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few authorities, and announced children, but the State will that some time in the future only perform this duty when they would develop the scheme the duty is clear- that is, in in the contributory direction. really necessitous cases. It is Mr Churchill, it is understood, quite a different thing for a has been devoting his talents feckless parent to claim a right to some portentous measure of to have his children fed. It universal, compulsory, State- may be the duty of the State aided thrift. But it will be to provide to provide employment in the powder without the jam, certain cases, but there is no for all the jam has been used right to such assistance in every up already. In a country such man out of work. Now Liberal as ours a measure is not popu- policy has got thoroughly conlar which gives the State the fused between the two points right of interference in a man's of view. It has tried to join private affairs. What is to be State duties and individual thought of the tactics of a rights-two mutual contraGovernment which has, for the dictories -in one unhallowed sake of a transient popularity, union. The old Liberal might surrendered the adjunct which talk of "rights," but then he might have made such inter- would have nothing to do with ference palatable? an interfering State. The man who accepts the doctrine of an all-potent State cannot gift the citizen with rights against it. If he does, he will reach the paradox that the State will be compelled to treat what is its own duty, and therefore within its discretion as a right of the individual, and therefore outside its discretion. Policies, of which the sole defence is that they are applicable only at the will of a competent authority, will be made universal and compulsory, and therefore nonsensical.

Throughout the whole of Liberal social policy there is one elementary confusion which shows the danger of patchwork creeds. Happily this confusion is not yet embodied in legislation, but it appears throughout the speeches of the demagogic branch of the Cabinet. The old Liberal believed in a thing which he called the rights of the individual. The intelligent Socialist cares nothing for these, but he believes in certain duties for the performance of which the State is responsible. He wants the State to take over all manner of duties now called private, but they must be State duties and not individual rights. Obviously this change of the centre of gravity makes an immense difference. It may be the duty of the State to feed school

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second, and in a sense the more urgent, task is to revise the whole machinery of our Constitution. The mechanism is breaking down from sheer overwork. Discussion in the House of Commons has become a farce, and a scandalised nation waits to see what will happen. The problem is how to combine a new division and delegation of existing functions with the establishment of some consultative and executive machinery for the Empire. To the solution of these two questions the new Liberalism has made no contribution. In the case of the first, it has adopted some of the least defensible principles of doctrinaire Socialism, muddled them a little, and embodied them in legislation, protesting all the while that Socialism is the enemy and Liberalism its only counteragent. As for the second, the Liberal contribution to constitutional reform is a few heroics about that overworked and creaky machine, the House of Commons, and a scheme for making the said House, with all its existing blemishes, the one absolute and supreme power in the Empire.

As we have said, we are not discussing Liberalism on the merits. We grant to the Government the qualities of sincerity and patriotism. It is with the faulty intellectual equipment of the creed that we are concerned-the fact that it is impossible to find coherent principles at its base, or to avoid finding logical

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The Arimaspian, we believe, was one-eyed, which put him at a still greater disadvantage with the Gryphon. Let us state our point as fairly and clearly as possible. The present Liberal Government contains conspicuously able departmental chiefs; but Liberal policy lacks any kind of systematic and coherent meaning. or that measure may have some justification in good intentions or in some urgent need, but because it springs from no system of thought it is liable to be self-contradictory, and it is defended in the House and on public platforms by palpably irrational arguments. The old Liberalism may have been far

narrower in outlook, but it was sure of itself, and condescended to an intellectual defence. But the half-truths of the new Liberalism have to rely upon the demagogic powers of Mr Lloyd-George and Mr Churchhill; and in place of the solid backing of the older creed it can look only to the journalism of men like Mr Chesterton and Mr Masterman, the laughing and the weeping philosophers of this odd faith.

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Duke is saluted on every Lib-
eral platform with the choicest
Billingsgate. But let a Duke
lose his temper, as occasion-
ally happens, and say some-
thing blasphemous about a
trade union
or a labour
leader,-instantly there is a
scandalised hush in the Lib-
eral press, and then a torrent
of protest against such sacri-
lege. It is the authentic style
of the sycophant. This novel
courtiership is not a dignified
attitude, and we can well
understand that many Liberals
hotly repudiate the charge.
But the thing is written large
on their policy, and is indeed
the inevitable consequence of
the new "democratic" creed.
They cannot escape from it
once they reject reason as a
standard in statesmanship and
discussion.

But, we are told, it is Democracy that is speaking, triumphant Democracy, which cares nothing for narrow reason. "Non in dialectica," runs the argument in the words of the mediæval saint-"non in dialectica placuit Deo salvum facere populum suum." Well, at its best, this is only a new type of sycophancy. To have the vices of a courtier one Reason, indeed, is an ill need not toady a monarch. thing to reject, for it is apt In the old days the sycophant to return like a boomerang clung to the skirts of a king and hit the man who cast it or a cardinal, because he saw away. We are on the eve of in him the embodiment of a General Election, when the power. Nowadays it is the whole armoury of demagogic masses who are all-potent, weapons will be brought into and it is the demagogue who use. It will be easy to deliver is the spiritual successor of rhetorical speeches about freeCarr and Buckingham. What- ing the land for the nation and ever the masses desire they making the popular will premust have, though it is in vail: and no doubt they will defiance of reason and justice, have their effect at the polls. -to such a pass has fortune But we cannot imagine that brought those who claim to thinking Liberals will be very wear the mantle of Vane and easy in their mind when they Hampden. It is considered see a policy which is proright for a Member of Parlia- fessedly and, we believe, honment to use language about estly anti-Socialist, drawing its peers and landlords which far only logical defence from Socialexceeds the ordinary licence ist principles. We would ask, in of politics. The unfortunate all seriousness, how a creed of

shreds and patches can hope to repel the compact and logical dogmas of Socialism? It is not the business of Tories to wish well to their opponents, but no Tory who believes in the party system desires to see the other national party in an unconscious and degrading alliance with the common enemy. No party can endure without principles; and until Liberalism foregoes its unintelligent worship of "democracy," and adopts a more manly and rational line of thought, it will remain estranged from the serious and thinking element in the nation. We would suggest, in conclusion, two considerations for our opponents. The first is that Democracy," in the class sense in which it is now used, has never been triumphant

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The

since the world began. masses, when they have won, have won only because they had reason fighting for them. Labour cannot for long coerce capital if capital be in the right, and the power of numbers is apt to crumble suddenly before organised intelligence. In the second place, we would suggest that our new demoorats are not really looking at the masses at all. Their eyes

filled by the electoral machine, and they see the worker through the distorting medium of the election agent. We have had great popular leaders in our history, but they have held their places by respecting their followers and giving them of their best. Is it not possible, we ask, that Liberalism is underrating the intelligence of the people?

INDEX TO VOL. CLXXXVI.

ADAMANTINE MIND, THE, 166.
Advertisement, use of, in the eighteenth
century, 713 et seq.-present-day char-
acter of, 717-some living examples of
self., 719.

'Advertisements of "The Spectator,"
the: Being a Study of the Literature,
History, and Manners of Queen Anne's
England as they are reflected therein,
as well as an illustration of the Origins
of the Art of Advertising,' by Law-
rence Lewis, notice of, 713 et seq.
'Advice to a Daughter,' by the Marquis
of Halifax On Religion, 793-On
Husbands and Households, ib. et seq.
-On Behaviour and Conversation,
797-On the Choice of Friends, 799—
On Vanity and Affectation, 800-On
Diversions, 802.

:

'Age of Reason, the,' by Tom Paine,
teaching of, 133 et seq.
Aldershot, establishment of, as a train-
ing-camp, 386.
AMRITSAR, 346.

Anderson, Sir Robert, parentage and
early years of, 461-called to the
Irish Bar, 462 et seq.-appointment
of, to the Secret Service Department,
470 et seq.

Takes charge of Irish business at
the Home Office, 606-reminiscences
of work and play at the Home Office
by, 608 et seq.

Becomes head of the detective de-
partment of Scotland Yard, 769-
lodgings secured by, at Charles
Reade's, 773-on the Commission of
the Edinburgh Royal Observatory,
776 et seq. becomes Secretary to the
Prison Commission, 778 et seq.
Arkadi, the Monastery of, in Crete, visit
to, 544 et seq.
ARMY ADMINISTRATION,
PRESENT, 377.

PAST AND

Army drill, some reforms in, 100 et seq.
As OTHERS SEE US, 725.
Asquith, Mr, Budget speech of, in reply
to Lord Rosebery, 584 et seq.
Avory, Captain, career of, as a pirate,
53 et seq.

AWAKENING OF AMBROSE ROYLE, THE,
102.

Aytoun, Professor, collaboration of Sir
Theodore Martin and, 453 et seq.
Baker, Valentine, some reminiscences of,
181 et seq.

Balfour, Mr, speech of, at Birmingham,
on the Budget, 581 et seq.
BALLY, OLD, 826.

Bank of England, imaginary Fenian
attack on the, 471 et seq.

Barrie, Mr, the novels of, as an example
of Cockneyism, 5 et seq.
Bentham, Jeremy, the political phil-
osophy of, 424 et seq.
BETRayal, the Great, 143.
BEY, RIZA, 617.

BIRD LIFE, ROMANCE IN, 199.
Birrell, Mr, Cockney limitations of, in
politics, 9 et seq.

Blériot, M., crossing of the Channel in a
monoplane by, 451 et seq.
Blight-bird or Taukou, the, coming of, to

New Zealand, 199 et seq.-description
of, 203-habits of, 204 et seq.
'Bon Gaultier Ballads, the,' "origin of,
453.

BREAK IN THE RAins, a, 473.
British Academy, exclusion of men of
genius by the, 849 et seq.
BROOCH, THE, 781.

-

Budget, the, revolutionary character of,
151-speech of Mr Balfour on, 581 et
seq. -speech of Lord Rosebery on,
583-speech of Mr Asquith on, 584
et seq.
unworkable nature of, 860
—land and mineral taxes of, 861-the
mining royalties of, 862.

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