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The ex-soldier that drives the train wipes his streaming face with a piece of oily waste, and his engine being uncoupled, takes her off to the sheds. He and his colleagues have earned their share of the penny. Fresh men take charge and whirl it across the levels of the Punjab, past the holy city of the Sikhs, by mud-walled villages, irrigation canals, well-cultivated fields, by forts and palaces, until that holy city to men of British race, Delhi, is reached. Away from these; past crumbling Delhis of dead and bygone kings, whose empty gates stare at a greater Empire's work, carrying a greater king's dak to the sea; past Agra the beautiful; through the sparse jungle and empty plains and

Then

flat-topped hills of Central India by Gwalior, rising like some huge ship above the plain, down to the steamy Bombay ghauts, where, by special men and special engines, the train is braked down, with shuddering, jarring wheels, to the level of the coast. Slowly down, through jungle, by cliff, across high-level bridge, by tunnel and reversing station. comes the swift rush across the plain to Bombay, with its slums and mansions, whirring looms and busy docks, the smell of the sea and the yellow-painted masts of ships. And the last of the mail in India is the great black mail-ship casting to sea from middle-ground anchorage. So passes the Royal Mail in the Indian Empire.

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THE SWAY OF THE PEOPLE-THE SLEEPLESS EYE OF THE TREASURY THE LESSON OF EGOISM-THE QUESTION OF DEFENCE— A NEW INTERNATIONAL FACTOR-IDLENESS AND PENSIONS-THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS FALSE PHILANTHROPY THE WORSHIP OF THE CRIMINAL-MR CHURCHILL'S SENTIMENTALITY-AN ADMONITION FROM CARLYLE GEORGE MEREDITH'S FRAGMENT CELT AND SAXON-THE TRUE JOHN BULL.

FOR some five years the party which has identified itself with the People has held sway in Britain. We are told every hour that we are the servants of the Popular Will. The representatives of Labour have exercised an influence which previously had never been theirs. The air is thick with prophecies of reform, and if there be not a reaction we are assured that a fire-new England will take the place of the country which has been the pride of countless generations. It is perhaps wise, therefore, that we should step aside for a moment, and reflect what we are likely to suffer by the promised change.

In the first place, there are those discomforts of life, which can easily be measured. The monstrous inquisition, unparalleled for centuries, which now perplexes all honest citizens, is not pleasant to contemplate. Henceforth nothing must be hid from the eye of the Treasury. The countless forms, which every man is asked to fill up, are packed with pitfalls and uncertainties. And all the while the army of bureaucrats, the only army tolerable to the Radical, increases by leaps and

bounds. This increase can result only in idleness, which everywhere follows bureaucracy, and corruption, still dear to the Whiggish heart. Thus the natural vigour and honesty of the nation are sapped, that Mr Lloyd George may purchase more votes with more pensions. He has already discovered by some process, which can bear no relation whatever to the facts, that "people now live longer." Thus hope does the work of inexperience. And, lest the capacity of the taxpayers' money to buy votes should flag, he now promises "to make provision for persons who break down before reaching the pension age.' He will doubtless be as much surprised at the early age of "breaking-down" as he now is at the universal longevity, which he cheerfully assumes.

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These discomforts, bad as they are, are not irreparable. A wise Government will find a better means of raising revenue than inquisitorial extortion. The method of the thumbscrew will be abolished when our present tyrants are driven from office.

But there is another disaster in which the Popular Will involves us, from which

escape will not be so easy. This disaster is at once subtle and widespread. It affects injuriously the very fibre of the race, and its influence can be exterminated only by a change of heart. The vulgar demagogues, who now hold sway in our midst, have no other lesson to teach than the lesson of egoism. Daily and hourly they tell their dupes that politics is the art of getting something for nothing, that the value of a vote can best be expressed by a speedier pension or an extra twopence in the pocket. Thus they would elevate selfishness into a virtue and proclaim aloud that citizenship in its highest form is but an opportunity of extortion. Those who represent the Labour Party in Parliament have readily acquired the tricks of the orator, and they have used them solely in the interests of their own class. No single member of the Labour Party has ever spoken with the voice of patriotism, or manifested by a word a pride in England or the Empire. In mind and spirit they are all crudely and openly parochial. It is profit they demand-profit not for Britain but for their friends. If they come from Manchester, they are content that the world should lie in ashes, so long as they can purchase their raw material at a low rate, and live cheaply at the expense of others.

And by a natural irony those who talk most loudly of "principle" display the frankest contempt for it. The Labour Party, Cobdenites to a man, in name at any rate, fiercely op

poses free trade in the single commodity, Labour, which is at its disposition. The one end and aim of all Trade Unions is the protection of labour. By the sternest laws the working man is forbidden to bring his skill and strength into the open market. Even if he has the chance of rising in his craft, he is forcibly prevented, lest the wastrel who works at his elbow should not share his success. In brief, nothing can exceed the harsh tyranny exercised by these champions of "liberty." Before the Osborne judgment was given against them they insisted, with as little pity as reason, that even the Tories among them should pay for their advocacy of socialistic legislation, and it would be difficult to find in our political annals a grosser interference with freedom of conscience. This, then, we owe to the sudden encroachment of democracy: an electorate, a great part of which understands neither the worth nor the duty of the franchise, and is willing to see the ultimate discomfiture of its native land, if only it may enjoy the solace of a momentary pension.

So is it that there is discernible everywhere an attitude of inaction and carelessness. It seems almost a hopeless task to interest the People in the enterprises of Imperial Defence and Imperial Consolidation. There are no pensions in Dreadnoughts; the worker is not sure that Colonial Preference would mean a higher wage for him, and thus he is easily persuaded by

his paid representatives to vote against the national security. Now of all the questions which must be asked and answered by the country, the question of defence comes first. Upon physical security depend all the arts and prosperities of life. Poetry, painting, the peaceful activities of the County Council, multiple and various, so dear to the newer citizenship, cannot be pursued at all if we are not secured against the irruption of our enemies. Defence, then, if it be not the highest intellectual pursuit, is still the supreme duty of man. As communities are constituted to-day, war is and must remain the ultima ratio. If we wish to hold our place in the fierce competition of nations, we must be strong enough to fight our battles with courage and success. Thus the power of national defence is the measure of national energy. How does our democracy answer to the test? Our citizens, taught for nothing, fed for nothing, doctored for nothing, obstinately refuse to pay the price of their nurture. Everything seems light to them save military service. They will cheerfully endure unemployment, the boredom of loafing, the impertinence of political agitators. But ask them to undergo instruction in bearing and firing arms, and they return an indignant negative. They are free-born Britons, and they see no reason why they should strike a blow to protect their country and their homes. They will permit the taxpayers to

support an army, the smaller the better, as its maintenance interferes with their pensions. And that is as far as their complacency will carry them.

Fortunately for them, England is set in a silver sea, and hitherto they have borne the shame only, not the discomfort, of standing unarmed in the face of armed and jealous neighbours. Their votes enable them to shirk their responsibilities, and their representatives assure them constantly that, so long as they refrain from arms, nobody will be mean enough to attack them. But the vast development of the German Navy during the last ten years, the solid programme which Germany has imposed upon herself in the future, might have been expected to make clear to the citizens of England the gravity of their position. If England hears even an echo of the building of her rival's ships, she pays no heed to it. Why should she trouble her head about the dangers of the future? It is a long time since the Dutch sailed up the Medway, and after all, the damage which she inflicted was not very great. So England puts on its foolish little cap, and

watches its foolish little football matches, with all the security and content which are bred of ignorance.

And yet the danger which threatens us cannot be gainsaid. As Admiral Mahan has pointed out, most temperately, in 'The Daily Mail,' the increase in the German German Navy has brought into our midst "a

new international factor, to be reckoned with in all calculations where oppositions of national interests may arise." What may be the purpose of Germany matters to us not a jot. Even if the protection of her commerce were the one and only cause of her energy, even if William II. had never mentioned an empire on the sea, it would be a duty we owe our pride and self-respect to take note of it. And our democracy's indifference is the best proof of our democracy's failure. If the Labour Party were supreme in the State there would be no ship-building at all only doles; and we all know that its advent to power, which God avert, would mean the instant ruin of England. Nor, as things are, have we much cause for congratulation. The figures recorded in the journals and acknowledged by the Admiralty afford little comfort. In the spring of 1913 we shall have twenty-five Dreadnoughts; Germany, with far less to do with them, will have twenty-one. And even And even our numerical superiority is discounted by the fact that the firing-power of the German ships is greater than ours. Meanwhile Austria, which we have alienated without purpose, and Italy are doing their best to aid their ally. Then in the matter of docks we are still more sadly to seek. On the East Coast, where alone they will be valuable, we have one and contemplate three more, a poor match for the twelve which Germany will presently boast, fully equipped for any emergency.

Worst of all, the necessary concentration (or manacling) of our fleet in the North Sea makes it possible that we may lose our hold upon the Mediterranean, and has already lowered the prestige which once was ours on every naval station in the world.

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We would not on any account arouse unnecessary alarm. shout wolf inopportunely is a swift method of suicide. But it is every one's business, in these times of lethargy, to call attention to the task of defence which may confront us, and to deplore the inanition and selfishness of our voters, who believe that with a mixed policy of idleness and pensions we can combat the best drilled and most determined enemy in the world. As abroad, so at home, our outlook is circumscribed. Nothing will persuade us to change the fiscal system which Manchester (not England) deemed indispensable sixty years ago. In the stern face of hostile tariffs, Cobden's utterances still seem the last word of wisdom. Whatever that rigidly pedantic economist said is accepted by the unthinking majority of our countrymen as of divine inspiration. The fact that Japan, in framing her new tariff, contemptuously omitted England from the argument because Englishmen, being free-traders, had nothing to offer in exchange for privileges, makes no impression upon our national obstinacy. The continual demands of our colonies for preferential treatment fall on deaf ears. To save ourselves trouble we bow the knee to a

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