Charles Brookfield is eminently satisfactory. If there must be a censor, then we doubt if a better choice could be made. Mr. Street is a writer of distinction, and although his traffic with the stage has hitherto been but slender, he is in essentials a sound critic of the drama. Moreover Mr. Street is a man of the world, a much-needed qualification for the office he is to hold. So, although he will not easily be shocked, he will also know that mere dulness, tempered by impropriety, is not necessarily art with a capital A. THE statistics of the publishing trade for 1913 as compiled by the Bookseller are both interesting and instructive. In spite of labour difficulties the output of books was only very slightly less than in 1912, and was in excess of all other years. The actual number of books published was 12,046, a truly prodigious total. Fiction heads the list, as usual, no less than 2,285 novels having been published during the year. Religion and theology comes next with a total of 893 volumes, followed closely by essays and belles lettres, whatever the latter may be, 876; children's books, 869; and biography and history, 615. Poetry and drama accounted for 582 volumes; political economy, 394; educational, 453; medical and surgical, 303; music, 329; law and Parliamentary, 139; art and architecture, 195; and travel and adventure, 188. It will probably be regretted at any rate publicly-that fiction still occupies the leading position; but when it is remembered how large is the public demand for fiction, and that probably every reader of any other subjects is also at times a novel reader, it must be admitted that the proportion that fiction bears to the grand total is even less than might have been expected. NOTICE. The Editor cannot be held responsible for unsolicited manu scripts. Every endeavour will be made to return rejected contributions when stamped addressed envelopes are enclosed. The receipt of a proof must not be taken as an acceptance of an article. OFFICES OF "THE OUTLOOK," 167 STRAND, W.C. Telephone, 2945 Central. TH The Outlook Saturday, January 3, 1914. met on level terms? These uneasy questionings are the natural expression of the fear that the slightest departure from the Redmond bargain, written or verbal, which has kept the present Ministry in office for three years may involve their instant fall. But the nervous stalwarts have little reason for alarm. They exaggerate the freedom of action which is permissible to their plenipotentiaries in any compromise, and they forget the rare dexterity which Mr. Asquith and his colleagues have already turned to account THE BASIS OF COMPROMISE. HE average Unionist is disposed to regard with quiet amusement the manifest anxiety displayed by thorough-going Radicals towards the proposal for a conference on the Home Rule scheme between the party leaders. Are the blessings of the Parliament Act to be tamely surrendered across a round table in Downing Street or some neutral country house? Will the settlement which may be arrived at cover the whole Bill and nothing but the Bill, though couched in different language? Have the protagonists of pure democracy equipped themSOME of the evidence given before the Royal Commis-selves on this occasion with the extra aces which are sion on the delay in the King's Bench Division makes indispensable if the reactionary champions are to be piquant reading for laymen of a sardonic humour. Lord Haldane's belief that no one is worth more than £5,000 a year to the country is most gratifying, but if it was acquired during his period of service in the present Cabinet, it errs on the side of generosity. Mr. Justice Bankes very rightly complained of the quantity of baggage and the retinue of servants a Judge had to take with him on circuit. Of course the whole ceremonial of the Assize might be abolished to the advantage of everyone concerned. Neither the Sheriff nor his officers add to the majesty of the law, which would be just as majestic if the Judge arrived unostenta tiously with a kit-bag and golf-clubs like any other visitor in a game in which all the cards are understood to a county town. So long as our Judges retain the to be on the table. The Government's representatives privilege of committing people for contempt, they will in the suggested negotiations are absolutely fettered receive the respectful attention of all who attend their by the bond in virtue of which the Nationalists courts, voluntarily or involuntarily. For any further respect smothered their prejudices against Mr. Lloyd they must depend upon their private characters like other George's taxes and a programme of merely Radical people. So all undue ceremonial is so much waste of legislation in order to achieve the one object of their valuable time. hearts' desire. Mr. Asquith cannot repudiate the deed, and if Mr. Redmond were inclined to relax its conditions he is too closely watched by his able henchman, the generalissimo of the Molly Maguires, to essay a perilous magnanimity. The sole resource of the Ministerial delegates, if they are ever nominated, consists in their adroit handling of difficult facts, and of opponents who have been bitten once and are now perhaps rather shy. This talent gave them the points in 1910. At a conference heralded with extraordinary solemnity, and invoked with hysterical fervour by those for whom compromise has ousted the cardinal virtues, surrender was steadily pressed on the Unionist side, and when the attempt at coercion failed, a General Election, which had been held in reserve and was wholly without justification except as a political coup, was sprung upon the country and caught the Opposition not unwarned, as we can vouch, but certainly unprepared. The last conference was a successful enterprise for the Government, because it broke down. It produced for them Ir is very satisfactory to note that, in spite of the spasmodic attempts of irresponsible agitators to deflect tradeunionism into Socialistic and Syndicalist channels, the appointed leaders are holding fast to the best traditions of the trades they represent. Mr. Straker, the secretary of the Northumberland Miners' Association, writing in his official circular, thus refers to the theory and practice of the general strike. He says: "We must remember that trade-unionists are as yet only a minority of the workers of this country, and consequently in a general application of the 'down tools' policy they would be up against the rest of the workers. But if we can imagine the whole of the workers adopting the policy the evil would be greater still. When all production was stopped the class of people with the least reserves would feel it most, and that is the working class. Strikes may under some circumstances be justifiable, and I know there are always at least two sides to a dispute, and that even the reasonable man may have to resort to force of arms; but it ought to be a last resort." So long as such counsels prevail, so long will the trade-unions command the respect of the community. what they were pleased to call a renewed mandate of a fuller scope, the authority of the people to wreck the Constitution and thereafter the Church and the Union. It is instructive to observe that the Government's monitors postulate the acceptance of the present Bill in its integrity as a necessary preliminary to any meeting of the leaders. The fabric may be added to at discretion; it may be festooned with a few more paper safeguards and provisional clauses which cost nothing and are only meant for show, but no essential is to be changed in the creation of a separate Parliament in Dublin to which the whole of Ireland is ultimately responsible and which in turn is responsible solely to the wirepullers of the Ancient Hibernian Order. Such a definite formula, backed by the command "Full speed ahead!" is invaluable for the guidance of Unionists. They know exactly what Mr. Redmond wants and what he has the right to insist on getting, if his reading of the charterparty is correct. If he is wrong, Mr. Asquith has scored another dubious triumph and Mr. Redmond is the most arrant fool in political history. It must be some suspicion that he has been hoaxed by a more astute partner which induces a very limited number of people to treat the Nationalist leader as though he could be assigned a dumb rôle in the parley or requested to wait in the anteroom to hear the result. This theory, however, is too speculative to be acted on prudently. All the Radical forecasts of impending events are based on Mr. Redmond's full cognisance of, and willing acquiescence in, any negotiations which may take place; and necessarily so because they regard the object of a conference as being to discover-with Unionist assistance-some plan whereby bloodshed may be averted in Ulster and at the same time the Nationalist alliance may be preserved to the Government. The preliminary postulate demands no less, but rather more. It involves the maintenance of the status quo with the Irish impasse removed; that is to say, the Government having advanced their aggressive programme up to its final stage by means of the Nationalist vote, the burden of payment for these services is to be spared them at some indefinite cost to the principles of Unionism, and they are to garner a rich harvest of legislation while the Unionists re-form their dismayed ranks and prepare for the next effort of sublime self-sacrifice. A plain statement of Radical opinion as to what must constitute the irreducible minimum of the conference articles shows how belated the very idea of compromise really is. It is quite proper for those holding that opinion to point to the fact that the Home Rule Bill has been twice engineered through the House of Commons-though no one was particularly impressed by the performance-and to claim that this sanction renders its structure almost inviolable. The Bill is the crux of the situation, but not the whole situation. Its opponents are entitled to rejoin that the feasibility of a settlement by consent was negatived once and for all by the passing of the Parliament Act, which opened the floodgates to a rush of measures and proceedings of which the Irish Bill is only one, if the most flagitious, example. The Government's contention is that in that Act they foreshadowed openly the accomplishment of the ensuing proposals, and that all who shared in its promotion and success must be taken to have had knowJedge of what would follow and to be equally charge able with themselves. We need not challenge this argument for our present purpose, though, if it is well founded, it limits the range of those who are qualified to intervene by pressure or advice in forwarding a compromise. What we are concerned to maintain is simply this-that the Government having taken credit for such a deliberately planned programme must shoulder the responsibility for its inevitable consequences. Civil war in Ireland, to be overcome somehow with the smallest loss to the Kingdom and the Empire, is the calamity held up as a menace to Unionists to compel their assent to some plausible version of Home Rule which shall be identical in effect with an already discredited and impracticable scheme. But the initiative and the final blame or merit lie with the Government, and they still possess a choice of policies. They can ward off disaster in Ireland even now, if they choose, at the expense of their immediate political future. It is not such a very harsh alternative; there is no sign that they have considered it as yet. To talk as though it were incumbent on the Opposition-always the Opposition—to jettison their fundamental principles in order to secure a conference or to prevent its failure is pernicious nonsense. We shall believe in the possibility of a conference when it happens, and in its usefulness when we have learnt its results. RHODESIA IN THE NEW YEAR. HE year 1914 opens very auspiciously for that adventurous "outpost of Empire" which carries the British flag far beyond the Zambesi into the inmost heart of the Dark Continent. There can be no question that things have begun to move in Rhodesia. The succession of Sir Starr Jameson to the Presidency of the British South Africa Company was bound to mean that. Sir Starr is a patriotic Imperial statesman whose first and best thought will be for the welfare of this vast territory and its settlers, and for the wider interests of the Empire. In such a spirit he will incidentally be serving the interests of his shareholders, which are bound up with the progress and development of the country. It is significant that the first event after the new President's election was the promulgation of a new scheme, in suggested outline, of closer land settlement. This project has to receive the approval of the Rhodesian people and the Legislative Council and then to be filled up in greater detail. We have little doubt that it will be approved in its main features, and that the business of "planting," in the good old sense of the word, will go forward in real earnest. At present there are rather more than twenty-five thousand whites in a territory half the size of Europe. Rhodesia is one of those tropical countries which, owing to its elevation and climatic conditions, is well suited for white settlement, and we have obviously the makings here of a great British province in the very heart of this broad and productive continent. The first and all-important need is for men and women-" more homes for British people," in the simple phrase of the country's great Founder. It is a great thing that at the beginning of the new year and the new era the Chartered Company should be headed by Rhodesia's dearest friend, who may be trusted to remember the wishes and ideals of the man who gave this vast territory to the British race. This year the British South Africa Company reaches the term of its twenty-five years' lease and to assured power only a couple of weeks ago, is the charter will come up for revision. But the Imperial Government will consider before all else the desires of the Rhodesian settlers themselves, and we have little doubt what those desires will prove to be. Rhodesia wants for a good many years to come as little party politics as possible and no racial politics whatever. Absorption in the Union now or in a near future would sign the death-warrant of all hopes of development on British lines. It would mean the “Union” in another and less pleasant sense of the word. Rhodesia is British and desires to remain British, and we are not surprised that, whatever differences may exist among the settlers on other points, they are all at one against being caught in the "tangled politics" farther south. They desire to work out their own destinies for many years to come. The question need not be prejudged, but we see no compelling reason why this British province should ever be annexed to the Union. Why should not the Bechuanaland Protectorate (which has long languished under Crown Colony government) be joined to the Rhodesias, and a big British State be created under the flag, but independent of Pretoria or Cape Town? In any case the question may be left open until the country is much more fully developed and until it is seen how the politics of the Union " pan out." But if junction with the Union is unthinkable, so also in different degrees are responsible" government and Crown Colony administration. The idea of dividing twenty-five thousand people into two political parties, each provided with two complete sets of Ministers and equipped with the usual party machinery, is ludicrous, and, if possible in practice, would divert into the paths of barren party strife energies that are badly wanted for the big task of economic development. As a matter of fact the settlers enter the New Year with a largely increased control over the administration of their country. The elected element in the Legislative Council now largely predominates over the nominated, and this reform, in the eyes of most sensible Rhodesians, is amply sufficient for the needs and desires of the day. We have no brief for the Chartered Company; but the settlers in Rhodesia, who must stand or fall with the fortunes of the whole country, will think once, twice, and thrice before they dissolve a partnership which gives the best possible promise of uninterrupted social and material progress. A FRANCE IN 1914 AND 1814. LL the signs of the situation point to the probability that the coming year in France will be one of the utmost importance and gravity both in foreign and domestic affairs, and especially in questions of domestic interest and the development of the Parliamentary constitution of the Republic. Not since the fall of the Conservatives nearly forty years ago and the accession of the Gambettist Republicans to power have issues been raised, within the Republican parties at least, which could compare in interest and significance with the quarrel that has come to a head between the Jacobinical Radicals, as they may be called, and the Moderate Republicans who have gathered around M. Briand. The present Premier, who succeeded to place rather than one of the heads of the Ultras, the Uncompromising, It is one of those coincidences, which act like premonitions, that in this New Year, which opens with such tremendous responsibilities for French citizens without distinction of party, the minds of all Frenchmen acquainted with the history of their great country go back to the memory of the earthshaking events of the fall of the Great Napoleon just a century ago. From 1914, covered with such a cloud of difficulty, the reflections of statesmen and scholars are compelled to turn to the closing scenes of that astounding career which for twenty years had held France supreme over the European continent. The ruinous retreat from Moscow in 1812 had shaken the Colossus. The year 1813 had witnessed the simultaneous rising of the nations which had been so long curbed by the genius of the French Lord of War, and the terrible campaign of Dresden and Leipsic had swept the Emperor and his shattered host out of Germany. In 1814 the victorious soldiery of united Europe were to pour into France itself, and, after that marvellous resistance in which Napoleon displayed anew his full supremacy of generalship, were to penetrate to haughty Paris and to force the overpowered Emperor to abdication at Fontainebleau. There is not a day wealth involves injury and loss to manual industry and industrial employment. The damage caused by legislative sabotage of the industrial machinery of the country cannot be limited to any wealthy class. It affects the workman as necessarily as the employer. But if a class war can win a class vote, what cares Radicalism for the country? for the next four months which is not the centennial viding the indispensable preliminaries and conditions anniversary of some astonishing victory, of some for the employment of Labour, an attack upon shattering defeat, which strikes almost like an event of yesterday upon the recollection of the French public. It is a painful commentary that the end of the century finds France again in face of external dangers of tremendous magnitude, while the question of the union of Frenchmen in a common policy of patriotism is still waiting for a satisfactory answer. As the French public follows from day to day, in the extracts from the history of a hundred years ago, the agonising record of the tragic struggle, it should at least learn some lesson capable of counteracting that steady descent of the Grande Nation from its ancient domination to the factiontorn spectacle of the present time. Democratic liberty may be a beautiful ideal; but when it means the internecine struggle of subversive parties for place and office, with no apparent regard for the common interest, it may perilously resemble national suicide whether on the Seine or on the Thames. THE PLAINT OF THE POLITICIAN. WE E all know the professional or business man who imagines, or at least pretends, that he would have been better off in some other pursuit. He is sometimes a person disappointed at his lack of success who makes this moan. Oftener he is a man who has done very well at the actual occupation to which he has devoted himself. There is a kind of “swank" about it. He wants to create an impression that he is an all-round genius who would have done well at anything he undertook. Much as he gets now, he would impress on us, yet he made the mistake of his life by not taking his wonderful gifts into some other calling where they would have been rewarded as they actually deserved. It is not an unusual human foible. Such widely different persons as Dr. Johnson and Mr. David Lloyd George are examples. The Doctor believed that if he had gone to the Bar instead of into literature he would have become Lord Chancellor; and from Mr. George's speech at Criccieth we gather that he thinks if he had stuck to his desk, and never embarked on the sea of politics, it would have brought him in something really better worth having than the Chancellorship of the Exchequer and £5,000 a year. This we should imagine is the natural delusion of a man who finds himself by an extravagant caprice of fortune hoisted into such an unhoped-for position. He is almost justified in imagining himself capable de tout. But it must irritate the other little Welsh attorneys considerably to think what Mr. George would have done. The powerful criticism which M. Ribot, another of the most respected of French politicians, has directed against the financial programme of the Caillaux Cabinet reveals too clearly that French Socialism is as bent as our own Lloyd George and Company upon vote-catching rather than on promoting the public security or advantage. Upon the accuracy of the Caillaux estimate of the exact indebtedness of France M. Ribot throws the most emphatic doubt. He characterises the financial situation as nothing short of "chaos." We know that the Barthou Ministry, which was so lately upset, demanded the raising of a loan of £52,000,000 as an immediate necessity both to meet the deficit in the ordinary budget and to provide against the extraordinary expenses incurred for the increase of the Army in response to the German increase. It is true that Germany has always to provide against the possibility of a war "on two fronts "; and the Russian menace is at least as serious as the need of watching France. French patriots must keep in view the plain fact that Germany has increased her military strength, and France has especially to consider the Without discussing this particular case further, we possibility of having to bear the principal weight still wonder why it is that members of the Cabinet of a German invasion before Russia could intervene have of late been so interested in the question of what in the game. Getting the requisite money by an they might have been if they had only stuck to open and definite loan would be no difficult task for something else. Mr. Asquith himself was only a a French Government supported by the magnificent short time ago declaring that the rest of his Cabinet credit of France. The Radicals and Socialists pre- might have made more money at anything but ferred to shipwreck this straightforward method; and politics. The Lord Chancellor too seems to have now M. Ribot has to warn the country openly that been considering the same problem, but he answers the Caillaux Cabinet is endeavouring to turn the it rather differently, judging from what happened at national demand for increased security into an excuse the Royal Commission on the Law Courts. Lord for exciting a war of classes over the question of Haldane was asked about public salaries, and he the financial requirements. It is our own familiar said he thought £5,000 a year a very good salary henroost-robber over again. Just as our Jack Cade to pay to anybody for public services, and, in fact, from Wales vociferates against the landlords and the was inclined to think that nobody was worth more dukes, so the Radical-Socialist Premier of France than that—and he made no exception even for the suggests that "the favoured classes" must be made Lord Chancellor. It rather looks as if this topic of to bear a special burthen of the cost of national remuneration may have been discussed in the Cabinet defence. It is, of course, to conciliate "Labour"-perhaps when the subject of the £400 salary for and to procure the vote of "Labour" that the ordinary members of Parliament was on the tapis; French Radical Cabinet turns the financial situation and if Lord Haldane said anything then like he said into a pretext for party discrimination at the expense of the wealthier classes of Frenchmen. M. Ribot truly points out that the unjust taxation of Capital hits Labour as directly as any other element of the body politic. So far as wealth is engaged in pro to the Royal Commission his other colleagues must have been a little annoyed. All the more, too, as Lord Haldane himself gets twice as much as any of them. This £10,000 a year may be worrying the members of the Cabinet who do not get it, and they are all at the same game. But he harasses innocent landowners and stings Insurance Act victims. We do not wish to treat too seriously a speech which was as non-political as we could expect a speech of Mr. George's to be; though it was really a covert attack on his opponents in a certain affair in which he was implicated. But we must say that, if "railings and ordeals " would keep men out of a lottery, with such big prizes as politics Mr. George would be a real terror. Men in politics, however, go in for its rewards either of "meal or malt"; and those who get on, like Mr. George, do so by pushing other people aside. They are not of the sensitive sort; and if they make such speeches as that at Criccieth the British public is knowing, and reads them with amused cynicism. RURAL DEVELOPMENT. it perhaps accounts for these complaints about the ill remuneration of politics. They would be the more vexed with Lord Haldane because he happens to be about the only one who actually did make more out of his profession than the amount of his political salary. So struck was one member of the Cabinetwe are referring to Mr. John Burns-with the difficulty of making a considerable salary in an unpolitical occupation, that it is well known he fixed the maximum remuneration for a public man at £500 a year. Mr. Burns must be appalled to think that he and the bulk of his colleagues are now receiving ten times that amount and the Lord Chancellor twenty. But Lord Haldane at least did what Mr. George only boasts about. Mr. Asquith was as long in practice as Lord Haldane, but he by no means obtained the same position. He did not lose, he gained by politics; and he would have thought it a good year when he made £5,000. The legal career of Mr. Birrell positively disproves Mr. George's statement; and no one supposes that, clever as he is, he could have made his £5,000 a year in literature. Would he have been more successful than Lord Morley? Literary men seldom get a fee of £10,000 LETTER from Mr. Edward Spencer, secretary of for writing a biography; and Lord Morley himself the Scawby Agricultural Credit Society, was would have had to wait long unless he had actually published in THE OUTLOOK of December 20. Mr. been in politics before he got that commission. So Spencer has been associated with the Scawby Society as its after all there are many advantages from being in secretary ever since its foundation in 1894, and it is largely politics. Not the least of them is that you can run to his good work that its success is due. Mr. R. N. Suttonthem both together until you see that your regular Nelthorpe, of Scawby Hall, can claim to have initiated the profession is not going to pay; and then you can first institution of its kind to be established in England. I society, which, as Mr. Spencer said in his letter, was the betake yourself disinterestedly to politics-at least, will give a short account of the Scawby Society in order to you can say you did on the platform. Very thought-illustrate the possibilities of agricultural credit obtained by fully and kindly Mr. Asquith and Mr. George give the Raiffeisen method, and the applicability of the method in this cue to their young friends who will start on their this country. altruistic adventures well equipped with that £400 a year, which appears so enviable to many of their compeers who have not the luck to find their way into politics. Why do the politicians play this "Poor Little Rich Girl" part so persistently? If they are the underpaid, overworked, much-maligned martyrs they represent themselves to be, why does nobody believe them, but only laugh at their mock tribulations? If we did believe them we should laugh all the more at men who have done all they know to get where they are these Alexanders who have conquered their world and then sit down and cry about it. Mr. Gladstone was the champion of the style, and possibly Mr. Asquith and Mr. George are only imitative. To the question, Why don't you resign if you are the weary Titans you profess to be? we know there are fifty good reasons in the party system why they don't the principal being that they cannot. Yet we must protest against an unctuous reason which Mr. George finds for clinging to office. Let Radicals adopt it, but let Unionists steadily refuse to aspire to office on the plea that they are "the priests of humanity.' It shows lack of literature on the part of Mr. George, or any sense of the ludicrous he may have would have warned him against running across Canning and the needy knife-grinder. Mr. George is often maladroit in using phrases which come back on him like a boomerang. Mosquitos and midgets in politics! Does anyone in politics answer to that in politics! Does anyone in politics answer to that description better than Mr. George himself? Besides, he bites and annoys more than politicians. If it were only a case of the politician mosquitos on opposite sides attacking each other it would not matter; A A MODEL PARISH CREDIT SOCIETY. When the Scawby Society started life in July 1894 it had only nine members, but by the end of 1895 the number had risen to twenty. In 1900 there were twenty-five members, twenty-eight in 1905, thirty-two in 1910, and thirty-five at the end of last year. Membership is contined to residents in the parish of Scawby and the immediate neighbourhood. The parish has about a thousand inhabitants and contains thirty-nine agricultural holdings, of which twenty-six are under 50 acres each in extent. Those who have joined the society are for the most part small farmers, but the list of members includes also the names of market-gardeners, black-smiths, carpenters, labourers, a horse-dealer, a butcher, a carter, a woodman, a miner, and a foreman. All or most of these cultivate gardens or allotments in addition to carrying on their other occupations. As is generally the case with societies of the parish type the liability of the members is unlimited. There is no share capital, the credit of the society being based simply on the joint and several liability of all the understood, however, that the rules provide for what is in members for any debts the society may incur. It must be effect a limitation of liability, since the members can by resolution fix the maximum amount which may be out on loan at any time. In the early days of the society it was necessary to have its credit guaranteed to the joint-stock bank from which funds were to be borrowed; but the society has long since vindicated its claim to be a solvent financial institution. It has always paid the joint-stock bank 5 per cent. on its overdraft. It has built up a deposit business, and at the end of 1912 had £172 9s. in hand from that source. At the same date it had £243 10s. 6d. out on loan, held fiveshares in the Central Co-operative Agricultural Bank, om which £2 10s. was paid, and had deposits with the same institution amounting to £87 3s. 3d. Its liabilities consisted of £87 9s. 9d. due to the joint-stock bank, and the £172 93. already mentioned due to depositors. Thus its assets were £73 5s. in excess of its liabilities, and this sum represents the net profits on business since the institution of the society |