the decisions of all previous Governments are thrown to the winds, and the tyranny of the majority proclaimed in its most offensive form. Why is this? Why do the very men who have hitherto unanimously and conscientiously opposed it, now give it a unanimous support? Why? Is it not a mere waste of time to ask the question? Kilmainham again. A convenient compact between those who command votes and those who want them.

We English boast that we have the finest collection in the whole world of works of art, of pictures, and antiquities, of everything that can interest, instruct, elevate the human mind. Our National Gallery, our British Museum have no equal. For six days in the week they are thrown open to the nation without restriction and without charge; the only thing against it is that these are the very six days on which the nation cannot enjoy them. Out of the four millions, more or less, who inhabit this vast city, it is probable that ninety-nine out of every 100 persons above the age of thirteen earn their bread by the sweat of their face, or gain their living in some way by long and exhaustive work. For six days of the week, from six to nine in the morning to five or six in the evening, the clerks, the tradesmen, the shopmen, the working classes, the domestic servants, are at their work. They have neither time during the day nor vigour or inclination in the evening to visit picture galleries and museums. But they have one holiday in the week, they have one day on which they have leisure to improve their minds, and get bright glimpses of the world of art and beauty; but this is the very day on which they are not allowed to do so. This, the only day on which the nation can enjoy the national collection, is the only day on which the national collections are closed-closed as completely as if they did not exist. Virtually, the one lounger, who plays all the week, says to the ninety-nine, who work all the week, The national collections are open to you from Sunday to Sunday, and if you cannot visit them on those days you

shall not visit them at all. You shall not visit them on the only day it is possible for you to do so.' Can any position be more impertinent, more selfish, more fanatical, more contemptible? Is it a position that would be tolerated for one minute in any country in the world but prigridden, hypocritical England?.

6

6

We will not have the Sabbath desecrated,' say our sham pietists; we will not have the guardians of our national collections employed on the Sabbath,' say our sham humanitarians. We will not tolerate the saturnalia of the continental Sabbath in our Biblical land; but is it the fact that the hundreds of thousands who are forbidden to visit the museums and picture galleries, the Tower, the Crystal Palace, the Zoological Gardens, therefore go to church? Is the comfort and convenience of thirty or forty employés to be preferred to the comfort and convenience, and instruction, and civilisation of the nation? Is the much-dreaded continental Sabbath really less respectable, less orderly, less civilised than the ideal Sabbath of Our sour Sabbatarians? Would the saturnalia of the museums, the picture galleries, of the Crystal Palace, &c., be really more horrible than the saturnalia of drink that is still the chief Sabbath observance in many of our great cities? Leaving out the cheerful, health-giving, humanising Sabbath enjoyment that we see in France, in Belgium, in Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, Spain, America, let us look at our neighbour Holland. Can the strictest Sabbatarian hope to see anything more orderly, more sober, more correct, more respectable than the Sabbath in Amsterdam or the Hague? And yet every place of amusement is open, and you may even go to the theatre and see Sarah Bernhardt in Fédora.'

Now, why is it that, instead of advancing in these matters on the broad highway of common sense, and intelligence, and civilisation, and tolerance, and experience, as every other nation in the world is advancing; instead of treating drink, disease, and Sabbath recreation in

accordance with the Great Law of Reason that guides our lives,' are we steadily retrograding, and placing our necks under the yoke of fanatics and enthusiasts, of strongminded women and weak-minded men? Why is it don't we all know? Because the plain common sense of Englishmen is emasculated by the sham assumption of superior motives. Because professions pay better than practice. Because rhetoric has supplanted reason. Because now more than ever words are employed to conceal thoughts. Because we are not allowed to see things as they are, but as they are described. Because there is no reality in our politics. Because Parliament, instead of being a 'Palace of Truth,' is, as Anacharsis said of the Forum at Athens, a place men have established to impose on each other.' Because the spirit of the Kilmainham Treaty pervades our politics.

6

England has had Ministers with more or less moral courage, who, when necessary, could speak to Parliament and the country in the Scythian Phrase,' and tell them in words concise and resolute what reason and common sense required of them. In those days faddists and fanatics stood on one side; there was no market for their wares. But all this is now reversed; reason and common sense are put out of court; the Scythian Phrase' is replaced by exuberant verbosity.' Compromise wins the race! Moral courage is nowhere!

IV.

THE PALACE OF TRUTH.

'WE must bear in mind,' said Sir John Adye at the conclusion of a most soldierlike speech at Woolwich,' that we have also to guard the interests and consult the feelings of the people of Egypt, and as we have a predominating influence in that country it must be exerted for their welfare.' The people,' said he, are for the most part a

C

quiet, inoffensive, hard-working race employed in agricultural occupations; they have been grievously governed in days gone by, and it is our duty now to see that they are freed not only from military despotism but from despotism of all kinds.'

I believe most Englishmen will heartily accept this view of our national obligations in Egypt; and therefore I hope Sir Charles Dilke's reply to Mr. O'Kelly, 'that Her Majesty's Government has no concern with any question that may have arisen between the Turkish Government and Baker Pasha with regard to his appointment in Egypt. We consider we have no responsibility in the matter; we have not taken any steps to inform ourselves because we disclaim all responsibility,' is not the last word on the subject. It concerns the honour of England that we do not allow our nominee-the 'Humpty Dumpty' we have just set on his wall againto impose on his subjects the most galling, the most cruel, the most intolerable form of military despotism yet devised -the despotism of a mercenary army, and such an army as it promises to be! composed of the sweepings of the Levantine cities, and the cut-throats and blackguards of all Europe. For 4,000 years, probably for 40,000 years, the Egyptians have known little but oppression in some form or another: but I cannot conceive any form of oppression more terrible than that now threatened by the mercenary army of Tewfik. The Circassians and Turks, and blood-suckers generally, that Arabi's rebellion scared from their prey, beat the people with rods. Their own sovereign now threatens them with scorpions. But is it really true that a mercenary army under a soldier of fortune is absolutely necessary to keep Tewfik on the throne? Cannot the absolute ruler of five millions of subjects find even 10,000 men ready to stand by his cause? If he can't, we seem to have got hold of the wrong man, and should have been wiser to have left Arabi alone.

I never remember a war about which so much abject

nonsense, so much wretched hypocrisy, such persistent perversion of facts, have been employed as in the present one. No doubt the advocates and apologists of the Government feel bound to explain and defend the extraordinary volte-face that has converted the fierce denouncers of Jingoism into very Jingoes themselves, but they don't do this by attributing the war to every imaginable cause but the real and evident one.

We have, indirectly, caused the destruction of one of the most prosperous cities in the East. We have paralyzed trade throughout a vast region; we have stamped out what many believe was a genuine national rising against intolerable tyranny and extortion; we have expended many millions of money and sacrificed many hundred of lives, and slaughtered many thousands of Egyptians, and now we are asked to believe that we have done all this with no selfish or aggressive motives, with no regard whatever for British interests. But, if we have not been fighting for British interests, in God's name, what have we been fighting for? 'Oh,' says the statesman of superfine morality,' 'you have been fighting the battle of Europe, the battle of Egypt, the battle of peace!' What nonsense! 'Jupiter vient sur la terre

Pour la combler de bienfaits;

Il est armé du tonnerre,

Mais c'est pour donner la paix !'

Don't we know that Europe with five millions of armed men is perfectly able to fight her own battles herself, and can't we see that Egypt would very much have preferred being left to fight out her battles her own way? To ask us to believe we have been fighting for peace' is like asking us to believe the moon is made of cream cheese. What have we done that our Ministers should prescribe for us such abject twaddle and nonsense? Why, we all know, even the most credulous of us, that we have been fighting in this case, as we always have fought in every other case, and as I hope we always shall fight, for British interests,