when considered in connection with their personal skill and
the fertility of their soil.

All wealth consists of exchangeable possessions. It is great

or small, according to the quantity and exchangeable value of

such possessions. Nearly all men who produce, receive a

return greatly exceeding what is necessary to procure, by

exchange, their own immediate requirements, and the finding

a market for this surplus creates trade, commerce, exchange.

As one man depends on another for this, so does one nation

depend on another; for no man can, in the most reasonable

way, produce all the requirements of life, neither can any one

nation. One man is richer than another according as he pos-

sesses a greater and more valuable surplus of belongings, and

the same is true of nations.

High tariff advocates claiming that by extravagant imposts

the riches of the country will be increased over the riches of

other countries, riches meaning simply surplus of possessions,

our purpose is to inquire how a high tariff affects that

surplus.

First, suppose that the people of a country are superior in

skill and capacity to those of all other countries, while the
productiveness of their soil, even under superior management,
is no greater than elsewhere. It is evident that such a people
should confine themselves to manufactures, provided there be
a demand for their product; and that their wares, when trans-
ported to other countries would, even after paying transporta-
tion, represent in the ports to which they were sent an amount
of labor greater than was necessary to produce them at home.
In cultivating the soil, they could produce no greater surplus
than that produced by people elsewhere. In manufactures
they could, by their superior skill, exceed the output of manu-
facturers of other countries. Their surplus, i. e., their
exchangeable material, would be greater, and accordingly they
would be richer than their foreign competitors.

But suppose another people have no such superior capacity,

but are simply on a par in skill and energy with the rest of the

world; while at the same time they occupy a region where the

fertility of nature rewards a given amount of labor with far

greater returns than are to be derived from a similar amount

elsewhere. Should these people devote their attention exclu-

sively to the cultivation of the soil? If they can produce a

store which, after transportation, will be larger than that pro-

duced elsewhere by the same expense of labor, undoubtedly

they would be better off than those engaged in the same pur-

suits in other quarters. But would they be better off than

those engaged in manufactures? If their excess of production,

measured by the standards of other countries, represented a

greater amount of labor than could be procured by the differ-

ence between the rate paid in agricultural employments and

that paid in the industries, at the place of destination, they

should confine themselves to the soil, provided, of course,

their production were not in excess of the demand of the

world.

One more hypothetical case:

If a people occupy a soil more fertile than that of any other

country, and also possess a higher degree of skill and capacity
than any other people, they must be richer than any other
people in whatever employments they may engage.

In this country we find the people engaged in all branches
of human employment and in the production and manufacture
of nearly all the commodities of life, and we might hence infer
that our people are more skillful and the soil more fruitful
than in other countries. But we know that it is not so. We
often pay a higher price for a foreign manufacture, because it

is better than the domestic. This superiority has no offset in a greater capacity of our workmen for production; the foreigner can, with equal advantages, produce as much as the domestic manufacturer.

But as to fertility of soil we excel other countries; we transport vast quantities of wheat and other cereals to foreign ports, and obtain prices that enable the field-laborer to demand wages here, often two to three times in excess of those of other countries.

While we hold superiority in the production of certain things, and equality in others, we nevertheless find that we are largely engaged in those occupations in which our position is inferior to that of other nations.

Yet, even in such occupations, mostly industrial, the operative here obtains a higher rate of wages than is paid abroad; and the reason for this is that the domestic manufacturer is enabled to charge a fictitious value for his productions by reason of the high prices of all manufactures imported, on account of an almost restrictive tariff.

But what of those occupations in which we enjoy a natural advantage over the foreigner, and which no tariff protects ? These are mostly the employments connected with the soil. This immense advantage given by nature enables the American agriculturist to produce a vast surplus finding sale abroad. The farmer, miner, cotton-grower, and oil-driller, producing much larger return for their labor than the foreigner, should, as they sell their product at the same price, receive a much larger compensation. They do. Then why is it that poverty reigns among a class whose occupations are so highly favored by nature? It is because, while they receive twice or thrice the return for their product that the foreigner receives for his, they must pay a vastly increased price for nearly all necessaries of life. They must give up to the domestic manufacturer and to others who do not have to compete with the foreigner all their advantage.

Thus one of the first effects of the tariff is to take from the laborer in the field and the miner the advantage which nature gives, and to bestow it upon others.

By the abolition of the tariff all the necessaries of life would become cheaper. The American could then procure manufactured articles nearly as cheap as the foreigner abroad. The cost of living would be diminished and the producer could sell his products at a smaller price without hardship. Above all, in many occupations in which we compete with the foreigner, he is now receiving “starvation wages," and were our prices reduced, as they would be by the abolition of the tariff, it would be impossible for the foreigner to compete with us in the productions of the soil. He would be driven from the field, and as the American had been obliged to turn to the natural employments, so the foreigner would have to find his occupation in the factory.

But if the accession of the vast number of American manufacturers to the natural employments would occasion a fall in the price of natural products, the accession to the domain of manufacture of the vast number of laborers who are engaged in the natural employments abroad, would of necessity cause

THE BANISHMENT OF FOREIGNERS IN CONFORMITY WITH THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS.

FRO

L. v. BAR.

Die Nation, Berlin, October.

ROM time to time the attention of European peoples is directed to the expulsion of foreigners from the countries in which they have domiciled themselves, not in consequence of their having violated any, law, not even on the pretense that they may become a public charge. Ordinarily, they are simply summoned before the police-court, and there notified to leave the country within twenty-four or forty-eight hours. As often as not no reason whatever is assigned, and although the person notified may have acquired domicile under treaty engagements, and may have engaged in business, and perhaps married, there is no appeal. The police mandate must be obeyed. For such acts of expulsion there is generally some reason which, although not assigned, is deemed to justify the act. The person notified is perhaps on terms of intimacy with some person or party known to be disloyal, or some hostile criticism or news item in a foreign paper has been traced to him.

Apart from this expulsion of individuals it is competent to any State, not hampered by treaty engagements to the contrary, to exclude or expel all the citizens of any other country, if it deems the measure desirable on any grounds whatever. In periods when national animosities run high, there is no difficulty in advancing a plea for the expulsion of the foreigner, and misery may be entailed upon hundreds, and even thousands, by an order of expulsion which may not only bring ruin on them, but which, it is discovered too late, is scarcely less prejudicial to the country which enforced it.

The question then arises whether it is not in the highest. degree expedient to make the expulsion of foreigners the subject of well-defined international regulations. On the question of the rights of States in this matter, it has been argued, on the one hand, that every man has a right of domicile and protection in any foreign State as long as he is amenable to its laws; while, on the other hand, it is as stoutly contended that it is the sovereign right of every State to exclude or expel any person or persons obnoxious to it. Unquestionably there are occasions when a State is fully justified in resorting to the exclusion or expulsion of foreigners, for example in the case of criminal or troublesome classes, of beggars, and of people likely to become a charge on the country; and this may be considered the only point in the question which has been settled theoretically; the demand for the extension of the right of expulsion to cover any other adequate reason is too elastic to be made the basis of any satisfactory arrangement.

46

There is very little literature bearing on the abstract merits of the question at issue, but as early as 1758 Vattel, in his Droit des gens, makes the sound, practical observation that it is manifestly unjust to first proclaim the right of domicile, and

would be cheaper to the American than ever before. The product of the American in the natural employments would, where it is now greater, continue to be greater than the value of what the foreigner could produce in an equal time. This must be so, unless we should produce more than the world's needs, after we had driven all competitors from the field.

It is the profits of the natural employments alone which have enriched this country and built up the fortunes of millionaires. It does not signify that we discover no farmer millionaires, as the rightful profits of those engaged in the natural occupations are, by means of the tariff, wrested from them and turned over to others.

a trap as it were. (And this would be the case if they were first authorized to settle and acquire property, and then, by an order of immediate expulsion, were compelled to sacrifice it at any price.)

The laws of Holland and Belgium, dating respectively from 1847 and 1885, provide guarantees against the causeless expulsion of resident foreigners. The Netherlands law, indeed, provides for recourse to the highest Court, and the Belgian law absolutely exempts from expulsion any foreigner who is married to a Belgian woman, and has children by her, or who, in the absence of children, has been domiciled in Belgium five years after such marriage.

The Institute for International Rights, which, for some years, has had under consideration the question of the admis

sion and expulsion of foreigners, held its present year's conference at Geneva, and accepted, with trifling modification, the resolutions propounded at last year's conference in Hamburg, but not then fully discussed. The treatment of the subject in Geneva was very thorough and exhaustive, and if some of the members came to the conference under the impression that it was impossible to restrict the arbitrary powers of Governments by definite regulations, the general conviction nevertheless finally gained ground, that the adoption of their resolutions, subject, of course, to future amendment, would provide adequate security, both for the States and for foreign residents domiciled in them.

Art. 4, Section 1 of the Resolutions provides that there can be no general and permanent prohibition against the entry of foreigners into the territory of a State, except for reasons of public interest, for example, by reason of a fundamental difference in manners and civilization, or in case of an organization or dangerous accumulation of foreigners presenting themselves

en masse.

But whatever restrictions a State may desire to impose on freedom of foreign intercourse, such restrictions must be made the subject of special laws, and expulsion must be an act of regular legal procedure and not enforced by secret police instructions. To this end the resolutions provide that every State shall publish its laws and regulations for the admission and circulation of foreigners, a sufficiently long time before it proceeds to enforce them; it shall refrain from imposing excessive taxation on foreigners; and all essential changes in the condition of admission or residence, including changes in taxation which affect foreigners, shall be communicated with as little delay as needs be to the Governments whose subjects are interested.

As regards the expulsion of individuals, the provisions under which their expulsion may be resorted to are laid down in Article 7 of the Resolutions, in terms so carefully based on past experience, and with such adequate provision for securing the public safety against the acts of dangerous foreigners that it would hardly be possible for a case to arise for which this article does not make necessary provision. Of course these regulations, like all such regulations, admit of more than one interpretation, but they cannot be characterized as elastic. Art. 7, § 3, appears especially significant. It provides that the Act warranting the expulsion shall be communicated to the person to be expelled, and that the charge shall be based both on law and on fact. Further to guard against the possibility of arbitrary expulsion on vexatious or frivolous charges, provision is made for appeal to a court independent of the Government, in all cases in which the appellant deems the order contrary to the regulations, or in violation of treaty. On the behalf of the State ordering the expulsion, however, such right of appeal may be withheld in war time, or when there is immediate danger of a war, if the actions of the person to be expelled have been such as to endanger public security.

The Resolutions further provide that the expulsion of foreigners shall not be enforced as a penalty. Twenty-four hours at least shall be given them in which to arrange their affairs, and if they go within the prescribed time, they shall be subject to no restraint; nor shall expulsion partake of the character of extradition.

The hospitable treatment of strangers is a pretty safe measure of general culture, and freedom of intercourse with foreigners does more than anything else to soften national prejudices. It is to be hoped therefore that the efforts of the Institute of International Rights will be crowned with success. It was not its initial design to prescribe one set of regulations for all countries, it does, however, aim to frame its proposals so judiciously, and with such just consideration for the rights both of nations and of the strangers within their gates, that its resolutions will be substantially accepted and made the basis for the legislation on the subject in all civilized countries.

WHAT WILL THE GLADSTONE GOVERNMENT DO

THE

ABOUT EGYPT?

AUGUSTIN FILO N.

Revue des Deux Mondes, Paris, September 15.

HE question at the head of this paper depends somewhat upon another question: What will be the foreign policy of the Gladstone Cabinet? Can a government which has before it such a constitutional and legislative work as the Gladstone Ministry has made the cornerstone of its programme, with a small and precarious majority at its back, having to face an opposition still more formidable by its talents than by its numbers-can such a government have a foreign policy? Will not its foreign policy, if it have one, be necessarily a policy of prudence, of conservatism, of defense? Certainly; but the gods are ironical; sometimes they send to ministers of pacific inclinations Gordian knots which must be cut with the sword.

Lord Rosebery has resumed the functions he performed in 1886 at the head of the Foreign Office. His mission, at that period, was to seek for a reconciliation with the Triple Alliance. From time to time England becomes uneasy about the isolation, in some sort providential, to which she owes her safety, her strength, and her brilliant destiny. Then she makes a step towards some one of the Powers and begins to meddle with Continental affairs, until some blunder of a Minister or some accidental mistake provokes a revulsion of opinion and throws England back into her traditional neutrality.

In 1886, she had a slight attack of sociability. Well, all sorts of policies can be justified and produce good effects, if those policies are dexterously managed. England has a feeling in common with Austria; it is jealous distrust of Russia. She has also an interest which urges her to protect the growing maritime power of Italy; it is the desire to check our naval preponderance in the Mediterranean, which we have been silly enough to speak of aloud as a French lake.". As to Germany, that country is very great, and it is always agreeable to be a friend of the great.

"

Lord Rosebery showed decision and cleverness in playing the part assigned him. He obtained in a few months some results, without counting that of becoming the personal friend of Count Herbert Bismarck-which, however, will not be of great service to the English lord to-day.

Since that time he has devoted himself, with no slight success, to his duties as President of the County Council of London and to advocating the cause of Colonial Federation. When the Gladstone Ministry was forming he went away to Paris, a step which excited the imagination of the newspaper people. It is not the wont of those to whom a portfolio is offered, to go and hide behind the willows. What was passing in his mind then? It was evident to all that Lord Rosebery hesitated to become the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Mr. Gladstone. Not that his feelings of respect and friendship for the illustrious old man had changed. Some weeks earlier, as long as the campaign in Midlothian had lasted, Mr. Gladstone had been the guest of Lord Rosebery. Was he restrained by the recollection of free and intimate talks at Dalmeny Park with Mr. Gladstone, in which the latter had disclosed some new views about a foreign policy?

Anyway, Lord Rosebery took office. At Berlin there was joy; at Paris, distrust. Mr. Labouchere said some days ago to a reporter: Lord Rosebery is the watchdog which the Tories have left to keep guard over their position." That attributes a very inferior position to a very intelligent man. lf I were asked whether Lord Rosebery is German or French, I would answer that he is English.

The question of Egypt remains the great question, and, as it seems to me, the insoluble question. The French discuss it with stubbornness and passion. If you believed certain journalists, you would say it was a second Alsace-Lorraine. You

must not speak of a field of operations, momentarily purloined by the action of some speculators, as you would speak of a limb torn from the living body of the country. Moreover, how came Egypt to slip out of our hands? No one has forgotten that day of dupes, when a few vague words threw our Deputies into a sort of panic. They pointed to the Rhine. Was it astonishing if for a moment the Nile dropped out of sight? It was what might be called, in political fencing, a Prussian stroke.

In the month of February next we shall hear fresh talk about Egypt. Sir Charles Dilke will propose to Parliament his project for the neutralization of the valley of the Nile; Mr. Labouchere will demand an immediate evacuation of Egypt. The project of Sir Charles has not the slightest chance of being considered. Even if such a solution of the problem were accepted at Westminster, it would be the duty of France to oppose it, for it would make void the rights of the Sultan, which we are bound to support with all our might. At Constantinople is the French solution of the Egyptian question. As to evacuation, pure and simple, advised by Mr. Labouchere, history, alas! will answer, if you will take the trouble to consult it, that England never evacuates.

Shall we leave to time the care of regulating the Egyptian question? I know clear-headed men who desire the prolongation of the statu quo, because, if it keeps the rights of France in suspense, at least it reserves those rights and leaves them intact. I know others, equally clear-headed, who think, on the contrary, that every hour lost leads to a sort of prescription, and slowly transforms, always by the irresistible virtue of evolution, the English occupation into a protectorate and the protectorate into annexation. In that case it is essential to come to some reasonable arrangement, which will reconcile, in a just proportion, interests, rights, and the pride of the parties concerned.

The last English Ministry said to us: "Certainly England will evacuate Egypt, as soon as it shall have completed on the banks of the Nile what it went there to do." Now England was doing nothing in Egypt. To politely request people to wait for the conclusion of a work which was neither defined nor begun, was one of those impertinences which marked all the acts of Lord Salisbury, and which, when addressed to foreigners, were highly relished by his fellow-countrymen. We are justified in hoping that, at least, Mr. Gladstone will not laugh at us. The arrangement to which I have alluded was impossible for his predecessor, but will be possible for the new Premier as soon as Ireland and the Labor Party shall give him a chance to breathe.

POLITICS AND THE PULPIT.

BISHOP CYRUS D. Foss, D.D., LL.D., OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

THE

North American Review, New York, November. HE Christian ministry must incarnate and voice the best conscience of the age, not shrinking when the sins to be denounced are intrenched behind political barricades, but holding up the sins of rulers to merciless rebuke because of their far-reaching and signally destructive influence. A minister's duty to defend truth and justice is intensified by the circumstance that the awful form of a resistless tyrant confronts him, while sundry millions of his fellow-creatures are induced by demagogues to try to make evil good by their ballots. An inward voice from which there is no appeal requires him to obey God rather than men," and to persuade all he can to join him in such obedience.

It is strange, indeed, how widespread and persistent is the notion that politics and religion may of right be entirely dissevered from each other-that they necessarily occupy different territories of human thought and life. Especially has it been held that the pulpit should be blandly blind to the strifes of

political parties, and reserve all the vials of its wrath for the sins of the Patagonians. Political papers have warned the ministry to "preach the Gospel" and to "let politics alone." No doubt it is wise for a minister to be every man's friend, so far as he can be with no least sacrifice of principle. It is his duty, like Paul, to become "all things to all men, so that by all means he may save some." He must at times sacrifice taste, preference, ease, convenience-anything but conscienceto do men good. He is most unwise if he bar his way to usefulness by turning his pulpit into a political hustings. The mere contests of party politics, which involve no grave moral issues, have no place there. Above all, it is not his function to attempt to direct, from his throne of influence, the party affiliations of his people. That is a question for the individual himself. No man and no organization may invade the sacred realm of private judgment. The sentiment of Protestant churches in general was correctly voiced by the Board of Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church last May to the quadrennial General Conference of the Church assembled in Omaha:

With regard to politics, the attitude of our Church is strenuously non-partisan and non-sectional. It acknowledges no allegiance to any political creed or association. It urges all its members who have the right to vote to discharge that duty, but it leaves every voter absolutely free from ecclesiastical interference to determine for himself for whom his ballot shall be cast. The right of suffrage, or the franchise, we regard as a great and responsible trust, which should in all cases, ecclesiastical and civil, be exercised conscientiously, but in absolute personal freedom.

The high duty of moral censorship of political measures and of individual rebuke of wicked rulers may seem at a glance inconsistent with this assertion of personal political independence; but it does not appear so to the Church spoken of. For many years that Church, with fifteen thousand ministers and over two million members, has hung out a banner inscribed "Total Abstinence and Legal Prohibition." In the same address the bishops say:

"We hold with unabated tenacity to the oft-repeated statement that total abstinence is the only safety for the individual, and that complete legal prohibition of the traffic is the urgent duty of the State. We rejoice in every step of progress towards the attainment of these ends. In our judgment the saloon is an unmixed evil, full of diabolism, a disgrace to our civilization, the chief corrupter of political action, and a continued menace to the order of society and to the peace and purity of our homes. We exhort all our people to encourage every repression and limitation of the business, and to keep a steady eye to its total extirpation."

The General Conference, the only law-making body of the Church, declared:

"We do not presume to dictate the political conduct of our people, but we do record our deliberate judgment that no political party has a right to expect, nor ought it to receive, the support of Christian men so long as it stands committed to the license policy, or refuses to put itself on record in an attitude of open hostility to the saloon."

This last declaration was also adopted, with slight verbal changes, by the recent General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church.

These two well-considered deliverances of two of the most influential branches of the Church in America show the attitude they feel bound in conscience to hold towards an immense moral evil whose defenders perpetually thrust it into politics to be sanctioned and guarded, and which neither of the great political parties dares attack. Good men must hate it; the pulpit must thunder against it-all the more because so many politicians try to laugh it out of the way as a trifle, a mere "moral sentiment."

Half a century ago there was another "moral sentiment," similarly derided, but terribly persistent. Statesmen and parties went down before its resistless march. It gave birth to Garrison and Phillips and John Brown, to "Uncle Tom's

Cabin," and Whittier and Lowell, to Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.

Republican institutions on this continent are now confronted and menaced by two great and growing evils, both requiring the presence of the pulpit in the political arena; the enormous and unblushing corruption of many of our municipal governments, and the frightful and widening chasm between the rich and the poor, or rather, between manual laborers and their employers. The individual cannot maintain his own rights. The attempt to do this was the fault of the Carnegie Company on that day of carnage at Homestead. The State must be the defender of the individual, and must provide the conditions for his best development. Yet Bellamyism is a delusion. The State must itself become righteous by the omnipresence and omnipotence of moral principle. How can we expect that loafers, swindlers, whiskey-guzzlers, and public thieves will make or execute good laws?

Municipal misgovernment has long had signal illustration in the metropolis of the country. New York is ruled by a society which is "not so much a political party as it is a corporation, organized in the interest of making the most possible out of its official opportunities." Many public officers elected by it have quickly become millionaires,

What needs to happen is that all good men shall make themselves felt all the way from the primary to the ballot-box with a persistence like that of the law of gravitation. In the language of a keen student of politics, “A man can no more stand idly by and see public evils prevail and expect to be held guiltless, than if he were a willing witness of his brother's murder."

EVER

THE FUTURE OF THE TORY PARTY. National Review, London, October.

II.—BY AN OLD-SCHOOL TORY.

VEN if one could acquiesce in the assumption that all Tories think that the main duty of their Party is to be in office, one could not agree with Mr. Radcliffe unreservedly. The instinct of the people who mistrusted the Greeks, even when the Greeks were bringing gifts, is prevalent in our own realm. It is not without justification. The Tories are not the party which naturally initiates great reforms, and when they have been constrained to do so it has only been to avert a greater eyil. All great Conservative reforms are of the nature of hostages to fortune. One must remember that a statesman stands toward the electorate in a relation different from that in which a class of students stands towards an examiner in mathematics. Students are sent down if they make a mistake; statesmen are liable to be turned out if they persist in refusing to make one. The most conscientious Tory leader is sometimes obliged, for the sake of a great cause, to support or even to promote a measure in which, by itself, he has little or no belief.

Thus far I am at one with Mr. Radcliffe, but it is not possible to go further. He forgets in his enthusiasm that the Tory party is not naturally the party of Progress, and that the purpose with which it promotes progressive measures will always be regarded with more suspicion than gratitude. Our democracy is ill-informed and capricious; but it is perfectly well aware that when a "progressive" measure has been proposed by our party, the Radical party will always be found ready to "go one better." It always feels that Tory essays in Radical legislation are attempts to compound with angry passions; and, as in the case of the Administration which was brought to an end recently, it never shows any gratitude for the "generous" legislation of the Tory party.

This, however, is not chief of the considerations which impel me to dissent from Mr. Radcliffe. The fact that we cannot outbid the Radicals is less important than the fact that we must not make the attempt to do so. To promote progress is not the proper function of the Tory party. The proper function of that party is to see that the measures of

progress promoted by the other party, shall, as far as possible, embody the principles of true political science. It must use every means to prevent those measures from being assaults upon liberty and property. Occasionally we fail and the country gets sick of Radical progress, and invites the Tory party back to office again. That is well. But we must never forget that place and power may be purchased at too high a price. They would be so in the event of our regaining and retaining office by virtue of our adoption of the policy recommended by Mr. Radclffe. Almost every item in his programme is a proposal to violate liberty or to violate property.

Progress of the kind wherewith Mr. Radcliffe would have the Tory party out-Herod the Radicals-the adoption of "the principle of betterment," his proposals with regard to Church and school endowments, his progressive income-tax-is retrogression. If he had proposed to abolish the police, and to bring about a Restoration of Robin Hood, he would not have been proposing such a putting back of the clock of civilization as that which is involved in the programme under review. Unfortunately the country does not seem to realize either what these proposed measures of "progress" really are, or what the consequences of them would be. It does not realize that the Socialism which Mr. Radcliffe advocates would be slavery. The day of Socialism, of progressive income-tax, of the imposition of all new taxes on land, will inaugurate the degradation of our civilization. What Mr. Radcliffe really proposes is, to begin with, that we should endeavor to defeat the Radicals by delivering a stronger attack upon our own cause than our foes have been able to formulate. For a Conservative and a Radical party he would substitute two Radical parties competing with each other in reaction; each striving, not for the good of the nation, but for partisan triumph. It is to be hoped that Mr. Radcliffe and other "Progressive Conservatives" will realize that this would be extremely harmful..

SOCIOLOGICAL.

THE SOCIAL HORIZON IN GREAT BRITAIN.
London Quarterly Review, October to December.

THE political weathercock points at present in the direction

of The wind is coming from that quarter. And it is an ill wind that blows nobody good. Already this particular wind has blown one party into office in this country, and it is not impossible that the same wind may blow it out again.

The only effective and popular force, so far as we can see, is that which is urging both the great political parties in the direction of Socialistic experiments in legislation, and of a considerable extension of local and central governmental control. Within our own recollection there has been something approaching to a revolution in the public mind with respect to the legitimate functions of government. Not many years ago the Manchester school was predominant, and laisser-faire the only doctrine heard. The action of the State was everywhere regarded as a necessary evil, and the sole duty of the Government was "to keep a ring, to suppress violence and disorder, and leave the rest to the workings of economic laws, to the exertions of individuals and voluntary associations." This extreme individualism, which was the mark of the middle-class régime in England, is still the prevalent principle in one of the most democratic countries in the world, and to what lengths our Transatlantic cousins are prepared, apparently, to travel, in asserting and protecting individual liberty, is evident from the recent interventions of the Government in the American "Labor War." Within six weeks martial law was declared in four States of the Union, thousands of troops were called out, and not a little blood was shed; all in defense of the principle of laisser faire.

In Great Britain, however, public sentiment, if not completely