content themselves with what is far less than a living wage, for the pleasure that their work gives them. One eminent historian has calculated that he was rewarded for the work of years at the rate of fourpence a page. And this happened to him, not because he was exploited by a harsh employer, but merely because the "people" took little interest in him or in his history. Had he belonged to a trade union he would have been put to the discipline. A harsh and turbulent leader would have denounced him for a blackleg. His study would have been picketed, himself threatened, and his books dispersed, that organised labour might exert its proper tyranny. No; Mr Barnes may make his mind easy. He will have to get along, as best he may, without adding literary patronage to his virtues or his vices. For the man of letters is a stubborn man, who will not brook the domination or interference of others, nor accept the lowest ideal ever shaped by manthe ideal of short hours and high wages. They are in love neither with prose, except popular novelists, fanaticism nor with lack of humour. They see little virtue in noisy fanaticism and in the general abuse of their native land. They detest the blackmail of "direct action" as bitterly as they detest the constant braggart threat of revolution. Moreover, men of letters prefer freedom to work when and how they please to the tyrannical domination of a trade committee. They will not be debarred from their industry if it seems good to them to write ten hours a day, nor will they surrender their strength and energy to give a better chance to an idle waster next door. In spite of Mr Barnes, the patron died many long years ago, and while he lived he was a better friend to the man of letters than would be a Labour leader, ready to interfere on any ground or none with the writer's desire to express what was in him. Here, then, is one chief reason why men of letters will never bow the knee to Mr Barnes and his friends they will have nothing to do with a purposeless tyranny. Another reason for their fierce repudiation of trade unions is that they have It is unlikely that the Labour another ideal than high wages Commission, which went on a and short hours. They respect jaunt to Ireland, would ever their work for its own sake, move a jot from the position and are not always thinking it had taken up were the most of what it will bring them, or cogent evidence presented on by what artifice they may lessen the other side. If it were not their toil and increase their frozen into prejudice, we would income. Poets have been recommend to its notice the known to sing because they "Documents relative to the must, and most writers of Sinn Fein Movement," lately published as a White Paper by the Government. Much of the disgraceful story was already familiar to us, but many details are elaborated and many lacunæ filled up. How, after the revelations of their abject treachery, the Sinn Feiners can ask the world for sympathy is not easily intelligible, except on the ground that Irish rebels have other standards of sense and morals than those of the rest of us. They want to have all the dice loaded in their favour. They think that they should win, whatever happens, and they obstinately protest that what is a crime in others is a supreme virtue in them. Above all, they are so well skilled in the thimble-rig of politics that they can win the wirepullers of America over to their side. And at last the truth of their inherent treachery is out, and it is as little likely to perturb the self-satisfied complacency of a single blood-stained Sinn Feiner as it is to soften the acrimony of Sinn Fein's interested friends in the United States. And as we read the account of the foolish plot hatched between Ireland and Germany, we understand something of Sinn Fein's futility. Casement and Kuno Meyer, ineffable traitors both, who had accepted favours at England's hands and lived upon her generosity, told their silly victims that the outcome of the War would be to free the seas and free Ireland. They were believed by the credulous, who knew no better, and not one of them saw the plain truth that, if ever Ireland fell under the sway of the Germans, she would very soon be dragooned into servile obedience. No sympathy with Home Rule would be felt, nor would rebellion have been tolerated by the Boche with England's culpable nonchalance. But the Sinn Feiners knew nothing of these things. They were to be "free," and they knew not what freedom was. When Roger Casement assured them that "the German Government desires only the welfare of the Irish people, their country and their institutions," they were filled with a bloodthirsty enthusiasm. They were persuaded also that "their friends in America will pay all expenses," and it seemed they had as little to fear as to lose. The miserable Casement himself discovered before his well-deserved death what the kindliness of the Boche meant, but for a while he was able to simulate a faith in them. Tell all to trust the Germans," he wrote to Professor M'Neill, "and to trust me. We shall win everything if you are brave and faithful to the old cause. Try and send me word here to Berlin by the same channel as this. Tell me all your needs at home-viz., rifles, officers, men." They were all in it, the Irish at home and in America, and Herr Bernstorff himself. It ended in nothing except the Easter Rebellion, which was shameful enough, normal in colour. At all elevations there were outcrops of rock. The climbing proved so stiff, I had to sound the halt every ten minutes; we streamed with perspiration and our eyes smarted. It was a relief when we turned a corner and found our path ran level for a time, following the curve of a giant landslide. I halted here while the jemadar took his party to reconnoitre the top of the cliff above, as it was a likely place for stone shoots. These are manufactured avalanches of stones and boulders, built up behind felled trees. The trees are anchored with cane ropes, and when the ropes are cut the avalanche scurries down and obliterates the path and anything on it, and ends up in the depths. When the path can be fired on to from an opposite slope, the dodge is to let down a couple of shoots-one before and one behind the column. This is a golden opportunity, but rare, as Providence usually frustrates it by placing the parallel slope beyond the limited range of the Kuki guns-about one hundred and fifty yards. All was clear above, so we crept along the shelf which appeared to be made by very occasional passers-by, and averaged a foot in width. Where water had cut into the slope so that it fell plumb, stakes had been driven into the hillside, and a roadway of branches and earth placed on these. At the end of this passage we found an easier slope, tree clad and pleasant walking. As we climbed, the trees thinned out and suddenly finished, and we seemed to walk on the roof of our world. The wind blew shrilly and plastered our sodden khaki against our bodies, but the views were wonderful. Masses of blue mountains descended to purple depths, out of which the forests grew like diminutive ferns. The peeps of river-beds looked like a thread of cotton, but a Vshaped cut showed us something that caught and held the light. "Chindwin," said the Baptist. It was just a glimpse, for the hills on either side of the cut seemed to butt the blue sky with a belt of foamy cloud as the result. I felt very much of an intruder up there, and then from behind a range we heard the rattle of machine-gun fire and the bark of a 7-pounder. It was as if a big hill had coughed. The Gurkhas smiled, and there was question and surmise as to what column was in actionat what stockade ? Our hill-top had now narrowed to a razor back, and this seemed to rear a rocky headpiece in the distance. Word was passed back that the enemy was in sight, so the column halted while the intelligent one and myself crept along it to investigate. A figure was silhouetted against the sky, and was declared to be one of the henchmen of the Ningto who was submitting. So we advanced with cheerfulness, the while the ridge narrowed and narrowed until one could drop I would deal leniently with a stone from both hands extended and not hear it come to earth. We were now marching on rock, the upper edge of a gigantic slab pushed down into the hill, and this ended in a rock staircase, up which we clambered, wondering what would happen if the wind blew us off it into space. It was a gale here, and so cold. Once up it we came out on what was by comparison flat land, and here we found the little party-three men, two women, and a child. Of the men, two, dressed in old black tail-coats, stood, while the third, wrapped in a blanket, sat with the women a little behind. The two standing came to greet us, and strange words crackled like wireless between them and our Baptist. It was all right. One of the men carried a white cockerel; the other, two bottles of zu-the native cider-which is very good. These presents signified surrender, and if more was needed, two Tower muskets lay on the ground beside the blanketed one. We were beside him now, and he proved to be an old, old man and blind. The convert explained that this blind man was my prize, and he had come with a wife, child, and his youngest sister. He slipped his blanket and stood like a bronze statue in the sunlight. He had been blind from birth, but many ranges of hills owed him allegiance, and it was interpreted that, being so old and blind, he surrendered for the good of his people, and prayed them. The black-coated ones grouped themselves beside him, and one of the women began to cry. I felt uncomfortable. The eighty Gurkhas, two hundred porters, native officers, subassistant surgeon, and Red Cross kit looked silly when confronted with this pleasant old gentleman with the quiet smile, supported by two of his army, whose brown legs showed indecently below bazaar-bought coats. We were a blot on the landscape. The old Ningto's name was Tong-tong, and the sound of it was the only thing of dignity about us fit to blend with the setting of these silent hills. Tong-tong. Say it slowly. The rest was easy. We were to camp the night in a friendly village and return next day. When we moved off the havildar proudly carried the tower muskets, my orderly had the white cockerel, and each retainer of the Ningto carried one bottle empty. But empty bottles are valuable things on a roof of the world. I offered one of the Dr Babu's doolies for the blind Ningto. When this was explained, he laughed heartily and his family laughed, and the wife stopped crying. There was more explanation, and we all laughed with them, for hillmen's laughter is infectious. Even the Baptist smiled. "Why, Sahib, he goes quickly, up and down the hills, not slowly as you by roads." Roads! R. G. BLACK. MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD. THE NEW VICEROY OF INDIA THE DECLINE OF THE LABOUR PARTY-ITS REPORT UPON IRELAND-THE TRUE STORY OF SINN FEIN AND GERMANY-THE VICTORIAN AGE. In It was after much hesitation and to a loud chorus of praise that Lord Reading was appointed Viceroy of India. consenting to fill this high office he had the air of conferring, not of accepting, a boon. His friends acclaimed him a patriot for taking what many men desired. And those who have not fallen under the spell of Jewry are left wondering by what process of selection Mr Lloyd George chose a lawyer of alien blood to govern, in a critical hour of its history, a great British dependency. The reasons why Lord Reading should not go to India are many and obvious. In the first place, his race should incapacitate him from holding the lofty position which he has assumed. Lord Reading, though of British birth, is by blood and breeding a foreigner, and it is unfitting that a foreigner should represent in India the British rule. The Indians, always sensitive to the character and prestige of a Sahib, will not readily bow the knee in respect to a man of Jewish race. We have held India by the strength of an inherited tradition, a tradition which is British, not Hebraic, and it is not Lord Reading's fault that he cannot understand or enforce this tradition. If he speaks as an Englishman he raises a smile; and none with a sense of humour could refrain from laughing aloud when he went to Plymouth to acclaim the Pilgrim Fathers. It may be that no true Englishman will consent to govern India so long as Mr Montagu remains at the India Office. The only other reason which we have heard alleged for Lord Reading's appointment is that a Jew should be sent to India to undo the harm which Mr E. S. Montagu, another Jew, has done. This reason is wholly inadequate. Only an Englishman, with faith in his blood and state, can repair the damage wrought by an alien hand, an alien brain. Again, it is not forgotten, and will never be forgotten, that Lord Reading played a foremost part in what is called the Marconi scandal. In those far-off days, when our ministers triumphed in their levity and pretended to believe that the chosen of the people could do no wrong, a flutter on the Stock Exchange, even in the shares of a company which had a contract with the Government, seemed easily permissible. Nobody is of that opinion now. The true meaning of the Marconi affair is |