A Plea for every Radical goose is a In the eyes of the Westminster Gazette glorious swan; criticism of Ministers is conspicuous by its absence from a newspaper which regards persons of the calibre of Lords Crewe, Carrington and Aberdeen, as heaven-born tatesmen and administrators. All is for the best, under the best of all possible Governments. Is not the proprietor of the Westminster Gazette on his way to the Peerage? It is therefore somewhat surprising to find our contemporary animadverting on the conduct of two such great men as the Home Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The former is rebuked (August 17) for taking his holiday abroad. Of course, we are told that "No one more deserves a good holiday than Mr. Winston Churchill. He has done a spell of hard work in various good causes during the last eighteen months which will long be remembered to his credit.” These good causes may be summarised in two words "My career -however, let that pass, as our contemporary proceeds But we are not at all sure that he is wise in breaking through the tradition that the Home Secretary should take his holiday at home, or at least in home waters. A few great offices have this limitation attaching to them for reasons which seem to us sound and good, and the Home Secretaryship is one of these. The holders of them may be away nine times out of ten and nothing untoward happen, but on the tenth occasion there will arise some emergency in which the absent will certainly be wrong. In any case young Ministers should be careful of making new precedents. That is a fine specimen of crusted Conservatism. As usual, the Westminster Gazette misinterprets the sentiments of the public, who heaved a sigh of relief at the news that the Home Secretary would give the country a brief holiday from his pernicious activities, and when subsequently he cropped up at the Greek General Election, hopes were entertained that he might remain in a country which enjoys the blessings of Single-Chamber Government, in whose politics he is so eminently fitted to shine. Need popular Unionist newspapers keep us posted in all this gentleman's movements? May we not be allowed to forget him for a few weeks as also his twin at the Exchequer, who is motoring abroad, having also incurred the disapproval of the Westminster Gazette. Before Mr. George's departure, the community began to be deluged with a downpour of land valuation forms, necessitated by last year's Budget, of which few people, except experts, and not too many of them, can make head or tail. We need not discuss them now, because the subject is being so thoroughly and satisfactorily ventilated in the Press largely owing to the energy and ability of Captain Pretyman and his friends. Radical Apprehensions PERSONS Who were encouraged by demagogues to believe that henceforward their taxation would be paid by the dukes, are opening their eyes and laughing on the wrong side of their mouths. We unreservedly welcome the forms, the more the merrier-and we equally welcome the letters in which our peripatetic Chancellor explains how simple they are, but apparently neither the forms nor the explanations are popular in the office of the Westminster Gazette. After the usual conventional denunciation of the "foolish criticism " of which these forms have been the object, our contemporary adds "we are not quite persuaded, however, that some of these forms are not much more complicated than they need have been. They have provided an exercise for the ingenuity of Somerset House, of which that department has not been altogether loath to avail itself." Plain people have long said that one of the objects of the Budget was to provide Mr. Lloyd George, the Lord High Jobber, with opportunities of finding comfortable billets for persons who had deserved well of the Party, without having qualified themselves for Peerages, Baronetcies, or even Knighthoods. The Daily Mail has effectively exposed the development of officialism during the present régime. The Westminster Gazette is apprehensive as to the political effect of this new inquisition. We continue to believe that a great deal of prejudice might have been avoided if returns of value had not been sought for land which is not likely to become at any near distance of time the subject of taxation. It would have been better and simpler if a conventional value of, say, £50 an acre had been taken for agricultural land. There might have been a slight loss to the revenue here and there, but the drawing of such a line would have saved a considerable amount of irritation and fear. It is singularly unfortunate-unfortunate from the Radical point of view-that the Westminster Gazette should invariably register its protests a day after the fair. A stitch in time saves nine. These forms have been discussed for months past without any assistance from Tudor Street. For once we agree with our contemporary. This mulitude of forms must inevitably cause "irritation and fear" which will be emphasised by the speeches of Socialists like Mr. Snowden, who claim, not without good reason, the paternity of the Budget. They suggest to the ordinary man further developments of Georgian finance which is not unnatural, considering that the most vocal portion of the Coalition are in favour of destroying private property in land by one method or another, as a stepping-stone to the creation of a huge socialistic State, owning all "the means of production, distribution, and exchange," presumably presided over by Mr. Keir Hardie, who has recently informed us that "he regarded the existence of a King as a proof of lunacy among the people." So now we know where we are and what we must do to regain Mr. Hardie's good opinion. ? BEFORE leaving the subject of these land valuation forms, which, according to Mr. Lloyd George, any fool can fill up, we cannot restrain our curiosity as to the figures returned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary themselves. Do they own property subject to this new taxation? If so when did they acquire it? If not, what is to be thought of political buccaneers, who in devising vindictive taxation for the rest of the community, so manage that the super-tax begins where their own salaries leave off, while a special form of property is selected for inquisition and extortion which they happen not to possess. An interesting article might be written on "Some Ethical Aspects of Georgian Finance." Bret Harte's Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee" is not a patch on the artful dodger of Carnarvon. Lord Ir is unnecessary to roll out those conventional platitudes about the late Lord Spencer for which there is an unlimited demand on the death of any public man, because there is one particular episode in his career which will keep his memory green in the regard of his countrymen long after more conspicuous contemporaries have been forgotten. We refer, of course, to his action as First Lord of the Admiralty in the critical winter of 1893, in defending the British Navy against a particularly dangerous assault. The Little Navy Party of those days was formidable because under the patronage and inspiration of the Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, whom Lord Spencer habitually followed with an almost doglike devotion and to whom he was deeply attached. The attack on the estimates was reinforced by the bluff of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir William Harcourt, who tried to bounce Lord Spencer and the Admiralty by declaring in the House of Commons that the Board were satisfied with the existing Fleet. In his hostility to the Spencer Programme," the Chancellor of the Exchequer enjoyed the support of the Prime Minister, but happily in those days as the sequel proved, Liberal Imperialism was a factor to be reckoned with. Our great First Sea Lord, Sir Frederick Richards, at once informed Lord Spencer, that he and his colleagues should resign unless Sir William Harcourt's statement was withdrawn in the place where it was made. Still more remarkable, Lord Spencer told Mr. Gladstone that he desired to associate himself with the Board, and would resign with them. Tableau! Needless to say, Sir William Harcourt shortly found an opportunity of eating his words in the House of Commons, and as we know from Lord Morley's biography of his chief, Mr. Gladstone relinquished the Premiership, owing to the cabinet's acquiescence in the Spencer Programme, his place being taken by Lord Rosebery, to whom Sir William Harcourt became a disloyal First Lieutenant. This incident explains much that has since happened in the Radical Party, and throws a useful sidelight on his Majesty's present Ministers, accounting as it does for Mr. L. V. Harcourt's vendetta against Liberal Imperialists, and his rancour against the Navy. There has been no more honourable episode in the career of any living politician, than Lord Spencer's refusal to sacr fice the Fleet. Florence FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, who had long attained a place among the immortals, has passed away at the great age of 90; she had lived in complete seclusion for many years, and her face was unknown to the present generation, but her death produced such a demonstration of regard as has rarely been seen. She She was buried by her own wish, in a quiet country churchyard near her Hampshire home, but a Memorial Service was held in her honour at St. Paul's, at which all classes of the community were represented. Amid many moving tributes to her loving labours during the Crimean war, perhaps the most beautiful was that of the Observer (August 21) from which we quote the concluding passage: In her ninetieth year and up to her last rejection of the thought of burial in Westminster Abbey, she continued the tradition of what was strongest and best in an earlier England. Whether, with all our increased cleverness and knowledge and material comfort and mechanical progress, we keep enough of that moral efficiency, is the question that will settle our future. Florence Nightingale was the Lady of the Lamp-not of the limelight. When she moved through the night at Skutari, that little shielded flame she carried was a better symbol even than she knew. Duty in its most earnest sense was to her the lamp of life. We hope that means will be found to connect that symbol and that idea with her name, so that the children of England may never forget either the memory of the lady who was buried yesterday or the greater meaning of the Lamp. EUROPE is keenly interested in the struggle between Spain and the Vatican, which remains in a more or less acute stage owing to the firmness of the former and the obstinacy Spain and of the latter. A mischievous effort has been made the Vatican by irresponsible and ignorant people to attribute this incident to some mysterious exercise of British influence through the marriage of the King of Spain to an English princess. Nothing could be more ridiculous than a canard for which there is not the faintest foundation. Princess Ena became a Catholic on marrying King Alfonso, and the English have had no more to do with the internal policy of Spain than the Germans, the French, or any other Power. The quarrel was the direct result of the haughty and reactionary spirit that has animated the Vatican throughout the Pontificate of Pius X., a man of noble and saintly character but of uncompromising opinions. The first-fruit of his policy, as executed by Cardinal Merry del Val (Cardinal Rampolla's successor), was the collapse of the Concordat in France and the separation of Church and State, which would have been avoided had the milder policy of Leo XIII. prevailed. Now Cardinal Merry del Val has steered the Vatican into a gratuitous quarrel with the most Catholic Government in Europe, in which he has succeeded in uniting, for the first time during the present generation, the principal Spanish parties in a solid block behind the Premier Señor Canalejas, upon whom has fallen the task of resisting impossible pretensions. The Spanish Ambassador at the Vatican has been practically "recalled," though the word is objected to. So far the efforts of the Ultramontanes to stir up strife in Spain have been frustrated by the moderation of Spanish Clericals and by the skill of the Prime Minister in mobilising his |