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point, as they have done on many others. But we must again beg our readers to remember what were their orig. inal intentions, and to reflect that if baffled now they are sure to be revived hereafter, if the present men remain in

power.

But over and above all the vicious and dangerous machinery by which the Government is working its way towards the Socialist idea, we have to consider first of all the condition to which it has reduced Parliament, and secondly, the effect both upon England and the whole British Empire of the legislation which sets class against class and exhibits us to the world as a divided instead of a united people, is calculated to produce. The House of Commons could not have been reduced to greater impotence even by Cromwell than it has been by the present Government. The frequency and levity with which the closure has been applied reminds us of the Queen in Alice, who at every little offence given cried "Off with his head." Parliamentary discussion is now at the mercy of a Dictator who can stop it whenever it pleases. There are those we know who think that Parliamentary government has seen its best days, and that some more expeditious and decisive mode of conducting public business is now called for. However this may be, the people of this kingdom should be taught to understand that laws passed under this new

system are not the work of the Constitution under which they fondly imagine that they still live.

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Let them realise this truth, and then act as they think fit. think fit. In the second place, it cannot too often be repeated that the methods by which the Radicals and the Socialists are endeavouring to secure success are of a nature to kindle passions of which no one can foresee the end. The Ministerial orators-Mr Lloyd-George and Mr Winston Churchill in particular-are now teaching one class of the community that they have been robbed of their rights by another, and must fight for their recovery. posing these speeches to have the effect which they are intended to have, this country would be distracted from one end to the other by a social war, whether accompanied by violence or not. Now class warfare means of course national weakness: inability, that is, to devote the whole national strength to any one given purpose. What would be the effect of such a spectacle in every part of the British Empire where a spark of disaffection exists? The Revolutionaries and Separatists would say that their time had come. What would be the effect on Ireland, on India, on South Africa? This point has never been considered. The present is no time for introducing civil discord into Britain. Look at Russia, look at Spain, seething with anarchy. With these passions at work before us elsewhere, no terms can be too

strong in which to denounce which should be dear to a those reckless and selfish agi- commercial country, and this tators who do not scruple to insidious attack on the social appeal to them in England, fabric and our well-ordered and to light a flame which Constitution which should be means war to religion, war to doubly dear to us all? Mr culture, and war to capitalised Chamberlain, in his letter, wealth in all its forms, war to hopes the House of Lords the acres of the landlord, war will see their way to force a to the profits of the tradesman. general election, when he has For whatever they may say no doubt what the answer will themselves, that is the con- be. All members of the Unionstruction which the people will ist party are not equally sanplace upon their teaching. We guine, and it has been suggested do not anticipate a Jacquerie. that the Lords, by throwing We have too much confidence out the Land clauses only, in the character of our artisans might escape the odium of and peasantry to fear any such rejecting what is thought to result as that. But if the be a popular Budget. One struggle which the Radicals answer is, even were there no seem anxious to precipitate other objections, that the Lords ever really began in earnest, in so doing would lay themthe seeds of animosity and selves open to the charge of hatred sown all over the king- selfishness by rejecting only dom would produce a poisonous those clauses which were incrop, not to be rooted out, if jurious to their own order, and ever, for many generations, leaving the rest of the public and changing Great Britain to take care of itself. An ininto a cankered and unhappy fluential weekly paper contends country. We hope when the that no such charge could be appeal to the people is made, sustained, and no more it could. as it must be very shortly, But it would be made all the that they will be urged to same, and swallowed at once consider not only the iniquitous by the more ignorant part of character of the Budget itself, the constituencies. It does not but also the violent and tyran- seem to us that such a half nical means by which it has measure would have any effect been pushed forward, and the in disarming the hostility which criminal attempt to enlist it is the business of the Govpopular feeling in its favour ernment to inflame to inflame to the by setting class against class, uttermost. It is far better by preaching the doctrine that that the House of Lords should private property is a public simply decline to pass such a wrong, and that its owners are measure till an appeal to the robbers and usurpers. people has been made. Such action could not be called opposing the will of the people, when it simply asked them what it

What steps then are to be taken to counteract this open attack on economic principles

was on the whole, we should after allowing itself to be say that is the course of pro- bullied by the Government ceeding both Mr Chamberlain than after accepting the verand Mr Balfour have in their dict of the country? We minds. Even if the result of should say the reverse would a general election should not be the case. However, there be what they anticipate, we do seems to be little doubt at the not see what harm would have present moment as to what the been done. It is said that in Unionist leaders are contemthat case the House of Lords plating. Half measures would would have lost all authority be a great mistake. They for the future, and would would not be successful. And henceforth be treated as a non- the Lords, if defeated in a entity. Why? Why should general engagement, would fall the House of Lords stand with more dignity and with less better in public estimation loss of self-respect.

Printed by William Blackwood and Sons.

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WE had sighted Cap St Jacques shortly after midday, and thereafter had come to anchor under the lee of the three rounded hills, which are the only landmarks of the sort visible anywhere in the flat landscape of Cochin China. There we had anchored to await the tide, grilled by a vertical sun, and with nothing to look at save a smooth white floor of sea, and the big, square, ugly French buildings which disfigured the foreshore. Later we had begun to make our way cautiously up the zigzag

VOL. CLXXXVI.—NO. MCXXIX.

-The End.

of the Saigon river, every turn of which seemed about to lead us back again to our startingpoint-the three isolated knolls at Cap St Jacques. There are eight-and-forty miles of this river to be traversed between the mouth and Saigon, though the distance as the crow flies cannot be as much as a dozen miles. No attempt has been made to abridge the journey by means of canals from point to point in places where the stream forms one of its innumerable figures of eight; hardly any attempt even has been

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made to mark the fairway, and we got well aground once, and touched bottom time and again. The country on every side, and as far as the eye could carry, was flat as the palm of one's hand, and covered with mean scrub. It all had the air of the amphibian, and the squalid native villages which here and there rose inglorious from the mud looked as though they were in the habit of spending as much of their time under as above water - level. Yet this failed to impart to them any semblance of cleanliness. Instead, they seemed to be coated dreadfully with the foul slime and ooze into which they had been dipped. The depressed, flat-featured natives who squatted about them nicely matched their surroundings. The whole was strangely suggestive of some mean parasite life which had spawned uncleanly in uncleanly places. I was glad when the sun sank behind heavy black clouds and shut out from sight the melancholy scene.

Saigon greeted us with a thunderous downpour of rain, -rain such as falls only in these latitudes,-and with difficulty I stowed myself and my shirt-case into a rickshaw, and was dragged off to a hotel in the Rue Catinat. I sat under the low hood with the apron drawn high to keep as much of the wet out as would consent to be excluded, and I could see nothing until, with blinded eyes, I staggered out into the glare of innumerable electric aro - lights. A big place lay before me, flanked on one side

by the opera - house and on three by hotels and cafés. The blazing arc-lights fell full upon the shining wet asphalt, upon the trees ranged in orderly rows along the sides of the streets, upon the verandahs of the hotels and cafés, which were brilliantly illuminated, and which were crowded by men and women seated at small tables, talking, drinking, and listening to music. Bands, hidden somewhere at opposite sides of the place, in turn burst out into some light and tripping air, and once in a while when these were silent the voice of a singer-the voice of a man, florid and luscious and evil, you could hear the heavy, sensuous jowl above the vast and flowing necktie-defiled the purity of the night with words which were received with rounds of delighted laughter and approbation.

I leaned out of the window of my hotel and watched this scene for near an hour, and again and again I had to rub my eyes and to force myself to remember that this in truth was Asia. The sallow rickshaw coolies and the drivers perched on the boxes of the little victorias drawn by two small rats of ponies, these and the soft-footed Chinese servants who served the inmates of the cafés were the only Orientals within sight: the rest were white men and white women of sorts, and the Rue Catinat was a little tawdry pandemonium of their creation. Le Français ne s'échappe jamais de la France : so much is known to all of

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