it should also be her delight. But if that duty should be opposed, if her path should be traversed by some rival State, what then would be the necessity laid upon the British Government and people? Evidently, if the considerations already advanced are valid, it then becomes straitly incumbent upon them to resist the assailant with the entire force which they can exert.

Viewed from this standpoint, it will be seen that the adequate maintenance of the national armaments is not merely a vital need, prompted by the strongest conceivable motives of self-interest, but also, in very truth, a high and sacred obligation of morality. Not to heed that obligation means that we are ready lightly to lay aside the work which constitutes the chief justification for our existence as a people amongst mankind. It means that we are contemners of the past, that we are faithless to our charge, that we are as fraudulent life-tenants with regard to our heirs. First of all duties, because the primary condition of the fulfilment of all duties, is the obligation of self-defence.

Well is it indeed for us, in the presence of persons who cut their emotion loose from their reason, and let it run amuck in the world like a mad Malay, that in the fulness of time the cld idea of devotion to the nation, and of debt owed to the nation, has at last begun to revive. As a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, so has the Imperial idea, held ten years ago but by a few, spread until it has become a vital force. In the possessions of the British people beyond the seas, as in these islands, there are men who are working in utter earnest to recall to their countrymen those thoughts and those high impulses which gave them strength in days gone by. As the years roll on, a wider patriotism and a deeper resolve are becoming perceptible. There is growing into existence a sentiment of national being which overleaps the ocean, so that, to those whom it possesses, it matters not whether they were born in Cape Town or in London, in Melbourne or in Montreal. Equally are they members of one mighty community, and equally are they heirs to that mastery of the seas which must ultimately carry with it the hegemony of mankind.

H. F. WYATT.

THE ENCROACHMENT OF WOMEN

ALTHOUGH during the last year the champions of Women have continued unabashed the policy of encroachment, the situation is completely changed. With a noble determination, the University of Oxford has refused even the semblance of a degree to the students of St. Margaret's or Somerville Hall, while the Radicals of Cambridge, who inaugurated their agitation to help the sister University, are now conducting the campaign for their own separate advantage. True, they have gone no further than the appointment of a Syndicate, whose report the Senate will presently annul; but, flushed with the bare thought of victory, they have published all their evil intent to the world, until it is clear that nothing will please them save the complete surrender of the University and its privileges to those for whom these privileges were never designed. Meanwhile the Women arrogantly demand as a right ten times more than courtesy has granted them, and prove, by the temper in which they approach the controversy, that should they once have their way the presence of one single man at Cambridge will seem inexpedient to the patrons of High Schools. One lady, indeed, presiding over a notorious seat of learning, impudently asserts that men are disqualified by their sex from taking part in a discussion which men alone have the right to initiate. In other words, men are forbidden to defend their own institutions against the onslaught of women for no better reason than that they are men. Shall they, then, appoint a council of women to rob them of their due, and sulk in forced idleness behind their oaks?

The Syndicate which has lately published its Report is prepared for this or any other surrender. It respects all things save the interests of the University which it is in duty bound to defend. It has accepted for gospel the testimony of women who would willingly sacrifice the most ancient foundation for their own problematic advantage. It records with a bland astonishment the fact that 1,234 students of Girton and Newnham have asked for titular recognition, as though any 1,234 persons would decline a privilege to which by use and custom they had no right. It permits an appeal to public opinion, as though no place were secure from the domination of the people, and as though Cambridge were an inn whose clients might complain of the meat

and drink supplied them. The Syndicate, in fact, invited to consider 'what further rights or privileges, if any, should be granted to women students by the University,' has refrained from any consideration at all. The very use of the word 'right' is ill-omened, and nine out of the fourteen gentlemen appointed to inform the Senate have set their signatures, not to an impartial argument, but to as strenuous a piece of special pleading as you are likely to meet. They are anxious to give away with both hands all those privileges which centuries of honourable tradition have withheld. Not only would they confer upon such women as have satisfied the examiners the degree of B.A.; they insist that the degree of M.A. shall also be theirs, when they are of suitable standing; and, that no check be put upon the vanity of Girton and Newnham, the students of these colleges, if the Syndicate is not thwarted, will be declared eligible for all other degrees now conferred upon men, save only the doctorates of Medicine and Divinity. Why these trivial exceptions are made is left unexplained, but the reason may well be that the apostles of progress are unwilling to close all doors upon the agitation of the future.

The Syndicate, in truth, has gone further on the road of revolution than the most sanguine 'reformer' had expected. The first timid demand was for the mere B.A., in which degree, said the innovator, there lurked no danger, since only Masters of Arts are eligible for membership of the Senate. But now, declare the reckless nine, ladies shall wear the silken or even the scarlet gown; they shall pay the fees wherewith these distinctions are bought, and that all the world may know the titles are not conferred honoris causâ, women shall henceforth be eligible for such honorary degrees as are now presented with a Latin oration to the distinguished men of all nations, provided only these women have served the cause of education, or, in other words, have taken part in the battle against the Universities. Never was a more ingenious method invented of conferring immortality upon a grievance. Should the Senate adopt the advice of this misguided majority, the effect must be instant disaster. The University will be packed with disfranchised members, who are permitted to purchase a half-privilege with precisely the same sum which confers the whole privilege upon others. And you need not look too closely into history to assure yourself that this foolish complacency will be rewarded with a bitter and embarrassing agitation. After this supreme surrender, free access to the library and laboratories is but a trifling concession.

One sound argument alone would justify a complete reconstruction of Cambridge: the advantage of the University as it at present exists. The members of the Senate have no other duty than to guard the interests of that institution, whereof they form part. They have no concern with philanthropy, politics, or intelligence. They can but ask themselves one question: will our action prove a benefit, not to

the world, but to the University of Cambridge? Now, the Syndicate, or such part of it as signs the Report, asks and answers many another question, but prudently neglects the one essential problem. Even if it proved to the satisfaction of the stubbornest opponent that a degree was a veritable benefit to the women who ask it, it would not have advanced one step on the road of conviction. Yet, though every scrap of the evidence which it adduces is irrelevant, it is none the less worth examination, because, contemplated from the Syndicate's own point of view, it fails entirely to establish the slightest grievance. Such vague assertions as that 'a very general impression exists outside the University that the course of study women have pursued is inferior to that pursued by men' are more than counterbalanced by Mrs. Sidgwick's free and frank admission that the position of a Newnham or Girton student with a good Tripos certificate is, from the point of view of obtaining employment as a teacher, on the whole not inferior to that of the graduates of other Universities.' Why, then, this hankering after the degrees that are immaterial? Surely, the reason is to be found in a sly, half-repressed desire to get the management of the University into the hands of women?

But the Syndicate asked for opinions, and it has printed such an array as only a perfect lack of humour could have seen through the press. Here is one lady who declares that women following the Cambridge course feel their inferiority. Well, the remedy is easy: let them follow another, and leave Cambridge in peace. They at least are free, though they would fasten an intolerable trammel upon a University which does not belong to them, and to which they will never belong. Another student of Newnham states that when she visited Chicago in 1893 she found 'the possession of a degree would have removed certain inconveniences which she experienced.' Is it then the business of the University to make things easy for the adventurous tourist? Another was hampered in the post-graduate work she performed in an American college; another, still more reckless, asserts that had she possessed a University degree she would have been more at ease in tackling French officials! Again you are told that Berlin and Freiburg are not as respectful as they might be to the Tripos certificate, and while this mistress is incapable of explaining her qualifications to the British parent, that one is persuaded that her private school would yield a better profit if the University of Cambridge were disloyal to its traditions. Such arguments as these are refuted by their own frivolity, and would be insufficient did not history render it imperative to close the question now and for ever. It is almost incredible that ladies who have enjoyed the advantage of so liberal an education as is conferred by Cambridge should still ask the University to act as a travelling companion or to impress upon the mothers of High School girls that which their own eloquence fails to explain.

Having destroyed its case out of the mouths of its own witnesses, the Syndicate proceeds to quote the practice of other Universities. And here the Syndicate best displays its lack of candour. Oxford is the only University which may for a moment be compared to Cambridge, and Oxford has declared finally and decisively against the aggression of Women. Wherefore, says the Syndicate, with Oxford we will have no dealings. We prefer to follow the lead of Manchester and Aberdeen, of Durham and Aberystwyth. In other words, 'the present is not a fitting occasion to attempt to secure the joint action of the two Universities.' Why not? What occasion can be more fitting? A majority of Oxford graduates is anxious for co-operation. It is a common danger that threatens the Universities, which by a common expedient might put their house in order. The tradition which inclines Oxford to the side of wisdom is the same which must preserve Cambridge from ruin. The moment has come for mutual understanding and mutual aid; yet, says the Syndicate, we decline to consider the possibility of joint action' and prefer to fall back upon the illustrious precedent of Bangor? Cannot they realise, these intrepid nine, that Bangor has nothing to lose by reckless innovation? Will they not understand that Oxford alone is the fitting colleague of Cambridge? That the University which sheltered Mark Pattison alone may join hands with the University which rejoices in the scholarship of Professor Mayor ?

Nor is it only sentiment which makes 'joint action' a necessity. Suppose Cambridge neglected the lofty example of Oxford, and admitted women to an equal share of her privileges, the issue would not be in doubt for a moment. Cambridge would become not a mixed University, but a University of Women. Not even the complacent nine who have signed the Report to the Senate would long be tolerated when Girton and Newnham came into their own. The boat-race, which is far more popular (if popularity be essential) than the progress of Women, would be replaced by a vapid contest at lawntennis between the Women of Cambridge and the Men of Oxford. Mr. Roberts, the zealous and fearless iconoclast, would be sent back to extend a University which was ceasing to exist. And the undergraduates, the despised undergraduates, who, after all, are at least as necessary as dons for the well-being of a University, what would become of them? With perfect wisdom they would choose the University which remained faithful to their interests, and migrate in all lightheartedness to Oxford. And they would do right, for they sought their University in the belief that they would enjoy the privileges of an institution designed by centuries of habit for the use of men. But they would find, if the ambition of the indiscreet be not instantly checked, that their interests were discussed and governed by a crowd of gowned and titled women. And what high-spirited youth would permit this intrusion? The Syndicate, which quotes with