beneficent river of life, fertilising as the Nile, beloved as the Ganges, sacred as the Jordan, separated from us indeed by the ocean, but like that fabled fountain Arethusa, which, passing under the sea from Greece into Sicily, retained its original source in Arcadia? We do not know what our fate may be. We have no right, perhaps, to hope that we may be an exception to the rule by which nations have their period of growth, and of grandeur, and of decay. It may be that all we most esteem may fade away like the glories of Babylon. But if we have done our duty well, even though our history should pass away, and our country become "an island salt and bare,

The haunt of seals, and orcs, and seamews' clang," she may be remembered, not ungratefully, as the mother of great commonwealths and peaceful empires that shall perpetuate the best qualities of the race.

I have only mentioned one of the topics with which a social science congress is called upon to deal; yet how vast this single subject appears! Indeed, it is difficult to see any limit to the possible usefulness of a meeting like the present. We live in remarkable times-times of social development, so ominous that we may be approaching a period of social revolution. What a change from that old world whence this fertile brood of nations sprang!

On the one side, a dark surging mass of barbarians; on the other, the inevitable, stern immobility of the Roman Empire. Now, the whole universe seems undergoing the volcanic influence of social theory. Everywhere there is breaking out some strange manifestation. The grotesque congregation of the Shakers, the agricultural socialism of Harris, the polygamous socialism of Mormon, the lewd quackery of Free-love, the mad, blank misery of Nihilism, the tragic frenzy of the Parisian Commune, are portents no observer can neglect. Some try to solve the problem by abolishing property; some by a new religion. Most of these experiments thrive in America, which alone has room for such diversities of opinion and practice. It is too much the practice to treat these various organisations as a mixture of knavery and folly. Two, indeed, of these phases of humanity will receive more attention from the historian of the future than they attract from their contemporaries — I mean the Commune of Paris, and the Church of the Latter-day Saints. That eccentric church is a socialism founded on a polygamous religion, and ruled by a supreme pontiff. But it would be a mistake, I think, to suppose that polygamy is an essential part of Mormonism. The traveller in Utah will be struck most, not by the plurality of wives, but by the prevailing industry and apparent

external brotherhood. These are the outward features of an extraordinary community. That it should largely increase; that it should have converted a desert into a garden; that it should, in the last few years, have attracted to it thousands of the working classes (not by polygamy, for that is expensive, and almost all the emigrants are poor), will seem, to a future age, a strange sign of our times.

Again, whatever may be thought of the Commune of Paris, which issued quaintly ingenuous decrees, and which ended in blood and iron, it will always remain one of the sinister facts of our age. Like the Ninevite king, it perished in a blazing pyre of what was fairest in its habitation; and the world lost so much in those flames that it cannot now pass judgment with complete impartiality. But as a gigantic outbreak of class hostility, as a desperate attempt to found a new society in the very temple of the old, it has hardly, perhaps, received sufficient attention. Far be it from me to attempt to palliate the horrors of that disastrous conflict. They are, however, only terrible accessories. But the ominous fact of that sudden social revolution is a portent that cannot be blotted from the history of humanity. While human beings remain human beings, and while efforts like these are made for complete social reorganisation, a social

science congress has even more scope than a parliament. . . . Never was a league of the friends of humanity more needed than now. Never was there, on all sides, so much of energy and skill given to the preparation of those efforts by which civilisation is retarded, and mankind made miserable. The armies of the four great military powers, when on a war footing, engross three and a quarter millions of men in the prime and flower of life. Three and a quarter millions of men in four countries with their swords ready to the grindstone form a portentous, silent fact which we cannot ignore in the halls where we discuss the efficacy of arbitration in settling disputes between nations. In Spain we see a war of dynasty; in America a conflict of colour. The night is dark and troubled; we can but labour steadfastly, hoping for the dawn, united by the sympathy of the living, and animated by the example of the dead.

COMMERCE AND EMPIRE

At Leeds, 11th October 1888

I FEEL that you did me a great honour when you invited me to meet you, on this occasion, to receive the address with which you have just presented me. I well understand how great a compliment, as well as how great an advantage, it is for one in my position to be permitted to meet with the representatives of all parties in Leeds who are interested in all questions relating to commerce. When I look at your address I am inclined to think that what you put in the first front of it with regard to myself has a bearing of some importance. You allude to the time when I held the appointment of Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and I think that that reference, coming as it does from a non-political body, is one of some importance; for I believe this, that the more the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is considered as a nonpolitical officer, the better for the country. I have always held, and I hope I have proved by action and also by want of action, that my belief is, that