man than by the Passive Resister. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Leader of the Opposition, decided to make one more effort to combine the wholesome popular prejudice against cheap labour with Radical cant about "slavery," and accordingly gave notice of a formal Vote of Censure, for March 21, viz., “That this House disapproves the conduct of his Majesty's Government in advising the Crown not to disallow the Ordinance for the introduction of Chinese labour into the Transvaal." We do not think it necessary to follow the example of the House of Commons and discuss this question in detail, as we have felt throughout that, although the Transvaal is not technically a selfgoverning Colony, it should be treated so far as possible as though it were self-governing, and as there is clearly a consensus of local opinion in favour of a particular measure, which all the men, so far as we can make out, whose opinions are of most value believe to be indispensable to the development of that country, we cannot conceive any but the narrowest technical ground for urging the interference of Downing Street. The debate, however, had the advantage of enabling Mr. Lyttelton to restate his case with remarkable vigour and ability in a speech which marks another stage in his rapid progress. Incidentally he exposed the hypocrisy of the Radical outcry, as "Slavery" Ordinances in other Colonies had been approved by Liberal Governments. After a heated debate Ministers obtained the very substantial majority of fifty-seven (299 to 242). Much capital has been made by the Opposition out of the fact that self-governing Colonies such as Australia and New Zealand strongly object to the proposal. We cannot help feeling, however, that they would have kept aloof had they realised the actual conditions prevailing in the Transvaal, as shown, e.g., in the temperate and instructive article of a recent visitor (Mr. H. Ernest Crawley) which we publish this month, or the political temperature of the Mother Country. British Radicals do not care a brass farthing whether South Africa becomes a white man's country. They have frankly admitted that they would not in the least mind the Transvaal being overrun and eaten up by Chinamen. Their single object is to raise a hue and cry against the Ins, and to thwart British administration in the new Colonies. What common ground is there between them and the Colonial democracies, who desire to exclude the Chinaman for totally different reasons?

Last month we briefly epitomised the first part of the Report of the Committee for the Reconstruction of the War Army Reform. Office, consisting of Lord Esher, Sir John Fisher and Sir George Clarke, the publication of which was accompanied

by the announcement that the Government had already adopted its main recommendations. Thus the post of Commander-inChief was abolished, and an Army Council of a similar type to the Admiralty Board was installed in the War Office, while an Inspector-General was "to inspect and report on " the efficiency of the military forces. A few days later it was announced that Sir Neville Lyttelton, General Douglas, General Plumer, and General Wolfe Murray, had been appointed as the military members of the new Council, and some days later the Duke of Connaught was gazetted as Inspector-General, to the general gratification of the public and the army. At last the Duke of Connaught finds himself in a position in which his military zeal and devotion will have full play, and we believe it would have been impossible for the Government to make a better appointment. No one, so far as we know, questions his fitness if he were not a royal Duke, but the fact that he is a royal Duke is adduced in some quarters as a disqualification. This appears to us to be unjust both to the country and to the Crown. What inducements would be offered to Princes to devote themselves to the public service if they are to be denied positions for which they are admittedly qualified, merely because they have the misfortune to be Princes? Why again should the country forego the advantage of getting the right man into the right place simply because he is a Royalty? The reader will recollect that the first part of the Report of the Esher Committee made some striking recommendations for the development of the Defence Committee of the Cabinet, which was to be endowed with a permanent bureau to assist the Premier, whose continued Presidency was pronounced to be a sine qua non of the efficiency of the Committee, as the only effective guarantee that the Cabinet would remain in touch with the problems of National Defence. The first part of the Report of the Esher Committee has now been followed up by a second part, and as we go to press the third and final part appears. Army administration is discussed in greater detail, and Part II. contains an elaborate scheme for the distribution of the forces. It is naturally impossible for us to do justice to memoranda each of which occupies several newspaper columns, and we can scarcely attempt even a summary of its suggestions. Part II. deals with the Army Council (containing inter alia a definition of the functions of the First Military Member as Chief of the Staff), decentralisation, finance, the General Staff, and the appointment of officers. The Committee aim at a real decentralisation in the place of the sham decentralisation of which we have heard so much in recent years. The administrative and executive

functions are to be separated, and the country is to be divided into seven administrative districts under Major-Generals, who will be the responsible heads of their districts, and into five commands under General Officers, who will be charged with the duty of training and preparing troops for war. As in the first part of the Report, the Committee recognises the desirability of making a complete change in the personnel on the inauguration of the new régime. Last, but by no means least, they recommend the abolition of the link battalion system, which, though a useful reform in its day, has long outlived its usefulness. Part III. defines the functions of the other members of the Army Council, apart from the First Member, and generally amplifies Part II.

The Esher Committee have propounded one of the most comprehensive administrative reforms ever proposed The Army. in any country, except perhaps Japan; and they are emphatic in declaring that their scheme should be taken en bloc if it is to serve its purpose. Although Lord Esher and his colleagues only held a few sittings, their proposals are manifestly the result of many years of hard thinking combined with the close study of other military systems, and the special needs of the British Empire. This is fully recognised by the public. No scheme devised by human hands can possibly be flawless, and it is not difficult for fault-finders to pick holes in the present plan. But the governing fact is that if the Esher Report be rejected, we may say good-bye to any prospect of putting the British Army on a serious footing, while if it be adopted we shall certainly have an infinitely more efficient force than we have ever had before, or than any of us ever hoped to have. Mr. Balfour's Government cannot but be conscious of the fact that their fate to a large extent depends upon whether the War Minister is given a free hand to carry out this scheme, of which he has publicly expressed his approval, or whether it is to be sacrificed to the amour propre of colleagues who happen to be identified with the existing regime, and who appear to share the views of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, who as a Chinese Conservative is an avowed enemy of reform. The somewhat ambiguous, not to say discordant Ministerial utterances have caused some public perturbation, all the more as it is a matter of common knowledge that in addition to the Reform of the machine proposed by what is facetiously called the Triumvirate, there is Mr. Arnold Forster's scheme for the reorganisation of the Army remaining in its pigeon-hole until these petty

personal susceptibilities can be soothed. Of this scheme we know nothing, but having followed Mr. Arnold Forster's agitation for Army Reform for many years, we believe that he is as likely as any man living to give us the maximum of efficiency at the minimum of expense, though under our voluntary system we must always be prepared for a lower standard of the former and a higher standard of the latter than any other Power. The theory of a great regular army for home defence is all moonshine. What we require is a comparatively small and highly efficient force for over-sea campaigns. If the new army seems to create a void in our home defence arrangements, it will become the duty of the people to take to heart Lord Salisbury's dictum that defence is for the nation rather than for the War Office. Will the Volunteers be equal to their new responsibilities, or shall we be compelled to face a further and greater reform involving some recognition of that principle of compulsion which every other nation regards as vital to its security, and against which, so far as we know, there is no serious murmur in any foreign democracy, though the Socialists of France and Germany favour a compulsory Militia rather than a compulsory Army?

From South Birmingham to

East Dorset.

There have been several by-elections during the past month, indicating the continued swing of the pendulum against the Government; but from the point of view of Tariff Reform there has been nothing depressing in these contests. On the contrary, the only two which call for any comment are most encouraging. In the first place Lord Morpeth followed up his gallant fight at Gateshead, where, as we pointed out two months ago, he piled up seven thousand votes in a few days for the Chamberlain Policy, by a brilliant victory in South Birmingham, where a vacancy had been caused owing to the lamented death of Mr. Powell Williams, who was a devoted friend of Mr. Chamberlain, and who is a very serious loss to the Unionist Party. The Radicals determined to make a great demonstration in "Mr. Chamberlain's country," and to show the world that "the power of the autocrat" was broken, so they selected as their champion Mr. Hirst Hollowell, a typical pro-Boer, and Birmingham was literally flooded by blatherskites from Battersea and Passive Resisters from Camberwell. The least sanguine Radicals predicted that Mr. Powell Williams' great majority of 3500 would be halved, while the optimists of the Opposition were confident of capturing the seat. Great therefore was their dismay and fury at Lord Morpeth's return by a magnificent majority of five to two (viz.,

5299 to 2223). As at Gateshead the Unionist candidate ran quite straight on the fiscal question as a Whole Hogger, and his victory should be an example and an encouragement to the weaker brethren, all the more as it was followed by an election in East Dorset, where Mr. von Raalte, in spite of great personal popularity owing to his local largesses, lost a Unionist seat by a majority of over 800. Mr. von Raalte refused to touch Tariff Reform. We cannot profess to feel very miserable over the result, which we trust will make a due impression on Whips and other obstructives.

According to the Spectator, Mr. Crombie has contributed a letter to the Westminster Gazette containing a From Cobden quotation from a speech made by Mr. Cobden at to Crombie. Aberdeen in 1844, which "is not in the collected speeches, but has been unearthed in the report of a local paper, and recently reprinted by the Aberdeen Free Press." This long hidden treasure, according to our contemporary, "finally disposes of Mr. Chamberlain's statement-again and again repeated—that Mr. Cobden promised that universal Free Trade would follow the adoption of that policy by Britain." The "unearthed" and unauthorised quotation does not seem to us to amount to very much, though it does contain the sentence, "the greater the restrictions in other countries, the more necessary was there for Free Trade in this;" but it will take a great many such discoveries to dispose of what has hitherto been a fact universally admitted not only by the opponents of the Cobdenite creed, but also by its votaries, and which is founded not on a single unearthed and unauthorised utterance, but on some of the best known passages in his collected speeches. Cobden's conviction that Free Trade in England would involve universal Free Trade was not only the bedrock of his faith, but it was its single attractive tenet; and if his followers abandon the Cobdenite ideal, what is the moral basis of their creed? At the last thanksgiving meeting of the Anti-Corn Law League in 1846, after their triumph had been secured, and when consequently there was no temptation even to a demagogue to make false promises, Cobden thus rhapsodised:

I believe we are at an era which in importance socially has not its equal for the last eighteen hundred years. I believe there is no event which has ever happened in the world's history, that in a moral and social point of view there is no human event which has happened in the world, more calculated to promote the enduring interests of humanity than the establishment of the principle of Free Trade. I don't mean in a pecuniary point of view, or as a principle applied to England; but we have a principle established now which is eternal in its truth and universal in its application, and must be applied in all nations