...

2,620,600,000

2,709,900,000

Total ... Adding the capital engaged in Colonial and foreign carrying trades, telegraph, insurance and other companies, investments of British individuals and capital employed in great commercial houses engaged in different parts of the world, the writer estimates that the aggregate total probably well exceeds 3,150 millions sterling. The nominal value being mostly considerably beyond the amount paid down, and yet being exceeded by the market value, Britain's foreign and Colonial investments have proved exceedingly remunerative. British capital avoids the danger of putting too many eggs into one basket. The fairest and most productive portions of the world are being developed largely, and in many cases entirely, by British capital. Hence the commercial depression of one portion of the world is nearly always set off by the prosperity of some other portion.

BRITISH INVESTMENTS ABROAD.

A carefully prepared series of tables follows, showing the estimated amount of British investments abroad in 1897. The summary result is as follows:TOTAL ESTIMATED VALUE OF BRITISH INVESTMENTS ABROAD, including capital employed by shipping, insurance, and mercantile houses and banking companies, and investments in land, etc.

Approximate market value.

£ 2,550,000,000 3,220,000,000

670,000,000

Of the huge increase of 750 millions sterling, by far the largest proportion has been absorbed by the American continents. Appreciation rules there. In Africa a depreciation of 150 millions sterling has taken place in the market value of Transvaal mining shares. Europe is the only continent in which there has been a marked tendency to decrease in the amount of British investments. The writer observes that not only have British investors spread their investments practically all over the world, but they have contrived to place money in nearly every conceivable form of commercial enterprise.

Total

3,150,000,000 2,400,000,000 It is a curious and significant circumstance that British investments abroad are about evenly divided between our dependencies and foreign countries.

An exact balance cannot therefore be stated for a given year; but it may be fairly contended that the above figures clearly establish the fact that our apparent adverse 'trade-balance is, as a matter of fact, fully accounted for by the payments due to this country in respect of interest upon colonial and foreign investments and the earnings of our mercantile fleet and our merchant and banking houses; and this after providing about £70,000,000 per annum for investment abroad.

Our annual income from investments abroad is about double the sum shown in the report of the Inland Revenue Commissioners. The writer adds, "Mr. Asquith's term of office at the Exchequer may be distinguished by an effort to earmark all foreign income."

The tables given above, though not related to the question of Tariff Reform, have thereto a pertinent significance.

A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS. MR. LANSBURY'S REMEDY FOR UNEMPLOYMENT. IN the Economic Review Mr. George Lansbury, while giving all credit to Mr. Walter Long and other statesmen who helped to frame the Unemployed Workmen Act, holds that the question is as acute in England to-day as ever it was, though trade is a little better. He goes on to argue :

The very first thing to be done is to establish a department for national public works. This department should have absolute control of all the main roads in the country. It should have control of all such work as reclamation and protection of foreshores. It should have under its control all Crown lands, whether at present occupied or unoccupied, and it should have the power to buy up compulsorily at their present value all the waste lands in the country, and to start, wherever suitable, such works as afforestation and the like. I would also give to this department the power to establish labour colonies of various de scriptions; namely, one to which vagrants could go, one to which the ordinary able-bodied workhouse inmate could be sent, and one for the ordinary unemployed. To the men in each class of colony there should be held out the hope of ultimate independence, and that independence should be secured in England. It should be secured either in the work connected with afforestation, or in the upkeep of the main roads, or in some other national work. Or again, it might be secured by means of small holdings. The labour colonies, instead of being permanent institutions, could be places on which temporary buildings would be erected, so that the men could bring back the land into cultivation, and could build cottages and farm buildings for the small holders to inhabit. The only test to be applied to applicants for work should be as to their willingness and ability to undertake it; and the function of the colonies would be to provide for those unable or unwilling to go to the public works direct.

The greatest need of England is that the home market should be strengthened. The Protectionists tell us that it must be strengthened by a tax on foreign goods. I think that it should be strengthened by a reorganization of agriculture. People in Denmark take our goods in exchange for their agricultural produce. Why our own people should not take the same goods in exchange for the produce of our own farms I cannot understand.

THE CONQUEST of the POLE, AND AFTER. MR. WALTER WELLMAN concludes in McClure's Magazine for July the narration of the construction of the airship America, with which he hopes to reach the Pole this month. Most interesting is his description of the serpentine sausage guide-rope by means of which he expects to be able the more effectually to control the movements of the airship. By a novel device the guide-rope is made to serve the purpose of a store cupboard :

The serpent is made of leather, one-eighth of an inch thick, fashioned into a long tube six inches in diameter. This leather has high tensile strength, and the snake will withstand a pull of four tons before parting-an ample margin of safety. It is divided into sections of about ten feet in length, each section a closed compartment, so that if, by chance, water should get into one, it could not pass into its neighbours. Within the skin of the serpent we pack food-bacon, ham, bread, and butter, the bread inside the meat and butter. Should a little salt water get

biscuit enclosed in them.

HOW LONG IT WILL TAKE.

How long will the voyage take? That, replies Mr. Wellman, depends entirely upon the wind:

With a south wind of ten or fifteen miles per hour, it would be practicable to go to the Pole in a single day. With calms, or neutral winds, it would take two days. With winds directly contrary, blowing at the mean force of the region and season, ten miles per hour, it would take five days. With winds blow. ing always contrary and at a mean force considerably higher than the general average, we could not get there at all.

FOUR LINES OF RETREAT.

Mr. Wellman has no intention of remaining at the Pole. He calculates that he has four lines of retreat. First, there is the chance that they may be able to sail to the Pole and return to their point of departure in ten days or two weeks. Secondly, should the motor and fuel become exhausted, they can throw the superfluous cargo overboard as required, and convert themselves into a purely floating balloon. They could keep afloat for twenty-five to thirty-five days, and the chance of drifting to the southward is a very good one. Thirdly, should the balloon fail, there is still the sledging outfit with its dozen dogs to fall back upon, and with two months of light it should be possible to get back over the ice to Spitzbergen or Greenland. Finally, should they be compelled to spend the entire winter in the Arctic regions, they could make a snug hut of the immense quantities of cloth and other material of which the ship is composed, and lead the simple life, hibernating like bears, without fear of starvation, subsisting wholly upon the supplies taken with them. If this should happen, they could sledge back the following spring, when polar-ice travelling is better than in the autumn, and have enough food to carry them till the first of June.

(The figures given indicate sea-miles.)

THE TRIUMPH OF THE MOTOR-CAR. SIR JOHN MACDONALD, in the Badminton Magazine, writes a cheery article entitled " After Ten Years,” in which he describes the rapid progress of the motorcar in popular favour. We are at present, in addition to our own manufacture, importing motor vehicles from abroad at the rate of £5,000,000 sterling per annum, an increase of sevenfold in about five years.

The delusion harboured still by many that the autocar is the toy of the rich and the leisured class is being rapidly exploded. During two years the writer has taken pains to investigate the traffic along the Thames Embankment at the time when business men are proceeding citywards. The result shows that the motor-car is steadily displacing the carriage. On the three last occasions when a count was taken the motors exceeded the carriages by 118, 173, and 233. In Scotland the same preponderance in favour of the motor is noticeable. At the King's garden party at Windsor, in a distance of about 200 yards, he counted 65 motor-cars, as against five horsed carriages. The family coach-car is becoming the ordinary vehicle of the day.

In all-round efficiency the contrast is equally striking. In 1900 during the 1,000 mile reliability trial it was surprising if twenty miles of the route were covered without passing a broken-down car. In the 1907 run no repairs of any kind were allowed, and 82 cars out of 96 completed the entire run within the prescribed time. The final success of the autocar as a road carriage is assured. Attention should now be directed, he urges, to developing it for agricultural and commercial purposes. Very few have up to the present time realised of what incalculable value an organisation of rapid transport for farm produce and for goods by road would be for the community. It is in this direction, the writer believes, that the greatest and most beneficent development of motor traction will be found to proceed in the future.

Mechanical and technical problems have been satisfactorily solved, but a very serious difficulty still remains to be dealt with that of disciplining the drivers, both professional and amateur. On this point Sir John Macdonald speaks his mind with emphasis. He says:

There are still far too many drivers on the road who cause just resentment among the public by their selfish and inconsiderate proceedings. One driver of this sort, rushing about a county, frightening the timid, hustling the other users of the road, forcing clouds of dust into carriages or sending mud flying over pedestrians, thundering down villages at dangerous speeds, hooting his way through quiet church-goers on the roads on Sunday, and shrieking with an open exhaust past places of worship when divine service is going on-one such driver can do more harm to the cause of automobilism in a day than can be cured by a thousand well-disposed motorists in a month.

The mischief is deadly, he adds, and it calls for strong measures-a view which the general public will heartily endorse.

STUDYING THE HUMAN PLANT.

IN the American Review of Reviews Mr. Frederick Lees tells the story of the scientific study of children in Paris. Professor Binet, who is at the head of the Laboratory of Psychology at the Sorbonne, says that the principle that guided him when forming this new laboratory was to ascertain the average state of development of children of all ages-an entirely new idea in pedagogics, and one which he imagines will prove to be very fruitful. He and his assistants set themselves to find out in a strictly scientific manner the physical and mental value of the average child at various ages. The table of averages then drawn up enables them to pronounce definitely on any fresh subject, to declare the child above or below the average growth.

The children are measured in every variety of way -the width of the shoulders, the development of the head, muscular force of hands, quality of eyesight. There are also experiments in attention. Five boys are given a passage from a classical author. They read it for ten minutes, then commit as much of it to paper from memory as they can. Where the verbal memory is defective, it is as cruel to force memorising of poetry as it would be to force indigestible food into a weak stomach. Their powers of observation are similarly tested. "Nothing is negligible in the psychological study of children." He has taken an unusually daring step:

He has even called in the assistance of a Parisian palmist, who surprised him with the accuracy with which she read the characters of the hundred boys who were presented to her. In no fewer than sixty cases did she read the lines of their hands aright. The study of the physiognomy is also, he thinks, to be recommended to teachers.

How Plants Sleep.

HAVE plants brain-power? is the question which Mr. Arthur Smith answers in the affirmative in the Arena for June. In the course of an article devoted to proving the consciousness of plants, he gives some striking examples of their intelligent action in adapting themselves to the variations in their environment. Plants sleep, he says, at various hours and not always at night :

Light and heat appear to have, in many instances, little to do with plants sleeping, as different species go to sleep at different hours of the day. Thus, the common Morning Glory, Convol vulus purpureus, opens at dawn; the Star of Bethlehem, Ornithogalum umbellatum, about ten o'clock; the Goat's-beard, Tragopogon pratensis, opens at sunrise and closes at mid-day, and for this reason is also known as Go-to-bed-at-noon." The flowers of the Evening Primrose, Enothera biennis, open at sunset, and those of the night-flowering Cereus, Cereus grandiflorus, when it is dark. Aquatic flowers open and close with the greatest regularity. The white Water Lily closes its flowers at sunset and sinks below the water for the night; in the morning the petals again expand and float on the surface. The Victoria Regia expands for the first time at about six o'clock in the evening, and closes in a few hours; it opens again at about the same time the next morning, and remains so until the afternoon, when it closes and sinks below the water.

THE STUFF OUR DREAMS ARE MADE OF.
THE NEW DIVINERS.

DR. FREDERICK PETERSON, a Professor of Psychiatry, writes in the August Harper an article entitled "The New Divination of Dreams."

Dreams have been said to reflect what a man thought when awake. They have been looked upon reasonably by some, and by others they have been exploited and dream-books have been written about them, or they have been regarded as the mystical penumbræ of another life or another world. There were believers of dreams in Nineveh and in Babylon, as to-day, writes the Professor, there are new interpreters, new diviners, new oracles.

WHEN THE WILL AND REASON ARE ASLEEP.

The domain of dreams, he explains, is the sub-consciousness of the night when the sunlight has given place to moonlight. The stuff of dreams is of the same fibre as the stuff of our waking state, but the world of dreams is seen in a dimmer and hence mysterious light. The search-light of full consciousness by day is more or less regulated in its movements by the will; in the sub-conscious state the will has gone to sleep, while the search-light mechanism moves on as before, throwing only a feeble light into various parts, but without voluntary regulation. At one time the present hour's memories are lighted, at another time the memories of the far past. forgotten things appear without apparent sequence, or two wholly different experiences may be blended together in a fantastic composite photograph.

Even

Another way to put before us the composition of dream-material is to consider it made up of endless films in a cinematograph, each film in itself being a line of natural memory association. In sleep the films are exchanged rapidly, or even put one over the other, with the result that a medley of incongruities appears upon the screen, but the fragments of the combination are made of nothing outside our mental store of pictures, places, persons, or memories.

THE MEMORY IN SLEEP.

Again, the memory is often much sharpened in sleep, and old experiences are revived, identifiable, it may be, by discussion of the dream with someone who has been able to supply the missing link in the association. This sharpened memory is called hypermnesia. Thus during dreams the light of consciousness is low and dim, the will is drowsy or fast asleep, and the memory is wakeful and even hyperactive. The emotions in the main are somnolent, and the ethical and moral feelings are dulled. Judgment also sleeps. Most dreams are forgotten instantly on awaking, but others make a strong enough impression to be remembered for years. They are largely made up of visual pictures, as are most deliriums.

DREAMS AND INSANITY.

As to the exciting causes of dreams, Professor Peterson classes them as sensory stimuli which reach

the sleeping mind through the senses from outside the body, sensory stimuli from the organs within the body, internal irritations in the eye, ear, etc., and purely psychic excitants. Dreams have a close relation to delirium and insanity, so close that insanity has been described as a long dream, and dreaming as brief insanity. As the diviners of the past were symbolists and decipherers, modern diviners claim that there are no dreams without significance. A curious fact is that many dreams represent the fulfilment of a wish or desire. Wills, wishes, desires, hopes, needs, have a clear field at night, when reason and judgment are asleep.

How long will our coal supply last? is a question raised by John Llewellyn Cochrane in the American Review of Reviews. The researches instituted by the President have given rise to the estimate that the real life of their coal-fields may be about two hundred years. The total tonnage of coal in the United States, exclusive of Alaska, is approximately 2,200,000 millions of short tons-a short ton of coal is 2,000lbs.—or, if moulded in a single block, it would form a cube seven and a half miles high, long and broad. The progress of consumption has been such that since 1816 the amount produced in any one decade is equal to the entire previous production. If this rate were maintained, all the coal would be gone in a hundred years. The present waste of the energy of coal in the ordinary steam boiler is tremendous. Only five to seven per cent. of the energy in coal is transformed into actual work. Government experts have, however, proved that they get from two to nearly two and a half times as much power from coal in a gas-producer as from the same coal under a boiler. The gas-producer is said to be the coming factor in the power development of the country.

The Costliest Map in the World.

M. EDOUARD CHARLES describes in the children's page of the Quiver the Tsar's present to the French nation, which was a map of France made of precious stones, valued at a quarter of a million sterling. It is said to be one of the most wonderful maps in the world. It is forty inches square. scintillating expanse of gems, every one of which It is a blazing, came from the mines of Russia. The groundwork is polished jasper, the eighty-seven Departments are so arranged that the colours never clash, the seaboard is of a whitish grey marble. The cities and towns of France are represented by stones of a special class: Paris is a ruby, Lille a diamond, Havre emerald, Bordeaux aquamarine, Nantes beryl, Lyons tourmaline, Rouen a sapphire, Cherbourg an alexandrite. The names are in solid gold, the rivers in polished platinum. Some of the gems are so rare as to be priceless.

THE SMOKE PLAGUE.

HOW TO REDUCE THE COAL BILL BY ONE HALF. MR. CHARLES ROLLESTON, in the Westminster Review for August, brings together some remarkable facts regarding the smoke plague that afflicts our cities. We live, he says, under a heavy, unwholesome canopy of coal-smoke that contaminates the atmosphere, destroys our buildings and works of art, and seriously affects the public health. It has been computed that in London alone there are 600,000 inhabited houses whose chimneys pour out into the atmosphere nearly half a million tons of sulphuric acid annually. Some six tons of solid matter, consisting of soot and hydrocarbons, are deposited every week on every quarter of a mile in and about London.

LONDON'S TOLL TO THE SMOKE FIEND.

The damage done by the smoke plague is enormous. Decorations, carpets, textile fabrics, works of art, public buildings, parks, gardens, are all injuriously affected. The money loss by deterioration in London has been estimated at £5,000,000 annually. In addition to this it is probable that £8,000,000 is wasted each year owing to the imperfect construction of fireplaces, which allow only a partial consumption of the fuel and sends at least four-fifths of the heat up the chimney. The dirt-laden atmosphere inhaled by the Londoner gradually colours his lungs. The lung of the Eskimo living in a natural pure atmosphere is perfectly white; that of the Londoner varies according to the length of residence from a rich grey to a deep purple. Londoners also lose no less than 50 per cent. of the light of the sun during the winter months owing to the veil of smoke that covers the city.

FORTY-EIGHT MILLIONS WASTED ANNUALLY

The sheer waste involved in our methods of burning coal is stupendous. Mr. Rolleston says:

The economic problem of coal consumption is not only an individual, but a national question, and one having an importance by no means generally appreciated. The Royal Commission on our coal supplies have reported that of the 150 million tons of coal annually used in Great Britain, 60 millions are burned to waste. This means simply that if the average price of coal of all kinds be computed at 16s. a ton, not a high estimate, the annual waste of money value in the British Isles. would amount to the enormous sum of forty-eight millions sterling.

of brewers in London have saved £3,500 per annum for upwards of forty years by the use of a simple mechanical device.

The Tropican grate, awarded the first prize by the Smoke Abatement Society, can be fitted at a cost of £5, and burns 66 per cent. less fuel than the ordinary domestic grate. Its general adoption would, says Mr. Rolleston, reduce by considerably more than one-half the householders' fuel bill, while conferring an incalculable benefit upon the community as a whole.

AN AUDIENCE WITH THE HOLY LAMA.
BY MR. SVEN HEDIN.

To the August issue of Harper Mr. Sven Hedin contributes an account of his audience with the Tashi Lama, the head of the Buddhist Church, at Shigatse, in Tibet.

When Mr. Hedin arrived at Shigatse it was the day of the festival. As he was permitted to witness the ceremonies, he describes them at some length. It was an imposing spectacle. Next day the Holy Lama desired to see him, and accordingly he dressed himself in as smart attire as possible to be received. Mr. Hedin writes:

We enter; near the door I make a deep bow, then a few more until I come close up to Tashi Lama, who is sitting on a small bench fixed to the wall in a window recess, with a small table in front of him. He is dressed as an ordinary lama, in red garments; he nods to me kindly, and gives me both his hands, asking me to sit down in an easy-chair close to him. Half of the room is roofed in, the other half is like an open yard; the room is a striking contrast to that of the secretary, being extraordinarily simple; not a single idol, no furniture, no mats, only the cold stone floor.

Through the window his dreamy eyes look out over this sinful world towards the, to us invisible, Nirvana, where his spirit in time will find rest. He is Pantjen Rimpotje, or Tsong Kapas's reincarnation. The great doctor's soul has settled in Tashi Lama's transient body. When a Tashi Lama dies, Tsong Kapas's soul is transferred to his successor-a child being selected by the Conclave. The present Tubden Tjoki Nima Gele Namdja is the sixth Tashi Lama, and is at present the holiest person in the whole lama world.

WHAT THE HOLY LAMA TALKED ABOUT.

He asked about my country, where it was situated, and about the population, then about the countries of Europe. The kings and emperors interested him greatly. He further inquired about the Japanese and the war with Russia, about the countries I had travelled in, about India and her riches. He asked about the route to Sweden, as if he intended to pay a return visit. He asked to be remembered very much to Lord Sahib (Minto); he should never forget the latter's hospitality. "Don't forget it," he said; 66 promise me that you write to him and say that I am often-often thinking of him. Remember me also to Lord Kitchener." Of his lordship he showed me a signed photograph. Then he returned to the sovereigns of the world and produced a photographic group of them. Under each photo was written the name and the country in Tibetan. He asked about each of them separately. He was greatly interested in the princes of Europe; he who is more powerful than all the kings of the earth, he who governs the faith and thought of all the people, from Kalmucs on the Volga to the Buriats by the Baikal, from the coast of the Arctic to the scorching sun of India.

At last he called for some lamas and ordered them to show me all I had come to see. He then gave me both his hands again and shook mine, nodding his head, whilst his delightful smile was playing on his lips, and I retired backwards. One of my richest and dearest memories in all my life is Tashi Lamathis remarkable and noble personality.