The Reviews Reviewed. 



399 



THE NATIONAL REVIEW. 



Germaxophobia is again to the fore in the .\pril 

 number. Colonel Callwell tries to remove vhat he con- 

 siders current misconceptions on invasion, and declares 

 that comparisons between what the Italians effected 

 and the strategical problem involved in an invasion of 

 this country are so inappropriate and so unprofitable 

 that the question is hardly worth discussing seriously. 

 Nevertheless, he makes a significant comment upon 

 the fact that a great country like Italy can make pre- 

 parations for an expedition on a large scale in time of 

 peace without the fact leaking out. " Ignotus " feels 

 he cannot longer ignore the campaign against the 

 Triple Entente, which is being conducted in England 

 ■■ bv certain misguided Englishmen and by the cranks, 

 Pacifists, cocoa journalists, cosmopolitan Jews, and 

 international financiers." In a strongly anti-German 

 spirit he insists that without the Triple Entente war is 

 inevitable. With the Triple Entente war is possible, 

 hut there is at least a chance of peace, as the risks for 

 (".ermany of conflict would then become stupendous. 

 ■ Germany is the one and only enemy of peace in 

 Europe." 



Mr. F. E. Smith predicts that the question of uni- 

 \ersal service will, in the next decade, occupy a far 

 more prominent position in practical politics. He 

 argues that the gradual pressure of the world-forces 

 around us, the lead which has been given by the oversea 

 Dominions, are having their inevitable effect, and he 

 looks forward to a time when a system of national 

 training will be introduced. 



Mr. J. 0. P. Bland, writing on the finance of China, 

 "rges that until the Republic has given proofs of 

 ipacity for honest administration the proper use and 

 .i\owed purpose of foreign loans should be secured by 

 tiie conditions of supervision to which the Chinese have 

 lung been accustomed, and which the better class of 

 iheir ofTicials recognise as imperali\ely necessary. 



.Mr. Maurice Low calls attention to the curious 



• 1 (incidence that on February 26th Napoleon escaped 



from Elba, and on June 18th his star set for ever at 



Waterloo. .And on February 26th Mr. Roosevelt's 



tididacy wa> [)ublished in the newspapers, and on 



ine i8th llit Republic National Convention will 



let. The coincidence is entirely accidental, but 



iiinous. Mr. Low says that Mr. Roosevelt has now 



(■ leading newspapers of the country against him. 



I he Republicans may, perhaps, win if they are united, 



i)ut divided their defeat is inevitable. 



Ti>e New Zealand chroniqtie says that .Sir Joseph 

 Ward will be remembered as a man who was al)le to 

 combine a real regard for the interest of the working- 

 clas.ses with an enthusiasm for the Imperial ideal. 

 " Pollio " (■onfe^^es that under British conditions the 

 Australian remedy for strikes in compulsory arbitra- 

 tion is not aiceiit.ible in this country, but as long as 

 England insi>ts on fjcc imports she must accept strikes 

 also. If she w.ints efiective compulsory arbitration 

 she will find it worth her while to try TarilT Reform. 

 W riting as an Australian, he laments what he describes 



as the self-severance of large numbers of the English 

 working-classes from the body politic. In Australia 

 Labour is a party and not a class, including barristers, 

 farmers, schoolmasters, physicians and landowners, as 

 well as miners and hatters. 



Mr. George Hookham continues his criticism of 

 Bergson's philosophy. Bergson is lacking in thorough- 

 ness, is an advocate who holds a brief for a theory. 

 After twenty years' steady output of metaphysics he 

 argues that speculation is an unnatural exercise of the 

 human intellect ! He is a poet rather than a philosopher; 

 that seems to the writer the sum of the matter. 



Mr. R. E. Prothero goes into the history of parochial 

 endowments, which, he says, makes it difficult to 

 believe either that the nation ever by legislation 

 endowed parochial churches with local tithes, or that 

 the local tithes are national property, as is the produce 

 of national taxes. 



BLACKWOOD. 



The last page in the .\pril number contains an 

 apology to Mr. Winston Churchill, who had pointed 

 out that certain lines in the poem, " A Lost Letter of 

 Ancient Rome," in the February number, constituted 

 a libel upon his personal honour. The editor now 

 declares that this was not his intention, or the inten- 

 tion of the writer of the poem, and offers Mr. Churchill 

 his unqualified apology ; he contradicts the impres- 

 sion, which the lines apparently conveyed, that Mr. 

 Churchill, when in South Africa, broke his parole. 

 Similar veiled skit on current politicians appears in 

 the article immediately preceding, wherein the writer 

 urges fathers to put their boys into politics, where no 

 learning or technical information is necessary. He 

 sketches the Rt. Hon. Augustus Blank, who, after an 

 agreeable career of well-dressed idleness at Eton and 

 Cambridge, became pri\ale secretary to a Minister, 

 and subsequently a member of the Cabinet, .\nother, 

 the Rt. Hon. Ebenczer Jones, whose literary acquire- 

 ments extend to a knowledge of Dickens, has attained 

 Cabinet rank without any special qualifications. He 

 also sketches Mr. Cleon, ex-M,P.. who by his successful 

 demagogy finds himself one of the leading members 

 of the Civil Service of the Crown, with a salary of 

 £i,ooo a year ; and a Mr. Bobus, who began life ias a 

 junior reporter, but by hanging on to the Radical 

 caucus received a well-paid appointment in the 

 official hierarchy. " Musings without .Method " glorify 

 \'an Dyck's great art of portraiture, and declare that 

 portrait-painting has fallen on evil days, and the 

 camci-a is the constant enemy of truth. .Mfred Noyes 

 contributes a drama, entitled " A Night in Sherwood," 

 wherein the characters are Little John, Robin Hood, 

 Marion, Friar Tuck, 'Titania, Oberon, and the like. 



" The New Ethiopia " is the title of an interesting 

 sketch of the history of modern .Mtyssinia. by Mr. 

 Frederick .\. Ivlward^. in the liiif>rrial and Asiatic 

 Rct'inv. 



