transporting passengers quickly underground. The fact is significant of the revolution in means of locomotion which in half a dozen years has lifted London from one of the worst to one of the best served capitals in the world, and which has reduced the metropolis, measured by time of transit, to almost one-third of its former dimensions. The fact was accompanied by a statement which was even more striking. Sir Edgar Speyer, chairman of the Yerkes combination, representing, therefore, one of the most powerful and effective combinations of private capital ever applied to urban transport, confessed that "the transport companies were carrying millions of passengers at a loss." He suggested

It might be to the benefit of the municipality to acquire an interest in the tubes at the present time, instead of waiting, as happened in the case of the water companies. There were obvious advantages in putting the tramways and tubes of London under one authority, and he indicated that his company would be prepared on certain terms to grant the municipality the right of purchasing the tubes at some future date.

This amounts to saying, as the Times City editor points out, that "private enterprise is no longer equal to dealing single-handed with public works of this kind." Municipal control is not enough. Municipal capital or municipal credit must be called in. In other words, private capitalism spontaneously capitulates to collectivism. And this in the hour and power of Anti-Collectivism, when an overwhelming majority has been returned to Spring Gardens, in clamorous support of private enterprise and in fierce antagonism to municipal trading! The avalanche of Moderate votes has not availed to turn or even stem the tide of events. The triumphant The triumphant "Reformers" in March thought they had effectually blocked the advance of municipal ownership :

But the Destinies think not so; to their judgment chamber lone Comes no noise of popular clamour

Your majorities they reck not; that you grant, but then you say That you differ with them somewhat,-which is stronger, you or they?

When the Yerkes combination strikes its flag, municipal collectivism may fairly expect victory all along the line. A fitting Parliamentary sequel was the rejection of the L.C.C. Electricity Bill, which was to alienate the chief light and power of London to private companies. Another step, already all but promised by the President of the Board of Trade, and welcomed by the transport companies themselves, is the appointment of a Traffic Board to regulate the locomotive expansion of the metropolis.

more instance of the uses of hospitality in promoting kindly feeling and preventing misunderstanding and distrust. The visit of the King and Queen of Denmark was the occasion of more ceremonial gatherings. There was also the usual procession through the streets to the City, bringing with it for a day at least an unwonted colour into the thoroughfares of our dull-hued capital. The laying of the

foundation-stone by the King of the new extension of the British Museum marks the beginning of a muchneeded improvement. The gifts and acquisitions of a hundred and fifty years had begun to crowd each other to such an extent that it was impossible to utilise to the best advantage the limited space at the disposal of the Museum authorities.

The Reward of Merit.

The month has witnessed a veritable shower of honours. Besides the usual list of birthday honours, the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge have both conferred honorary degrees upon an unusually large number of distinguished men. There is a welcome indication that the official recognition of merit is being extended to classes of the community hitherto usually disregarded. Perhaps in time we may hope that it may dawn on the official mind that the male sex does not enjoy an absolute monopoly of merit. We may then expect to see women as well as men in the birthday honours list, or even among those upon whom an ancient University deigns to confer its degrees. But we must at present be thankful that good service in the cause of literature, science, scholarship, philanthropy, and even peace, have received recognition. It is also worth noting that at Oxford the loudest cheers were reserved for General Booth, "the beneficent patron of the submerged tenth.” But beyond question the popular hero of the month has been Mark Twain. His visit to England to receive a Doctor's degree at Oxford was made the occasion of an almost national demonstration of appreciation and even affection. In a passage of deep feeling in a speech at a luncheon given in his honour he referred to the warmth of the reception he had met with on every hand :

I have received since I have been here, in this one week, hundreds of letters from all conditions of people in Englandmen, women and children-and there is in them compliment, praise, and above all, and better than all, there is in them a note of affection. Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection-that is the last and final and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement, and I am very glad to have that reward.

That reward in the gift of the common people far transcends any mere official label of merit. Mark Twain has worthily earned it, for, as Mr. Birrell happily pointed out, he is a moralist as well as a humorist. "His humour enlivens and enlightens his morality, and his morality is all the better for his humour."

the London County Council decided last month that their liberty must be circumscribed. If they had stuck to La Milo they need not have been interfered with. But they did not, and so the axe has fallen. Considering the kind of photographic advertisements employed to allure the public to these exhibitions, no other decision was possible. But there are much worse things than living statues. The worst living statue ever exhibited is decency itself compared with the exhibition of erotic passion presented in the first act of "Tannhäuser" as it was played in Munich according to the stage directions of Wagner. In the Venusberg half-dressed nymphs make violent love to amorous youths, when-we quote from the directions to the opera itself—

Satyrs

A train of Bacchantes draws near from the far background, who rush into the midst of the lovers, exciting them to wilder pleasure. By gestures of wildest intoxication, the Bacchante incite the lovers to increasing excesses. The revellers yield themselves to the most passionate embraces of love. and Fauns increase the confusion by their chase of the Nymphs; the general tumult arises to the highest fury. Here, at the outbreak of the maddest frenzy, the three Graces arise in terror and wake the Cupids, who let fly an unceasing hail of arrows on the tumult below. The wounded, seized with mighty longings of love, leave the furious dance and sink down in exhaustion. All this edifying display of nymphomania was acted to the life in the Prince Regent's Theatre at Munich one Sunday afternoon in the full blaze of the limelight for the delectation of the British editors.

Merry England Once More.

It is precisely this kind of lascivious Bacchanalianism which provokes the reaction which led the Puritans to ban the theatre. Unless that kind of appeal to the lusts of the multitude is sternly repressed the present hopeful revival of the drama in England will share the fate of its predecessors. We want securities against the degeneration of spectacle into seductive orgies. The Lord Chamberlain's authority is a worse than useless anachronism. We are entirely with Mr. Bernard Shaw in asking that managers should have liberty to produce what plays they please, subject to municipal control over their licence. "We want not anarchy and the police, but reasonable liberties in return for reasonable guarantees." Fortunately there is no restriction needed upon the presentation of the pageants which are now becoming so pleasant a feature of English life. Last month and this at Romsey, at Oxford, at Bury St. Edmunds, at Porchester, and at St. Albans, admirable pageants were presented which, one and all, aroused the keenest interest, pleased and delighted immense crowds of spectators, and revived the stirring memories of bygone times. Note also that a movement is on foot to bring about

the co-operation of playgoers in different towns outside London in order to encourage the production of better operatic and dramatic fare.

The Licence and the

At the National Peace Congress at Scarborough last month a resoluLiberty of the Press. tion recommending the " enactment of a law which will make the publication of false or misleading statements, likely to inflame national animosity and endanger the maintenance of peace, or of any matter judged to be a wanton incitement to war, an offence punishable by imprisonment," was proposed, opposed, and withdrawn. The resolution was not wisely drawn, but the grounds stated for opposing it were curious, to say the least. Our experiences of the South African war surely do not tell in favour of the unlimited licence of the Press to lie. Nothing is more certain than that if the Press uses liberty in order to hound nations into war by the unlimited distribution of false and inflammatory statements, no superstition about "liberty of the Press" will long stand in the way of stringent measures being taken to restrain the licence of these irresponsible libellers within bounds. Licence is the worst enemy of liberty always, and there is no more inherent right in the Press to libel nations than to libel individuals.

The New Mobility of Man.

The Governments of the world, municipal and national, will have to hurry up if they are not to be hopelessly left behind by everaccelerating improvements in transport. The triumph of Mr. Edge-who is, by the way, a non-smoker and a total abstainer-in running 1,582 miles on the same motor - car in twenty-four hours, has not merely broken all records: it has proclaimed to the world in dramatic fashion the doom of the steam locomotive. That uninterrupted average of sixty-six miles an hour for a whole day is said to be beyond the power of the fastest express engine going. It follows on Mr. Brennan's claim to have disestablished with his gyroscopes the two parallel bars of iron" in favour of the single rail, with immense simplification and acceleration of transit in consequence. And news comes of two Americans literally flying for miles by aid of a small motor.

Towards Universal Mutual

Insurance.

The Workmen's Compensation Act, which comes into force today, is truly a portentous measure. It practically makes almost every person who employs-even casually employs-another person responsible in substantial damages for injury

impose on the employer a crushing tax, while a fatal accident would entail blank bankruptcy. The only way of escape is by insurance. A florin or halfa-crown a year for each servant secures the master or mistress against the new risks. The Act is enforcing on hundreds of thousands of homes a new sense of social responsibility, and a vivid realisation of the advantage, not to say the absolute necessity, of social providence. There is a great rush on the insurance offices-a rush which will be immensely increased when awards of damages in the law courts show how widely spread are the meshes of the new law. The Act is bitterly denounced by those whose individualism acknowledges no neighbourly obligations; but from the position now established there can be no retreat. Just as little we remain where the Act

can

Directly or indirectly, everybody more or less employs everybody else, and the mere wage-paying individual can hardly be pounced upon as the sole burden-bearer. The accidents which come to the wage-receiver may be the result of public negligence, as in the case of overcrowded streets, or traffic insufficiently regulated; and it is hardly fair to mulct a poor but virtuous British matron in heavy damages because her nursemaid has been run over in consequence of the Board of Trade delaying the appointment of a London Traffic Board. Men will be taught by the new Act that the community as a whole is the ultimate employer, and for accidents that happen the community as a whole is ultimately responsible. Universal mutual insurance, the premiums of which are collected by the tax-gatherer, draws perceptibly nearer, but the logical faculties of the British public work slowly.