All the better elements of the country realize that Madero no longer represents an individual or even a political administration. He represents the civilization of Mexico struggling against the unreined savagery of a population which has known no law but abject fear, and having lost that fear and the restraint which it imposed upon it, threatens to deliver Mexico to such a reign of anarchy, rapine, and terror as would be without a parallel in modern history. He represents the dignity and integrity of Mexico before the world.

Whatever the outcome, whether it triumphs or fails, the new administration, assailed on every side by an enemy as treacherous and unscrupulous as it is powerful, and making a last stand—perhaps a vain one—for Mexico's economic liberty and political independence, merits the support and comprehension of all the progressive elements of the world.



FALL OF THE ENGLISH HOUSE OF LORDS

GREAT BRITAIN CHANGES HER CONSTITUTION BY RESTRICTING THE POWER OF THE LORDS

A.D. 1911

ARTHUR PONSONBY SYDNEY BROOKS CAPTAIN GEORGE SWINTON

On August 10, 1911, the ancient British House of Lords gathered in somber and resentful session and solemnly voted for the "Parliament Bill," a measure which reduced their own importance in the government to a mere shadow. This vote came as the climax of a five-year struggle. The Lords have for generations been a Conservative body, holding back every Liberal measure of importance in England. Of late years the Liberal party has protested with ever-increasing vehemence against the unfairness of this unbalanced system, by means of which the Conservatives when elected to power by the people could legislate as they pleased, whereas the Liberals, though they might carry elections overwhelmingly, were yet blocked in all their chief purposes of legislation.

When the Liberals found themselves elected to power by a vast majority in 1905, they were still seeking to get on peaceably with the Lords, but this soon proved impossible. In January of 1910 the Liberals deliberately adjourned Parliament and appealed to the people in a new election. They were again returned to power, though by a reduced majority; yet the Lords continued to oppose them. Again they appealed to the people in December of 1910, this time with the distinct announcement that if re-elected to authority they would pass the "Parliament Bill" destroying the power of the Lords. In this third election they were still upheld by the people. Hence when the Lords resisted the Parliament Bill, King George stood ready to create as many new Peers from the Liberal party as might be necessary to pass the offensive bill through the House of Lords. It was in face of this threat that the Lords yielded at last, and voted most unwillingly for their own loss of power.

Of this great step in the democratizing of England, we give three characteristic British views—first, that of a well-known Liberal member of Parliament, who naturally approves of it; secondly, that of a fair-minded though despondent Conservative; and thirdly, that of a rabid Conservative who can see nothing but shame, ruin, and the extreme of wickedness in the change. He speaks in the tone of the "Die-hards," the Peers who refused all surrender and held out to the last, raving at their opponents, assailing them with curses and even with fists, and in general aiding the rest of the world to realize that the manners of some portion of the British Peerage needed reform quite as much as their governmental privileges.

ARTHUR PONSONBY, M.P.

A great and memorable struggle has ended with the passage of the Parliament Bill into law. In the calm atmosphere of retrospect we may now look back on the various stages of this prolonged conflict, from its inception to its completion, and further, with the whole scene before us, we may reflect on the wider meaning and real significance of the victory which has been gained on behalf of democracy, freedom, and popular self-government.

In the progressive cause there can be no finality, no termination to the combat, no truce, no rest. But we may fairly regard the conclusion of this particular struggle as the achievement of a notable step in advance and as the acquisition of territory that can not well be recaptured. The admission of the Parliament Bill to the statute-book marks an epoch and fills the hearts of those who are pursuing high ideals in politics and sociology with great hopes for the future. The long sequence of the events which have led up to this achievement has not been smooth or without incident. There have been moments of failure, of rebuff, and even of disaster. It would almost seem as if the motive power which has carried the party of progress through the storm and stress, and landed it in security, had been outside the control of any one man or any set of men. Although distinguished men have led and there have been many valiant workers in the field, a movement that has extended over nearly a hundred years must have its origin and energy deeper down than in any mere party policy. It is the inevitable outcome of the steady but inexorable evolution of free institutions among a liberty-loving people.

In order, first of all, to trace the course of the actual controversy as it has been carried on in the House of Commons and in the country, it is not necessary to go further back than 1883. In that year the Lords had rejected the Franchise Bill, and it was then that Mr. Bright, in a speech at Leeds dealing with the deadlocks between the two Houses, sketched a plan which was really the essence and origin of the principle adopted in the Parliament Act that has just become law. The Lords had rejected many Liberal measures before then; attempts had been made to get round or overcome their opposition; but not till then was any practical method formulated for dealing with the serious and permanent obstruction to progressive legislation. Mr. Bright himself had condemned the peers and declared that "their arrogance and class selfishness had long been at war with the highest interests of the nation," and now he advocated a specific remedy, which he declared would be obtained by "limiting the veto which the House of Lords exercises over the proceedings of the House of Commons." The actual plan was that a Bill rejected by the Lords should be sent up to them again, "but when the Bill came down to the House of Commons in the second session, and the Commons would not agree to the amendments of the Lords, then the Lords should be bound to accept the Bill." This method of procedure, it will be seen, was more expeditious and drastic than the scheme in the Parliament Act.

Mr. Chamberlain joined vigorously in the campaign against the Peers. Telling passages from his speeches are quoted to this day, such as when he declared that "the House of Lords had never contributed one iota to popular liberty and popular freedom, or done anything to advance the common weal," but "had protected every abuse and sheltered every privilege."

No further mention of the Bright scheme was made for some time. Six years of Conservative rule (1886-1892) diverted the attention of Liberals as a party in opposition to other matters, and the Lords subsided, as they always have done in such periods, into an entirely innocuous, negligible, and utterly useless adjunct of the Conservative Government.

In the brief period between 1892-1895, the animus against the House of Lords was kindled afresh. Several Liberal Bills were mutilated or lost, and the rejection of the second Home Rule Bill served to fan the flames into a dangerous blaze. The Bright plan was recalled by Lord Morley. "I think," he said (at Newcastle on May 21, 1894), "there will have to be some definite attempt to carry out what Mr. Bright at the Leeds Conference of 1883 suggested, by which the power of the House of Lords—this non-elected, this non-representative, this hereditary, this packed Tory Chamber—by which the veto of that body shall be strictly limited." Mr. Gladstone, too, in his last speech in the House of Commons on the wrecking amendments which the Lords had made on the Parish Councils Bill, dwelt on the fundamental differences between the two Houses, and said that "a state of things had been created which could not continue," and declared it to be "a controversy which once raised must go forward to an issue."

But by far the most formidable, the most vigorous, the most animated, and, at the time, apparently sincere attack was contained in a series of speeches delivered in 1894 by Lord Rosebery, who was then in a position of responsibility as leader of the Liberal party. If, as subsequent events have shown, he was unmoved by the underlying principle and cause for which his eloquent pleading stood, anyhow we must believe he was deeply impressed by the prospect of his personal ambition as the leader of a party being thwarted by the contemptuous action of an irresponsible body. His words, however, stand, and have been quoted again and again as the most effective attack against the partizan nature of the Second Chamber:—"What I complain of in the House of Lords is that during the tenure of one Government it is a Second Chamber of an inexorable kind, but while another Government is in, it is no Second Chamber at all... Therefore the result, the effect of the House of Lords as it at present stands, is this, that in one case it acts as a Court of Appeal, and a packed Court of Appeal, against the Liberal party, while in the other case, the case of the Conservative Government, it acts not as a Second Chamber at all. In the one case we have the two Chambers under a Liberal Government, under a Conservative Government we have a single Chamber. Therefore, I say, we are face to face with a great difficulty, a great danger, a great peril to the State." So vehement and repeated were Lord Rosebery's denunciations that grave anxiety is said to have been caused in the highest quarters.

But for the next ten years (1895-1905) the Conservatives were in office, and again it was impossible to bring the matter to a head, though the past was not forgotten. When the Liberals were returned in 1906 with their colossal majority, every Liberal was well aware that before long the same trouble would inevitably arise, and that a settlement of the question could not be long delayed. The record of the House of Lords' activities during the last five years has been so indelibly impressed on the public mind that only a very brief recapitulation of events is necessary.

At the outset their action was tentative. This was shown by the conferences and negotiations to arrive at a settlement on the Education Bill, which was the first Liberal measure in 1906. But these broke down, and defiance was found to be completely successful. Mr. Balfour, the leader of the Conservative party, realized that although he was in a small minority in the House of Commons, yet he could still control legislation, and when he saw how effectively the destructive weapon of the veto could be used he became bolder, and, as with all vicious habits, increased indulgence encouraged appetite. Had Mr. Balfour played his trump-card—the Lords' veto—with greater foresight and restraint, it may safely be said that the House of Lords might have continued for another generation, or, at any rate, for another decade, with its authority unimpaired, though sooner or later it was bound to abuse its power; but the temptation was too great, and Mr. Balfour became reckless.

The three crucial mistakes on the part of the Opposition from the point of view of pure tactics were: First, the destruction of the Education Bill of 1906. In view of the historic attitude of the Lords to all questions of religious freedom and general enlightenment, it was not surprising that they should stand in the way of a greater equality of opportunity for all denominations in matters of education. Six times between 1838 and 1857 they rejected Bills for removing Jewish disabilities; three times between 1858 and 1869 they vetoed the abolition of Church Rates. For thirty-six years (1835-1871) the admission of Nonconformists to the universities by the abolition of tests was delayed by them. It was only to be expected, therefore, that they would be deaf to the popular outcry that had been caused by the Balfour Education Bill of 1902. But in the very first session of the Parliament in which the Government had been returned to power by the immense majority of 354, that they should immediately show their teeth and claws was, from their own point of view, as events proved, a vital error. Their second mistake was the rejection in 1908 by a body of Peers at Lansdowne House of the Licensing Bill, which had occupied many weeks of the time of the House of Commons. This was rightly regarded as a gratuitous insult to the House of elected representatives. Finally, their culminating act of folly was the rejection of the Budget in 1909. It was an outrageous breach of acknowledged constitutional practise, which alienated from them a large body of moderate opinion. In addition to these three notable measures there were, of course, a number of other Bills on land, electoral, and social reform that were either mutilated or thrown out during this period. How could any politician in his senses suppose that a party who possessed any degree of confidence in the country would tamely submit to treatment such as this? While the Lords proceeded light-heartedly with their wrecking tactics, the Liberal Government slowly and cautiously, but with great deliberation, took action step by step. A provocative move on the part of the Lords was met each time by a counter-move, and thus gradually the final and decisive phase of the dispute was reached.

After the loss of the Education Bill of 1906, the first note of warning was sounded by Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman. "The resources of the House of Commons," he declared, "are not exhausted, and I say with conviction that a way must be found, and a way will be found, by which the will of the people expressed through their elected representatives in this House will be made to prevail."

The first mention of the subject in a King's Speech occurred in March, 1907, when this significant phrase was used: "Serious questions affecting the working of our party system have arisen from unfortunate differences between the two Houses. My Ministers have this important subject under consideration with a view to the solution of the difficulty."

On June 24, 1907, the matter was first definitely brought before the House. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman moved that "in order to give effect to the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed by this House should be so restricted by law as to secure that within the limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail." To the evident surprize of the Opposition he sketched a definite plan for curtailing the veto of the House of Lords. This was followed in July by the introduction of resolutions laying down in full detail the exact procedure. In his statement Sir Henry made it very clear that the issue was confined to the relations between the two Houses:—"Let me point out that the plan which I have sketched to the House does not in the least preclude or prejudice any proposals which may be made for the reform of the House of Lords. The constitution and composition of the House of Lords is a question entirely independent of my subject. My resolution has nothing to do with the relations of the two Houses to the Crown, but only with the relations of the two Houses to each other."

In 1908, Mr. Asquith became Prime Minister, but no further action was taken. On the rejection of the Licensing Bill, however, he showed that the Government were fully aware of the extreme gravity of the question, but intended to choose their own time to deal with it. Speaking at the National Liberal Club in December, he said: "The question I want to put to you and to my fellow Liberals outside is this: Is this state of things to continue? We say that it must be brought to an end, and I invite the Liberal party to-night to treat the veto of the House of Lords as the dominating issue in politics—the dominant issue, because in the long run it overshadows and absorbs every other." When pressed on the Address at the beginning of the following session by his supporters, who were impatient for action, he explained the position of the Government: "I repeat we have no intention to shirk or postpone the issue we have raised.... I can give complete assurance that at the earliest possible moment consistent with the discharge by this Parliament of the obligations I have indicated, the issue will be presented and submitted to the country."

The rejection of the Budget in 1909 led to a general election, in which the Government's method of dealing with the Lords was the main issue. The Liberals were returned again, but when the King's Speech was read some confusion was caused by the distinct question of the relations between the two Houses being coupled with a suggested reform of the Second Chamber. This was a departure from the very clear and wise policy of Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and had it been persisted in it might have broken up the ranks of the Liberal party—very varied and different opinions being held as to the constitution of a Second Chamber. But the stronger course was adopted, and the resolutions subsequently introduced and passed in the House of Commons dealt only with the veto and were to form the preliminary to the introduction of the Bill itself.

Just as matters seemed about to result in a final settlement, King Edward died, and a conference between the leaders of both parties was set up to tide over the awkward interval. The conference was an experiment doomed to failure, as the Liberals had nothing to give away and compromise could only mean a sacrifice of principle. The House met in November to wind up the business, and the Prime Minister announced that an appeal would be made to the country on the single issue of the Lords' veto, the specific proposals of the Government being placed before the electorate. A Liberal Government was returned to power for the third time in December, 1910, with practically the same majority as in January. The Parliament Bill was introduced and passed in all its stages through the House of Commons with large majorities.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives made no attempt to defend either the action or composition of the House of Lords, but adopted an apologetic attitude. They agreed that the Second Chamber must be reformed, and during the second general election in 1910 some of them declared for the Referendum as a solution of the difficulty of deadlocks between the two Houses. But there was an entire absence of sincerity about their proposals, which were not thought out, but obviously only superficial expedients hurriedly grasped at by a party in distress. Their reform scheme, introduced by Lord Lansdowne, was revolutionary, and, at the same time, fanciful and confused. It was ridiculed by their opponents, and received with frigid disapproval by their supporters. Still, they acted as if they were confident that in the long run they could ward off the final blow. They were persuaded that the Liberal Government would neither have the courage nor the power to accomplish their purpose. "Why waste time over abstract resolutions?" asked Mr. Balfour. "The Liberal party," he said, "has a perfect passion for abstract resolutions"—and again, "it is quite obvious they do not mean business." Even when the Bill itself was introduced, they still did not believe that its passage through the House of Lords could be forced. The opposition to the Bill was not so much due to hatred of the actual provisions as fear of its consequences. The prospect of a Liberal Government being able to pass measures which for long have been part of their program, such as Home Rule, Welsh Disestablishment, or Electoral Reform, exasperated the party who had hitherto been secured against the passage of measures of capital importance introduced by their opponents. The anti-Home Rule cry and the supposed dictatorship of the Irish Nationalist leader were utilized to the full, and were useful when constitutional and reasoned argument failed. At the same time as much as possible was made of the composite character of the majority supporting the Government.

Throughout the latter part of the controversy there is little doubt that the Conservatives would have been in a far stronger position had they acted as a united party with a definite policy and a strong leader ready at a moment's notice to form an alternative Government. But they were deplorably led, they could agree on no policy, and their warmest supporters in the Press and in the country were the first to admit that the formation of an alternative Conservative Administration was unthinkable. Nevertheless, there could be no rival for the leadership. Mr. Balfour, aloof, indifferent, without enthusiasm, and without convictions, although discredited in the country and harassed in his attempts to save his party from Protection, remains in ability, Parliamentary knowledge, experience and skill, head and shoulders above his very mediocre band of colleagues in the House of Commons.

The Bill went up to the House of Lords, where Lord Morley, with the tact and skill of an experienced statesman and the unflinching firmness of a lifelong Liberal, conducted it through a very rough career. The Lords' amendments were destructive of the principle, and therefore equivalent to rejection. But even a few days before those amendments were returned to the Commons the Conservatives refused to believe that the passage of the Bill in its original form was guaranteed. When at last it was brought home to them that, if necessary, the King would be advised to create a sufficient number of Peers to insure the passage of the Bill into law, a howl of indignation went up. Scenes of confusion and unmannerly exhibitions of temper took place in the House of Commons. A party of revolt was formed among the Peers, and the Prime Minister was branded as a traitor who was guilty of treason and whose advice to the King in the words of the vote of censure was "a gross violation of constitutional liberty."

As a matter of fact, Mr. Asquith was adhering very strictly to the letter and spirit of the Constitution. Lord Grey, who was confronted with a similar problem in 1832, very truly said: "If a majority of this House (House of Lords) is to have the power whenever they please of opposing the declared and decided wishes both of the Crown and the people without any means of modifying that power, then this country is placed entirely under the influence of an uncontrollable oligarchy. I say that if a majority of this House should have the power of acting adversely to the Crown and the Commons, and was determined to exercise that power without being liable to check or control, the Constitution is completely altered, and the Government of the country is not a limited monarchy; it is no longer, my Lords, the Crown, the Lords and Commons, but a House of Lords—a separate oligarchy—governing absolutely the others."

Had the Prime Minister submitted to the Lords' dictation after two general elections, in the second of which the verdict of the country was taken admittedly and exclusively on the actual terms of the Parliament Bill, he would have basely betrayed the Constitution in acknowledging by his submission that the Peers were the supreme rulers over the Crown and over the Commons, and could without check overrule the declared expression of the people's will. The Lord Chancellor pointed out the danger in one sentence. "This House alone in the Constitution is to be free of all control." No doubt the creation of ten Peers would not have caused such a commotion as the creation of 400, but the principle is precisely the same, and it was only the magnitude of partizan bias in the Second Chamber that made the creation of a large number necessary in the event of there being determined opposition. It was a most necessary and salutary lesson for the Lords that they should be shown, in as clear and pronounced a way as possible, that the Constitution provided a check against their attempt at despotism, just as the marked disapproval of the electorate, as shown, for instance, in the remarkable series of by-elections in 1903-1905, or by a reverse at a general election, is the check provided against the arbitrary or unpopular action of any Government. The Peers were split up into two parties, those who accepted Lord Lansdowne's pronouncement that, as they were no longer "free agents," there was nothing left for them but to submit to the inevitable, and those who desired to oppose the Bill to the last and force the creation of Peers. The view of the latter section, led by Lord Halsbury, was an expression of the wide-spread impatience and annoyance with Mr. Balfour's weak and vacillating leadership. All the counting of heads and the guesses as to how each Peer would behave afforded much material for sensational press paragraphs and rather frivolous speculation and intrigue. The action of any Peer in any circumstance is always supposed to be of national importance. The vision of large numbers of active Peers was a perfect feast for the public mind, at least so the newspapers thought. But in reality the final outcry, the violent speeches, the sectional meetings, the vituperation and passion were quite unreal and of very little consequence. One way or the other, the passage of the Bill was secure.

The Vote of Censure brought against the Government afforded the Prime Minister a convenient opportunity of frankly taking the House into his confidence. With the King's consent, he disclosed all the communications, hitherto kept secret, which had passed between the Sovereign and his Ministers. He rightly claimed that all the transactions had been "correct, considerate, and constitutional." Mr. Asquith's brilliant and sagacious leadership impressed even his bitterest opponents. It only remained for the Lords not to insist on their amendments. Unparalleled excitement attended their final decision. The uncompromising opponents among the Unionist Peers, rather than yield at the last moment, threw over Lord Lansdowne's leadership. They were bent on forcing a creation of Peers, although Lord Morley warned them of the consequences. "If we are beaten on this Bill to-night," he declared, "then his Majesty will consent to such a creation of Peers as will safeguard the measure against all possible combinations in this House, and the creation will be prompt." In numbers the "Die-hards," as they were called, were known to exceed a hundred, and it was extremely doubtful right up to the actual moment when the division was taken if the Government would receive the support of a sufficient number of cross-bench Peers, Unionist Peers, and Bishops to carry the Bill. After a heated debate, chiefly taken up by violent recriminations between the two sections of the Opposition, the Lords decided by a narrow majority of seventeen not to insist on their amendments, and the Bill was passed and received the Royal assent.

Now that the smoke has cleared off the field of battle, let us state in a few sentences what the Parliament Bill which has caused all this uproar really is. It is by no means unnecessary to do this, as those who take a close interest in political events are, perhaps, unaware of the incredible ignorance which exists as to the cause and essence of the whole controversy, especially among that class of society who read head-lines but not articles, who never attend political meetings, but whose strong prejudices make them active and influential. The Parliament Bill, or rather the Act, does not even place a Liberal Government on an equal footing with a Unionist Government. It insures that Liberal measures, if persisted in, may become law in the course of two years in spite of the opposition of the Second Chamber. It lays down once and for all that finance or money Bills can not be vetoed or amended by the House of Lords—which, after all, is only an indorsement of what was accepted till 1909 as the constitutional practise—and it limits the duration of Parliament to five years. The preamble of the Bill, which is regarded with a good deal of suspicion by advanced Radicals, indicates that the reform of the Second Chamber is to be undertaken subsequently.

This is the bare record of the sequence of events in the Parliamentary struggle between the two Houses, each supported by one of the two great political parties. In the course of the controversy the real significance of the conflict was liable to be hidden under the mass of detail connected with constitutional law, constitutional and political history, and Parliamentary procedure, which had to be quoted in speeches on every platform and referred to repeatedly in debate. The serious deadlock between the Lords and Commons was not a mere inconvenience in the conduct of legislation, nor was it purely a technical constitutional problem. The issue was not between the 670 members of the House of Commons and the 620 members of the House of Lords, nor between the Liberal Government and the Tory Opposition. The full purport of the contest is broader and far more vital; it must be sought deeper down in the wider sphere of our social and national life. In a word, the rising tide of democracy has broken down another barrier, and the privileges and presumptions of the aristocracy have received a shattering blow. This aspect of the case is worth studying.

There could be no conflict of any importance between the two Houses so long as the Commons were practically nominees of the Lords. At the end of the eighteenth century no fewer than 306 members of the House of Commons were virtually returned by the influence of 160 persons, landowners and boroughmongers, most of whom were members of the other House. Things could work smoothly enough in these circumstances, as the two Houses represented the same interests and the same class, and the territorial aristocracy dominated without effort over a silent and subservient people.

The Reform Bill of 1832 was the real beginning of the change. By its provisions not only was the franchise extended, but fifty-six rotten boroughs, represented by 143 members, were swept away. There was something more in this than electoral reform. It was the first step toward alienation between the two Houses. There was a bitter fight at the time because the Lords foresaw that if they once lost their hold over the Commons the eventual results might be serious for them. It was far more convenient to have a subordinate House of nominees than an independent House of possible antagonists. The enfranchisement and emancipation of the people once inaugurated, however, were destined to proceed further. The introduction of free education served more than anything, and is still serving, to create a self-conscious democracy fully alive to its great responsibilities, for knowledge means courage and strength. Changes in the industrial life of the country led to organization among the workers and the formation of trade-unions. The extension of local government brought to the front men of ability from all classes of society, and the franchise became further extended at intervals. The House of Commons, now completely free and independent, kept in close touch with the real national awakening and reflected in its membership the changes in social development. But the House of Lords, unlike any other institution in the country, remained unchanged and quite unaffected by outside circumstances. Its stagnation and immobility naturally made it increasingly hostile to democratic advance. The number of Liberal Peers or Peers who could remain Liberal under social pressure gradually diminished. Friction caused by diversity of aim and interest became consequently more and more frequent. There were times of reaction, times of stagnation, times when the national attention was diverted by wars, but the main trend taken by the course of events was unalterable. The aristocracy, finding that it was losing ground, made attempts to reenforce itself with commercial and American wealth, thereby sacrificing the last traces of its old distinction. Money might give power of a sort—a dangerous power in its way—but not-power to recover the loss of political domination. The South African War and the attempt to obliterate the resentment it caused in the country by instituting a campaign for the revival of Protection brought about the downfall of the Tory party. The electoral debacle of 1906 was the consequence and served as a signal of alarm in the easy-going Conservative world. Till then many who were accustomed to hold the reins of government in their hands, as if by right, had not fully realized that the control was slipping from them. The cry went up that socialism and revolution were imminent. The Times quoted The Clarion. Old fogies shook their heads and declared the country would be ruined and that a catastrophe was at hand. But it was soon found, on the contrary, that the government of the country was in the hands of men of great ability, enlightenment, and imagination; trade prospered, social needs were more closely attended to, and, most important of all, peace was maintained. The House of Commons had opened its doors to men of moderate means, and the Labor party, consisting of working men, miners, and those with first-hand knowledge of industrial conditions, came into existence as an organized political force.

The last six years have shown the desperate attempts of the ancient order to strain every nerve against the inevitable, and to thwart and destroy the projects and ambitions of those who represented the new thought and the new life of the nation. Though apparently successful at first, the rash action of the Chamber which still represented the interest, privileges, and prejudices of the wealthier class and of vested interests, only helped in the long run to hasten the day when they were to be deprived of their most formidable weapon. They still retain considerable power: their interests are guarded by one of the political parties, and socially they hold undisputed sway. In an amazing defense of the past action of the House of Lords, Lord Lansdowne in 1906 said: "It is constantly assumed that the House of Lords has always shown itself obstructive, reluctant, an opponent to all useful measures for the amelioration of the condition of the people of this island. Nothing is further from the truth. You will find that in the past with which we are concerned the House of Lords has shown itself not only tolerant of such measures but anxious to promote them and to make them effectual to the best of its ability. And that, I believe, has been, and I am glad to think it, from time immemorial, the attitude of what I suppose I may call the aristocracy toward the people of this country" The last sentence is a fair statement of their case. The aristocracy are not the people. They are by nature a superior class which Providence or some unseen power has mercifully provided to govern, to rule, and to dominate. They are kind, charitable, and patronizing, and expect gratitude and subservience in return. As a mid-Victorian writer puts it: "What one wants to see is a kind and cordial condescension on the one side, and an equally cordial but still respectful devotedness on the other." But these are voices from a time that has passed.

Democracy has many a fight before it. False ideals and faulty educational systems may handicap its progress as much as the forces that are avowedly arrayed against it. Its achievements may be arrested by the discord of factions breaking up its ranks. Conceivably it may have to face a severe conflict with a middle-class plutocracy. But whatever trials democracy has to undergo it can no longer be subjected to constant defeat at the hands of a constitutionally organized force of hostile aristocratic opinion. At least, it may now secure expression in legislation for its noblest ideals and its most cherished ambitions. A check on progressive legislation is harmful to the national welfare, especially when there is no check on the real danger of reaction. To devise a Second Chamber which will be a check on reaction as well as on so-called revolution is a problem for the future. For the time being, therefore, the best security for the country against the perils of a reactionary regime is to allow freer play to the forces of progress, which only tend to become revolutionary when they are resisted and suppressed. The curtailment of the veto of the Second Chamber fulfils this purpose. Whatever further adjustment of the Constitution may be effected in time to come, the door can no longer be closed persistently against the wishes of the people when they entrust the work of legislation to a Liberal Government.

SYDNEY BROOKS

The first but by no means the last or most crucial stage of our twentieth-century Revolution has now been completed; the old Constitution, which was perhaps the most adaptable and convenient system of government that the world has ever known, is definitely at an end; the powers of an ancient Assembly have been truncated with a violence that in any other land would have spelled barricades and bloodshed long ago; and the road has been cleared, or partially cleared, for developments that must profoundly affect, and that in all probability will absolutely transform, the whole scheme of the British State.

Thus far, with their usual effective, good-humored, shortsighted common sense, with few pauses for inquiry, and with a characteristically indifferent grasp on the ultimate trend of things, have our politicians brought us. Our politicians, I say, and not our people, because one of the distinctive features of the Revolution so far is that it has been a political rather than a popular movement. It did not originate in the constituencies, but in the Cabinet; it was not forced upon the caucus by an aroused and indignant country, but by the caucus upon the country; nine-tenths of its momentum has been derived from above and not from below; the true centers of excitement throughout its polite and orderly progress have been the lobbies of the House and the correspondence columns of The Times; it was only at the last that the urbanities of the struggle between the "Die-hards" and their fellow Unionists furnished the public as a whole with material for a mild sporting interest. When Roundheads and Cavaliers were lining up for the battle of Edgehill a Warwickshire squire was observed between the opposing forces placidly drawing the coverts for a fox. The British people during the past twenty months have seemed more than once to resemble that historic huntsman. They have answered the screaming exhortations of the politicians with whispers of more than Delphic ambiguity; they have gone unconcernedly about their pleasures and their business, to all appearances unvexed by the din of Revolution in their ears; they have presented the spectacle, more common in France than in England, of a tranquil nation with agitated legislators.

The Ministerial explanation of this lethargy and indifference is that the people had no occasion to grow excited; their "mandate" was being fulfilled, they were getting what they wanted, demonstrations were superfluous. But no one who has read the history of the Reform Bill of 1832 or of the Chartist movement or who remembers the passions stirred up by the Franchise agitation and the Home Rule struggle of the eighties will swallow that explanation without mentally choking.

The truth probably is, first, that the multiplication of cheap distractions and enjoyments and of cheaper newspapers has not only weakened the popular interest in politics, but has impaired that faculty of concentrated and continuous thought which used to invest affairs of State with an attractiveness not so greatly inferior to that of football; secondly, that for the great masses of the democracy the politics of bread and butter have completely ousted the politics of ideas and abstractions; and thirdly, that the Constitutional issue was precisely the kind of issue in which our people had had no previous training, either actual or theoretical, and which found them therefore without any intellectual preparation for its advent. Up till the end of 1909 we had always taken the Constitution for granted, and were for the most part comfortably unaware that it even existed. We had never as a nation, or never rather within living memory, troubled ourselves about "theories of State," or whetted our minds on the fundamentals of government. There is nothing in our educational curriculum that corresponds with the instruction civique of the French schools, nor have we the privilege which the Americans enjoy of carrying a copy of our organic Act of Government in our pockets, of reading it through in twenty minutes, and of hearing it incessantly expounded in the class-room and the Press, debated in the national legislature, and interpreted by the highest judicial tribunal in the land.

When, therefore, we were suddenly called upon to decide the infinitely delicate problems of the place, powers, and composition of a Second Chamber in our governing system, the task proved as bewildering as it was unappetizing. Any nation which regarded its Constitution as a vital and familiar instrument would have heavily resented so gross an infraction of it as the Lords perpetrated in rejecting the 1909 Budget. But our own electorate, so far from punishing the party responsible for the outrage, sent them back to the House over a hundred stronger, a result impossible in a country with any vivid sense, or any sense at all, of Constitutional realities, and only possible in Great Britain because the people adjudged the importance of the various issues submitted to them by standards of their own, and placed the Constitutional problem at the bottom, or near the bottom, of the list. In no single constituency that I have ever heard of was the House of Lords question the supreme and decisive factor at the election of January, 1910. It deeply stirred the impartial intelligence of the country, but it failed to move the average voter even in the towns, while in the rural parts it fell unmistakably flat.

Even at the election of December, 1910, when all other issues were admittedly subordinate to the Constitutional issue, it was exceedingly difficult to determine how far the stedfastness of the electorate to the Liberal cause was due to a specific appreciation and approval of the Parliament Bill and of all it involved, and how far it was an expression of general distrust of the Unionists, of irritation with the Lords, and of sympathy with the social and fiscal policies pursued by the Coalition. That the Liberals were justified, by all the rules of the party game, in treating the result of that election as, for all political and Parliamentary purposes, a direct indorsement of their proposals, may be freely granted. It was as near an approach to an ad hoc Referendum as we are ever likely to get under our present system. Party exigencies, or at any rate party tactics, it is true, hurried on the election before the country was prepared for it, before it had recovered from the somnolence induced by the Conference, and before the Opposition had time or opportunity to do more than sketch in their alternative plan. But though the issue was incompletely presented, it was undoubtedly the paramount issue put before the electorate, and the Liberals were fairly entitled to claim that their policy in regard to it had the backing of the majority of the voters of the United Kingdom.

Whether, however, this backing represented a reasoned view of the Constitutional points involved and of the position, prerogatives, and organization of a Second Chamber in the framework of British Government, whether it implied that our people were really interested in and had deeply pondered the relative merits of the Single and Double Chamber systems, is much more doubtful. "When he was told," said the Duke of Northumberland on August 10th, "that the people of England were very anxious to abolish the House of Lords, his reply was that they did not understand the question, and did not care two brass farthings about it." That perhaps is putting it somewhat too strongly. The country within the last two years has unquestionably felt more vividly than ever before the anomaly of an hereditary Upper Chamber embedded in democratic institutions. It has been stirred by Mr. Lloyd-George's rhetoric to a mood of vague exasperation with the House of Lords and of ridicule of the order of the Peerage. It has accepted too readily the Liberal version of the central issue as a case of Peers versus People. But while it was satisfied that something ought to be done, I do not believe it realizes precisely what has been accomplished in its name or the consequences that must follow from the passing of the Parliament Bill. There are no signs that it regards the abridgment of the powers of the Upper House as a great democratic victory. There are, on the contrary, manifold signs that it has been bored and bewildered by the whole struggle, and that the extraordinary lassitude with which it watched the debates was a true reflex of its real attitude.

CAPTAIN GEORGE SWINTON, L.C.C.

It has been more like a bull-fight than anything else, or perhaps the bull-baiting, almost to the death, which went on in England in days of old. For the Peerage is not quite dead, but sore stricken, robbed of its high functions, propped up and left standing to flatter the fools and the snobs, a kind of painted screen, or a cardboard fortification, armed with cannon which can not be discharged for fear they bring it down about the defenders' ears. And in the end it was all effected so simply, so easily could the bull be induced to charge. A rag was waved, first here, then there, and the dogs barked. That was all.

It is not difficult to be wise after the event. Everybody knows now that with the motley groups of growing strength arrayed against them it behooved the Peers to walk warily, to look askance at the cloaks trailed before them, to realize the danger of accepting challenges, however righteous the cause might be. But no amount of prudence could have postponed the catastrophe for any length of time, for indeed the House of Lords had become an anachronism. Everything had changed since the days when it had its origin, when its members were Peers of the King, not only in name but almost in power, princes of principalities, earls of earldoms, barons of baronies. Then they were in a way enthroned, representing all the people of the territories they dominated, the people they led in war and ruled in peace. They came together as magnates of the land, sitting in an Upper House as Lords of the shire, even as the Knights of the shire sat in the Commons. And this continued long after the feudal system had passed away, carried on not only by the force of tradition, but by a sentiment of respect and real affection; for these feelings were common enough until designing men laid themselves out to destroy them.

Many things combined to make the last phase pass quickly. It was impossible that the Peerage could long survive the Reform Bill, for it took from the great families their pocket boroughs, and so much of their influence. And there followed hard upon it the educational effect of new facilities for exchange of ideas, the railway trains, the penny post, and the halfpenny paper, together with the centralization of general opinion and all government which has resulted therefrom. But above all reasons were the loss of the qualifying ancestral lands, a link with the soil; and the ennobling of landless men. Once divorced from its influence over some countryside a peerage resting on heredity was doomed; for no one can defend a system whereby men of no exceptional ability, representative of nothing, are legislators by inheritance. Should we summon to a conclave of the nations a king who had no kingdom? But the pity of it! Not only the break with eight centuries of history—nay, more, for when had not every king his council of notables?—not only the loss of picturesqueness and sentiment and lofty mien, but the certainty, the appalling certainty, that, when an aristocracy of birth falls, it is not an aristocracy of character or intellect, but an aristocracy—save the mark—of money, which is bound to take its place.

Five short years and four rejected measures. Glance back over it all. The wild blood on both sides, and the cunning on one. The foolish comfortable words spoken in every drawing-room throughout the United Kingdom. "Yes, they are terrible: what a lot of harm they would do if they could. Thank God we have a House of Lords." Think now that this was commonplace conversation only three short years ago. And all the time the ears of the masses were being poisoned. Week after week and month after month some laughed but others toiled. The laughers, like the French nobles before the Revolution, said contemptuously, "They will not dare." Why should they not? There were men among them for whom the Ark of the Covenant had no sanctity. And then, when the combinations were complete, when those who stood out had been kicked—there can be no other word—into compliance, the blows fell quickly. A Budget was ingeniously prepared for rejection, and, the Lords falling into the trap, the storm broke, with its hurricane of abuse and misrepresentation. We had one election which was inconclusive. Then befell the death of King Edward. There was a second election, carefully engineered and prepared for, rushed upon a nation which had been denied the opportunity of hearing the other side. The Government had out-maneuvered the Opposition and muzzled them to the last moment in a Conference sworn to secrecy. It was remarkably clever and incredibly unscrupulous. They won again. They had not increased their numbers, but they had maintained their position, and this time their victory, however achieved, could not be gainsaid. For a moment there was a lull, only some vague talk of "guaranties," asserted, scoffed at and denied, for the ordinary business of the country was in arrears, and the Coronation, with all its pomp of circumstance and power, all its medieval splendor and appeal to history and sentiment, turned people's thoughts elsewhere.

And then, on the day the pageantry closed, Mr. Asquith launched his Thunderbolt. Few men living will ever learn the true story of the guaranties, suffice it that somehow he had secured them. Whatever the resistance of the Second Chamber might be, it could be overcome. At his dictation the Constitution was to fall. There was no escape; the Bill must surely pass. It rested with the Lords themselves whether they should bow their heads to the inevitable, humbly or proudly, contemptuously or savagely—characterize it as you will—or whether there should be red trouble first.

Surely never in our time has there been a situation of higher psychological interest, for never before have we seen a body of some six hundred exceptional men called on to take each his individual line upon a subject which touched him to the core. I say "individual line" and "exceptional men." Does either adjective require defending?

The Peers are not a regiment, they are still independent entities, with all the faults and virtues which this implies; free gentlemen subject to no discipline, responsible to God and their own consciences alone. At times they may combine on questions which appeal to their sense of right, their sentiment, perhaps some may say their self-interest; but this was no case for combination. Here was a sword pointed at each man's breast. What, under the circumstances, was to be his individual line of conduct?

And who will deny the word "exceptional"? To a seventh of them it must perforce be applicable, for they have been specially selected to serve in an Upper House. And to the rest, those who sit by inheritance, does it not apply even more? It is not what they have done in life. This was no question of capacity or achievement. By the accident of birth alone they had been put in a position different from other men. How shall each in his wisdom or his folly interpret that well-worn motto which still has virtue both to quicken and control, "Noblesse oblige"?

Very curious indeed was the result. It is useless to consider the preliminaries, the pronouncements, the meetings, the campaign which raged for a fortnight in the Press both by letter and leading article. It is even useless to try and discover who, if anybody, was in favor of the Bill which was the original bone of contention. Its merits and defects were hardly debated. On that fateful 10th of August the House of Lords split into three groups on quite a different point. The King's Government had seized on the King's Prerogative and uttered threats. Should they or should they not be constrained to make good their threats, and use it?

The first group said: "Yes. They have betrayed the Constitution and disgraced their position. Let their crime be brought home to them and to the world. All is lost for us except honor. Shall we lose that also? To the last gasp we will insist on our amendments."

The second group said: "No. They have indeed betrayed the Constitution and disgraced their position, but why add to this disaster the destruction of what remains to safeguard the Empire? We protest and withdraw, washing our hands of the whole business for the moment. But our time will come."

The third group said: "No. We do not desire the King's Prerogative to be used. We will prevent any need for its exercise. The Bill shall go through without it."

And, the second group abstaining, by seventeen votes the last prevailed against the first. But whether ever before a victory was won by so divided a host, or ever a measure carried by men who so profoundly disapproved of it, let those judge who read the scathing Protest, inscribed in due form in the journals of the House of Lords by one who went into that lobby, Lord Rosebery, the only living Peer who has been Prime Minister of England.

It is unnecessary to print here more than the tenth and last paragraph of this tremendous indictment. It runs—"Because the whole transaction tends to bring discredit on our country and its institutions."

How under these extraordinary circumstances did the Peerage take sides, old blood and new blood, the governing families and the so-called "backwoodsmen," they who were carving their own names, and they who relied upon the inheritance of names carved by others?

The first group, the "No-Surrender Peers," mustered 114 in the division. Two Bishops were among them, Bangor and Worcester, and a distinguished list of peers, first of their line, including Earl Roberts and Viscount Milner. When the story of our times is written it will be seen that there are few walks of life in which some one of these has not borne an honorable part.

Then at a bound we are transported to the Middle Ages. At the Coronation, when the Abbey Church of Westminster rang to the shouts, "God Save King George!" five Lords of Parliament knelt on the steps of the throne, kissed the King's cheek, and did homage, each as the chief of his rank and representing every noble of it. They are all here:—

The Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal and premier Peer of England, head of the great house of Howard, a name that for five centuries has held its own with highest honor.

The Marquis of Winchester, head of the Paulets, representative of the man who for three long years held Basing House for the King against all the forces which Cromwell could muster, but descended also from that earlier Marquis of Tudor creation, who, when he was asked how in those troublous times he succeeded in retaining the post of Lord High Treasurer, replied, "By being a willow and not an oak." To-day the boot is on the other leg.

The Earl of Shrewsbury, head of the Talbots, a race far famed alike in camp and field from the days of the Plantagenets.

The Viscount Falkland, representative of that noble Cavalier who fell at Newbury.

The Baron Mowbray and Segrave and Stourton, titles which carry us back almost to the days of the Great Charter.

Nor does the feudal train end there. We see also a St. Maur, Duke of Somerset, whose family has aged since in the time of Henry VIII. men scoffed at it as new; a Clinton, Duke of Newcastle; a Percy, Duke and heir of Northumberland, that name of high romance; a De Burgh, Marquis of Clanricarde; a Lindsay, Earl of Crawford, twenty-sixth Earl, and head of a house which for eight centuries has stood on the steps of thrones; a Courtenay, Earl of Devon; an Erskine, Earl of Mar, an earldom whose origin is lost in the mists of antiquity, and many another.

And if we come to later days we have the Duke of Bedford, head of the great Whig house of Russell; the Dukes of Marlborough and Westminster, heirs of capacity and good fortune; Lords Bute and Salisbury, descendants of Prime Ministers; and not only Lord Selborne, but Lords Bathurst and Coventry, Hardwicke and Rosslyn, representatives of past Lord Chancellors.

These, and others such as they, inheritors of traditions bred in their very bones, spurning the suggestion that they should purchase the uncontamination of the Peerage by the forfeiture of their principles, fought the question to the end. If they asked for a motto, surely theirs would have been, "Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra."

And so we pass to the group who abstained, the great mass of the Peerage, too proud to wrangle where they could not win, too wise to knock their heads uselessly against a wall, too loyal not to do their utmost to spare their King. More than three hundred followed Lord Lansdowne's lead, taking for their motto, perhaps, the "Cavendo tutus" of his son-in-law. And still there was fiery blood among them, and strong men swelling with righteous indignation. There were Gay Gordons, as well as a cautious Cavendish, an Irish Beresford to quicken a Dutch Bentinck, and a Graham of Montrose as well as a Campbell of Argyll. Three Earls, Pembroke, Powis, and Carnarvon, represented the cultured family of Herbert, and, as a counterpoise to the Duke of Northumberland, we see six Peers of the doughty Douglas blood. Lord Curzon found by his side three other Curzons, and the Duke of Atholl three Murrays from the slopes of the Grampians. There were many-acred potentates, such as the Dukes of Beaufort and Hamilton and Rutland, Lord Bath, Lord Leicester, and Lord Lonsdale, and names redolent of history, a Butler, Marquis of Ormonde, a Cecil, Marquis of Exeter, the representative of Queen Elizabeth's Lord Burleigh, and a Stanley, Earl of Derby, a name which to this day stirs Lancashire blood. If it were a question of tactics, then Earl Nelson agreed with the Duke of Wellington, and they were backed by seven others whose peerages had been won in battle on land or sea in the course of the last century; while if the Law should be considered, there were nine descendants of Lord Chancellors. Coming to more recent times, there was the son of John Lawrence of the Punjab, and of Alfred Tennyson the poet, Lord St. Aldwyn and Lord Balfour of Burleigh and Lord Lister, and Lords Rothschild, Aldenham, and Revelstoke. What need to mention more?—for there were men representative of every interest in every quarter; but if we wish to close this list with two names which might seem to link together the Constitutional history of these islands, let us note that there was agreement as to action between Viscount Peel, the sole surviving ex-Speaker of the House of Commons, and Lord Wrottesley, the head of the only family which can claim as of its name and blood one of the original Knights of the Garter.

What more is there to say? As, nearly two years ago, we stood round the telegraph-boards watching the election results coming in, many of us saw that the Peerage was falling. The end has come quicker than we expected. The Empire may repent, a new Constitution may spring into being, and there may be raised again a Second Chamber destined to be far stronger than that which has passed, but it will never be the proud House of Peers far-famed in English history.



THE TURKISH-ITALIAN WAR

EUROPE SEIZES THE LAST OF NORTHERN AFRICA A.D. 1911

WILLIAM T. ELLIS

THE WAR CORRESPONDENTS

Italy, by her sudden action in seizing possession of Tripoli in September of 1911, established the authority and suzerainty of western Europe over the last unclaimed strip of territory along the African shore of the Mediterranean.

For over a thousand years the Mohammedans, as represented by either Arabs or Turks, held control of this southern half of the classic Mediterranean Sea. During the past century France, England, and Spain have been snatching this land from the helpless Turks, and Europeanizing it. Only the barren, desert stretch between Egypt and Tunis remained. It seemed almost too worthless for occupation. But a few Italian colonists had settled there, and Italy resolved to annex the land.

Few wars have ever been so obviously forced by a determined marauder upon a helpless victim. Italy wanted to show her strength, both to her own people and to assembled Europe. Hence she prepared her armies and then delivered to Turkey, the nominal suzerain of Tripoli, a sudden ultimatum. The Turks must do exactly what Italy demanded, and immediately, or Italy would seize Tripoli. The "Young Turks" offered every possible concession; but Italy, hurriedly rejecting every proposition, made the seizure she had planned.

The strife that followed had its opera-bouffe aspect in the utter helplessness of far-off Turkey, incapable of reaching the seat of war; but it had also its tragic scandal in the accusation of cruelty made against the Italian troops. It had also, in the Balkan wars and other changes which sprang more or less directly from it, a permanent effect upon the political affairs of Europe as well as upon those of Africa.

WILLIAM T. ELLIS[1]

[Footnote 1: Reprinted by permission from Lippincott's Magazine.]

There are conversational compensations for life in the Orient. Talk does not grow stale when there are always the latest phases of "the great game" of international politics to gossip about. Men do not discuss baseball performances in the cafes of Constantinople; but the latest story of how Von Bieberstein, the German Ambassador, bulldozed Haaki Pasha, the Grand Vizier, and sent the latter whining among his friends for sympathy, is far more piquant. The older residents among the ladies of the diplomatic corps, whose visiting list extends "beyond the curtain," have their own well-spiced tales to tell of "the great game" as it is played behind the latticed windows of the harem. It is not only in London and Berlin and Washington and Paris that wives and daughters of diplomats boost the business of their men-folk. In this mysterious, women's world of Turkey there are curious complications; as when a Young Turk, with a Paris veneer, has taken as second or third wife a European woman. One wonders which of these heavily veiled figures on the Galata Bridge, clad in hideous ezars, is an Englishwoman or a Frenchwoman or a Jewess.

Night and day, year in and year out, with all kinds of chessmen, and with an infinite variety of byplays, "the great game" is played in Constantinople. The fortunes of the players vary, and there are occasional—very occasional—open rumpuses; but the players and the stakes remain the same. Nobody can read the newspaper telegrams from Tripoli and Constantinople intelligently who has not some understanding of the real game that is being carried on; and in which an occasional war is only a move.

The bespectacled professor of ancient history is best qualified to trace the beginning of this game; for there is no other frontier on the face of the globe over which there has been so much fighting as over that strip of water which divides Europe from Asia, called, in its four separate parts, the Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, the Dardanelles, and the Aegean Sea. Centuries before men began to date their calendars "A.D.," the city on the Bosporus was a prize for which nations struggled. All the old-world dominions—Greek, Macedonian, Persian, Roman—fought here; and for hundreds of years Byzantium was the capital of the Roman and Christian world. The Crusaders and the Saracens did a choice lot of fighting over this battle-ground; and it was here that the doughty warrior, Paul of Tarsus, broke into Europe, as first invader in the greatest of conquests. Along this narrow line of beautiful blue water the East menacingly confronts the West. Turkey's capital, as a sort of Mr.-Facing-Both-Ways, bestrides the water; for Scutari, in Asia, is essentially a part of Greater Constantinople. That simple geographical fact really pictures Turkey's present condition: it is rent by the struggle of the East with the West, Asia with Europe, in its own body.

"The great game" of to-day, rather than of any hoary and romantic yesterday, holds the interest of the modern man. Player Number One, even though he sits patiently in the background in seeming stolidity, is big-boned, brawny, hairy, thirsty Russia. Russia wants water, both here and in the far East. His whole being cries from parched depths for the taste of the salt waters of the Mediterranean and the China Sea. At present his ships may not pass through the Dardanelles: the jealous Powers have said so. But Russia is the most patient nation on earth; his "manifest destiny" is to sit in the ancient seat of dominion on the Bosporus. Calmly, amid all the turbulence of international politics, he awaits the prize that is assuredly his; but while he waits he plots and mines and prepares for ultimate success. A past master of secret spying, wholesale bribery, and oriental intrigue, is the nation which calls its ruler the "Little Father" on earth, second only to the Great Father in heaven. If one is curious and careful, one may learn which of the Turkish statesmen are in Russian pay.

Looming larger—apparently—than Russia amid the minarets upon the lovely Constantinople horizon is Germany, the Marooned Nation. Restless William shrewdly saw that Turkey offered him the likeliest open door for German expansion and for territorial emancipation. So he played courtier to his "good friend, Abdul Hamid," and to the Prophet Mohammed (they still preserve at Damascus the faded remains of the wreath he laid upon Saladin's tomb the day he made the speech which betrayed Europe and Christendom), and in return had his vanity enormously ministered to. His visit to Jerusalem is probably the most notable incident in the history of the Holy City since the Crusades. Moreover, he carried away the Bagdad Railway concession in his carpet-bag. By this he expects to acquire the cotton and grain fields of Mesopotamia, which he so sorely needs in his business, and also to land at the front door of India, in case he should ever have occasion to pay a call, social or otherwise, upon his dear English cousins.

True, the advent of the Turkish constitution saw Germany thrown crop and heels out of his snug place at Turkey's capital, while that comfortable old suitor, Great Britain, which had been biting his finger-nails on the doorstep, was welcomed smiling once more into the parlor. Great was the rejoicing in London when Abdul Hamid's "down-and-out" performance carried his trusted friend William along. The glee changed to grief when, within a year—so quickly does the appearance of the chess-board change in "the great game"—Great Britain was once more on the doorstep, and fickle Germany was snuggling close to Young Turkey on the divan in the dimly lighted parlor. Virtuous old Britain professed to be shocked and horrified; he occupied himself with talking scandal about young Germany, when he should have been busy trying to supplant him. Few chapters in modern diplomatic history are more surprising than the sudden downfall and restoration of Germany in Turkish favor. With reason does the Kaiser give Ambassador von Bieberstein, "the ablest diplomat in Europe," constant access to the imperial ear, regardless of foreign-office red tape. During the heyday of the Young Turk party's power, this astute old player of the game was the dominant personality in Turkey.

The disgruntled and disappointed Britons have comforted themselves with prophecy—how often have I heard them at it in the cosmopolitan cafes of Constantinople!—the burden of their melancholy lay being that some day Turkey would learn who is her real friend. That is the British way. They believe in their divine right to the earth and the high places thereof. They are annoyed and rather bewildered when they see Germany cutting in ahead of them, especially in the commerce of the Orient; any Englishman "east of Suez" can give a dozen good reasons why Germany is an incompetent upstart; but however satisfactory and soothing to the English soul this line of philosophy may be, it drives no German merchantmen from the sea and no German drummers from the land. The supineness of the British in the face of the German inroads into their ancient preserves is amazing to an American, who, as one of their own poets has said,

Turns a keen, untroubled face Home to the instant need of things.

In this case, however, the proverbial luck of the British has been with them. The steady decline of their historic prestige in the near East was suddenly arrested by Italy's declaration of war. For more than a generation Turkey has been the pampered enfant terrible of international politics, violating the conventions and proprieties with impunity; feeling safe amid the jealousies of the players of "the great game." Every important nation has a bill of grievances to settle with Turkey; America's claim, for instance, includes the death of two native-born American citizens, Rogers and Maurer, slain in the Adana massacre, under the constitution. Nobody has been punished for this crime, because, forsooth, it happened in Turkey. Italy made a pretext of a cluster of these grievances, and startled the world by her claims upon Tripoli, accompanied by an ultimatum. Turkey tried to temporize. Pressed, she turned to Germany with a "Now earn your wages. Get me out of this scrape, and call off your ally."

And Germany could not. With the taste of Morocco dirt still on his tongue, the Kaiser had to take another unpalatable mouthful in Constantinople. His boasted power, upon which the Turks had banked so heavily, and for the sake of which they had borne so much humiliation, proved unequal to the demand. He could not help his friend the Sultan. Italy would have none of his mediation; for reasons that will hereinafter appear.

Then came Britain's vindication. The Turks turned to this historic and preeminent friend for succor. The Turkish cabinet cabled frantically to Great Britain to intercede for them; the people in mass-meeting in ancient St. Sophia's echoed the same appeal. For grim humor, the spectacle has scarcely an equal in modern history. Besought and entreated, the British, who no doubt approved of Italy's move from the first, declined to pull Turco-German chestnuts out of the fire. "Ask Cousin William to help you," was the ironical implication of their attitude. Well did Britain know that if the situation were saved, the Germans would somehow manage to get the credit of it. And if the worst should come, Great Britain could probably meet it with Christian fortitude! For in that eventuality the Bagdad Railway concession would be nullified, and Britain would undoubtedly take over all of the Arabian Peninsula, which is logically hers, in the light of her Persian Gulf and Red Sea claims. The break-up of Turkey would settle the Egyptian question, make easy the British acquisition of southern Persia, and put all the holy places of Islam under the strong hand of the British power, where they would be no longer powder-magazines to worry the dreams of Christendom. Far-sighted moves are necessary in "the great game."

Small wonder that Germany became furious; and that the Berlin newspapers burst out in denunciations of Italy's wicked and piratical land-grabbing—a morsel of rhetoric following so hard upon the heels of the Morocco episode that it gave joy to all who delight in hearing the pot rail at the kettle. "The great game" is not without its humors. But the sardonic joke of the business lies deeper than all this. The Kaiser had openly coquetted with the Sultan upon the policy of substituting Turkey for Italy in the Triple Alliance. Turkey has a potentially great army: the one thing the Turk can do well is to fight. With a suspicious eye upon Neighbor Russia, the Kaiser figured it out that Turkey would be more useful to him than Italy, especially since the Abyssinian episode had so seriously discredited the latter. Then, of a sudden, with a poetic justice that is delicious, Italy turns around and humiliates the nation that was to take its place The whole comic situation resembles nothing more nearly than a supposedly defunct spouse rising from his death-bed to thrash the expectant second husband of his wife.

Here "the great game" digresses in another direction, that takes no account of Turkey. Of course, it was more than a self-respecting desire to avenge affronts that led Italy to declare war against Turkey; and also more than a hunger for the territory of Tripoli. Italy needed to solidify her national sentiment at home, in the face of growing socialism and clever clericalism. Even more did she need to show the world that she is still a first-class power. There has been a disposition of late years to leave her out of the international reckoning. Now, at one skilful jump, she is back in the game—and on better terms than ever with the Vatican, for she will look well to all the numerous Latin missions in the Turkish Empire, and especially in Palestine. These once were France's special care, and are yet, to a degree; but France is out of favor with the Church, and steadily declining from her former place in the Levant, although French continues to be the "lingua franca" of merchandising, of polite society, and of diplomacy, in the Near East.

Let nobody think that this is lugging religion by the ears into "the great game." Religion, even more than national or racial consciousness, is one of the principal players. In America politicians try to steer clear of religion; although even here a cherry cocktail mixed with Methodism has been known to cost a man the possible nomination for the Presidency. In the Levant, however, religion is politics. The ambitions and policies of Germany, Russia, and Britain are less potent factors in the ultimate and inevitable dissolution of Turkey than the deep-seated resolution of some tens of millions of people to see the cross once more planted upon St. Sophia's. Ask anybody in Greece or the Balkans or European Russia what "the great idea" is, and you will get for an answer, "The return of the cross to St. Sophia's." Backward and even benighted Christians these Eastern churchmen may be, but they hold a few fundamental ideas pretty fast, and are readier to fight for them than their occidental brethren.

The world may as well accept, as the principal issue of "the great game" that centers about Constantinople, the fact that the war begun twelve hundred years ago by the dusky Arabian camel-driver is still on. This Turco-Italian scrape is only one little skirmish in it.

* * * * *

The outbreak of war between Italy and Turkey came as a surprize to the great majority of the European public, and even in Italy until the last moment few believed that the crisis would come to a head so soon. Those who had closely followed the course of political opinion in the country during the past year, however, saw that a change had come over the public spirit of Italy, and that a new attitude toward questions of foreign policy was being adopted. It may be of interest in the present circumstances to examine the causes and the course of this development.

Since the completion of Italian unity with the fall of the Temporal Power in 1870, the Italian people had devoted all its energies to internal affairs, for everything had to be created—roads, railways, ports, improved agriculture, industry, schools, scientific institutions, the public services, were either totally lacking or quite inadequate to the needs of a great modern nation. Above all, the finances of the State, shattered by the wars of independence and by bad administration, had to be placed on a sound footing. Consequently, foreign affairs attracted but slight public interest. Such a state of things was at that time inevitable owing to the precarious situation at home, but it proved a most unfortunate necessity, as it was during this very period that the great no-man's-lands of Asia and Africa were being partitioned among the other nations, and vast uncultivated, undeveloped, and thinly populated territories annexed by various European Powers, and converted into important colonial empires offering splendid outlets for trade and emigration. Italy had appeared last in this field, when nearly all the best lands had been annexed and when conquests could not be attempted, even in the still available regions, without large, well-organized armed forces and a determined, intelligent, and well-informed public opinion to back them up. In Italy neither was to be found. The country was too poor to launch forth into colonial and foreign politics with any chance of success, and the people were too untraveled and too little acquainted with the development of other countries to pay much attention to events outside Italy, or, at all events, outside Europe.

In the meanwhile, considerable progress in the economic and social conditions of the Italian people had been achieved, and by grinding economy and incredible sacrifices the finances were being restored. There came a moment, however, when the need for colonial expansion began to be felt. As a sop to public opinion, which had been exasperated by the French occupation of Tunis, the Italian Government decided in 1885 to occupy Massowah and the surrounding territories on the Red Sea coast. But that country was not suited to Italian colonization, and Italy was not yet ready to develop a purely trading colony at so great a distance from the homeland. A long series of errors were committed, relieved at times by the heroism and devotion of the army fighting against huge odds in an inhospitable and unknown land, culminating in the disaster of Adowa in 1896. What wrought the greatest injury to Italian prestige was not so much the defeat in itself as the fact that it was allowed to remain unavenged. There was a fresh Italian army on the scene under an admirable leader, General Baldissera, who enjoyed the full confidence of his men, and it was clear that the Abyssinian forces could not hold together much longer. The Premier, however, Signor Crispi, a man of unquestioned ability, but who lived in advance of his time, before the nation was ready to follow him in his Imperial policy, was overwhelmed by a storm of indignation, and his successor, Marchese di Rudini, terrified by the riots promoted by unscrupulous Socialist and Anarchist agitators as a protest against the African campaign, concluded a disastrous peace with the enemy.

In the meanwhile, Italian Socialism, which had found a suitable field for action in the unsatisfactory condition of the working class, had evolved a theory of government which, although common to some extent to the Socialists of other countries, was nowhere carried to such lengths as in Italy. Socialism in theory has everywhere adopted an attitude of hostility to militarism, imperialism, and patriotism, and professes to be internationalist and pacificist, and regards class hatred and civil disorders as the only moral and praiseworthy forms of warfare. But in countries where the masses have reached a certain degree of political education such views, if carried to their logical conclusion, are sure to be rejected by the majority, and even the Socialist leaders realize that Nationalism is a vital force which has to be reckoned with, and that a sane Imperialism and efficient military policy are as necessary in the interests of the masses as in those of the classes. In Italy, on the other hand, where even the bourgeoisie took but a lukewarm interest in the wider questions of world policy, the Socialist leaders conducted an avowedly anti-patriotic propaganda against every form of national sentiment, against the very existence of Italy as a nation, and they achieved considerable success. By representing patriotism and the army as the causes of low wages, and war and colonial Imperialism as the result of purely capitalist intrigues because it is only the capitalists who profit by such adventures, they met with wide-spread acceptance among a large part of the working classes.

Thus a general feeling got possession of the Italian people that war was played out, and that even if it were to occur Italy was sure to be defeated by any other Power, that nothing must be done to provoke the resentment of the foreigner, that the only form of expansion to be encouraged was emigration to foreign lands, and even the export trade which was growing so rapidly was looked upon askance by the Socialists as a mere capitalist instrument. This attitude, which was certainly not conducive to a healthy public spirit, was reflected in the conduct of the Government, which felt that it would not be backed by the nation if it gave signs of energy. The result was that Italy found her interests blocked at every turn by other nations which were not imbued with such "humanitarian" theories, and that she was subjected to countless humiliations on the part of Governments who were convinced that under no provocation would Italy show resentment.

Gradually and imperceptibly a change came over public feeling, and the necessity for a sane and vigorous patriotism began to be dimly realized. One of the earliest symptoms of this new attitude was the publication, in 1903, of Federigo Garlanda's La terza Italia; the book professed to be written by a friendly American observer and critic of Italian affairs, and the author regards the absence of militant patriotism as the chief cause of Italy's weakness in comparison with other nations. Mario Morasso, in his volume, L'Imperialismo nel Secolo XX, published in 1905, opened fire on the still predominant Socialistic internationalism and sentimental humanitarianism, and extolled the policy of conquest and expansion adopted by Great Britain, Germany, France, and the United States as a means of strengthening the fiber of the national character.

In December, 1910, a congress of Italian Nationalists was held in Florence, and at that gathering, which was attended by several hundred persons, including numerous well-known names, many aspects of Italian national life were examined and discussed. The various speakers impressed on their hearers the importance of Nationalism as the basis for all political thought and action. The weakness of the country, the contempt which other nations felt for Italy, the unsatisfactory state both of home and foreign politics, and the poverty of a large part of the population, were all traced to the absence of a sane and vigorous patriotism. The strengthening of the army and navy, the development of a military spirit among the people, a radical change of direction in the conduct of the nation's foreign policy, and the ending of the present attitude of subservience to all other Powers, great or small, were regarded as the first desiderata of the country. The Turks, too, who since the revolution of 1908 had become particularly truculent toward the Italians, especially in Tripoli, also came in for rough treatment, and various speakers demanded that the Government should secure adequate protection for Italian citizens and trade in the Ottoman Empire, and that a watch should be kept on Tripoli lest others seized it before the moment for Italian occupation arrived. Signor Corradini insisted that there were worse things for a nation than war, and that the occasional necessity for resort to the "dread arbitrament" must be boldly faced by any nation worthy of the name.

The congress proved a success, and the ideas expressed in it which had been "in the air" for some time were accepted by a considerable number of people. The Nationalist Association was founded then and there and soon gathered numerous adherents; a new weekly paper, L'Idea Nazionale, commenced publication on March 1, 1911 (the anniversary of Adowa), and rapidly became an important organ of public opinion, while several dailies and reviews adopted Nationalist principles or viewed them with sympathy. Italian Nationalism has no resemblance to the parties of the same name in France, Ireland, or elsewhere; indeed, it is not really a party at all, for it gathers in Liberals, Conservatives, Radicals, Clericals, Socialists even, provided they accept the patriotic idea and are anxious to see their country raised to a higher place in the congress of nations even at the cost of some sacrifice.

Italy, according to Professor Sighele (Il Nazionalismo ed i Partiti politici p. 80 sq.), must be Imperialist in order to prevent the closing up of all the openings whence the nation receives its oxygen, and to prevent the Adriatic from becoming more and more an Austrian lake, to prevent even the Mediterranean from being closed around us like a camp guarded by hostile sentinels, and to provide a field of activity for our emigrants wherein they will enjoy that protection which they now lack, and which only a bold foreign policy, a thorough preparation for war, and a clear Imperialist attitude on the part of the rulers of the State can give them.

For some time the Government continued to appear impervious to the Nationalist spirit and professed to regard the movement as a schoolboy's game. But it could not long remain indifferent to so wide-spread a feeling. Italy's relations with Turkey were rapidly approaching a crisis. The new Ottoman regime, while it was proving no better than the old in the matter of corruption, inefficiency, and persecution of the subject-races, had one new feature—an outburst of rabid chauvinism and of hatred for all foreigners, but especially for Italians, whom the Young Turks regarded as the weakest of nations. Never had Italian prestige fallen so low in the Levant as at this period, and the Italian Government did nothing to retrieve the situation. In Tripoli, above all, where Italy's reversionary interest had been sanctioned by agreements with England and France, the position of Italian citizens and firms was rendered well-nigh intolerable. Turkish persecution reached such a point that two Italians, the monk, Father Giustino, and the merchant, Gastone Terreni, were assassinated at the instigation and with the complicity of the authorities, without any redress being obtained.

The Nationalists since the beginning of their propaganda had agitated for a firmer attitude toward Turkey, insisting on the opening up of Tripoli to Italian enterprise. Italy was being hemmed in on all sides by France in Algeria and Tunisia, and by England in Egypt; Tripolitaine alone remained as a possible outlet for her eventual expansion. The Turkish Government did nothing for the development of that province, but it was determined that no one else should do anything for it, and thwarted the efforts of every Italian enterprise, the Banco di Roma alone succeeding by ceaseless activity and untiring patience in creating important undertakings in the African vilayet.

Had events pursued their normal course Italy would probably have been content to develop her commercial interests in Tripolitaine to the advantage of its inhabitants as well as of her own, waiting for the time when in due course the country should fall to her share. But the persistent hostility of the Turkish authorities was bringing matters to a head, and while the Italian Government apparently refused to regard the state of affairs as serious, the Nationalists continued to demand the assertion of Italy's interests in Tripoli. The Press gradually adopted their point of view, the Idea Nazionale published Corradini's vivid letters from Tripoli, and even Ministerial organs like the Tribuna of Rome and the Stampa of Turin, following the lead of their correspondents who visited Tripolitaine during the past spring and summer and wrote of its resources and possibilities with enthusiasm, were soon converted. If any nation has a right to colonies it is Italy with her rapidly increasing population, her small territory, and her streams of emigrants. Still the Government, from fear of international complications and of alienating its Socialist supporters, who, of course, opposed all idea of territorial expansion, refused to do anything. Then the Franco-German Morocco bombshell burst, and Agadir made the Italian people realize that the question of Tripoli called for immediate solution. The whole of the rest of Mediterranean Africa was about to be partitioned among the Powers, and Tripoli would certainly not be left untouched if Italy failed to make good her claims; Germany, it is believed, had cast her eyes on it, and already her commercial agents and prospectors were on the spot. The demands for an occupation by Italy were insistent; all classes were calling on the Government to act, and in Genoa there were even angry mutterings of revolt. The nation realized that it was a case of now or never, and every one felt that the folly of Tunis must not be repeated.

At the same time the Turks, convinced that Italy would never fight, continued in their overbearing attitude, and placed increasing obstacles in the way of Italian enterprise in all parts of the Empire while ostentatiously favoring other foreign undertakings. Incidents such as the abduction of an Italian girl and her forcible conversion to Islam and marriage to a Turk, and the attacks on Italian vessels in the Red Sea, added fuel to the flame, and public opinion became more and more excited. The Premier at last saw that the country was practically unanimous on the question of Tripoli, and although personally averse to all adventures in the field of foreign affairs which interfered with his political action at home, he realized that unless he faced the situation boldly his prestige was gone. On the 20th of September the expedition to Tripoli was decided. Hastily and secretly military preparations were made, and the Note concerning the sending of Turkish reinforcements or arms to Tripoli was issued. Then followed the ultimatum, and finally the declaration of war. The Socialist leaders, who saw in this awakening of a national conscience and of a militant Imperialist spirit a serious menace to their own predominance, were in a state of frenzy, and they attempted to organize a general strike as a protest against the Government. But the movement fizzled out miserably, and only an insignificant number of workmen struck.

On the other hand, the declaration of war was greeted by an outburst of popular enthusiasm such as no one believed possible in the Italy of to-day. The departure or passage of the troops on their way to Tripoli gave occasion for scenes of the most intense patriotic excitement, and the sight of some two hundred thousand people in the streets of Rome at one A.M. on October 7th, cheering the march past of the 82d infantry regiment, is one not easily forgotten. The heart of the whole nation was in the enterprise. Even many prominent Socialists, casting the shackles of party fealty to the winds, declared themselves in favor of the Government's African policy and accepted the occupation of Tripoli as a necessity for the country, while the Clericals were even more enthusiastic. But there was hardly a trace of anti-Turkish feeling; it was simply that the people, rejoiced at having awakened from the long nightmare of political apathy and international servility, had thrown off the grinding and degrading yoke of Socialist tyranny, and risen to a dawn of higher ideals of national dignity. Italy had at last asserted herself. The extraordinary efficiency, speed, and secrecy with which the expedition was organized, shipped across the Mediterranean, and landed in Africa, the discipline, moral, and gallantry which both soldiers and sailors displayed, were a revelation to everybody and gave the Italians new confidence in their military forces, and made them feel that they could hold up their heads before all the world unashamed. A new Italy was born—the Italy of the Italian nation. In the words of Mameli's immortal hymn, which has been revived as the war-song of the Nationalists,

"Fratelli d'Italia, l'Italia s'e desta, Dell' elmo di Scipio s'e cinta la testa."

The actual operations of the war were too one-sided to be interesting from the military viewpoint. Turkey had no navy which could compete for a moment with that of Italy. Hence the Turks could dispatch no troops whatever to Tripoli, and its defense devolved solely upon the native Arab inhabitants. These wild tribes were brave and warlike and fanatically Mohammedan in their opposition to the Christian invaders. But they were wholly without training in modern modes of warfare and without modern weapons. Their frenzied rushes and antiquated guns were helpless in the face of quick-firing artillery.

The Italians demonstrated their ability to handle their own forces, to transport troops, land them and provision them with speed and skill. That was about all the struggle established. On October 3d the city of Tripoli, the only important Tripolitan harbor, was bombarded. Two days later the soldiers landed and took possession of it. For a month following, there were minor engagements with the Arabs of the neighborhood, night attacks upon the Italians, rumors that they lost their heads and shot down scores of unarmed and unresisting natives. Then on November 5th Italy proclaimed that she had conquered and annexed Tripoli.