue — as Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Bright, and Mr. 

 Chamberlain ucre demagogues^he has a consider- 

 able follow iiii;. who regard him as the Joshua who 

 will lead tlam into the Promised Land. The 

 unlucky indisi retion of the local authorities at 

 Salford in prosecuting him for a foolish speech has 

 given Tom Mmn a pedestal from which to address a 

 wider piililii ill. in he lould reach from the imi)roviscd 



platform at the dock gates. He will naturally makr 

 the most of it. But we do not grudge him the oppor 

 tunity. And, after all, the better Syndicalism is under- 

 stood the sooner it will be banished from the mind 

 of man. 



Mr. Winston Churchill produced 

 Tlie Xaval Estimates which showed a 



Naval Estimates, reduction of £307,1 lo. The figures, 

 however, were accompanied by a 

 statement that these Estimates have been framed on 

 the assumption that the existing programme of other 

 naval Powers will not be increased. In the event of 

 Such increase it will be necessary to present supple- 

 mentary Estimates both for men and money. The 

 German Estimates show that they are going to add 

 three more Dreadnoughts or pre-Dreadnoughts to 

 their fleet in the next few years. To meet this increase 

 Mr. Winston Churchill stated that for every additional 

 ship that the Germans laid down we should lay down 

 two. Our present balance of strength in Dreadnoughts 

 is about sixteen to ten, but the pre-Dreadnoughts still 

 give us a superiority of two keels to one. As the pre- 

 Dreadnoughts drop out we shall have to" put our best 

 foot foremost in order to keep up our necessary ascen- 

 dency. The Germans, who a few years ago were quite 

 content with our three-to-one majority, and after- 

 wards regarded our standard of two keels to one with 

 satisfaction that we should be so moderate, are now- 

 insisting that three keels to two is a much fairer pro- 

 portion ; while others frankly declare that they will 

 never be satisfied until they have keel to keel. Mr. 

 Churchill's speech was very frank and quite carried 

 the House with him. What is wanted is not so much 

 eloquent speeches as steady building, without talking, 

 to keep up the standard of two keels to one. 



The race to the South Pole has 

 The Race terminated in a gallant victory 



the South Polo, ^or Captain Amundsen, a Nor- 

 wegian. Captain Scott has failed, 

 and is to resume his effort to reach the centre of 

 Antarctic interest. Amundsen arrived at Hobart on 

 March 7th, and telegraphed a special report of his 

 exploit to the Daily Chronicle, which once again distin- 

 guished itself by its enterprise in connection with 

 Arctic and Antarctic exploration. There is no doubt 

 about the fact that Captain Amundsen really reached 

 the South Pole and planted the Norwegian flag on the 

 spot which ha? since the world began evaded the 

 inquisitive curiosity of mankind. Captain Amundsen is 

 only forty years of age. He is a graduate of Christiania 

 University. When he finished his studies he went to 

 sea, and beinf; fired by the example of his friiiul 



