The Reviews Reviewed. 



531 



THE NATIONAL REVIEW. 



The most important paper in an otherwise rather 

 humdrum number is Mr. George Gascoyne's blast of 

 alarm over " .Australia's greatest danger." 



"Australia's greatest danger." 



This he finds in the more than half a million square 

 miles of the unoccupied Northern Territory. What 

 adds to the gravity of his outlook is that he regards the 

 problem as insoluble. Indentured labour is out of 

 the question, for Asiatic peoples will no longer consent 

 to compulsory repatriation. Nor can coloured immi- 

 grants be restricted to the tropical region, which is 

 bound to be more and more connected by rail with 

 the rest of the Commonwealth. The only people 

 whom the writer thinks likely to colonise the 

 Northern Territory are the Yellow Races. If once 

 they begin, there will be no limfting or restricting 

 them. " Long before fifty years are over China will 

 have a powerful .\rmy and Navy." The two Yellow 

 Empires will not submit to their people being treated 

 as outlandcrs. Though a believer in a White Australia, 

 the writer is convinced that the north can never be 

 developed and held by whites. Yet the only advice 

 he can offer to the Commonwealth is to try the 

 e.xperimcnt of developing these tropical lands by 

 white labour. But he leaves the outlook absolutely 

 black. 



" E.N'GLAN'D BEFORE EVERVTIUXl;." 



Lord Willoughby de Broke expounds National 

 Toryi>m as including not merely opposition to Home 

 Rule and Disestablishment, but the endeavour " to 

 raise to maturity the largest number of physically and 

 mentally healthy men and women reared in the love 

 of their God and their country." This would be an 

 excellent description of good English motherhood, 

 but scarcely of a party ! The Tory watchwords are 

 to be Justice, Unity, and Freedom, and universal 

 military training. The present duty is to create a 

 public opinion which " will put principle before party, 

 heart before head, duty before dinner, and England 

 before everything." 



OTHER ARTICLES. 



Mr Maurice Low declares .Mexico more prominent 

 in American opinion than the Presidential prospects. 

 Mr. Taft could easily plunge the country into war 

 with iIh; troublesome and disorderly republic to the 

 South. But he stands for peace. The contest 

 between Roosevelt and Taft is, says .Mr. Low, simply 

 the old contest between Radicalism and Conservatism. 

 The annual charge for (supposed) Army pensioners 

 now sta;iding at ^^30,000,000 a year is to be increased 

 by _;^3, 000,000. 



Mr. Joynson Hicks, M.P., by adding the amount 

 which he thinks is due from Ireland for Pensions, 

 Insurance, Debt and Defence, arrives at a total cost 

 per annum to Great Britain of 6',' millions for Home 

 Rule. He paints the prospect of Wales and Scotl.ind 

 lollowing suit and leaving England to meet all 

 Imperial expenditure. 



The Bishop of Ossory describes actual relations 

 between the Russian Church and the .Anglican Com- 

 munion, and can only advise as the next step 

 towards reunion a better mutual knowledge. Lord 

 Wolmer urges co-partnership as a remedy for industrial 

 unrest. Miss .'\mabel Strachey calls attention to the 

 danger accruing to our commons from the gipsy 

 encampments. There is the usual anti-German how!. 



THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. 

 Reside the three apprcci itions of our chief, several 

 other papers, in a singularly good number, are quoted 

 elsewhere. 



WILL INSURANCE LESSEN POOR RELIEF ? 



Jlr. W. H. Dawson, writing on German social 

 insurance and poor relief, says : — 



Thirty years ago it was generally expected that the Insurance 

 Laws would immediately react upon the Poor Law, climinishing 

 at once and everywhere both the cost of poor relief and the 

 number of paupers. E-tperieiice has shown that these expecta- 

 tions were based upon a double miscalcularion — a miscalculation 

 of ihe extent and causes of poverty and of the social influences 

 wliicli the Insurance Laws were destined to set loose. To-day 

 the Poor Law authorities of Germany are, with the full 

 approval of puljlic opinion, doing a larger and more important 

 work than ever before. Not only so, but Poor Law reformers 

 attribute this fact unhesitatingly to the direct and indirect 

 inlluence of.the Insurance legislation. 



The principal effect of these laws, he says, has been 

 the witlening and deepening of the entire system of 

 public care for the poor, with consequent expansion of 

 cost. 



DIPLOMACy AND DEMOCRACY. 



Mr. T. H. S. Escott supplies an interesting survey 

 of the progress of British diplomacy. He says : — 



The honour of definite steps taken towards opening our 

 I'oreign .Service "to all the talents" divides itself equally 

 between Lord Salisbury and Lord (Iranville ; of these the latter 

 appointed Sir Julian I'auncelolc to the highest permanent post 

 at Whiiehall, and broke down the wall between the Consular 

 and Diplomatic Services by making ambassadors of ornaments 

 in the lormer like .Sir William White and Ernest Satow. 



He says that no democratic control or journalistic 

 curiosity will prevent diplomacy having its private 

 deals : — " Thus at this moment the welfare, not of one 

 exalted caste, but of a whole kingdom and empire, 

 are the objects of England's secret treaties about the 

 Mediterranean now running with Turkey and Italy." 



OTHKK ARTICLES. 



Dr. Davey Biggs, writing from the Anglican stand- 

 point, urges that the different religious bodies can 

 practise comity and concord, but as yet must each 

 restrict to its own numbers the privilege of com- 

 munion. .Mr. Rendel Harris, in discussing the red robes 

 of the Dioscuri, says thtit the Twins are personifications 

 of the lightning, being ^on^ of thunder. The thunder- 

 bird in early folklore is mostly red. It is the wood- 

 pecker with the head of brilliant red. Hugh .\ronson 

 tells an interesting story of how, after six years' agita- 

 tion, a Hertfordshire village was able to secure muni- 

 cipal housing for its overcrowded and under-housed 

 labourers. 



