494 



I he Kevlew of Heviews, 



Noretnber 1, 1906. 



HOW TO DEAL WITH THE UNEMPLOYED. 



By Sir Edmund Verney. 

 In Broad Vimfs for September, Sir Edmund 

 Vernev writes on the problem of the unemployed : — 



If the British public is prepared to adopt it, the remedy 

 for tmemployment ia not far to seek. Employment might 

 be found by the State tor every unemployed man if he 

 chooses to accept it ; it should be a voluntary act on his 

 part, but should carry with it this provision, that it he 

 does come to the State for employment he should under- 

 take to work tor the State for a certain term; he must be 

 willinfT to surrender his freedom tor a time, in considera- 

 tion of suitable work heins found for him; he shall labour 

 nnder strict supervision, so that he shall earn his daily 

 bread. 



Again he savs : — 



When the supply of neglected children is stopped, and 

 children are trained in mind and body to fulfil a worthy 

 destiny, the unemployed question will be solved. 



Sir Edmund Verney insists that in a radical re- 

 form of the hind laws alone can we find a perma- 

 nent remedy for our troubles. He deprecates emi- 

 gration. He says : — > 



Across St. George's Channel we have an object-lesson of a 

 fertile country bleeding to death from emigration, and 

 across the Atlantic we see the deep-seated hostility of the 

 emigrant who has been made to feel that there is no room 

 for him on his native soil, where he is not wanted. He 

 carries with him the sore memory of waste lands re- 

 jeoting waste men, that the idie rich be not disturbed. 



The Birmingham Distress Committee are alive to the ad- 

 vantages of a farm colony; they are taking steps in tb.at 

 direction, and approaching Mr. Fels on the subject. It does 

 seem strange that in a qiestion so vital to the country we 

 all look to the leadership of our American cousin, and 

 apparently not one rich Bngrshman can he found to en- 

 courage the establishment of farm colonies, which have 

 been written about and preiched about for many years, 

 and successfully experimented with by the Rev. Dr. Paton. 

 of Norwich, and others. . 



An emigration scheme is singularly easy to work. It iB 

 e-xceedinglv interesting. It e.tcites sympathy abroad; grati- 

 tude is its reward at home. To successfully run a farm 

 colony i--. n-t at all easy. We may hore that those who 

 have h therto promoted emigration will not shrink from 

 the more serious, the sounder, and more patriotic project 

 of faim coloniee at home. 



CHIN4 REVOLUTIONISED. 



It is an astonishing picture presented by Dr. A. 

 W. P. Martin, formerly President of the Univer- 

 sity, Pekin, to the readers of The World's Work 

 and Flaw On his return to Pekin he finds "China 

 transformed," The streets of Pekin are being 

 modernised, the houses are bound to follow, the 

 railway comes to the gate before the Palace, electric 

 light and power and tramways are shortly expected : 

 journalism has sprung up like Jonah's gourd, and is 

 being pushed with the passion of propaganda : ^ 



Numerous dailies are published, and in order to reach 

 the masses, who are too illiterate to read tor themselves, 

 there are reading-rooms on the corners, at which the 

 papers are read and expounded. Those places have the air 

 of a wayside chapel, and. indeed, the innovation is con- 

 fessedly borrowed from the methods of missionaries. A 

 placard admonislies speaker and hearer that they are not 

 to discuss the reigning dynasty, though of course they are 

 free to thunder away against foreigners and foreign coun- 

 tries. To reach the rural population travelling expositors (or 

 itinerant preachers) are sent from place to place, and are 

 vfelcomed bv people who have no better pastime than to 

 listen to a blind minstrel, or to look at a troop of strolling 

 players whose dialect they do not undeistand. 



Schools for girls are greatly in vogue, A move- 

 ment in favour of unbinding the feet of Chinese 

 women is stronglv favoured by the Dowager Em- 



press. A new alphabet has been introduced, based 

 on native characters, which will simplify the process, 

 of learning to read. Formerly, 3000 distinct char- 

 acters were required for the reading of ordinary 

 books. The Chinese are pushing railways in all 

 directions. The receipts at the Post Office are ad- 

 vancing rapidly, A publishing house in Shanghai 

 has been selling 2000 copies a month of a primary 

 book on history and geography, for the use of 

 Government schools, and their steam presses are 

 unable to overtake the growing demand, 



A CHINESE CHRISTIANITY. 



The character of the people has changed, stol- 

 iditv giving place to excitability. " China for the 

 Chinese " has become the rallying cry for all par- 

 ties : — 



Native Ohristiane are making a strenuous effort to retain 

 the benefits of missionary enterprise, and at the same time 

 to free themselves from dictation and dei)endence. So a 

 church has been formed which is to be independent alike 

 of foreign aid and control. 



Such a church exists in Japan, and we wish success to 

 the •■ Church of Christ in Chin.a." wh.atever the motive for 

 its creation. Our merchants might not welcome such an 

 expansion of n.at.ive enterprise as to cause them to close 

 their doors, but this is precisely what the missionary aims 

 at. He rejoices to see the natives carry on a crusade witli- 

 out control or assistance. It is significant that a Minister 

 of State (not a Christian) subscribes for the support of th's 

 church, and a newspaper (not Christian), after exposing 

 the effeteness of their old religions, calls for " a hero to 

 take the lead in this renovating movement, which may yet 

 expand to the proportions of a new faith for the nation." 



The anti-foreign riots are favoured by the man- 

 darins and others as a means of protest against 

 foreign jurisdiction. Nevertheless a medical college 

 recently opened by four missionary societies re- 

 ceived a donation from the Dowager Empress of 

 10,000 ounces of silver, and a letter from Pao- 

 tingfu reports a number of officials, by order of a 

 Vicerov, dumping into the river the idols of several 

 temples required for school-houses. " The people 

 manifested curiosity, but no resentment.'" 



Living Pictures of Living Plants. 



In the Science Notes in the September number 

 of Chambers's Journal we are told of an experiment 

 which is being made in America to epitomise the 

 life-historv of a plant within the duration of an ani- 

 mated photograph. The writer thus explains how it 



is done : — 



In the making of an ordinary animated picture a large 

 number of sep.-brate .and distinct photographs .are taken con- 

 secutively on a travelling band of celluloid, at the rate of 

 some sixteen every second, and in the reproduction of the 

 picture the separate images are thrown upon a Uintem- 

 screen in the same order ;ind at the same rate of speed. 



It will be remembered that the blending of these images 

 in the spectator's eves, which are incapable of perceiving 

 them separately at such a speed, results in the production 

 of the illusion of a single picture instinct with life .and 

 motion. In photographing the life-history of a growin-r 

 plant the separ.ate pictures are taken at a comparatively 

 long interval of time— about one picture an hour— so that 

 the complete exposure will embrace the appearance of the 

 first tiny shoot above tlie soil, and the entire growth of 

 the plant until it flowers and seeds and withers. 



A few hundred photographic exposures will cover the 

 entire cvcle. and produce a film which, projected at the 

 ordinary rate, will occupy only a few minutes of the 

 •student's time. In these few minutes he -will observe the 

 actual growth of the plant and its every change and move- 

 ment the whole story of its lite compressed into two oi 

 threo minutes. 



