292 



The Review of Reviews. 



September 1, 190S. 



THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. 



The July number has in it much that is unusually 

 interesting 



A PARTY IN NEED OF EEFOEM. 

 Mr. W. G. Howard Gritten pleads for the reform 

 of the Unionist Party. He frankly admits that Sir 

 Henry Campbell-Bannemiau has come to stay, and 

 the Opposition must be " disciplined and purged." 

 He says : — 



Mr. Balfour will nobly have to resigo in favour of gome 

 leader more consistent, more determined, more energetif 

 than he; not a. leader who will defend opportunist sugges- 

 tions with abstract dialectics, but one who shall stand pos- 

 sessed of conscientious convictions capable of definitive ex- 

 position. Whether Mr. Chamberlain will be persuaded to 

 modify his self-denying ordinance or whether the mantle 

 must fall on other shoulders, is a matter of detail. 



Mr. Gritten also asks for imijroved organisation 

 and better instructed candidates. He has a sorry tale 

 to tell of some of the defeated : — 



One cajididate wa^ forced to confess that he had never 

 heard of a sinking-fund; another could not define a State- 

 aided school ; another, and he the former Member, so far 

 from being aware that the sections of the Trade DiBputes 

 Bill are completely subversive of the Common Law, blandly 

 intimated to a questioner that " he could not recall the 

 name, but had no doubt that, whatever that Bill was. he 

 had done right in voting against it!" Instances of the like 

 fatuity could be indefinitely miiltiplied, to say nothing of the 

 vast mob of those who lacked the most rudimentary know- 

 ledge of political economy, though venturing to make a 

 difficult economic question the chief plank in their election 

 platform. 



It is to be feared that the writer has not quite 

 taken the measure of the Labour men when he says: — 



Men grounded in the fundamentals of political philosophy, 

 constitutional law, and sociology from Plato downwards, 

 can with ease rebut these Cleons of the factory and dock- 

 yard. For the rant of the demagogue is based on no foun- 

 dation of systematised learning. 



WORK FOR THE COLONIAL CONFERENCE. 



Mr. Geoffrey Drage urges a sensible plea for more 

 knowledge of Imperial questions from a business point 

 of view, and common sense practical reforms on non- 

 controversial and non-party lines. He presses for 

 common statistical methods throughout the British 

 Empire, and goes on to say: — 



There is no doubt, to my mind, that cheap postal and 

 telegraphic communications will do more for the unification 

 of the Empire than any other single reform. A cheap tele- 

 graphic serWce ensures that iii every morning paper in 

 our Colonies and dependencies there will be a full account 

 of the topics which are interesting people at home, and 

 rice rersd. In the telegraphic service at this moment there 

 are many anomalies; for instance, a cable to Havana costs 

 Is. 6d. a word, a cable to Trinidad 58. Id. a word, and a 

 cable to Demerara 73. a word. 



Cheap postal rates for letters mean the maintenance of 

 regular communication between colonists, however poor, and 

 their people at home. Cheap postal rates for newspapers 

 and periodicals mean the introduction, for instance, into 

 Canada, of English journals and reviews which cannot now 

 compete with their American rivals. Reviews and periodi- 

 cals cost one cent per lb. from the United States to Canada, 

 and eight cents per lb. from Great Britain to Canada, a 

 rate which is, under the circumst.-inces. almost prohibitive. 



He strongly advocates Sir Frederick Pollock's 

 scheme of an Imperial Advisory Council and Intelli- 

 gence Department. 



THE SECRET OF GERMAN SUCCESS. 

 Dr. Louis Elkind finds the commercial prosperity of 

 Germany to be real, and not merely apparent. ' As 

 causes of her unexampled development he would un- 

 hesitatingly put patriotism first, next education. The 



pains taken to master foreign languages has. he con- 

 siders, contributed in no small degree to German pros- 

 perity. German thoroughness is perhaps more than 

 anything else the cause of the present abounding 

 prosperity. To-day. he says, Germany is the third 

 greatest commercial power in the world, pressing 

 closely upon Great Britain and the L'nited .States. 

 The figures for 1904 are as follows: — 



Uiiited Kingdom 

 Germany 

 United States 



Imports. 



, £481,040.000 

 , 314,549.000 

 , 215,814,000 



Exports. 



£300.818.000 

 258.625.000 

 297,031,000 



IBSEN'S DEBT TO FRANCE. 

 Mr. William Archer discusses Ibsen's craftsmanship, 

 and traces the influence on his early work of the then 

 dominant school of Eugene Scribe. Excepting his 

 three dramas in verse, Mr. Archer traces the influence 

 of Ibsen's close study of some seventy-five French 

 dramas in all his plays from "Lady Inger " right 

 down to " A Doll's House." Movement is, he says, 

 the secret of Ibsen's theatre, as it is of Scribe's, but 

 the movement is spiritual instead of material. He 

 goes so far as to say ; — 



If I were asked to name the perfect model of the well? 

 built play of the French school, I should not go either to- 

 .\ugier or Sardou tor an example, but to Ibsen's " Pillar of 

 Society." In symmetrical solidity of construction, complex- 

 ity combined with clearness of mechanism, it seems to me- 

 incomparable- Yet, at the same time. I should call it by 

 far the least interesting of all the works of his maturity. 



OTHER ARTICLES. 

 Mr. W. H. Mallock subjects to severe criticism Sir 

 Oliver Lodge's four positions on Life and IMatter, and 

 declares that Sir Oliver's theology is not the deliver- 

 ance of science, but merely the output of a " lay 

 clergyman." A pathetic interest attaches to a sketch 

 of "The Turn of the Year" by the late Fiona Mac- 

 leod. The art of dancing in Japan is prettily de- 

 scribed by Marcelle A. Hincks. Mr. T. A. Cook con- 

 trasts English and American rowing, to the disadvan- 

 tage of the latter, which, he says, is too much subject 

 to the influence of nerves. There is a gruesome story 

 by jirs. Belloc Lowndes entitled " According to Mere- 

 dith," intended to show the tragic possibilities which 

 lie in the suggestion of ten-year marriage contracts. 



THE OCCULT REVIEW. 



The Occult lieviciv ought to be welcomed even by 

 the most obdurate of sceptics on the same ground as 

 he is glad to include fairy tales in the necessary read- 

 ing of childhood. It supplies month by month stories. 

 that revive the wonder of the Arabian Nights, with 

 the added charm of modernity. The July number 

 contains a paper on "Magical Metathesis" by Dr. 

 Franz Hartmaiin, noticed elsewhere, which vies with 

 the achioveinents of the Arabian djiun. ilore ab- 

 struse is the paper by Jlr. E. T. Bennett on the magic- 

 of numbers. The occult lore of William Blake, the 

 poet, is brought into high relief by Mr. E. J. Ellis. 

 Mr. Mark Fiske explains the mystery of the clothing 

 of apparitions. The explanation suggested is that 

 the ghost first creates in his own mind a concept of 

 clothes, and next finds that other minds have some 

 suggestions to perfect the concept. " Clothes are thus- 

 the result of the combined thoughts of the manufac- 

 turer, the designer, the tailor and the wearer, and, 

 possibly, the friends of the wearer. The mental image 

 thus becomes objectified in some form of matter which 

 can be recognised by sense perceptions. " One only 

 wishes that one had the poiver of a ghost thus to 

 clothe oneself at will without the sequel of a tailor's 

 bill. 



