Rrriew of Kecieire, l/Tj/06. 



Leading Articles. 



377 



THE WAIL OF THE WORSTED JINGO. 



Human nature being what it is, I am afraid there 

 is no magazine which Liberals will read with such 

 satisfaction this month sjs the National Review. 

 After the ten long years during which the iron en- 

 tered into our souls, it is some consolation to watch 

 the writhings and listen to the wailings of our dis- 

 comfited oppressors. In this month's National tht 

 editor gives wav to an uncontrollable paroxysm of 

 hysterics. He seems to be even more furious with 

 his oAvn part\- than with the Ministr)", although he 

 is so mad with the Government as to speak of " Mr. 

 Haldane's shameless raid on the Army." As for 

 Mr. Bryce, " he is establishing Nationalist supre- 

 macy through administrative injustice. " 



He loathes Lord Loreburn, •■ that crafty Scotch 

 xiitimentalist." He declares that — 



The Pro-Boers in the Cabinet have concentrated their 

 energies on undermining tlie British position in the Trans- 

 vaal. The aggressive element of the Cabinet is determined 

 to hand over Soutli Africa to the Boers. The weaklings 

 oflfer a fitful and halting resistance. What a glorious 

 opportxinity for an Opposition worthy of the name! 



But, alas ! the pity of it, the Opposition is not 



worthy the name: — 



Great Britain is saddled with a Government which 

 menaces every national and Imperial interest, while the 

 Opposition i.s reduced to such a lamentable state of 

 paralysis and impotence as to he unable to exercise any 

 serious influence on the (".^urse of affairs. 



And he tells us why: — 



The Conservative Party is ruled by a small, irresponsible. 

 and. as events have shown, utterly incompetent oligarcliy, 

 completely out or touch with public opinion, of which it 

 is as contemptuous as any Russian Bureaucrat. Our 

 leaders have no knowledge of the drift of popular senti- 

 ment, or the feelings of tlie rank and file. 



Alack a day ! 



MR. HALDANE'S SCHEME. 



Mr. F. TrefTry, discussing national defence in ;he 

 Westminster Revievj, declares that Mr. Haldane's 

 scheme has not satisfied the Army, and questions 

 w^hether it will satisfy the public. The writer can- 

 not, however, concur in the doctrine of the extreme 

 blue-water school. He urges the extension of phy- 

 sical exercises as a compulsory subject in all State- 

 aided schools, the encouragement of all boys to join 

 the Bo\s' Brigade, Church Lads' Brigade, or a cadet 

 company, .to' the extent of allowing them a State 

 grant. He questions whether Parliamentary fran- 

 chise should not be refused to those who fail to 

 make them.selves efficient to defend their hearths 

 and homes. 



Blatkicflfld quotes Lord Roberts and Lord Milner 

 with great wrath against Mr. Haldane's " new make- 

 shift." and sums up by declaring, " We would con- 

 sider as an act of treason reduction of the land 

 forces of this country by a single combatant." As 

 poor Mr. Haldane proposes to reduce the militar\- 

 forces of the Crown by 20.000 men, he is, according 

 to this showing. guilt> of a twenly-thousand-fold act 

 of treason ! 



PHOTOGRAPHING THE GOLDEN EAGLE. 



The August number of the London Magazine is 



called a Summer Story Number, but it contains an 



interesting article, by' Mr. 'W. L. Finley and Mr. 



H. T. Bohlman, describing with pen and camera 



their climb to the haunts of the golden eagle in 



California. Mr. Finley writes: — 



Few eagles possess the mad ferocity pictured and magni- 

 fied by sensational storytellers. When we first scrambled 

 over tlie iioulders of the canon up towara the nest. I ga» 

 the old eagle slip quietly from her ejgs and skim out over 

 the mountain top. When 1 strapped on the climbers to 

 ascend the tree. I had one eye oijened for trouble. But 

 each time we visited the spot the parents silently disap- 

 peared, and stayed away as long as we cared to hold pos- 

 session. They kept a watchful eye, however, from the blue 

 distance overhead. 



On another occasion, when they visited the eyrie, 

 the nestlings were almost fuK-grown. Mr. Finley 

 continues : — 



The nestlings stirred about and kept a hungry look-out 

 from tlie nest-edge and the great limb-perch of tlie parents. 

 At tlie first sight of food they lifted their wings in 

 groicsque and savage ecstasy. Ihey were no longer fed, nor 

 did they sli.'ire the headless body of the squirrel that was 

 dropped in the eyrie. One reuued it in strips and swal- 

 lowed it in gulps, while the other held sullenly aloof, 

 awaiting the return of the mate with its breakfast. 



Tl;e eaglets revolted at the sight of a human Ijeing. 

 They opened their mouths in defiance when we fiist looked 

 over the nest-edge, nor were they one whit less ferocious 

 for all our visits- From the first, they would have rent to 

 shreds the hand that dared touch them. They submitted to 

 us as a caged lion endures his keeiier. Deepest under each 

 shaggy brow was an eye of piercing glare, that seemed 

 alwa.vs seaiching the far-away blue of the distance. It 

 was the e.ve of an eagle, and nothing else can describe it. 



MANITOUISM. 



Arthur O. Lovejoy, in the Monist, writes on the 

 fundamental concept of the primiti\e philosophy of 

 man. He maintains that the sharp distinction be- 

 tween primitive magic and primitive religion drawn 

 by Mr. Frazer and others cannot be made out. He 

 dcx-s not quite go so far as Miss Fletcher, who says 

 that the foundation of the Indian's faith involved 

 two ideas: that all things animate and inanimate 

 were permeated by a common life; and that this 

 life could not be broken, but was continuous. He 

 insists rather that the underlying and all-controlling 

 preconception in the thought of savages contained 

 the following features: — 



That there is present in nature a diffused and inter- 

 connected impersonal energy or vital force, some quantum 

 of which is possessed by all or most things or persons; 

 that the amount of this energy is more or less fixed or 

 limited; that any unusual, striking or alarming power, 

 ability or productivity in anything is evidence of the 

 special presence of this force; that it is localised in dif- 

 ferent natural objects, or possessed bv difTercnt persons, in 

 varying degrees; that the most important property of 

 anything consists in the amount of this energy which 

 inheres in it; that portions of such vital energy may be 

 transferred from one iwrson or thing to another, and may 

 t>e controlled, regulated, insulated, by various devices, 

 uauall.v of a mechanical sort; that contact between a per- 

 son or object hiehlv charged with this energy and one less 

 highly charged with it will, without the volition of either, 

 produce, as it were, an I'xplosion of vital force highly 

 dangerous to the weaker party, and it may be to both: 

 that the chief end of man is to get possession and control 

 of this force; and that the chief utility of an immense 

 variety of rites lies in the in:inipulation of it. 



He would refer to the primitive belief in a perva- 

 sive, life-giving energy as manitouism. and to that 

 energy itself as manitou. 



