The Reviews Reviewed. 



669 



THE NATIONAL REVIEW. 



The June number strikes as strident a note as ever 

 in home and foreign politics. Mr. Maxse's wrathful 

 explanation of the advocacy in Unionist papers last 

 November of Home Rule all round claims separate 

 notice. 



By far the raciest paper is that by Mr. James 

 Edmond, editor of the Sydney Rulhtin, on the birth- 

 rate and afterwards. He says, " The spectre of a 

 gigantic and incredible baby blots out the sun and 

 darkens the pallid luminary of night." He draws lurid 

 pictures of the ancient Malthusian kind, though with 

 the modernest phrasing, of the awful consequences 

 which would result from over-population of the planet. 

 The immediate future of the world will, he expects, lie 

 with the strong nation which contrives to get hold of 

 the last great thinly-peopled food-growing area. Some 

 day Britain may be blockaded by fleets lying 5,000 

 miles away and shutting up the" food outlets. Still 

 further, Governments may forbid the export of grain. 

 Then the hungriest nations will make war on the least 

 hungry nations. So w ith coal and iron, so with timber. 

 He says the last century or so has been a sort of world- 

 drunk, the world's one magnificent dmnk. " Man has 

 gone on a " burst,' and been drinking up a planet all at 

 once." This is only, he says, a comment on the birth- 

 rate fetish, a good fetish once, but now outlived. Jlr. 

 Frank Fox also discusses the Empire and food, and 

 attempts to show that the way to cheap food and sure 

 food is along the path of Imperial unity and Imperial 

 development, and along that path "alone. He would 

 also insist on developing the home country as a source 

 of food supply, c\-en though pheasants must give way 

 to peasants. 



Mr. Lovat Eraser deals with the idea that Baron 

 Marschall von Hieberstein, the father of the Baghdad 

 Railway scheme, has come to London to settle the 

 matter. Mr. Eraser suggests that the Government 

 should simply say, " We have not the slightest desire 

 to stop your railway ; neither have we any desire to 

 join in it " ; but sliould refuse to consent to the 

 expansion of the line to Kowcit. 



Mr. Arnold White says that the German Emperor 

 when at Athens, for his sister's wedding, drew up a 

 memorandum on the weakness of the British Medi- 

 terranean Fleet, which he sent to the British .Minister 

 of the day, and in which he criticised the gunnery of 

 our fleet. .Mr. White .says that the United States ship 

 Utah on April 5th made all hits at a distance of 

 I (,000 yards. H.M.S. Orion fired at a range of 4.000 

 yards. The firing from the German Dreadnoughts is 

 at a range of 9,500 yards. He adds, " We know that 

 the battle practice results are too bad to warrant the 

 Admiralty giving the actual figures." 



Major A. C. Morrison-Bell, M.P., i)roposcs an eccen- 

 tric .scheme of redistribution. He would divide the 

 United Kingdom into ten electoral areas, each con- 

 taining about a tenth of the population, and each of 

 which should return sixty-seven members — Ireland ; 



Scotland; Wales and Northumbria; Lancashire; York- 

 shire and Lincolnshire ; Midlands ; Eastern ; Western 

 South- Western ; London. These would be broken up 

 again into single-member constituencies. 



The badger is championed by Miss Frances Pitt, whc 

 insists that it deserves protection, if on no othei 

 score, for the number of wasps' nests it destroys. It 

 not only scratches open the hole, but it eats up' every 

 fragment of comb and cells. It also destroys the harm- 

 ful young voles and beetles, and other noxious verminj 

 as well as carrion. 



THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW. 



The June number is strong in foreign politics. Most 

 of the articles have been separately noticed. 



SELF-RULE OR PAUPER DOLES ? 



Mr. Erskine ChiWers contrasts the Home Rule Bill 

 with the Unionists' case against Home Rule. The 

 latter treats Ireland as " a pathetic kind of slum in 

 regard to which exceptional philanthropic efforts must 

 be made, while the bare notion of bestowing responsi- 

 bility for their own welfare on the inhabitants is 

 scouted." How much this philanthropic treatment 

 would involve in the way of expenditure is thus 

 estimated : — 



We can only reckon that the moderately specific items might 

 easily entail an additional annual charge ol^ three millions a 

 year, together with a capital charge of over forty millions. 

 Adding this annual charge to the existing deficit of ;f 1,515,000, 

 plus the normal estimated growth of National Insurance and 

 Land Purchase -/750,oco— we reach a deficit of ^{^5, 265,000. 

 .■\nd this is the result of an "outline," excluding large but 

 altogether incalculable items. Even so, the deficit would he 

 three millions greater than the maximum permitted by the 

 Home Rule Hill under the least favourable circumstances, and 

 however much we allow for a natural expansion of Irish revenue 

 it is plain that the Unionist policy will make and keep Ireland 

 irretrievably insolvent. 



CO-OPERATION THE SALVATION OF INDIA. 



Mr. .Murray Robertson, writing on India. laments 

 the backwardness of the Indian Government in the 

 internal development of Indian agricultural industry 

 and railways. He asks the authorities to carrv their 

 minds forward to the year 1945, when the population 

 w ill approach 400 millions. There is only one remedy : 

 to keep the multitudes prosperous on the land and 

 not allow them to crowd into the towns ; and the only 

 means of doing this is by teaching them and helping 

 thorn to co-operate, and by providing suflicient com- 

 munication throughout the country. Co-operation 

 has saved agriculture in Denmark, it is both mending 

 and making the vast Empire of Russia. In the 

 development of Indian railways, he would call in 

 Indian capital and Indian .as well as European 

 directors, would inlroilucc the uniform gauge on the 

 railways, and would promote a through connection 

 with the Russian railways. 



Dr. Warschauer vigorously contrasts Dr. Forsyth's 

 insistence on " Paul's Christ " with the teaching of jcsus 

 Himself, 



