forces and in making it evident that at need he intended to use them. The real point at issue is as to whether the civil Government of Spain, as represented by King Alfonso, who has remained quite impervious to menace, shall be master in its own house, or whether the Vatican shall be permitted to forbid long overdue legislation concerning the Orders, and to dictate the degree of toleration to be allowed to Nonconformist sects. It is impossible to foretell the issue because, although it is the tradition of the Vatican to bow before force majeure, and Spain seems to feel so strongly that it is impossible for her Government to withdraw, even if it wished to do so, the characteristic of the present Pope is that he has a somewhat magnificent contempt for force majeure, preferring defeat to what he regards as the disgrace of abating one jot or tittle of the claims of the Holy See.

THE conduct of the Admiralty in the Archer-Shee case is so shocking and has caused such general and genuine indignation that we refuse to believe that "my Lords," even

Miscellaneous if they wish to, can leave matters where they stand. We suspend our comments for the moment, and can only hope that on reflection Mr. McKenna will adopt a more chastened attitude and will overcome his besetting sin of cocksureness. The Admiralty owe ample amends to the victim of their folly and we trust, if they prove recalcitrant, that the Archer-Shee family will exact their pound of flesh in the interests of the public. Sir Edward Carson covered himself with glory. Righteous indignation in a good cause is a tremendous weapon. The SolicitorGeneral can be congratulated neither on his pitiful advice to the Admiralty nor on the miserable figure he cut in court. *** The Japanese Tariff is another rude reminder of the helplessness of Cobdenism, though it is not without encouragement, because it shows that the shrewdest statesmen in the world are anticipating the early triumph of Tariff Reform in this country. Sir Ernest Cassel should not be ungrateful for the premature announcement that he contemplates contributing the munificent sum of £200,000 to a memorial to King Edward in the shape of an Anglo-German Institute for stranded Englishmen in Germany and stranded Germans here, as it affords him an opportunity of devoting his donation to some more worthy and appropriate memorial to our late King.

***

THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE

THERE is so fine a flavour about voluntary effort, so exhilarating an atmosphere about the men and women who sacrifice time and wealth and sometimes life itself in the voluntary service of others, that it seems sacrilegious to think of substituting for it the flat and commonplace rule of compulsion. Charity has been so highly esteemed that it has served as a cloak for most of the sins of the world; but charity in that sense-not the virtue which induces most men who are not politicians to think fairly well of their neighbours-is dying a slow death as the shadow of compulsion creeps over our national life. No imaginative politician, no practical citizen, no one in fact but a dry theorist, would dream of substituting compulsion for voluntary effort so long as the latter could be relied upon to produce average results; whether in education, sanitation or military service. When, however, as education spreads, common men awaken to their duties and responsibilities, and when national risks, military and commercial, appear to them as risks which not only the rich and great but they themselves have to run, security, whether in the shape of sound teaching, hygiene in its protective forms, or armed force, appears to them to be a matter of vital concern, and not of casual inclination. Forty years ago, voluntary schooling was abandoned as an educational principle, and parents were obliged by law to send their children to school. These children are now grown men and they look with different eyes upon the various forms of compulsion which have crept into our political system, and which culminated last year in the compulsory grant of a pension by those who can afford independence to old men and women who cannot, are too numerous to mention here. The voluntary principle and the compulsory principle are both quite common in our mixed institutions, and it must be difficult for a foreigner to differentiate

precisely where they overlap. Justice is administered half by volunteer judges and half by paid professionals. Lunatic asylums are maintained by compulsory taxation; hospitals by voluntary contribution. From some diseases men and women must be protected by force, whether they like it or not. Other, and no less terrible diseases they are free to spread with that full degree of liberty which is the proud boast of the British race.

These somewhat trite reflections are necessary, because it may be too readily assumed that to express a doubt of the complete success of the voluntary principle as applied to military preparedness for war, or for national defence, necessarily implies that one is in favour of conscription. Logic, thank heaven, is a weakness which has nothing to do with the matter in hand. If question there be of alternatives it is not one of choice, but of necessity.

Some one said in a moment of trifling that force is no remedy, and the phrase has been quoted as dogma ever since, although everybody knows that nine times out of ten force is not only the best, but the only possible remedy; while for certain necessities of government, compulsion, or force, if the voluntary plan fails, is the only remedy. Two of the many problems awaiting solution by Britons all over the world is where and when the voluntary principle has failed, and whether "voluntaryism" is compatible with "democracy" in the functional activities of a modern State.

When Englishmen were ruled and did not govern themselves, it seemed quite in accordance with the settled order of things that a select few should do the work of the many. The oligarchic methods of the Whig Party triumphant in 1688 were only destroyed, as Lord Beaconsfield pointed out, by Mr. Gladstone two centuries later. The interval was the age of voluntary effort. The British Empire, as we know it, is the outcome of the Voluntary Principle. It found high exponents in men of the type of Clive and Cecil Rhodes. With volunteer armies, and by volunteer finance, these men and their likes acquired India, huge portions of Africa, and countless islands, in short, what we know as the British Empire of to-day.

There was a moment, in the course of the great struggle with Napoleon, when Mr. Pitt-who did not happen to be a Whigfaltered, and when, amidst a huge agglomeration of mercenary

troops, and volunteer commandos, we obtain a glimpse of "compulsion" both in pressing men into the Navy, and balloting for soldiers for the military defence of our shores. This was a mere spasm, born of fright, and England soon afterwards sank wearily and not uncontentedly back into the arms of her Whig statesmen. In point of fact, we have lived splendidly and comfortably under an oligarchy, and under a voluntary system. The Houses of Parliament, filled with men giving up their time gratis to the nation, the magistracy of the counties and boroughs, the vast number of citizens acting as jurors, the men and women devoted to the care of educating village children, or supervising hospitals, the enormous sums spent in almsgiving in manifold shapes, all these were manifestations of the voluntary principle in its most wholesome form.

Great Britain thrived under this dispensation; she stood for liberty at home, and freedom in Europe, and her wealth and power increased with the spread of Empire, until she became, as Burke said, the arbitress of Europe, and, as Burke did not live to say, the greatest world power, except Rome, that the world has ever seen. No man in his senses could desire, in order to square with some theory of government or live up to some political dogma, to change a system so rooted in our habits, and so beneficial to the nation in its results; but forces were at work, even in the most halcyon of these oligarchic days, which changed the old order, and brought about the inception of the new.

There came the Reform Bill of 1832. Is there any one simple enough to suppose that the Whigs who carried that Bill enjoyed the task? Is there any one who believes that Mr. Disraeli liked the Reform Bill of 1866 any better than Lord Salisbury liked it? In those years the system of government had broken down, and these statesmen were forced by stress of cricumstances to alter the institutions of the country, just as in 1846, Sir Robert Peel was constrained, by the failure of "Protection," to meet the difficulties of the transformation of an agricultural into an industrial population, and to adopt the theories of the Manchester school, and to swallow Free Trade. Yet who can truthfully say that he enjoyed the operation or did more than bow to the inevitable result of causes which were beyond his control? As the franchise was lowered, and political power became more disseminated, the principle of compulsion became more extended,

and voluntary effort more restricted. Upon the Reform Bill of 1866 there followed the Education Act of 1870. When the franchise is again lowered, then upon manhood suffrage will follow, in all probability, compulsory military service.

The unpopularity of free military service, as well as gratuitous service of any kind to the State, becomes more marked with the advance of "democracy." No one is more suspicious, perhaps naturally so, than the plebeian. He believes that he has been exploited for centuries by the wealthier classes, and he attributes the most sinister motives to the man who is not in his direct pay or employ. Any man who works without emolument for the good of the public he associates with lay preachers of the Established Church, or with its female votaries, performing acts of charity on behalf of the Primrose League. I speak from experience, for, owing to circumstances, I have nearly all my life, with one pleasant interlude, held the disagreeable position of an unsalaried worker. I remember well, when I was very young, lecturing upon history on behalf of my University in a London slum, and having been guilty of some rather didactic observations on patriotism, a man in the audience rose, and asked how much I was paid for my lecture. On my admission that I was not considered worthy of an emolument, he retorted, "Then ye are only a preacher," and left the room. It was the revolt of the honest democrat against a species of blackleg.

I have noticed the same kind of attack lately made by Members of the House of Commons, and by a certain type of journalist upon unsalaried and so-called irresponsible servants of the State. They are quite in their right, for it is obvious that under a democratic form of government, the only hold upon a man, the only security you have for his honourable performance of duty, is a salary and the power to dock it. Disinterestedness, patriotism, even self-respect, are mere words of archaic meaning. We have seen for some time a growing demand in some quarters for the payment of members of Parliament. Objection to unsalaried, and therefore irresponsible, magistrates is bound to be taken seriously before long. The County Councils, the County Associations, their chairmen, and financial committees, are bound sooner or later to be the subject of attack on the ground that the " people" have no proper hold over them. And thus, gradually, will voluntary service in civil walks of life tend to disappear. How