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Swallows had been seen near the river. There was one sturdy, brown-eyed boy conspicuous in an Eton collar among jerseys and sailor suits. His hand had gone up every time a question had been asked and I had been wondering when his turn would come to answer. It came now.

His anxious face

"Yes, Frank," said Miss Dunstan. brightened and he began in quiet deliberate tones:

"My father took me in a boat on the river last Saturday." Miss Dunstan's clear, quick voice broke in:

"And did you see the swallows catching flies?”

"No, it wasn't swallows, it was a cuckoo."

"Then we can't hear about it this time. We will talk about cuckoos next time, and then you shall tell us."

The lesson lumbered on over Frank's disappointment like some great car of Juggernaut.

We were stuck over swifts. No one in the class had ever seen or heard one. No one knew where they built nor how they lived.

"If they are like the swallows and the martens what do you think you might see them doing?" asked Miss Dunstan. Frank's patient hand was still uprising at every pause.

"Well, Frank."

"About that cuckoo," said the slow, quiet voice.

"That is for next time," said Miss Dunstan promptly. "Yes, Annette."

"I s'pose we ought to see them flying, but I don't know how we can, only if they made a noise p'raps you'd know they were there."

A gleam of fun sparkled in Miss Dunstan's eyes. "The whole class stand," she said. In a few moments a score of puzzled children were drawn up in two lines in front of a large window, set so high in the wall that nothing could be seen from it but sky.

"Now," said the teacher impressively, "stand quiet and look out of the window, and you shall all see and hear some swifts."

Every face in the room except my own was turned up towards the light. There was a breathless pause.

A sudden scurry of wide dark wings beat the air, across the

gleam of the big white clouds in the dark blue sky swept a flock of swifts, and as they sped past their fierce wild cry rang out shrill and clear.

The score of upturned waiting faces were lit up with the radiance of a great joy, and a clamour of eager welcome broke out at the sight of the birds.

"I saw them, I saw them," cried Annette in triumph. "They go like this and like this." And holding out a dainty pair of downward curving arms she swayed deliciously from side to

side.

“All of you go like the swifts, go once round the room,” commanded the presiding genius, and in a trice a line of children with curved arms out-stretched was swaying gracefully round the room with a gale of gentle, happy laughter.

When the whole class was seated ag in the talk about the swifts went on joyously.

Yes, Frank," said Miss Dunstan once more to the often upraised hand.

"About that cuckoo?" said the persistent voice.

"Yes, we are going to hear about that cuckoo next time. It will be your turn first, Frank, and you must remember to tell us about it."

"I shall remember," said Frank.

The children filed out of the class-room at the end of the lesson to join another class for drill, and I drew near to Miss Dunstan to thank her for her hospitality.

The sun was glancing brightly on the wide wings of the wheeling swifts, the shower was over and I had no excuse for lingering.

"How ever did you manage to take those children to the window just in time?" I asked.

"It was a piece of good luck, wasn't it," returned the young teacher, laughing. "I had heard them go past three times before, so I could easily guess how long they ought to be. What I was afraid was that one of the children would notice them before I was ready for them."

As I passed through the central hall on my way out, I heard Edie say:

"Oh, Miss Shaw, do let us go round like the swifts.'

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"But we don't know how swifts go," objected one of the very

little ones.

"We do. We have just seen them. Do let us, Miss Shaw," begged Annette.

"Very well," said Miss Shaw, wisely refraining from any advice. "All of you go round like the swifts, and the little ones must copy the big ones."

Past they all went, the elder children poised lightly on the tips of their toes, with a graceful swing of their lithe little bodies, the babies imitating as well as they could; last of all came a pretty little girl of five, with long fair curls, far too much occupied in looking at her fine new red shoes to notice how the others were playing at the flight of the swifts.

Round the hall and round again passed the long line of bonny, happy faces, while Miss Shaw smiled back into their smiling eyes. As I shut the door of the school I felt as though I had left more sunshine inside than I found outside, where every tree was glittering with sparkling drops of rain.

PROTECTION, FREE TRADE, AND

UNEMPLOYMENT

THE links uniting thought and conduct have supplied the text for many edifying, and for some illuminating, sermons. That "clear thinking" should precede right action is no less true and apposite in economic matters than in the other mundane concerns of men. For this reason few intelligent advocates of seasonable change in our fiscal relations with foreign countries, and with the other constituent portions of the British Empire, would deny the pertinence to the discussion of Mr. J. A. Hobson's argument, advanced in the August number of this Review,* when he pleads for the separation of "large crucial issues from relevant detail," and the subjection of the "former to a really searching controversy." Nor would they quarrel with his choice of the particular test to be employed for judging the merits of this procedure. But they might select broader statement of the problem, which would harmonise more fully with the spirit of his suggestion, and prefer to ask whether the presence or the absence of discrimination in a fiscal system is the more conducive to the mitigation of the ills of unemployment.

At the outset of this inquiry attention may appropriately be drawn to the reverse, and equally important, side of the connection between accurate theory and wise practice. For the notion that a reflex influence will be exerted by changing circumstances on the formation and acceptance of rational opinion is a notable discovery of recent study and research. The full recognition of the various consequences issuing therefrom is especially relevant to the fiscal problem.

For in determining the proper policy to pursue we must set, • In an article "Can Protection cure Unemployment?"

first and foremost, the concrete study of the environment of actual fact in which we are now placed; and on this account the accurate observation of "relevant detail" is no less "crucial," and no less indispensable to a "large" survey, than “any close brain-to-brain debate of vital principles." "The fierce swordsmanship on trade statistics and the comparative industrial conditions of protectionist and free-importing countries," which Mr. Hobson would rank, apparently, on a lower "level" of the "art of controversy," has been a necessary incident of the discussion, and it should be sure of a cordial welcome from sympathisers with the newer tendencies of economic thought. It would furthermore seem not unlikely that theorising, which met with general favour at a previous period, though its reception in some important quarters was even then lukewarm, should require alteration, if it were really to become and to be esteemed "up to date."

These considerations scarcely receive from Mr. Hobson the explicit and continuous notice they have merited and demand; and it is in this direction that the most complete "escape" may be found from the "chain of economic causation" which he constructs. If we grant his premisses it may freely be conceded that we shall find ourselves compelled to accept some of his conclusions. But there is no necessity for this easy, futile course. For, by a curious contradiction of the hope which might legitimately have been entertained about a writer of his creed and antecedents, he is content to borrow, practically unchanged, the chief assumptions on which his reasoning ultimately rests, from the dogmatic pronouncements of that "orthodox" economics which was the ruling fashion of a bygone day.

This method is more disappointing because our appetite has first been whetted with adverse criticism of some well-known "rebuttals" of Protectionist contentions commonly produced with boisterous triumph by sturdy Free Trade "champions and Mr. Hobson offers in their stead the exciting prospect of a wholly novel answer.

Such is the promise; but what is the performance? Not content with showing that no good can come, he endeavours to expose the evil which must issue from an altered fiscal policy. After "proving," to his own entire persuasion, "that a tariff can

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