Grey discussed the remedies which he proposed for the acknowledged disorders of Egypt that he most clearly proved how loose the grasp which he has upon the reins of Empire. Here we cannot do better than quote his own words, of which not a syllable should be lost. "The object of a great part of the Nationalist agitation," said he, "is undoubtedly to bring the British occupation of Egypt to an end by making our task in Egypt impossible. They do it by abuse of Anglo-Egyptian officials, by insulting all Egyptians who do not oppose British control, and by inciting to disorder when there is an opportunity. The conclusion I draw from that is that you can make no progress with the development of the government of Egypt by the Egyptians so long as that agitation against the British occupation continues." Was there ever so lame a conclusion to so darkly ominous a statement? If the Egyptian Nationalists, says Sir Edward Grey, go on inciting to murder, they shall be deprived of the invaluable boon conferred by the ballot box. So you might tempt the hardened burglar from a career of crime by the promise that, if he behaved himself nicely, he should be allowed to assist at the election of a county councillor. But it was when Sir Edward for the task. Had he suggested the proper administration of the press law, or the strengthening of the army of occupation, our confidence in the future would have been greater. He did none of these things. He even deprived us of the hope we might have entertained in the possibility of a strong governor. Henceforth we are to know that the British Agent is without responsibility and without initiative, and we cannot lightly overrate the importance of this admission. There has been no more conspicuous change in our Government of late than this dangerous tendency to centralisation. When our Ministers do not insult "the man on the spot," they refuse to trust him. The governors and ambassadors whom we send across the seas are being gradually reduced to the condition of clerks, whose chief business it is to decipher telegrams or to listen to the ticking of the telephone. And the worst is that, if ever we stand in need of a strong governor, we shall look for him in vain. The limb that is never used soon becomes atrophied. Thus it is that the Radical ideal of a bureaucracy in which salaries are low and responsibility does not exist may presently be realised. But not for long. The direct interference of a democracy in the management of dependencies can have but one effect-ruin complete and irretrievable. One thing only Sir Edward Grey promised, that we shall stay in Egypt. We should have been more agreeably reassured had he told us how he would strengthen our hands It is doubtful whether Sir Edward Grey would have made any statement at all, had it not been for Mr Roosevelt's indis cretion at the Mansion House. We cannot but admit that he put the best possible face upon it. "I seldom listened," said he, "to anything with greater pleasure." Though we agree with every word which Mr Roosevelt said, we cannot share the pleasure which Sir Edward Grey took in his deliverance. There still remains the virtue of propriety. The truth may not be spoken by all men, nor at all seasons. It is obviously inconvenient that one who has been, and may be again, the head of a great State, should act the part of the candid friend. As there are certain things which are not done or said in polite society, so the comity of nations imposes a proper reticence upon statesmen. It is almost impossible for the wisest of men to lay aside the just prejudices of his own country. Mr Roosevelt spoke as an American to Americans. England was but an intermediary of eloquence, a sort of sounding-board, which should increase the reverberation of Mr Roosevelt's voice. Though we Britons are notoriously insensitive to the views and words of others, over-insensitiveness should encourage an American least of all to frank and open speech. Americans shrink far more quickly than any other men from criticism of their politics or customs. However, Mr Roosevelt has made his speech; he has said the right thing in the wrong place and at the wrong time; and so far as it touches us, the matter is at an end. His bread will come back to him, buttered, no doubt, when he seeks re-election for the third time as President of the United States. Our quiet reception of Mr Roosevelt's manifest indiscretion is but one part of a vast conspiracy of adulation, in which the whole of Europe has been involved. Never has the world witnessed a triumphal progress of equal pomp and magnitude. Wherever Mr Roosevelt has travelled, he has been received with more than royal honours. Kings have vied with one another in doing him obeisance. Statesmen and philosophers have listened without any show of boredom to his ingenuous platitudes. The press has acclaimed him as the best and wisest of citizens. We have heard of one editor who dropped instinctively to his knees whenever the name Roosevelt flowed from his fountain-pen. And we cannot but ask ourselves what is the meaning of all this applause. If it be reasonable, then is Mr Roosevelt by far the greatest man and profoundest thinker that has ever smiled upon the world. It is not reasonable, and we must look farther than the grandeur and wisdom of Mr Roosevelt, if we are to find a satisfactory explanation of the world's naïve enthusiasm. The truth is that our prosaic age is the ready victim of excitement. It suffers acutely from a disease of the nerves. It is always consumed with curiosity. It overrates, with a generous folly, the importance of all men and all things that come to it. to look upon a fresh wonder, Ever agog the peoples of Europe have lately discovered an unexpected faculty of admiration. The object matters little, so long as it is well advertised. This same faculty has often been observed in the past. Once upon a time the whole town deserted Kean and Mrs Siddons, to gape openmouthed upon the antics of the young Roscius. It will be observed in the future, no doubt. But never has it had a wider opportunity, a louder expression, than it has obtained during the last few years. Out into the street we must go, whether we will or not, to catch sight of the passing show, and when it has gone by, and the reaction has set in, we ask ourselves, with a kind of shame, what it is that we have all been looking at. The Russian fêtes in Paris, some fifteen years ago, were the first proof of this new spirit. Impelled by some nameless force, the Parisians were driven from their homes, and spent the livelong day in the open air, on the mere chance of seeing a Russian General, whose name was unfamiliar to them. A few years later, the people of London showed its capacity for illjudged enthusiasm when the news came of Mafeking's relief. And ever since we have cast prudence and moderation to the winds in our eagerness to acclaim a new hero or to win an excuse for another holiday. Now, what is it which impels us to these extravagances of speech and action? It is the growing influence of the Crowd, that strange, perverse entity, which, in spite of its power and inspiration, is but half understood. We can best arrive at what it is by attempting to discover what it is not. It is not a mere collection of individuals. It has passions, aims, and purposes, of which the individuals composing it never dreamed. It is swayed by gusts of love and hate, which would leave its component parts unmoved. Perhaps it is fostered by the press : perhaps it grows stronger by the habit of photography, which snatches away the last shred of mystery which enwraps the notorious. But whatever be the cause of its influence, there can be no doubt that to-day the world is dominated by the Crowd, and it was the Crowd, not the enthusiasm of single citizens, that welcomed Mr Roosevelt to Europe, and followed him, wherever he went, with the drums and trumpets of applause. The Crowd deals only in superlatives, and in obedience to its dictates the orators of Europe Russian Europe exhausted the language of flattery. At Oxford the last word of praise was uttered in a gasp. And none can have been more strangely overtaken by surprise than Mr Roosevelt himself. However great his merits may be, they are not commensurate with the applause bestowed upon them. That he did his duty as President none will deny. The eagerness with which he enjoys his life is obvious for all men to see. His force of character easily transcends the force of his intelligence. Few men have ever been less subtle than he. Few men have ever used so many words to so little purpose. The Romanes Lecture, which he delivered at Oxford, would have been received with scant respect had it come from another. The biological analogies which he sought in history are based only upon the misuse of words. Between biology and history history there yawns as wide a chasm as that which separates nature and art. States decline and fall and rise again in obedience to other laws than those which govern the growth of species. But it seemed at the time immaterial what Mr Roosevelt said, -it was sufficient that he said it, and that the popular voice had proclaimed him the very pattern of virtue, the one authentic voice to which in our day the world had listened. And yet now that the last shout is lost upon the breeze, the last superlative has been mouthed from the rostrum, we can hardly profess a genuine pride in what we have said and done. The retrospect of folly is not pleasant. It is not soothing to confess that we have surrendered all sense of proportion. And this habit of ill-judged enthusiasm is not to be lightly encouraged. The constant use of meaningless words weakens our reverence for truth, and renders it impossible that we should offer a proper greeting to the really great man, if perchance we recognise him on his road through life. We are like the man in the fable who heard the warning cry once too often, and refused The regretted death of Mr E. B. Iwan-Müller recalls to our mind one who owed nothing to this modern cult of publicity. He, at anyrate, did the work which was his to do without clamour and without disdain. Though his name was scarcely known to those who strive and cry in the streets, he exercised a profound influence upon our political thought, and played an honourable and energetic part in the history of the last five-andtwenty years. But he was a journalist, and writ his name in water. Of the quick humour and profound sense which he displayed in many a crisis, his career throws but a faint shadow. No shelf of books attests his talent. He lives still in the actions of statesmen, who were guided and encouraged by his wise advocacy; in the affection of his friends, who, while life lasts, will keep his memory green. Born in 1853, he carried in his veins the pure Russian blood, of which he was vastly proud, and which did not a little to shape his character. His grandfather had the misfortune to be at once a noble and a musician, and was exiled sense. for giving musical instruction to the serfs on his father's estate. Yet Iwan-Müller, for all his foreign aspect and temper, was the peculiar product of England and of Oxford. No man was ever a wiser, more devoted patriot than he, if we may use the much abused word in its ancient and highest He loved England as only an Englishman can love her. He loved Oxford with so warm a heart, that he may be accepted as the typical Oxford man of his time. Never was he so happy as when he revisited her ancient courts. There, above all places, he was himself and at home, and if Oxford gave him the education of a scholar, he repaid her nurture by the praises which were ever on his tongue, and by the loyal, unbroken sentiment of a lifetime. After taking his degree he sojourned in Oxford for a while, and became the most popular of coaches. A Tory democrat, after the fashion of Disraeli, he preached his political gospel to the undergraduates with an eloquent fervour, and proved the faith that was in him by joining, in its earliest days, the now celebrated Canning Club. But journalism called him, and while yet a young man he went to Manchester, where he edited 'The Courier' with conspicuous success, and did more than any other man to keep Lancashire strict in her allegiance to the cause of Toryism and of Mr Balfour. The years which he spent in editing 'The Courier,' in some respects fruitful, were the years which his friends have the best right to regret. He gave up to Manchester what was meant for England, and when he came to London as Mr Henry Cust's assistant in The Pall Mall Gazette,' for the first time he had the opportunity which should always have been his. All those who had the happiness to be associated with IwanMüller in that brilliant and short-lived experiment, will remember his descent upon London with unchanging pleasure. His good humour and vitality were inexhaustible. He was older than the others. He knew men and cities which to them were strange. And he poured forth the stores of his quick and vivid knowledge without stint, and with a prodigal carelessness. He was among the best story-tellers of his age. The lightest allusion was sufficient to arouse a long train of thought in his fertile brain. And he possessed in the highest degree the two qualities essential to the craft,- a perfect memory and a sense of the picturesque. What he had seen and heard he never forgot, and he knew better than any man of his generation how to set his facts in the swift, brilliant light of truth. But he brought to 'The Pall Mall Gazette' far more than a gift of narrative. He brought also a profound knowledge of affairs and a singularly ripe judgment. Foreign policy was then, as always, the main interest of his life, and some of his colleagues will never forget the tone of kindly contempt in |