Review of Reviews, 1/12/13. 



LEADING ARTICLES. 



989 



of such supreme transcendence as to be 

 far beyond the reach of prayer or ap- 

 peal. There are, however, numerous 

 minor deities and spirits — in nearly 

 every case malignant — who have to l^e 

 propitiated or appeased. It may sur- 

 prise you to hear that idolatry, as we 

 understand the term, does not exist ; the 

 so-called " fetish " — a misnomer — is in 

 reality a spirit that has taken up its 

 abode in some natural feature, such as 

 a hill, a stream, a lake. Such spirits are 

 located by the priests, and become tribal 

 guardians. Spirits will also occupy ob- 

 jects prepared for their reception, such 

 as a wooden figure, a brass pan con- 

 taining a mixture of ingredients sup- 

 posed to be agreeable to the particular 

 spirit that takes up its residence therein, 

 or even a stone of other inanimate ob- 



ject. These spirits are usually the guar- 

 dians of families or individuals, but 

 they have an unpleasant way of turn- 

 ing on and rending their owners, which 

 makes their adoption a somewhat hazard- 

 ous undertaking. So long as a spirit 

 brings prosperity to the tribe, famil}', 

 or individual claiming its protection, 

 its domicile is watched over and care- 

 fully tended ; but, directly misfortune 

 befalls, a priest is consulted, who is 

 usual h^ able to recommend a more 

 powerful spirit, for whom a new abode 

 is found or prepared, that of the former 

 spirit being abandoned, thrown away, 

 or (if of marketable value), sold to 

 Europeans as a curio. In the Northern 

 Territories these spirits usually enter into 

 some animal, bird or reptile, which then 

 becomes sacred. 



INDIA AND JAPAN. 



" S." contributes his views on Indian 

 unrest to " East and West," and is of 

 opinion that the situation demands 

 drastic action on the part of the British 

 Government. He says : — 



Every man capable of thinking- for him- 

 self knows that the world's political and 

 economic machinery is out of date and out 

 of joint. Humanitarians deplore the con- 

 trast presented everywhere between insolent 

 wealth and slavish destitution. They com- 

 pare the world to an arena, within which 

 wage-earners pursue a fierce struggle for 

 life, while landlords and money-capitalists 

 hold the gate and levy a heavy toll for en- 

 trance. They believe the motor-car to be a 

 social dissolvent as powerful as was the 

 abuse of sporting- rights by the French 

 nobility before ijSg. Syndicalists are in 

 overt rebellion against the tyranny of org;an- 

 ised capital ; feminists make war on society 

 in order to win the rights of citizenship for 

 their sex. The fount and origin of 

 anarchism leaps to the eye — it is artificial 

 restrictions placed by class-made laws on 

 opportunity, which generate a rankling sense 

 of injustice in millions of human beings 

 denied a place in the sunshine. It follows 

 that remedies must be sought in national 

 education calculated to breed citizens ; free 

 access to land and capital for its efficient 

 products and equitable laws to regulate the 

 distribution of wealth. " That nation," said 

 Ruskin, " is the richest which nourishes the 

 greatest number of noble and happy human 

 beings." 



Indian anarchism cannot be treated as a 

 thing apart from forces which are shaking 

 the inhabited world ; nor can it be extirpated 

 by repressive measures, however severe. 

 The vernacular Press, aided by our admir- 

 able postal and telegraph systems, keeps 



malcontents in touch with the militant 

 anarchism of Europe and America. We have 

 provided Indians with a " lingua franca " in 

 English, which has become a second mother- 

 tongue for the " instructed " but uneducated 

 masses. We have, in short, called an in- 

 choate nation into being, which has acquired 

 consciousness and longs to guide its own 

 destinies. 



LIVING INDIA. 



Under this title Mr. Fielding-Hall 

 contributes to the " Atlantic Monthly," 

 and attempts the explanation of Bri- 

 tain's failure to secure the sympathy of 

 the native Indian. The writer is con- 

 vinced that the civil servant is sent out 

 too late, w^hen prejudice has done its 

 worst stereotype opinions which are not 

 always based on fact. He says: — 



The powers of initiative and the sense of 

 responsibility which mature at twenty-one 

 atrophy thereafter if not fully used. And no 

 book-learning can replace them. Thus now- 

 adays tutelage is too long continued. 



Again, education began later in those days 

 than now, and there was less of it. Boys 

 ran wild far more than now, when they are 

 cramped up in schools and conventions at a 

 very early age. 



Thus the men of old had individualities ; 

 they had not been steam-rollered flat by 

 public school and university ; their boyish 

 enthusiasm and friendliness were still in 

 them. They had no prejudices, had never 

 heard of " the Oriental mind,"' were not 

 convinced beforehand that every Oriental was 

 a liar and a thief, but were prepared to 

 take men as they found them. They were 

 willing and eager to learn. Their minds 

 were open as yet to new impressions. They 



