only to crash to pieces at the bottom. Moreover, the present leaders, who talk foolishly about the greatest struggle ever known, will be the first victims of the revolution. If they do not escape in the dead of night, their fate will be the lamppost and a cord. They will die disgraced, and unhonoured by the dupes whom they deceived, and whom, either in fear or in malice, they have sent along the wrong road. And honest men, if any be left, will not deplore the due punishment of their crimes. They To pretend that we are not in danger would be criminal folly. The first definite step towards revolution, which would ensure the utter misery and damnation of the people, has been taken. The revolutionaries, who know not, poor souls, whither they are going, cannot be stayed by chants in praise of democracy or by the rattling of universal suffrage. must be fought and vanquished by their own weapons. Their threat to hold up the country, if it be repeated after the months of respite, must be shown to be of no effect. The work of the community can be done with perfect efficiency by the vast majority, which refuses to accept defeat at the hands of a mere five millions. The handful of Jews and peasants who destroyed Russia, and who murdered the best and wisest of her citizens, succeeded in their vile purpose only because the attack was unforeseen, and there was nobody on the side of the just to take a lead. There were enough soldiers in Moscow and St Petersburg at the moment of the outbreak to suppress the revolution, but the force was dissipated, because nobody knew whom he should follow, and whither he should follow him. We do not believe that we shall be thus disorganised in the hour of danger, but let us not forget that in all the areas of disturbance there are lurking foreign experts in revolution, with their pockets full of foreign gold, and with strict orders to involve Great Britain in the same irreparable ruin in which they have sunk Russia. Let us, then, while there is yet time, distinguish between the lovers of order and the noisy advocates of rebellion. Some of our friends we know; others are doubtful; and we still wonder why the super-patriot, the perfervid enemy of revolution, the right honourable Privy Councillor, Mr J. H. Thomas, put an ox upon his tongue in the House of Commons. expected from him an explanation and a defence. For the rest, we are not opposed to the respite and the subsidy, if only they are the last of their kind, if only we have a guarantee that we shall know how to meet the next assault. loss of honour," said Swift, "to submit to the lion, but who, with the figure of a man, think with patience of being devoured by a rat." can We "It is no It is a pleasant sight to Oftentimes he is provocative, see a philosopher in dressing- and never so easily provocative gown and slippers discoursing, as when he discusses politics. without pedantry or technical "Another manifestation of the jargon, of the pitfalls which general failure to comprehend yawn before the feet of common the true nature of politics is the men. And this is what Signor persistent and ill-humoured deCroce has done in a little book mand that is made for 'honcalled 'The Conduct of Life,' esty' in public life." Such is of which an authorised trans- the statement that he makes, lation by Mr Livingston (Lon- and though he puts the word don, Harrap) has just appeared. "honesty " between commas, Many are the subjects of which he does not tell us what he Signor Croce writes, and upon means by it. For when he each of them he has something defines it as "political capafresh to say. Here are some com- city," he explains nothing. He ments upon "Our Dead":"We merely makes a statement to are in reality nothing but what which nobody demurs. All we do, and that is all of us men of sense demand "political we would have immortal. Our capacity" before all things in specific individuality is an ap- their politicians. They demand pearance labelled with a name; also "honesty as " honesty it is, in other words, a mere is generally understood. Inconvention. . . . What is this deed, we should say that finanlife of ours but 'a hastening unto cial honesty was the virtue death,' death of our individu- which no politician can dare to ality, that is, and what is do without. The politician has achievement save death in work, the control of large sums of which is at once detached from money-money which he holds him who does it to become in trust for the country; and something outside him and be- if he once show himself capable yond?" And is not this a of putting his hand in the till, good sketch of those tolerant not even "political capacity persons who say they both would avail to save him. Moreforgive and forget? "In real- over, the politician has unity," says Croce, "they have numbered opportunities of taknothing to forget, for at no ing bribes. He can sell offices time can they be said to have or contracts. He can sell bloodremembered; they have never shed if the price be high condemned wrong-doing, but enough, or he can sell peace at have overlooked it thought- a figure. Therefore, the first lessly or frivolously." Such quality that should be asked men as these Croce, most justly, of him is honesty. Mirabeau, does not like. "We dislike we know, boasted that, though people," says he, "who are not he was bribed, he was never conscious of any offence." bought. But Mirabeau is not the best of models that can be held up to less highly endowed politicians, and his example does not persuade us to modify what should be the first law of politics. Nor is it apposite to cite three honest men-Lafayette, Espartero, and Guglielmo Pepe, who made "such botches in their respective countries." They failed, not because they were honest men, but because they were fools. Honesty, indeed, is the beginning and not the end of politics, and is useless of itself without political capacity. Financial corruption, the bane of government, has marked democracy wherever that system of politics has shown its head. That is the conclusion of Lord Bryce's solemn treatise upon popular government; and there is no doubt that, if there be not a cessation of dishonesty, popular government is doomed. But then, again, Croce asks: Should not the public official be a man above reproach in every respect, wholly worthy of esteem? Can public affairs be left to persons not in themselves commendable? Croce's answer to this conundrum is that in judging a politician's public services we must forget his private vices, as we forget the vices of a poet when we read his poetry. We agree with Croce. A statesman is so rare a bird that we will not condemn him because the white wings of his life are besmirched. And, indeed, the world, only too happy at being well-gov erned, has never inquired too closely into the morals of the governor who confers the boon of peace and prosperity upon it. We would only point out that an easy standard of morals does not make a politician great any more than a rigid standard makes him little. A statesman should be esteemed for his statesmanship and for nothing else. We in England may boast statesmen of both kinds. Pitt, the saviour of Europe, was a man of blameless character. Against Lord Liverpool, who governed England through her most difficult period, and who was Prime Minister for fourteen years, no word of scandal was ever breathed. He was not very clever, but his talent for management was universally acknowledged. "He was a patient and discreet man," says a distinguished historian, "more fit for power than many men then alive whose intellects were more brilliant. He knew how far he must defer to men of genius, and he was not too proud to learn new lessons in politics; but he betrayed no fear of orators, and he behaved as if he knew that eloquence, if it was to rule Britons, must be the outward sign of character. He courted neither the Prince nor the populace. By the conscientious exercise of authority he did as much as any of his successors, and more than any of his predecessors, to make statecraft acceptable to virtuous citizens." Such was Lord Liverpool, and it was no draw back to him that he did not sit up o' nights with the bottle and the dice-box. Nor have Englishmen ever frowned on politicians whose life was less austere than was Lord Liverpool's. They loved the cynicism of Lord Melbourne; they were proud of the gay extravagances of Lord Palmerston. In choosing Charles James Fox as the fine example of "the roisterer and roué who was also a statesman, Croce was not happy. For the truth is that, though Charles Fox was the most distinguished rake of his time, he was never a statesman, either good or bad. In the first place, his opportunities of statesmanship were very few. His unfortunate coalition with North, the Minister who, he hoped, would expiate his crimes upon the scaffold, brought him little credit. In the few months when he held office, at the end of his life, he had time only to find out that the policy of Pitt in fighting Napoleon had been the right policy. In opposition he was the factious enemy of his own country. He sided always with the enemies of England, which had ennobled his family and conferred great wealth upon it. He was transported with joy when he heard of the victory of Valmy. "No public event," said he, "not excepting Yorktown and Saratoga, ever happened that gave me so much delight. I could not allow myself to believe in it for some days for fear of disappointment." For five critical years of England's history he removed himself altogether from the House of Commons. Wherefore we cannot agree with Croce that Charles Fox " was a valuable public servant," or that England did well in giving him plenty of room in politics." She gave him, in her wisdom, very little room indeed. But if we are to esteem him as a gambler and a rake, which his contemporaries did, then we must give him a high place. Herein he showed his true grandeur. He was a great rake in the great age of rakes, an untidy macaroni, who astonished his radical friends by feats of endurance which they, simple souls, hitherto thought impossible. He would address the House after travelling all night from Newmarket; he would make an eloquent oration after sitting fifteen hours at quinze. This is what the pious Jacobins described as genius. And then at last, tired of being a pigeon, he turned rook, set up a farobank at Brooks's, and won all the money of the town. Everybody who walked down St James's Street could see him at work with his decoys, until from the faro bank he was summoned for the brief spell of office that came to him in 1806. It was these feats of gambling which gave him his name and fame-these feats and his sensibility. If he got into "trouble," he could talk himself out of it, and his friends boasted when he had told, of which the less failed to draw tears from their eyes. But these feats and this sensibility had nothing to do with statesmanship, which was neither advanced nor kept back by his famous dissipations. In brief, Signor Croce is confusing things which have nothing to do with one another when he pleads that politicians should be permitted to be rakes and gamblers. Though no obstacle has ever been set in their path, even when that path carried them to cards and the bottle, to say that they are better politicians because they like this freedom is like urging a young poet to imitate the vices - that may be all that he can imitate of Lord Byron. Let us, then, ask of our politicians that they should understand their business and should remain, at all hazards, financially honest. For financial dishonesty is the same bar to a statesman which ribaldry should be to a clergyman, or levity to a judge. The official report of the Eighth Olympiad, written by Mr F. G. L. Fairlie, is sad reading. Beneath the optimism of the author, who wishes to represent the orgy of excitement and bad temper which was witnessed last year in Paris as a triumph of sport, there lurks a confession that all is not well with the thing called, monstrously, the Olympic Games. There were unhappy incidents, we are VOL. CCXVIII.—NO. MCCCXIX. said the better. Some of the fencers wished to turn what should be a sham fight into a real fight. Of the boxers one thought his teeth might prove a useful ally to his fists, and used them. Though it is Mr Fairlie's purpose to make the best of things, it is clear that the world is not yet highly enough civilised to make a habit of international sport. As the combatants sometimes cannot hide their desire to win at all hazards, so the spectators seem at Paris to have forgotten their simple function, and to have become combatants themselves. The spectacle of one boxer fixing his teeth in another, to a chorus of shouts and yells conducted by enthusiasts ready to resort to force, is not pleasant to contemplate. And all this in the name of sport! The truth is, the fraternity of sport is like the brotherhood of man: it bears upon it the taint of Cain and Abel. There are in international games the seeds of anger and discord. As it was in Paris, so it was in London in 1908. The report of the Eighth Olympiad—what a name !-says that the incident of 1908 would never have been heard of if reference to it had not been made in one of the leading newspapers." But it should be heard of again and again, since it is relevant to the decision, which must be taken some time, whether the so-called Olympic Games should S |