thus established. The intelligent ambition which appreciates this fact is certainly a feel. ing to be fostered by every possible means, and we are pleased to think that its culture is in these days increasingly cared for. Hitherto many sins have been committed against the body by persons who knew no better. Thanks to the extension of science teaching these are becoming plainly visible to the eye of reason, What we still want is the development of a yet keener sense than ordinary knowledge, an anxiety to live aright, an enthusiasm to learn and to obey the true law of our nature, moral and physical. We see more of this than formerly. We do not so tamely submit to the cramping tyranny of fashion. We are less easily guiled by the deceit of "wild oats." Even that capricious child, Society, submits many of its habits to sanitary rule. Yet there is room for improvement. The tide of enthusiasm must rise higher.-Lancet.

USE OF THE TELEPHONE.—An ingenious use of the telephone is mentioned in Lightning in the case of the manager of a large Australian ranch, who has established telephonic com. munication between the various distant homesteads by means of the wire of the boundary fences. By utilizing the top wire of the fence, and carrying the wire across the roads on poles, he has succeeeded in connecting each station at the moderate charge of 20s. per mile. He carries an instrument in his buggy, and, by connecting it with the wire at any point, he is able to communicate with any homestead. The same principle has been tried before with success in some of the Northwest American ranches, and is found to be of great value in a land where distances are great and messengers are few.

TIMBER RAFTS ON THE RHINE.-Among the noticeable characteristics of the Rhine are the timber rafts. The timber is felled in the mountains and brought down to the Rhine by the Neckar, Moselle, and other rivers. The logs are first started singly on their long jour. ney; then a few are tied together, and as they float down the streamlet, a few more are add. ed, and the raft grows like a snowball, and in the Rhine itself they are bound together into huge masses, which are carefully navigated to Dordrecht and sold. A raft will often have eight or ten small houses on it and from four to five hundred workmen, including rowers and pilots, making a small town in itself.

These rafts are steered by huge bars, and are so put together as to twist and squirm along like a huge snake in the narrow and tortuous channel. A single raft will, at the end of its journey, often sell for a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

HONOR PAID TO GARFIELD.-At the time President Garfield died, it was known in London that Queen Victoria had ordered the great bell of St. Paul's to be tolled, an honor paid heretofore only to the memory of an English sovereign. It had been long since the sound of that bell had been heard, and a vast crowd filled Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill waiting breathlessly for the first strokes of its iron tongue. The great crowd waited for hours, and at last came the deep, full, sonorous stroke. Instantly, as if by magic, every hat was doffed, and, says an eyewitness, "the change from a sea of hats to a sea of heads was most magical. The English crowd stood, while the bell tolled, with uncovered heads, a token of respect for the uncrowned monarch who lay dead beyond the ocean."

WEAVER BIRDS.-The Hartford Times gives some interesting particulars concerning a couple of weaver birds owned in that city. One of them came from Africa and the other from Australia. Although in captivity, they weave their long pendent nests out of the long grasses furnished them. In their native woods these birds often hang their nests from a slender branch which overhangs some stream. This is done so that the monkeys, who greatly relish birds' eggs, cannot get at them. Should an adventurous and hungry monkey attempt to reach a nest thus suspended, his weight bends the slender branch and he gets a ducking for his pains instead of the eggs he hoped for.

PRESENCE OF MIND.-Presence of mind is sometimes shown by saying the right word at the right time. When Admiral Blake was a captain in the West Indies, one of his ships blew up in an engagement with the Spaniards. Seeing his crew discouraged at this, Blake called out, "Now, my lads, you have seen an English ship blown up, let us see what sort of a figure a Spanish ship will make in the same state."

By this well-timed address he restored the courage of his men, and their antagonist was soon on fire.

THE moderate party in politics, by whatever name it calls itself, presents at this moment a curious spectacle of embarrassinent, when confronted with the claims and opinions put forth in the name of labor. It finds itself bewildered by a double apprehension of danger. If it allows itself to be led by agitators, it fears the reproach of Socialism. If it turns a deaf ear to them, it fears the loss of their support. It must also be, added that it fears in either case the doing of something which may aggravate evils instead of curing them; or the not doing of something by which they actually might be cured. In other words the Labor party of to-day finds an enormous and powerful body practically arrayed against it, which ought, from a genuine identity of aims and wishes, NEW SERIES.-VOL. LVII., No. 6.

to be, within limits, its cordial or even enthusiastic ally. Radicals are accustomed to assure their hearers that the sympathy of Conservatism with Labor is a sham. They are wrong and yet their assertion receives some color from facts. The sympathy in question is not an unreal feeling; but it no doubt is, in proportion to its reality, an inoperative feeling.

I believe

Now why should this be so myself that the answer is very simple.

The claims of Labor as at present put forth by those who are supposed to represent the laborers, and the ulterior aims and hopes which such persons avow likewise, comprise much with which Conservatism agrees; but this unfortunately is associated with much else which Conservatişin condemns, and refuses to entertain for a moment and Conservatism rejects or suspects the former element owing to its association with the latter.. It is un

able to separate the one element from the other, to adopt the true while absolutely rejecting the false, or to take up a position which is intelligible to itself, and-an equally important thing-which it can make intelligible to others.

But not only is Conservatism thus alienated from Labor. Labor is alienated from Conservatism largely for the same reason. The hostility roused by its fallacies, it takes to be hostility to its just and practicible demands, and its legitimate aspirations; and it is tempted to believe that the propertied classes, as such, can never meet it honestly on any common ground. For this state of things there is only one remedy. It is increased knowledge and clearness, among Conservativcs, with regard to economic science and this is a remedy which ought surely to be within our reach. If we doubt this, let us look at the Labor party; and we shall be shamed into believing it. That party, whatever may be the fallacies cherished by it, has made immense progress, even during the last decade, in its grasp of economic science; and still more in its perception that the social questions which occupy it, must be, and can be properly dealt with, only by scientific methods.

It may well be that this mental advance has thus far been as instrumental in leading it wrong, as in leading it right; but it has at all events made it familiar with the idea of a common tribunal to which both parties must appeal and even among those labor leaders whose tempers are most violent, and whose doctrines are most incendiary, a distinct sense is discernible that their position can only be defended, and their hopes realized, in proportion as they are in accordance with a mass of complicated facts, and can be proved to be so not by invective, but by reasoning. Such being the case, the duty of Conservatisın is clear and the existing situation is eminently favorable for the performance of it. The current economics of the Labor party must be by the Conservative party carefully examined and analyzed, the true part admitted, welcomed, and separated from the false; and the false part separated from the true, its falsehood explained, and corresponding truths put forward to take its place. And this must be done not in a spirit of anger, of alarm, or even of contempt-though here and there no doubt ridicule may be

a fit weapon. It must be done with consideration, with respect, and above all that intellectual sympathy which by placing a disputant in the actual position of his opponents, alone enables him to completely dislodge them from it. If this is done there is every reason to hope that even should the more extreme sections of the Labor party not be weaned from their extravagances, the position of the rest will be rapidly and greatly modified; and we shall witness the formation of a large and powerful body, which while genuinely representing the claims and aspirations of Labor will yet, by the accuracy and sober sense of its views, enlist on its side the forces of all sane Conservatism, instead of forcing them into an antagonism which, though at present inevitable, is unwilling.

It would, however, be a great mistake to suppose the duty of Conservatism is merely the economic education of the Labor party. An equally necessary duty is the economic education of itself. There never has been a time when economic questions have so mixed themselves with political questions, as they do, or are about to do, now; and there has never been a time when the general ignorance of economics among practical men bas beenI will not say so great, but at all events— so pitiably apparent. What professors and students may know, it does not concern us to consider. They have not succeeded in imparting their knowledge to practical men; they have been unable to express themselves in a language understanded of the people; and the extent to which the Labor party has advanced in its own education, shows how little all other parties have contrived to advance in theirs. Indeed, when in bodies like the London County Council, the wildest schemes are put forward by the least capable of the Progressives, it is sometimes difficult to say where the greatest ignorance is displayed-among those who defend such absurdities, or those. who endeavor to expose them.

This ignorance is due to more than one cause. It is due not only to the fact that practical Conservatives, as a body, are no great readers of standard economic treatises; but also, and in a far greater degree, to the fact that these treatises, whatever their merits, are, in the present condition of things, altogether inadequate. And they are inadequate for three rea

sons: firstly, because their scope is too limited, many of the most important elements involved in economic questions being ignored in them; secondly, because the elements with which they do deal are in some respects falsely, and in others, incompletely analyzed; and, lastly, because the language in which these treatises are written, and the form of thought of which that language is the expression, are, for present purposes, not sufficiently alive. They do not bring those whom they influence face to face with facts, but show them facts from a distance, through a medium of theories and of phrases.

The errors of the contemporary Labor party, and the feebleness of contemporary Conservatism, are both due to this same cause. Where the Labor party err most seriously in their economics, they err either by vitalizing some error in the economics of Conservatism, or by borrowing from it some accepted phrase, which, not being really living for them, serves to hide from themselves some error of their own, and inspire them with a defiant trust in it, as if it were an undisputed truth. Many of the Labor leaders who have been giving the public their opinions, either through the medium of the monthly Reviews or of the Labor Commission, show a logical sense and a regard for scientific methods which must command the respect of those who most disagree with them; but with much that is true, and more that approaches truth, there are mixed in the utterance of even the shrewdest of them a number of the wildest fallacies, and these invariably are expressed in terms of the most old-fashioned and orthodox economy. It is in these fallacies that the real danger lies. They would not only, if embodied in legislation, produce results that are mischievous, but they alienate those who would, under other conditions, have at once the will and the power to accomplish results that would be beneficial. And yet, such is the unfortunate condition of affairs that the Labor leaders often make their fallacies less ridiculous than the corresponding truths are made at many a meeting of the Primrose League.

If what I have just said seems vague, I will sum it up in a form which will make it, I think, sufficiently definite.

Broadly speaking, the creed of economic Conservatism is this that the existing structure of society is capable of modifica

tion and adjustment, and may thus be capable of improvement to an indefinite extent; but that it is not capable of being altered fundamentally; that to alter it fundamentally would be to destroy society; that there may be communities in which no one is rich or prosperous; but that whenever the majority is prosperous there will be a minority which is rich; and that where the rights of the latter are disregarded, those of the former can never be secured. The rights of the few are not greater than the rights of the many, nor are they in themselves more important; but at the present moment they are more important in this way. Being the rights which are most attacked, they are the rights which it is most important to defend, and this for the sake of the many as much as for that of the few themselves. The few would be quite willing to help the many out of the ditch; but their impulse will naturally be checked if the many are constantly proclaiming that the moment they are out they will hamstring those that helped them. The impulse of the few will thus be checked, for two reasons-firstly, the natural wish to avoid their own mutilation; secondly, the knowledge that if they are rendered helpless, those they have helped out will infallibly slip back again. Their first business, therefore, at present, is to defend their own position, not by violence toward those who threaten to attack it, but by making it clear that their position is not a proper object of attack. They must make this clear not to themselves only, but to their opponents. They must learn to speak in a language which their opponents can understand; and, as I have said already, if they will only do this there is every reason to expect that they will meet with an intelligent hearing.

But economic science, as at present conceived of and taught, I have said already, leaves them wholly unprepared for such a task; partly because the current conception of the science is too narrow, and partly because it is defective even within the limits which it has assigned to itself. I will explain my meaning by examples. Socialistic economists conceive themselves to have enlarged the science-and they no doubt have done so-by adding a study of history to the analysis of contemporary conditions. But what they have done in this way shows only how much more there

is to do. Take Karl Marx, for instance, who as an economic historian is respected by numbers who ridicule him as an economic theorist. Karl Marx begins his history with the close of the feudal period; he chiefly concerns himself with the history of one country-of England; and he imagines that he can account in this way for the existence of the whole body of the rich as we have them in this modern world. He seems quite unconscious of the fact-or, rather, the significance of the fact that in all civilized societies of which we have any knowledge, a rich minority has invariably made its appearance; that such minorities have been constantly attacked, and not infrequently destroyed; but that when they have been destroyed, society has been, for the time, destroyed along with them; and that, as soon as society has readjusted itself, a similar body has reappeared. The obvious inference is that though history, as Karl Marx studied it, may explain the particular form which the rich class has now assumed, the real cause of its existence is to be sought in something far wider and deeper-not in any one sequence of historical conditions or events, but in the constitution of human nature itself, of which all historical events are nothing more than the manifestations.

Here, again, is another instance. Current economic science declares wealth (by which is meant commodities) to be the product of three things-land, labor, and capital. In reality, it is the product of something which, indeed, includes these, but which is far more complex. It is the product of all those social conditions, any one of which being absent, the amount produced would be diminished. Thus, supposing it to be a fact that the leaders and instructors of Labor, owing to whose ability Labor becomes more productive, could be roused to exert themselves only by the prospect of being one day idle, the advantage of their exertions could be secured only by a society the constitution of which made an idle class possible; and in which the possibility of such a class was made evident by its existence. In such a case it would be no figure of speech, but a statement of fact, baldly and absolutely accurate, to say that this idle class was actually one of the producing classes; and to credit it with the production of just such an amount of commodities as

would cease to be produced were its existence made impossible, and the stimulus removed from those who exert themselves in the hope of entering it.

I will give one instance more. One of the commonest laments among politicians of the most opposite sympathies is a lament over the influx of population from the rural districts into the towns. In our own country, as we all know, this is commonly accounted for by some defects in our land system. Now the inadequacy of this explanation should be made patent to all by the fact that the movement is in no way peculiar to Great Britain, but is common to other countries where land systems are entirely different; and, indeed, many economists have been careful to point this out, and to seek an explanation in some other economic cause. But the truth is that the larger part of the explanation is to be found in a cause which has hitherto been regarded as lying outside the domain of economics altogether; and that is the development of what goes by the name of education, in which must be included the effect on the mind and imagination of rapid travelling, both as a spectacle and a possibility. What is taking place, in fact, among the poorer rural classes is analogous to what is taking place among their social superiors. The rich, as we all know, are tempted to leave their country houses for London, or other places where friends or novelties are to be encountered. Some of them do this with a view to saving money; but the richest are just as restless as those who have most need to economize; and the main cause of their restlessness is not agricultural depression. It is not any want of money; but a craving for a more varied life. And just so is it with those below them. The ploughboy does not come to London because he has a grievance against his squire. He comes to London because he craves for streets, and gas-lamps; and because he fancies, as vividly as his squire does, that among them he may find happiness-and he does not fancy it more vainly. In other words, influx of population into the towns is a mental movement, quite as much as an economic movement, and can never be understood till that fact is fully recognized. In saying this, I am using the word economic in its old and narrow sense. My contention is that it must be used in a sense far wider; and that the mind and