397 



The Reviews Reviewed. 



THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. 



TiiF. April Fortnightly is a prime nuniber. full of 

 i\)'uA\ articles, well-written, expressing a variety of 

 pinions on the subjects of the day with admirable 

 iciditN. I quote elsewhere from the articles on the 

 ustralian strike system, the Unionist programme, 

 erman sentiment towards England, etc. 



MR. BOX.\R L.WV'S FAILfRE. 



'■ .\uditor Tantum " deals dispassionately but 

 ■itically with the new leader of the Opposition. He 

 oints out remorselessly his ignorant blunders in his 

 ibert Hull speech, his amazing declaration in favour 

 f repealing the Insurance Act, and his not less amazing 

 xplanation, his failure to attack Lord Haldane's new 

 rm\-. etc. " Auditor Tantum " says : — 



To lie frank, Mr. Bonar Law has not begun the Session well, 

 en from the purely party point of view. And he certainly 

 as not won up'm the Mouse as a whole. He had a great 

 tonce of retrieving hir. poor start on the occasion of the 

 ilrixluction of the Minimum Wage Bill. But it was only a 

 reat chance to a great man, for the difticulties were obvious 

 ail immense. It was not taken. The country would have 

 'elcomed and rallied to a clear, dicisivc, courageous lead. It 

 .IS not given. 



THE NAVY AND THE -MERCANTILE .MARINE. 



There are two articles dealing with our command 

 f the sea. One by Mr. Spencer Campbell, entitled 



The Peril .\tloat," dwells upon the presence of 

 jreigners in the mercantile marine, and proposes that 

 eamen should be specially represented by a seamen's 

 onstituency, to be created in the new Redistribution 

 iill, and that the foreigner should be banished from 

 he loasting trade of the Empire. The other, by 

 Ir. .\. Hurd, insists that to cope with the German 

 lenace the Oversea Dominions should assist John 

 iull in maintaining: the fleet of the Empire : — 



We had a n.ivnl l.Ii^is three years ago. The immediate 

 ifli'.ullics of thr -iUMii'in were surmounted at an added cost to 

 le people of the I iii!..l Kingdom of nearly thirty-six millions 

 eriing. Comp.url uiili the expenditure of 1908-y, there was 



rise of /3,552,2o<') in 1909-10, of ;f8,238,027 in igto-n, of 

 ^12,211,191 in 191 1 12, and of /i 1,904,091 in 1912-13, We 

 re now within siglii uf another crisis, far more grave in its 

 h;i racier. 



GEORGE MF-RKDITH AND UII.IIA.M COBBETT. 



There are two literary articles of note. One, by 

 If. .S. M. Ellis, traces the history of some of the 

 elatives of George .Meredith. The other is a tlelightful 

 s.say upon Williani Cobbett by Lewis Melville. The 

 /riter awards Coblx-lt the highest praise. He says : — 



No man was more true to his iilcals than William Cobbett. 

 le was all his life on llie side of the oppressed ; all his life he 

 ood for reform. He had lived with the poor, and he knew 

 ow Ihey suffered, arr'l In what Hays poverty hit them hardest ; 

 nd his desire to improve their condition, which had steadily 

 eleriorated during Ilir period of the great wars, was as strong 

 hen he died .-is ulien lie firal became a public man. 



" Sl'BSTlTl TES FOR CHRISTIANITY." 



Inder this head Mr. W. S, Lilly gives a gruesome 

 ccount of the three attempts made by the French 



Re\oIutionists to find a substitute for the Catholic 

 faith which they persecuted so ruthlessly. There 

 was the worship of Reason personified by a lady of 

 dubious morals, Robespierre's worship of L'Etre 

 Supreme, and Theophilanthropy. Mr. Lilly quotes 

 as a final tag Napoleon's saying, " The man with- 

 out God is not governed, he is shot," Miss Constance 

 Maud writes a most interesting account of Baha LTla, 

 whose Babism may be regarded as a better substi- 

 tute for Christianity than any of the revolutionary 

 makeshifts, Baha Ulla is sound on woman's suffrage, 

 and the brightest page in 5[iss Maud's story is devoted 

 to the first Persian woman who joined the Bab, and 

 was martyred for her pains. 



THE LONDON QUARTERLY. 



The -April number opens with a paper in which 

 Canon Barnelt "improves"' what Mr. Lloyd George has 

 said on the Church and Poverty problem. The Canon 

 insists on the Church seeing the poverty in which 

 people live, and upholding ideals of sacrifice in gene- 

 rosity, judgment, and self-subjection, 



Dr, W, T, Davidson pronounces Professor Eucken's 

 new Christianity as a shadow without substance. The 

 sentiment which led ladies of old to admire the high- 

 wa\men for the gallantry with which they relieved 

 them of their purses, and which leads American women 

 to send flowers and poetry to a handsome murderer in 

 his condemned cell, reappears in a paper by Miss .'^nne 

 E. Keeling, on '' Italy and her Soldiery." She grants 

 that she can " neither defend nor condone Italy's 

 forcible occupation of Tripoli," but the Italian soldiery 

 arc such dear, sweet, kindly men. so brave in presence 

 of danger, and so tender to children. Her wrath is 

 reserved, not for the Italians who do the wrong, but 

 for the " treacherous," " fiendish," " fanatic," and 

 " savage " Arabs who are resisting the brigand invasion 

 from oversea, and still more for the newspaper corre- 

 spondents who dare to speak evil of the humane and 

 delightful Italians. 



Mr. John Telford reviews Ward's " Life of Newman," 

 and thinks such a frank revelation of Newman's com- 

 plaints of his Catholic contemporaries cannot fail to 

 do service to the cause of English Protestantism, -Mr. 

 Charles Rone, writing from Hong Kong, declares that 

 the stabilitv of the Chinese Republic is assured, and 

 \'. ilh the ascendency of the reformers he counts on the 

 free and healthy development of all Christian service. 

 R. W. G, Hunter contributes an appreciation of 

 Erasmus. 



The feature of the Architectural Rcvirw for March is 

 a series of eight reproductions of etchings by C. Mcryon, 

 the brilliant son of an English surgeon and French 

 dancer, whose life ended all too soon in a madhouse. 

 'The etchings given are those of Paris, which were his 

 most famous, " Stone walls never took on a more 

 terrible physiognomy than under his touch," 



