cannot perceive the motive of that exuberance of spirityet if he were acquainted with the true character of his Elizabethan ancestors (for example, the real Sir Philip Sydney) he would not think "bumptiousness was the right name

fór it.

So much for the effect of their special environment on the Canadian people-it remains to consider the consequences of their position in time in a certain well-defined stream of historical tendencies. Canada never forcibly severed its connection with the past, seeking in the maxims of Rousseau a substitute for the political wisdom of six centuries of English statesmanship. The "thirteen colonies" obtained self-government at a blow; the Canadas, Quebec and Ontario, won autonomy in the course of a constitutional struggle, which lasted for the greater part of a century. In a word Canadians, English-speaking and Frenchspeaking alike, have had to work by slow constitutional methods for the liberty to manage their own affairs in their own way— thus learning that all liberty is an application of the do ut des principle, implying the possession of responsibilities as well as privileges-whereas the United States obtained this liberty as the outcome of a speedy victory in a half-hearted war which, like all cheap successes, caused the victors to over-rate their capacity for revising the cosmos. It is probable that the national mania for individualism-Jefferson and the rest never dreamed, of course, that American women would apply the antisocial arguments to their own cost-has reached its climax in the United States. But many decades must elapse before the evil is undone which Canada, thanks for the long discipline of its colonial status, has altogether avoided. The boundary between the two countries has little or no geographical meaning. But, politically and socially considered, the barrier is a strong reality. But it is not necessary to believe-indeed danger lies that way— that it is impregnable for all time or to deny that the Canadian Tariff walls add to its strength.

Mr. Macphail's political philosophy is very much what one would expect from a thoughtful person, whose habit of mind is chiefly conditioned by the twofold environment described above. Though his business is with books and medical science, it is clear that he longs for the vast countryside out of earshot of the

Montreal street-railway, which drowns the noise of a thunderstorm. "The thing which keeps us in heart," he writes, "at our tasks during the long winter-if one may be permitted to affirm that the Canadian winter is long-is the hope that we may at some time escape to our little farms, our woods and streams, forgetful that it is within our reach to spend the whole year in doing the things which we love to do. There is but one free man in the world-he who creates out of the earth." Like all Canadians who know the history of their country, he praises the magnanimity of England in her dealings with the Dominions during their growing-time. The essay entitled "The Patience of England" is touched with a genuine emotion of gratitude for the slow far-sighted kindness of the Motherland, which "endowed us with freedom and a kingdom when we were competent for the charge." Throughout he insists on the necessity of discipline for young nations as well as for youthful individuals. He would have Canada express her gratitude by admitting to the wide liberties of her fertile wilderness all the helpless, hopeless poor of the Mother Country, providing them with the necessary tuition in the arts of making a living there. Like all dwellers in a new country, where one becomes a handyman by watching one's neighbours, he has a good-natured contempt for the stay-at-home Englishman's inability or unwillingness to turn his hands to odd jobs. On the whole, however, there is little or no fault to be found with his critical affection for England and English institutions.

When, however, he discusses the various proposals for Imperial construction, or reconstruction, he is obviously at fault. He is an academic Free Trader, though not so high and dry in that un-Canadian creed as some of the Toronto University troglodytes. His scorn for trade and commerce is magniloquent to a degree. It is more than emotion; it is a commotion that changes the cosmos of his mind into a chaos. The historical fact that the British Empire-that all empires, even that of Rome originated in the necessity of commercial expansion is ignored by him from first to last. Yet it would seem that he believes that the strengthening of the British Empire will make for the betterment of the world. But it must be an Empire founded on emotion. The notion that any attempt should be made to strengthen the commercial ties between the nations of the Imperial

as the caller

partnership invariably brings on a fit of adjectival hysterics. Here he tramples on the snobbishness of commercialism with a snobbishness of his own. He will not see that every product of man's labour is something not to be despised because the life of man has entered into it. The Western Canadian's grains of wheat and the machine tools made in the great engineering works of the North of England are as truly the "lives of men" herrin' of the famous Scots ditty. Unquestionably Imperial Preference has its basis in a sentiment of racial brotherhood. Again, Mr. Macphail admits that England has a genius for justice. But, illogically enough, he will not believe that England could deal justly with Trusts in the improbable event of their appearance behind the shelter of a moderate tariff. In accepting the ideal of an Empire founded on historical emotions he sedulously overlooks the demonstration history supplies of the fallacy of such idealism-the loss of the American colonies. Some of the leaders of the Revolution had all the fine feelings which Mr. Macphail produces for our inspection—with an oratorical wave of the hand and a smile of self-gratulation which is entirely excusable. None the less they broke away and connived at the tarring and feathering of the Loyalists, men who thought fine actions were more to the point than fine feelings and fine words.

However, Mr. Macphail has the root of the matter in him, and is a good Imperialist after his kind. He sees that Canada must look after her defences, and, if I read aright the thoughts which he so often hides behind a veil of clever writing (which flickers upward like hot air), he sees that Canada must have her navy. Probably when the time comes for concluding a treaty of mutual preference with the Mother Country he will throw up his mortarboard with the caps of other Canadians, the true business-men who know that Empires are the creation of commerce, and held together only by common interests of a tangible kind. Mr. Macphail says as much in a sentence of monosyllables (common sense is generally monosyllabic) which may be detached from its context: "A man who will not fight for his food will not fight for his king." Let us hope to hear from him again when he has thrown physic to the dogs and cured himself of mere cleverness by a study of world-history.

E. B. O.

AUSTRALIAN AFFAIRS

AUSTRALIA, July 15, 1909.

THIS letter will be read on or about September 1. I have been collecting opinions as to the events in the sphere of Australian politics which may then be interesting English readers. All the opinions were the same: "None."

Things will have happened, of course. The State Premiers will have conferred lengthily with Federal Ministers; and, unless they have greatly altered their opinions and demands between now and the middle of August, they will have conferred to no purpose. The Budget will have been introduced; but budgets are not to be discussed in advance. Besides, this one, which must be forced through a quarrelsome House in its final session, and must provide urgently needed funds to meet expenditure on which every member is agreed (e.g., old age pensions), is not likely to venture beyond the merely prosaic. It may be memorable as the first to include a Federal loan-a local loan, probably to provide indispensable matériel for our badly neglected Post Office Department; beyond that, nothing exciting is looked for. The Defence Bill and the Bill to make our Northern territory a Federal possession may have been introduced; no one expects them to be carried this year, and they may not even get safely through a single House. The Navigation Bill will be dallied with by the Senate; an attempt to carry it would drive that august body crazy. And so on, and so forth.

This, of course, means obstruction, and every one knows the correct set of adjectives for use on such occasions. But it is obstruction with a definite purpose in view, tactics-very bad tactics, one may observe parenthetically-employed for a definite end. Labour has asserted its belief that the present Ministry, the result of a fusion suddenly patched up at the beginning of a critical session, will be dismissed or at least badly discredited whenever an appeal is made to the country. Until that appeal is made, there is grave danger (you will understand that I am putting Labour's case) that Australia may be committed to engagements she would repudiate, and bound by legislation she dislikes. The logical conclusion is that the Ministry should be allowed to do nothing. The business to be dealt with is urgent and important; that is all the more reason why it should not be

dealt with by unauthorised agents. "Dissolve," say Mr. Fisher and his party; "ask the country if it approves of you. If it does, you can come back happy and go to work straight away." Obstruction, therefore, is not on this occasion merely a spiteful, aimless protest—it is a weapon deliberately employed to ensure that nothing shall be done in Australia's name until Australia has had the chance of approving or disapproving. Suppose for an instant that after the loss of the Home Rule Bill in 1886, Mr. Gladstone had failed to get a dissolution, and Lord Salisbury had formed then such a Unionist Ministry as he was eventually able to get in 1895-what form of obstruction would Gladstonians have left unused in their endeavours to drive their opponents to the country? The analogy lacks exactness: you should rather suppose that Mr. Chamberlain had become Prime Minister, with Lord Randolph Churchill as his second in command.

So we may let the correct set of adjectives stay in their dictionary. For whether you agree with people or not, it is stupid to deceive yourself by applying epithets to them which they do not deserve. The best men now in the Labour party are men who will before very long render Australia great service: they have done her good service already, as Mr. George Reid himself told the House yesterday, by sound and careful administration while they were in office. We will remember that in their favour, and be compassionate only while they are misguided into fighting the immediate campaign on wrong lines.

Failing Federal politics, the affairs of the States are worth attention. The general formula for the political situation is identical in nearly all of them: an isolated Labour party is fighting a coalition, or fusion, or alliance of at least two other parties. Call these R and P, the reactionary and the progressive elements outside Labour; and place first the more powerful element of the two. Then in New South Wales your formula is R+P>L; the reactionary element of the anti-Labour fusion is the stronger, and retains P in comparative subjection because a revolt against the Ministry would put Labour in office. In Victoria and South Australia the formula is P+R>L. Mr. Murray hopes to force his land-tax through a strongly protesting Council of Victorian landowners by giving them the alternative of Labour in power instead of mere Liberalism; Mr. Peake has