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an officer who declined a challenge; and without repute with the Army they would never be safe against insurrection, or those Palace revolts which at one time so frequently marked the history of Russia. It is perfectly true that the war is most unpopular even with sections of the Army, and that peace would be an immense relief to most important classes; but to welcome peace or to crave for peace, and to rejoice in it after a great defeat, are two widely different things. A keen wound to national pride is rarely forgiven by any race, and among the great races of the world the Slav is certainly not the most devoid of sensitive national pride. He has trusted always in his Czar in confidence of victory, and after his greatest defeat the Czar of the moment passed away and his whole social system was reorganized. The chances of peace, too, depend upon the terms of peace, and the terms of peace as yet adumbrated by the representatives of Japan are not favorable to speedy pacification. Russia may recede from Manchuria, as she has repeatedly receded from Constantinople, and will hardly feel the cession of Saghallen; but the Japanese insist on an indemnity, and an indemnity, besides irritating Imperial pride, will rouse in the governing group the feeling that it will be cheaper to fight on. What are the lives of moujiks to a great Russian compared with a humiliation?

The Spectator.

The second question, the effect of the surrender upon revolution in Russia, is more perplexing still. Western Europe, misled in part by its own experience, is attaching great importance to a Constitutional movement which it sees is in progress in Russia. All the educated, it says, desire the introduction of a representative system. That is in the main true, and if Russia were as Great Britain, France, or even Germany, there could be little doubt of the result. But there is no proof that in Russia the educated lead the people, and it is quite certain that by themselves-that is, without support either from the soldiers or the peasants-the educated are powerless against the bureaucracy, which dreads a Constitution. It is quite true that the peasantry are just now distressed by economic causes, harassed by taxation, and more or less indignant at the demand on the Reservists; but for all that the West knows they may be looking for redress to that very autocratic power which the educated are so anxious to suppress. A jacquerie is at least as probable in Russia as a revolution. That great changes will follow a great defeat in the Far East is, we think, certain; but to calculate the direction of those changes, we must wait till we know whether General Kuropatkin is, as a result of sanguinary battles, to march into Korea or retreat on Kharbin.

BOOKS AND AUTHORS.

The first literary fruit of the Tibetan expedition is a small book by Mr. Powell Millington, "To Lhassa at Last."

The Messrs. Methuen are to publish a book on "The English Buccaneers"

by Mr. John Masefield. If it is one half as stirring as his ballads it will not lack for readers.

Hereafter the "Mercure de France" will be published, as is usual with French reviews, once a fortnight in

stead of monthly. Since its foundation in January, 1890, the Mercure has increased in size from 32 to 300 pages, and in price from 40 centimes to 1fr. 25. It has thriven, in spite of its unique devotion to literature. The last hundred and thirty or so pages of each number are devoted to a "Revue du Mois," or "encyclopédie au jour le jour du mouvement universel des idées," in which the current literature of all Europe is reviewed, briefly and competently.

The word "Temple" has come to be a synonym for a volume alluring as literature and dainty in typography. As applied to the new series of "Temple Topographies," published in London by J. M. Dent & Co. and in this country by E. P. Dutton & Co., it retains the full significance which it has come to have in other connections. It is the aim of these volumes to present the history, the scenery, the architecture, the ancient traditions and the presentday aspects of English towns and hamlets. In one of the volumes before us Mr. Edmund H. New describes and pictures Evesham and its famous abbey. Of the second the parish of Broadway, in Worcester county, from whose hill one may look into thirteen English counties, is the subject. Mr. New is again the illustrator, but the text is written, and very delightfully written, by Mr. Algernon Gissing.

E. B. Treat & Co. publish a new and enlarged edition of the volume entitled "Makers of the American Republic," which contains a series of historical lectures upon the early colonists,-the Virginians, Pilgrims, Hollanders, Puritans, Quakers, Scotch and Huguenots. Most of these lectures, sixteen in all, were delivered by the Rev. David Gregg,

D.D., either to the congregation of which he was pastor, or upon historic and patriotic anniversaries and occasions; but there are added lectures on The Bench and Bar by Justice W. W. Goodrich of the New York Supreme Court, and on Some Medical Men in the Revolution, by Dr. Sidney H. Carney, Jr., Secretary of the New York Historical Society. The lectures group effectively and present vividly some interesting phases of early American history, and their defects are those incident to the popular pulpit and platform style.

"The Letters Which Never Reached Him," though they do not rival in fascination a certain series whose name they recall, are attracting considerable attention in England, and American readers will welcome the edition which E. P. Dutton & Co. publish. The writer of the letters is a German lady of talent and charm, who shares the journeyings of a brother in the diplomatic service, and who is leaving Peking with him for New York, in the fall of 1899; and the man whom they never reached, seen in the mirror of her admiration-and, later, love is an ethnologist and explorer of brilliant achievement. Covering a period of a year only, but dated from Vancouver to Berlin, they give vivid travel sketches, and daring comment on social life. But the central interest is always in Peking, and the range of emotions from uneasiness to anxiety, despair, hope, and despair again is strikingly portrayed. In spite of the disclosure of the title, the plot piques curiosity, but the book makes its chief impression by other than dramatic effects. As yet, no guesses have identified the author.

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PUBLIC LIBRARY

ASTOR, LENOX

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

THE LIVING AGE:

3 Weekly Magazine of Contemporary Literature and Thought..

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What shall it profit a nation if it gain the whole world and lose its own integrity? This is a question which is a very pertinent one to all citizens of the British Empire at the present moment. On January 30th, 1902, the Anglo-Japanese treaty of alliance was signed in London, and was the result, to quote Lord Lansdowne's words, of the discovery that the Far Eastern policy of the two nations "was identical."

The British Foreign Minister also referred to the treaty as "an international contract of binding validity." Since January, 1902, how has this alliance, entered into as "of mutual advantage to the two countries," been observed by the contracting parties? Up to the outbreak of the war with Russia there was little test of the sincerity of the two Powers, and, although Great Britain seemed content to view with comparative indifference Russian aggression in Manchuria and Korea, the alliance may be said to have been

GOOD FAITH AND

EXPEDIENCY.

adequately maintained. To Japan the gain by the alliance was largely a sentimental one, since it demonstrated to all the world the fact that Japan had made so great a progress that an alliance with a great European Power was possible. Beyond this the alliance partook rather of the nature of a shadowy assurance against attack by two Powers. For Great Britain the gains, even before the Russian war, were much more substantial. British diplomacy assumed a new importance at Peking when backed by Japan, and amongst other results, the Tibetan expedition was rendered possible. Since the beginning of the RussoJapanese war and the consequent revelation of Japan's power, the advantages to British diplomacy in Europe have been very considerable. If the advantages accruing to one and the other be compared, there can be no doubt that Great Britain got the best of the bargain. Should any one feel inclined to

dispute this let him travel around Europe, especially in the small Balkan States, and their attitude towards Great Britain alone and Great Britain and Japan allied will speedily afford him sufficient proof. Great Britain is envied her good fortune in having seen clearly enough to ally herself to the coming Power before the world knew Japan's worth. The opinion of the Continent on this subject is very much that of a mining camp towards a miner who has staked out his claim in an immensely rich diamond field before any one else knew diamonds were there. This Continental envy is convincing proof of the alliance with Japan, were such proof needed. But, after all, it is not a question of relative advantage or disadvantage; it is simply a question of fact. The treaty was made and stands; how has it been kept? The record of British policy during the war is such as to cause any thinking Englishman seriously to question the moral adequacy of our foreign policy. Do we make treaties to keep them, or is it permissible to break both the spirit and the letter of a treaty when urged to do so by a senseless fear? And there is reason for such a query, except, alas! that it must be added that business has proved as potent a charm as has fear. Great Britain has not even been neutral-certainly not benevolently neutral-towards her ally. Without going into details, there are several flagrant examples of Great Britain's lack of good faith towards Japan. The trade with the Russian Government and the Russian Baltic Fleet in Welsh coal could probably only have been prevented by an individual sense of rectitude too great to be hoped for in any nation where civilization has been developed along individual rather than along national lines. But the Government might well have assisted the national conscience by making the path of money-earning more difficult. As it

was, the traffic was carried on openly and shamelessly, without any real attempt by the Government or by public opinion to prevent it. The case of the destroyer Caroline, which sailed down the Thames past the Houses of Parliament, en route to Libau, under the charge of British subjects, is more serious from the point of principle than of actual and material damage. But since the builders of the Caroline have publicly stated that they warned the Admiralty that the ship had been sold, it seems difficult to exonerate the Government from at least tacit connivance at this open assistance of the opponent of our ally. British ships have taken coal to the Baltic Fleet, and thus deliberately assisted the passage of a hostile fleet towards Japanour ally. A very flagrant case was that of the Roddam, which openly conveyed coal to Suda Bay for the Baltic Fleet, without calling down any of the punishments legally enforceable against her owners or her crew, of whom at least a certain proportion are British. presumably. The enthusiastic welcome of the Baltic Fleet by the authorities in Egypt contrasts very curiously with the reception accorded to the Spanish Fleet under Admiral Cervera in 1898, when it was attempting to pass through the Canal to reach the Philippines. In the words of Cervera's own despatch, "after waiting four days for the decision of the Egyptian Government as to trans-shipping coal to the Pelayo, this trans-shipment has been forbidden, and we have been ordered at once to leave all Egyptian ports." This treatment was at the time ascribed to British benevolent neutrality to the United States during her war with Spain. All the more remarkable appears, then, the permission given to the Baltic Fleet to take in coal at Port Said. Is there one kind of benevolent neutrality when it only calls for action against a smaller

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