Societies whose proceedings caused much disquiet to many Continental governments. In these circumstances the student thought it prudent to desist from farther inquiries.

The young man ultimately attained a high position on the Judicial Bench, but even then he never wavered in his opinion that the man he had encountered thus mysteriously was not only gifted with rare intellectual powers, but that he was one of those singular beings who are endowed with an extraordinary spiritual influence,a potent and subtle influence such as that first brought before the world and practised

practised by the celebrated Mesmer. For the general public, however, the mystery of the Unknown Tenant and his unhappy servant remained unsolved, for never again were they seen in that ill-omened house. Never again were they seen in Raymond's Buildings; but from time to time it was whispered with bated breath that dimly visible beneath the

spreading branches of Lord Bacon's tree in the old gardens appeared the figure of a man closely wrapped in the folds of a heavy cloak. The face was hidden, but the extended hand pointed with menacing gesture to a dark and crimson stain that formed an ugly blot amidst the leafy shadows. Woe to him to whom this vision came, for trouble was near at hand!

After a prudent interval of silence Mr. Kitway ventured to relate his own experiences. At first his tale was well received, but familiarity bred the inevitable result, and Mr. Kitway's friends became incredulous. However, the good little man increased and prospered; that is to say his family increased and his business prospered; nor did the gold pieces he had received from the Mysterious Unknown turn into dry leaves or bits of charcoal, as they must inevitably have done had they come direct from the Evil One himself.

ANDRÉE HOPE.

POLITICS are a mesmerism, perhaps a muddle. Men are moved by a person, or a party, or a passion; and not until the first is dead, the second is defeated, or the third has been exhausted, can they see a tendency, or understand the direction in which they have been moving. Hence it is that the new in dress, in literature, or in art, always obtains recognition sooner than the new in politics. Men who ought to know better, say there is nothing new in politics, and they claim to be Radicals. Others are always on the alert for the new, and they claim to be Conservatives. The individual politician, in fine, is a blind billiard ball until the period of change is over or the historian can interpret it for him, and then he discovers that he was in reality a Conservative when he most loudly proclaimed himself to be a Liberal, or that he took part in a revolution when he thought he was marching safely along the ancient ways.

At the present moment we are living in the middle of a new political system, and few persons seem to be ware of it. Men are bewildered, full of pessimism, concreting themselves into organisations, groping after salvation by the Caucus or the Constitution, as if everything were in flux and darkness. An Englishman touched with politics is madly afraid of a generalisation. He leaves that to Frenchmen, with the pathetic remark that it ends in the Emperor or the Red Revolution. He goes muddling on, first under one kind of mesmerism, and then under another. In the days before 1832 he failed to understand that he was the toy, if not the victim, of a number of ruling families. The feudal system had gone with the feudal monarch, but the territorial families remained.

After 1832, when the House of Commons had been rescued from the grasp of these families under the disguise of enfranchising the people, he was just as little conscious that the play of political parties was in reality a struggle for equalisation between towns and counties, a rivalry of commerce and agriculture in which the former succeeded in getting the ascendency. Household suffrage gave the towns complete political ascendency in 1868, thanks to Conservative initiative; but in 1885, without quite understanding the full effect of what they were doing, the Liberals destroyed this ascendency by lifting up the county householder to the same level, and putting the topstone on the new political system as yet wholly unrecognised by either side.

Political parties were never more active than they are now. The struggle is keen, the excitement intense, the speculation wild. Yet Party, as such, is dead. This is a paradox, but it is none the less true. Party rages, but rages in vain. We are in the middle of a new political system, and yet we do not recognise it. Each party strives to regain the dominion common between 1867 and 1832, and still more marked between 1832 and 1688, and each party fails. There is organisation and counter-organisation. Caucus and League exist side by side without accomplishing the restoration desired. Immense efforts are made to avert what is apparently inevitable. Yet for twenty years we have been living under the sway of the new system, and it has suffered no serious break. What had at first the appearance of an erratic oscillation has settled down into a steady rhythm, a constant ebb and flow. The Liberal rule from 1868 to 1874 is succeeded by an equal

period of Conservative rule; and then we have Liberal rule again, a new enfranchisement, an entirely new crisis, an interregnum, to be followed by Conservative rule again.

What do these events teach us? That the old party ascendencies are gone, and that under one uniform suffrage we have entered upon a period of regularly alternating ministries, which is likely to last for some considerable time. The nation wants to be just. The two parties have adherents in the middle and the upper classes, and some slight, but by no means fixed and certain, hold upon the masses of the working class. To-day the mass of working-class voters combines with the majority of the middle-class, and we have a period of Liberal rule; tomorrow it combines with the upperclasses and the minority of the middleclass, and then we have a period of Conservative rule. We are thus saved from the worst effects of party politics, and we obtain the best results of the keenness and activity they promote. The facts cannot be disputed. Up to 1885 the rhythm was perfect. amalgamation of Conservatives and Parnellites nearly gave a working majority. It succeeded in the boroughs, but was checked by the newly enfranchised and newly distributed voters in the counties. When the disturbing When the disturbing effect of this enfranchisement ceased, as it did in 1886, the old rhythm was restored. We can now detect indications of its influence the other way. The formula,

The

66 as in 1885," greatly

amuses some people, but it is only a sectional view which straightens itself into proper perspective under a greater formula, namely as in 1868, as in 1874, as in 1880. There will be a Liberal reaction presently, no doubt, but it will not be ascendency. It will be as surely followed by Conservative rule, as the period between 1868 and 1874 was so followed, to be succeeded in its turn by another term of Liberal rule. That, indeed, is the new system. enfranchised nation saves us from the evils of Party. It gives us regularly It gives us regularly

An

alternating ministries, and it will continue so to do until we pass into another phase of our political history, which will not be yet awhile, when the determining force in these alternations is strong enough, united enough, and inspired enough, to become a majority of its own.

We may put the matter in a less naked form. For example, we might say that we have two forces in current politics, enthusiasm and criticism. The former makes a majority; the latter destroys it. The process is again repeated. Enthusiasm for a leader or a party is generated, and it overwhelms. Action cools it. Mistakes are made, hopes are unfulfilled, criticism is active. We are all cynics in these competitive times. Where argument cannot demolish, humour kills. Things which are not excite the imagination. Existing things invite analysis and censure. We pull down with one hand, and begin to build up with the other. Heroes of the platform are often dunces in office, and so we make a change, and the same process is repeated. There is ebb and flow. In the old days of party ascendencies compacts were made in drawing-rooms and at dinner-tables. The people had little real power; where they had such power they followed and would not lead, because they were not sufficiently enfranchised. But now all our government goes on under the eyes of the public. Debates are read, actions are judged, men are measured, policies are sifted, results are appreciated.

A good many things have brought about this alternating movement, and transformed it into a system. The English mind is essentially fair. It will insist upon fair-play, as much in politics as in prize-fighting. Of late this spirit has become more marked because the older differences between the two political parties have disappeared, or have been greatly modified. We have seen Conservatives elected for our large manufacturing towns, and Liberals returned for agricultural

divisions. It has not been always easy to distinguish between the programmes of party rivals. So many reforms have been made by the Conservatives that it is no longer quite fair to describe them in the old phrases. They take up and carry out measures partly sketched, or temporarily abandoned, by their opponents. There are some things they can accomplish better, or at any rate with less friction, than their opponents, owing to their strength in the House of Lords. On the other hand the Liberals seem afraid at times of the operative classes, and fail to attract them, or they spend their strength in one or two directions when more is expected of them. They are bound to remember their middle-class supporters, and they are at times by no means free from whims and bursts of almost impossible purism. Hence it comes about that the masses of the voters remain in a condition of detachment and observation, seeing the chance of getting almost as much from the Conservatives as from the Liberals. They desire to keep each party in a more or less suppliant attitude, believing that to be a better policy than enthroning a single party in a proud and established position. Their votes are eagerly bid for, new programmes make their appearance, the defects of one side are clearly pointed out by the other, and it has hitherto paid the masses of the voters to steadily support the alternate plan. They get reforms quicker,-at least they think so-and, at any rate, they compel politicians to maintain much closer relations with them than have prevailed before in our political history.

The great organisations fail to prevent this alternation. They aim at doing so, and they might succeed but for some of the considerations already

touched upon. The large masses of the electorate retain open minds. They hold aloof from settled organisations. They are not always true to their own small leagues and unions. If they were captured, we might have a long period of party dominance. But there

are so many interests and needs, new questions are so constantly coming up, and independent opinion is so strong in newspapers and in the more educated sections of all classes, that uniformity of action, belief, and aspiration is well nigh impossible. One side will toy with a question, while the other boldly commits itself to specific views and promises. In these ways organisation fails to avert the more widely diffused tendency to change of political voting, and merely accentuates it when the change is beginning. But organisation keeps the two parties on even terms towards the mass of unorganised opinion, and it is, in this way, a blind agent in assisting the alternating tendency because it ensures a due and forcible presentation of each aspect of any accomplished or projected reform, the negative and the positive, the defects and the advantages.

The public benefits of the new political system are very considerable. Our public life is much more interesting than it would be under the plan of party ascendency. All classes can be attracted. There is always something fresh. Legislation is less one-sided. Each section of the community can ensure attention to its fair claims, and can always make its voice heard, sooner or later, in case any temporary injury should be done to its interests either by intention or by carelessness. The rivalry of the two parties is more healthy, and, as the new political system is better understood and so accepted among us, it will become less bitter. The effort to restore the old ascendency accounts for much that is so distasteful to moderate minds in current political life, but, when it is clearly seen that it cannot be restored, there will be better humour and a more catholic spirit. The classes which now fear political ostracism or extinction will take a lively but less intensely personal interest in partyfights, and optimism will prevail where pessimism now reigns supreme.

Oscillations are only dangerous where there is a great dissimilarity

period of Conservative rule; and then we have Liberal rule again, a new enfranchisement, an entirely new crisis, an interregnum, to be followed by Conservative rule again.

The

What do these events teach us? That the old party ascendencies are gone, and that under one uniform suffrage we have entered upon a period of regularly alternating ministries, which is likely to last for some considerable time. The nation wants to be just. The two parties have adherents in the middle and the upper classes, and some slight, but by no means fixed and certain, hold upon the masses of the working class. To-day the mass of working-class voters combines with the majority of the middle-class, and we have a period of Liberal rule; tomorrow it combines with the upperclasses and the minority of the middleclass, and then we have a period of Conservative rule. We are thus saved from the worst effects of party politics, and we obtain the best results of the keenness and activity they promote. The facts cannot be disputed. Up to 1885 the rhythm was perfect. amalgamation of Conservatives and Parnellites nearly gave a working majority. It succeeded in the boroughs, but was checked by the newly enfranchised and newly distributed voters in the counties. When the disturbing effect of this enfranchisement ceased, as it did in 1886, the old rhythm was restored. We can now detect indications of its influence the other way. The formula, "as in 1885," greatly amuses some people, but it is only a sectional view which straightens itself into proper perspective under a greater formula, namely as in 1868, as in 1874, as in 1880. There will be a Liberal reaction presently, no doubt, but it will not be ascendency. It will be as surely followed by Conservative rule, as the period between 1868 and 1874 was so followed, to be succeeded in its turn by another term of Liberal rule. That, indeed, is the new system. enfranchised nation saves us from the evils of Party. It gives us regularly

An

alternating ministries, and it will continue so to do until we pass into another phase of our political history, which will not be yet awhile, when the determining force in these alternations is strong enough, united enough, and inspired enough, to become a majority of its own.

We may put the matter in a less naked form. For example, we might say that we have two forces in current politics, — enthusiasm and criticism. The former makes a majority; the latter destroys it. The process is again repeated. Enthusiasm for a leader or a party is generated, and it overwhelms. Action cools it. Mistakes are made, hopes are unfulfilled, criticism is active. We are all cynics in these competitive times. Where argument cannot demolish, humour kills. Things which are not excite the imagination. Existing things invite analysis and censure. We pull down with one hand, and begin to build up with the other. Heroes of the platform are often dunces in office, and so we make a change, and the same process is repeated. There is ebb and flow. the old days of party ascendencies compacts were made in drawing-rooms and at dinner-tables. The people had little real power; where they had such power they followed and would not lead, because they were not sufficiently enfranchised. But now all our government goes on under the eyes of the public. Debates are read, actions are judged, men are measured, policies are sifted, results are appreciated.

In

A good many things have brought about this alternating movement, and transformed it into a system. The English mind is essentially fair. It will insist upon fair-play, as much in politics as in prize-fighting. Of late this spirit has become more marked because the older differences between the two political parties have disappeared, or have been greatly modified. We have seen Conservatives elected for our large manufacturing towns, and Liberals returned for agricultural