religious war, not a religious persecution, not the horrors of the 'Holy Office' itself, there is hardly even a crime in the calendar, which has not been issued, or waged, or perpetrated in the name of or for the sake of the Holy Catholic Church.' Rightly understood, Protestantism-aye, and Puritanism too-is, in itself and in its associations, one of the noblest names, and is bound up with many of the

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noblest men and the noblest deeds in the whole course of our history. It has secured for England an open Bible. It asserts the indefeasible rights of the human conscience. It is on the side of Liberty everywhere and in every shape, civil, moral, intellectual, spiritual. It boasts of a noble succession of prelates, historians, and divines. It inspired and it permeates the sublimest of all English poems. It overthrew the tyranny of the Stuarts. Finally, it is upon the Protestant Succession' that the title of Queen Victoria to her throne, and of her descendants after her, to the latest day of our history, rests and will always rest. English history would not be English history, England would hardly be England, if, by any freak of the imagination, you could cut off all that Protestantism and all that Puritanism have done for her. That the English Church has a Catholic as well as a Protestant side to her is, of course, true. She is Catholic because she is so truly Protestant; she is Protestant because she is so truly Catholic. They are but the two sides of one and the same shield.

The unity of Christendom as a whole is a noble and inspiring ideal at which to aim-more noble, doubtless, and inspiring than the unity of any one part of it—but not at the expense of all that makes unity worth having. The Church of Rome, by the Bull Apostolica Cura of a few years ago, shows that she dare not, will not, cannot, advance one step towards us; and so long as that is the case there can be, as the old saying goes, 'No peace with Rome.' As well have tried to induce the noble-hearted Carthaginian to be untrue to his solemn vow, so romantic in its origin, so far-reaching in its consequences, of eternal hatred of Rome, as try to induce the English people to give up their inborn hatred of Romish tyranny and corruption or—what is its correlative and counterpart-their second birthright, their passionate love of truth, and of civil and religious liberty.

It has been the boast of England, of her poets, historians, and orators alike, that her progress has been continuous; that there have been few sudden leaps and bounds, and absolutely no break in her traditions; that she has been reformed rather than revolutionised, and that she has grown rather than been made or remade. At the present moment, the British Empire is advancing at a rate at which it has never advanced before; no, not even in the days of Quebec and Plassy, of Clive and Wolfe. A high authority has just informed us that, within the last thirty years, it has actually increased by one fourth, and that it contains the portentous number of 400,000,000

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souls-one fourth, that is, of the whole population of the globe. Is this the moment, when the spread of our material empire calls, as it never called before, for the exercise of all the moral and spiritual potencies which underlie it, and which alone can secure that its spread will be an almost unmixed blessing rather than a curse to its subjects is this the moment, I ask, when any considerable number of members of that Institution which sums up and concentrates all those potencies in itself, and illuminates, or ought to illuminate, them as with a flood of celestial light, would select, in the pursuit of hobbies, or mummeries, or vagaries of their own, as the precise moment in which to risk a change so sweeping, so overwhelming, so irremediable as the disruption of the National Church?

One word about method, and I have done. I regret, as much as any one can do, the use of some of the methods and of some of the instruments that have roused the Bishops into action and have so precipitated the crisis. I regret the actions of Mr. Kensit and many of the suggestions and inferences of Mr. Walsh. I do not think that all or nearly all the charges brought by Sir William Harcourt in his trenchant letters are supported by the facts, nor do I think that he has appreciated the motives or made sufficient allowance for the difficulties of the Bishops. Still less do I think that the view which he appears to take of the National Church, as an Institution which is little else than State-made and State-paid, will be accepted as either, true or adequate by any considerable number of thoughtful persons. People are apt to hit wildly when they feel strongly ; and there is a ring of conviction throughout the letters of Sir William Harcourt, even when he is dealing his most sledge-hammer blows, which has not always been so noticeable in his ablest fulldress Parliamentary speeches. The particular method he has proposed in the last of his letters for dealing with the evil, appealing as it does to many of the more violent passions, and so encouraging, not concession, but resistance to the bitter end, seems to me as objectionable and unpromising as the method proposed by the Bishops, appealing to the better side of human nature, is good and hopeful, and, I will add, truly Christian. Is it that he wishes, in his heart of hearts, not to stave off Disestablishment, but to make it inevitable? As regards Mr. Walsh, secret societies within the pale of the National Church can hardly expect not to be taunted with the secrecy of their proceedings, when what little is known of those proceedings is questionable, and the outcome bad. 'Mob-law' is always and everywhere hateful, most of all when dealing with sacred things. But the essence of mob-law is not mere physical violence, but resistance to properly constituted authority and neglect of recognised and bounden obligations. And has there been no element of this mob-law in the proceedings of the Ritualists throughout, especially in their contemptuous rejection of the decisions of the highest courts in the realm; none in the Holborn

gathering; none in the unimpassioned yet plusquam pontifical defiance of the united voice of the Bishops and Archbishops, uttered by Lord Halifax towards the close of his, in so many respects, admirable essay in the February number of this Review ? 'Reservation,' he

calmly says, 'will be maintained in view of the practical necessities of the case; and the use of incense will be continued!' As regards the appeal to mob-law of Mr. Kensit, the stool hurled by Jennie Geddes, in the church of St. Giles in Edinburgh, at the head of the officiating priest, was a rough and ready, and a highly objectionable, yet also a highly effective argument; and, perhaps, it was justified under all the circumstances of the case. The indignant exclamation which she hurled with it, 'Man, dost thou dare to say Mass in my lug?' is an exclamation which might, not unnaturally, have escaped from many a simple-minded visitor to many Ritualistic churches in London, for many years past; and it might have been extremely difficult to parry or to meet.

Is it too late to hope that the Holborn recusants, and the party in the Church which sympathises with them, may, even yet, open their eyes to the comparative importance of things, and bow to the authority which they have themselves voluntarily and solemnly acknowledged? Otherwise, they will have steered the vessel direct upon the rocks.

R. BOSWORTH SMITH.

THE LAND AND THE LABOURERS

THE more contented the labourer is-the more he is rooted to the soil and happy upon it, the more likely will be his sons and daughters to remain in their native districts, instead of being driven into populous cities by sheer discontent at not being able to get a living.

If the farmers in some parts of England cannot afford to pay a 'living wage,' how can labourers' incomes be supplemented? It can only be done by giving them some land for themselves: they ought to be allowed to share in the profit of the land on which they live.

There is still an extraordinary prejudice against this; and the only way to overcome the prejudice is to try and show that this is a practical and business-like scheme, and not a charitable idea, and that allotments and small holdings are not only a benefit to the agricultural labourers, but a direct advantage to the landlords themselves.

Somebody once truly observed that no scheme was ever submitted for the benefit of mankind but that wise and good men were found conscientiously to oppose it. The reasons probably are:

(1) People won't try to understand a new scheme.

(2) If they do partially understand it, they won't believe in it. (3) If they partially understand it, and partially believe in it, they are bound to suspect a trap.

This is particularly true about allotments and small holdings. Many people suspect some deep and dark design on the part of those who advocate them, and this suspicion is carried to a great pitch.

I hope I may be fortunate enough to dispel some of it, and I propose to confine myself entirely to personal and practical experience.

High Wycombe, in Buckinghamshire, is a flourishing, go-ahead manufacturing town with a big future before it. Towards the end of the sixties there sprang up a great demand for gardens, and there was a good deal of land hunger. I was asked for small pieces of land at moderate rents: these were eagerly taken up, more were required, and at the present moment I have 1,400 tenants who

cultivate from one-tenth of an acre to an acre each. The rent is 208. to 508. per acre, and one shilling is returned to every tenant in lieu of luncheon when he comes up to pay his weekly rent. The produce of each allotment of one-tenth of an acre is worth at least 3l., after all expenses of rent, manure, seed, and labour are paid. This proves that 30l. worth of produce is grown on each acre under the smaller allotments round the town. In the summer almost every man has a flower in his coat; and in the winter the pig, the potatoes, and the vegetables often help out the family dinner in times of illness or scarcity of work. If this allotment land is wanted for building purposes, 81. per acre compensation for disturbance is paid. Subletting is not allowed; but any tenant can transfer his holding to any other person, and as much as 10l. has been paid for bush fruit trees, cultivations, buildings, and goodwill on one single plot.

All difficulty as regards game has entirely disappeared. In my father's time preserving would have been thought insanity, and when I first went out shooting, the chairmakers came out with their white aprons rolled round their waists, scattering the partridges in all directions. Now they have their land and their fun, and they let me have mine; and I have killed over 350 head, including 118 hares, in a wood of twenty-four acres, which as the crow flies is not half a mile from the Town Hall in the High Street. This goodnatured tolerance I entirely attribute to young men and boys working off their superfluous energy in their garden allotments, instead of having nothing to fill up spare time except to loaf about the lanes on the chance of being able to pick up something, somewhere and somehow.

RURAL ALLOTMENTS AND SMALL HOLDINGS

People who thirty years ago prophesied that these town allotments would fail, now say, 'Oh, yes, this is all very well: we all knew garden allotments round a town would do all right; any idiot could tell us that. But as for allotments and small holdings in simply rural districts, they don't answer. The fact is, the men don't want them.' And then they tell you of the Lincolnshire freeholders who bought land at a fictitious price, with borrowed money, and were ruined by the exorbitant interest. They quote allotments that are thrown up in different parts of England, never inquiring whether the rents are too high, whether the land is near a wood full of rabbits, whether the land is so far from the village as to be absolutely useless to the men, or whether the men have large gardens already, and besides are able to get continuous and well-paid employment.

I heard last week of men refusing allotments at Great Missenden, but in that instance each villager has an acre with his cottage. On the same principle you cannot expect Northumberland miners, who