The development of the mines is a question, not merely of financial, but of national importance. However conditions in South Africa may alter during the next few years, the present scarcity of labour demands a special remedy now. The solvency of the country depends principally on the mines, and the solution of the present economic difficulty is a matter of immediate, though perhaps temporary, necessity, and a question of deep political moment.

CHARLES SYDNEY GOLDMANN.

LAST MONTH

I

THE Easter holidays came at the very nick of time to relieve an embarrassed Government and an embarrassed House of Commons. Before Parliament adjourned for the recess the political situation had become almost ridiculous. In spite of the fact that the country was approaching one of the fiercest struggles of our time, the legislative machine had almost ceased to work, and ministers and members alike were engaged in the not very useful occupation of 'marking time.' The number of questions that were waiting to be disposed of was considerable, and the questions themselves were anything but unimportant. By common consent the chief, that of free trade, had been left for the decision of the country at the general election. But the Education Act troubled others besides the nonconformists and passive resisters, and it was generally understood that even bishops were engaged in the attempt to find the way out from an intolerable impasse. The licensing problem still hung unsolved, to the great disturbance not merely of the licence-holders and the temperance party, but, if report spoke truly, of the Prime Minister himself. Chinese labour remained a bone of contention of first-class importance; the Army reorganisation scheme was for the moment hung up; whilst towering above all other questions was that of the Budget. Yet by common consent both parties seemed to agree that the day of action was to be postponed until the energies of legislators had been recruited by the Easter holidays. And nowadays the notion of a holiday is hardly that of rest. It is to fly to some spot remote from London and to seek distraction in the midst of new surroundings. Even in so short a recess as that of Easter, members of Parliament, and other people not less hardly worked, try to put as many miles as possible between themselves and the scene of their ordinary labours. Paris, the Riviera, Rome, even Naples, were all full, during the early days of last month, of wandering Englishmen who seemed anxious to get out of the sound of the political controversies of the time, and most of whom found to their dismay that, travel they never so far, they could hardly do so. I have been among the travellers myself in these holidays, and it is impossible to shut

one's eyes to the fact that wherever we may go we carry with us the shadows of the struggles that are engaging our thoughts at home. In Paris the entente cordiale, the new treaty between England and France, and the prospects of the Russo-Japanese war seemed to be talked of wherever Frenchmen and Englishmen came together. It was the same in Rome; and in Naples, in addition to these topics, we had fiscal reform brought up once more for renewed discussionall because Mr. Chamberlain, in returning from Egypt, had spent a few days within sight of Vesuvius. Speaking of Mr. Chamberlain, one fact, which no fair opponent of his can well ignore, is forced upon the attention of the traveller. That is that, whatever may be his position or ultimate fate at home, he is at present nothing less than the idol of the English communities living abroad. They are as full of confidence in and admiration for him to-day as they were twelve months ago, before he had launched his scheme for the taxation of food, and whilst the laurels he had won during his visit to South Africa were still untarnished. To hint that he has made some grave mistakes and miscalculations in his prodigious campaign is looked upon by the average resident of British birth in a foreign city as proof of incurable natural wickedness. To suggest that, whoever else may be impressed by his arguments, the mass of the British electorate do not seem to be, is evidence of a hopelessly perverted judgment. He has put his hand to the plough, and the furrow must and will be driven straight through to the end. Such is the opinion of the overwhelming majority of Englishmen whom I have met during an excursion that has carried me as far as the Bay of Naples. Even those of us who do not agree with the conclusion, and who look upon the surrender of the Protectionist party in the Isle of Wight to Major Seely as evidence in support of our view, cannot ignore the prevailing sentiment of the British public abroad. It is some consolation to remember that years ago, when Mr. Gladstone was allpowerful at home, the same class regarded him as a misguided and unscrupulous adventurer whose special mission it was to dishonour and destroy the British Empire. Perhaps I ought to remark that the idolatry of which Mr. Chamberlain is at present the object among our exiled fellow-countrymen is strictly compatible with a profession of intense devotion to free trade. I am a free trader from the bottom of my heart,' said one friend to me, and that is why I support Mr. Chamberlain. He merely wishes to take a step backwards in order to take two forwards.' From which it will be gathered that abroad as well as at home political opinions are a little mixed.

It was certainly not before it was necessary that the House of Commons separated for the Easter recess. The prolonged and bitter wrangling which had marked almost every sitting from the very beginning of the Session, and above all the differences in the ranks

of the old Ministerial party, had exercised an unpleasant influence upon the tempers of most men, and had led to more than one incident of a deplorable kind. Of these incidents, that which attracted most attention was the withdrawal from the House of Commons of Mr. Balfour and of most members of the Ministerial party when Mr. Winston Churchill rose to deliver one of his fiery attacks upon the Government of which he was once a supporter. In itself the incident was hardly important. It was explained afterIwards that Mr. Balfour left the House when Mr. Churchill rose because he had an engagement elsewhere, and the average member has from time immemorial asserted his right to stay or to go within the House as he pleases. But the exodus from the Ministerial benches on this occasion had the appearance of being preconcerted, and it was hotly denounced as an act of intentional and deliberate discourtesy by the Opposition and some organs of the press. On the whole, it may be assumed that the incident was intended as a demonstration of the anger with which members who remain faithful to the Ministry resent the recent utterances of Mr. Churchill and of the band of pronounced Free Traders of whom he is one of the chiefs. If so, it was, to say the least, a not very wise proceeding. Its only result was to draw exceptional attention to the speech of the member for Oldham, and to invest his arguments with a special importance which his neighbours on the Ministerial benches can have had no wish to attach to them. But when one looks back to the bitter controversies of the period of the war and to the unrestrained passions and unchecked slanders which raged during the khaki election of 1900, it seems strange that a comparatively trivial departure from the established etiquette of Parliamentary custom should have received such serious notice. One cannot even pretend that it marks any visible deterioration in the manners of the House of Commons, for those of us who remember when the rising of Mr. G. H. Whalley to make one of his ultra-Protestant speeches almost invariably led to a scene of uproar in which the whole assembly assailed the unfortunate speaker with cries of, 'Sing! sing!' and thus effectually prevented a word he said from being heard, can hardly regard the Churchill episode as specially serious. All the same it would perhaps be well if, even in the heated atmosphere of to-day, the controversialists were to keep their tempers rather better than they have done of late, and were to refrain from recriminations, whether in words or acts, that are scarcely worthy of a great deliberative assembly.

The talk of the dissolution has not been less loud during the past month than it was at an earlier period of the Session. The prophets, it is true, have been discomfited, this particular prophet amongst the number. In spite of all its misfortunes, without precedent in the history of any modern administration, the Govern3 L

VOL. LV.-No. 327

ment has remained in office long after the date fixed by the shrewdest of quid-nuncs for its fall; and just before the House rose for the recess, Mr. Balfour made a valiant attempt to prove that there was really no need for anybody to frighten himself with the idea that a dissolution was at hand. In doing so he had to turn his back resolutely upon his own past utterances on the subject of byeelections, and to treat even such an unparalleled series of defeats as that which Ministers have suffered during the past three months as events of no political significance. Whether he really convinced his audience that the Government was still going strong' and that the House had months or even years of life before it, one cannot say. But to the rest of the world it seems no less clear now than it was at the beginning of the Session that the life of the present Parliament is in almost daily jeopardy, that it may be cut short at any moment, and that in any case we have come so near to the inevitable end that we may fairly begin to discuss its character and consequences. Indeed all other subjects took a secondary place in political circles during the early part of the month compared with this of the General Election and its results.

If there are any persons in the country who believe that when the election takes place it will give the present Government a new parliamentary majority, I confess I have not met with them. With singular unanimity politicians of every shade, including those most devoted to Mr. Balfour's administration, seem to have made up their minds that we shall see, when the appeal to the electors takes place, a swing of the pendulum that will at least make it impossible for the present Ministry to remain in office. But if the public mind seems to be made up upon this point, it is in a state of grievous uncertainty on all the other questions involved in a dissolution of the present Parliament. In some quarters, for example, there is much speculation as to whether, when the decisive moment comes, Mr. Balfour will exercise his right of obtaining from the King power to dissolve, or by 'riding for a fall,' throw upon his opponents the duty of appealing to the country. If he were to take the latter course, he would unquestionably put the Opposition in a serious dilemma. The hot-heads on the Radical benches may not realise this fact. Their one desire is to see the Ministry beaten, and beaten at the earliest possible moment, and some of their number seem to imagine that when once a Government of Liberals has been formed all will be well with the party that has suffered exclusion from office for so long a period. Cooler men on the Opposition benches, with greater foresight, take a very different view. They recognise the embarrassments to which a new Prime Minister would be exposed in having to form his Administration before going to the country. The mere fact that no Ministry is ever made without the disappointment of many people who aspire to office of itself suggests