public before it is time to die? Yet the thing might be. Or for the reunion of the English-speaking peoples? Or for the deliverance of all of our blood and speech from those fouler things than chattel slavery, child and adolescent labour? Or for an infantile death-rate under ninety in the thousand and all that would mean in the common life? These and a hundred such things are coming now, but only the young know how near they may be brought to us. As for us others, we plant a tree never believing we shall eat the fruit, we build a house never hoping to live therein. The desert, we believe in our hearts, is our home and our destined grave, and whatever we see of the Promised Land we must see through the eyes of the young.

With each year of their lives they come more distinctly into conscious participation with our efforts. Those soft little creatures that we have figured grotesquely as dropping from an inexorable spout into our world, those weak and wailing lumps of pink flesh more helpless than any animal, for whom we have planned better care, a better chance of life, better conditions of all sorts, those laval souls who are at first helpless clay in our hands, presently insensibly have become helpers beside us in the struggle. In a little while they are beautiful children, they are boys and girls and youths and maidens, full of the zest of new life, full of an abundant, joyful receptivity. In a little while they are walking with us, seeking to know whither we go, and whither we lead them, and why. Our account of the men-makers is not complete until we add to birth and school and world, the increasing element of deliberate co-operation in the man or woman we are seeking to make. In a little while they are young men and women, and then men and women, save for a fresher vigour, like ourselves. For us it comes at last to fellowship and resignation. For them it comes at last to responsibility, to freedom, and to introspection and the searching of hearts. We must if we would be men-makers, as the first and immediate part of the business, correct and finish ourselves. The good New Republican must needs ask and ask repeatedly: What have I done and what am I doing with myself while I tamper with the lives of others? His self-examination will be no monstrous egotism of perfectibility, indeed, no virtuosity of virtue, no exquisite retreat and slinking "out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." But he will seek perpetually to gauge his quality, he will watch to see himself the master of his habits and of his powers; he will take his brain, blood, body, and lineage as a trust to be administered for the world. To know all one can of one's self in relation to the world about one, to think out all one can, to take nothing for granted except by reason of one's unavoidable limitations, to be swift, indeed, but not hasty, to be strong but not violent, to be as watchful of one's self as it is given one to be, is the manifest duty of all who would subserve the New Republic. For the New Republican, as for his forerunner the Puritan, conscience and discipline must saturate life. He must be ruled by duties and a certain ritual in life. Every day and every week he must set aside time to read and to think, to commune with others and himself,

he must be as jealous of his health and strength as the Levites of old. Can we in this generation make but a few thousands of such men and women, men and women who are not afraid to live, men and women with a common faith and a common understanding, then, indeed, our work will be done. They will in their own time take this world as a sculptor takes his marble and shape it better than all our dreams. H. G. WELLS.

SIR,-In an article contributed by me to your June number, I stated that the late, Lord Grey, a short time before his death, remarked to me in conversation, I have sat in more than one Cabinet with Mr. Gladstone, and I know that he is congenitally incapable of speaking the truth."

I am informed by a correspondent-I have myself been abroad for some weeks, during which time I have not seen the English newspapers -that a Society journal has impugned the correctness of this statement, on the ground that Lord Grey and Mr. Gladstone never sat in the same Cabinet. I have, therefore, written to a friend who was present when the conversation took place, asking him to tell me what his recollection of it is. I enclose his reply for your perusal-not for publication. You will see and it seems right to put this before your readers that he "remembers one visit to Howick, but does not recall what Lord Grey said:" that the expression "congenitally incapable of speaking the truth is "not one which he would have thought Lord Grey likely to have used," and that he doubts whether Lord Grey "sat in Cabinets with Mr. Gladstone."

My friend speaks about Lord Grey with an authority to which I cannot pretend; and my memory may have misled me as to some details of the conversation. Nearly ten years have elapsed since it took place; and I did not at the time make a note of it in writing. But I feel certain as to the substantial accuracy of the account which I have given of it. Lord Grey may not have used the word " congenitally"; and, most probably, he said "Administration" not "Cabinet.'

Unless my memory again plays me false, both he and Mr. Gladstone were Under Secretaries when Sir Robert Peel was Prime Minister in 1834-5. Whether they were together in office at any other time, I cannot, at present, ascertain: nor, perhaps, does it much matter.

Bad-Gastein,
July 28th.

I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
W. S. LILLY.

** The Editor of this Review does not undertake to return any manuscripts; nor in any case can he do so unless either stamps or a stamped envelope be sent to cover the cost of postage.

It is advisable that articles sent to the Editor should be typewritten.

The sending of a proof is no guarantee of the acceptance of an article.

THE

FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

No. CCCCXLII. NEW SERIES.-OCTOBER 1, 1903.

THE UNIONIST PLUNGE INTO PROTECTION.

WHEN Mr. Balfour's pamphlet on "Insular Free Trade" was made public some hasty commentators jumped to the conclusion that the Prime Minister had declared against the New Protection. There was no warrant for this assumption. It must have been dissipated by a further study of the pamphlet itself, as well as by the terms of the letter in which Mr. Balfour accepted the resignation of Mr. Chamberlain. Nor can these documents leave us with any surprise that some of the most resolute believers in Free Trade doctrines found themselves no longer able to remain in the Cabinet. Private conversation with their Chief must have fortified the conviction which his published statements convey. Mr. Balfour's Protectionism is a pinchbeck affair, so streaked and gilded over, that at a distance it may look a little like something else. But in its essence and substance it is Protection, of the most characteristic type.

on

It will not do to regard the Prime Minister's tract as no more than an abstract Defence of Economic Doubt, or a mere Dissertation Doubtful Economics. The author, of course, "approaches the subject from a Free Trade point of view," which, as somebody has rather appositely remarked, is like the mental attitude of the drunken butler who said he was a teetotaler, but not bigoted. There is no bigotry about our Premier's affection for Free Trade. His essay is a discussion of its defects, and an eulogy of the advantages of the rival method. It is true that the whole subject is treated in a theoretical and highly academic fashion. The writer deals mainly with unfulfilled tendencies, conjectural dangers, and non-existent conditions. Some of his illustrations are drawn from "hypothetical" islands as fantastic as Laputa. Looked at as a philosophical exercise the pamphlet might be harmless enough. For it merely suggests that "there may be a collision between Free Trade and greater issues," which no sane Free Trader ever questions, and it advances the self-evident proposition that in such circumstances Free Trade might have to be modified or disappear. But no shred of evidence is adduced to show that this collision has actually occurred, or that the consequential perils are

anything but "tendencies," which may possibly at some very remote period become partially effective, if some other tendencies do not counteract them. We should not be called upon to agitate ourselves over these speculations, if they were put forward with less authority and at another season. But their author is the First Lord of the Treasury, and he promulgates his statement on fiscal policy, at a moment of intense crisis. We are bound to suppose that his conclusions have a bearing on practical politics, and that they are intended as a manifesto to his party. And these conclusions are that the system of free imports has failed to secure us against the misfortunes Mr. Balfour anticipates, and should therefore be exchanged for the high tariff restrictions, which are in vogue in many foreign countries, and are known as Protection.

It is not difficult to demonstrate the weakness of the reasoning by which these deductions are reached. The New Economics, we believe, prides itself on its fidelity to science and its devotion to the "historic method"; it objects to the a priori deductions of the "orthodox" English school. But Mr. Balfour's whole case rests on assumptions, which have no relation to the facts, and which, indeed, as he himself admits, are sometimes diametrically opposed to them. There is nothing, he acknowledges, to support the contention that we are being ruined by Protectionist rivalry. On the contrary we are in a very satisfactory condition:

'Judged by all available tests, both the total wealth and the diffused well-being of the country are greater than they have ever been. We are not only rich and prosperous in appearance, but also, I believe, in reality. I can find no evidence that we are living on our capital, though in some respects we may be investing it badly. Why, then, it is asked, do we trouble ourselves to disturb a system which has been so fruitful in happy results? "

Why, indeed? Mr. Balfour's only answer is that we must "study tendencies," and look at " the dynamics not the statics" of trade. But this merely means that we are to assume, with Mr. Balfour, that certain dangers, at present purely imaginary, will become actual. It may be conceded that if several of the great civilised countries were to form an offensive commercial alliance against us, and make their markets not merely protective, but prohibitive, we should be in an awkward position. So we should be if they all declined to send us their imports, or, which would come to the same thing, if they refused to take our exports in payment. But so far as any one can see, this international conspiracy against us is quite as improbable as an armed combination of seven or eight foreign Powers intended to effect our subjugation by military and naval force. If all the world is determined on our ruin, Protection would not save us. But

there is no reason to believe that a number of communities, which love each other no more than they love us, could or would engage in such a joint operation. Mr. Balfour unconsciously answers himself. For at one moment he alarms us by telling us that all the markets are to be closed against us, and at another he endeavours to call up a vision of wholesale foreign dumping. But even a dumper will want to be paid. He may sell cheap, but he does not sell for nothing. And how he can be paid except by exports, or by equivalent services rendered, neither Mr. Balfour nor anybody else has yet succeeded in explaining. The whole fabric of the Prime Minister's fears is largely the result of his own arbitrary and thoroughly unscientific view of international trade, which seems to be derived from Mr. Vince's Birmingham tariff leaflets, rather than from any profound study of the facts or the authorities. He says our exports are stationary or diminishing. But that is only true when we omit from the account some of its most important items. Mr. Balfour deducts coal, ships, machinery, and freights for sea transport. As to the first three, he says that they directly assist the operations of our manufacturing rivals. Of course they do; and so do most of the things that we, and other people, import. What is to be said. of raw materials, half-finished goods, and the like? What of our imported food, which is the basis of our industrial efficiency? Why subtract coal from the British export table, when we leave it on those of Germany and the United States, together with mineral oil, iron, copper, and timber? As to the omission of freights, Mr. Balfour knows well enough that they must be regarded as part of the payment for our imports, just like hardor textiles. (See Economic Notes, p. 15, footnote.) If then, we add, as we should, the value of coal and ships, and, say, £90,000,000 for the carrying trade, which is the estimate of Sir Robert Giffen and of the Board of Trade Report on "British and Foreign Trade and Industry" (Cd. 1761, p. 101), we shall have a gross export, material and "invisible," of more than £370,000,000 annually. This is by far the largest export commerce in the world, and at least a hundred million sterling above that of Germany, even if we make a corresponding addition on the most liberal scale to the statistics for that country. So taken, the figures may. allay the anxiety which theoretical considerations suggest" (Economic Notes, p. 21), and show that our foreign trade has, in fact, "grown with our growth," and even with the "yet more rapid growth of some of our customers." The Memoranda of the Board of Trade experts do away with all that part of Mr. Balfour's argument, which is grounded on the stagnation of exports. They should also relieve him of much of his nervousness on the subject of "dumping." This practice

ware