step adown the stone stairs to the flagstones and the vaults and the memorial tablets and the little altar; find a bench among the resting-places of the ancient dead. The church, like a fortress, stands above them between their unhappiness and the hungry night. Thus sanctuary is granted by a church, as given in the Middle Ages. But as dawn light creeps into the sky the sleepers creep forth, and those who seek work make most commonly for the markets. For hours before sunrise there is unpacking of vegetables, fruit, and flowers in Covent Garden, and of baskets of fish at Billingsgate. Flower fragrances cover an acre north of the Strand; the smell of fish closes up Great Tower Street. Smithfield becomes alive, and likewise Leadenhall Market. All the alarums have gone off in the mean homes, and cups of morning tea have been gulped down, night being at an end and the day of toil beginning. One of the strangest and greatest of nights was that of December 6 election night-night of the supposed revealing of our political destinies as a nation, but wrapped in fog. All England seemed to be in the streets at midnight, and yet only in muffled groups was visible. Staring up at result boards in a searchlight glare of electric light stood the many-headed. Loudspeakers talked unintelligently to them, fog rolled over their heads. For it was a rolling fog; it had not merely descended, it had been driven by living currents of air. At Trafalgar Square it gave the impression of London on fire. There were the flames and smokes of universal conflagration. How strange that no one seemed dismayed! The people, it seemed, had been driven from their homes, but were all vulgarly happy, blowing squeakers, trumpeting upon tiny trumpets, shaking rattles, throwing confetti at one another. Somewhere aloft, above the rolling vapours, results were being shown-gains of Liberalism, gains of Labour. But 'bus conductors led their 'buses by the hand, seeking the way and skidding as they went. In another part of the town the traffic had been diverted. A department-store proprietor was showing the election results to the populace who were massed in front of his array of shops. But inside, on his first floor, he had cleared a space for an entertainment for the quality; and while the crowd below cheered or booed or groaned, society ladies and their partners danced in the footsteps of the floor walkers. Nobody cares very much who wins, but it is very dramatic. The noise of the public in the streets is a grand extra jazz band, and gives a new sensation in the dance. Down below they know nothing of that. The luminous winecoloured blinds but seldom show a shadow of any of the dancers within. The crowd want to know that the governing forces are changing. It cheers all the changes. It hurrahs for the Liberals and roars for Labour. It counts the gains vociferously, one, two, three, till it reaches the grand total, and then breaks forth in one universal hollow cheer, like a time fuze which at length has blown up a great charge of cordite. Less than half can see what is cast upon the screen; the other half attends to rumour. The fog passes the figures, now obscuring, now revealing them, half-revealing them, hiding them again. The Conservative numbers, being the highest, are almost entirely out of sight; Labour, being lowest and nearest, more commonly stands revealed. In the middle of the crowd there is no moving; the people are packed like herrings in a box; on the verges cling the hawkers of rattles and trumpets. The glowing fires of the chestnut vendors roll towards one through the mist. The sellers of the early morning papers shout lies and promises, as if actually infected with the spirit of the goods they sell : 'Defeat of Lloyd George piper !' 'Good news to-night-defeat of Lloyd George!' Away from the result-gazing crowds the tipsy help one another along Oxford Street and Bond Street under the indulgent gaze of the police. Out of the fog they emerge, and into the fog they go. We are living in a great fog, and there are an enormous number of people moving about in it. There is a dreadful poor and a dulled rich. Ignorant armies of politicians are fighting about it, operating machine guns of facts and statistics, employing smoke screens, poison gas and stink bombs. In the midst of the London night it has become evident. They are fighting for the right to cure our social evils. They will continue to fight, and the evils will not grow less because of the fighting. The night grows darker. The pilot light above Big Ben is out. The great clock tells the hour, but its face is hidden from men. It is cold and wet at Cleopatra's Needle. The figures of Honour and Justice in the Belgian Memorial group look like homeless drabs on the way to a coffee stall to get warm. The river goes on to the sea, whispering to its banks as it flows. Something is passing from us, always passing out of London under the cover of the fog and the night : the inspiration of our youth, the dream of the England which was to be, passing away, and then, of course, renewed from the source. It comes whispering afresh and ineffectually passes on. For London is every city that ever was and ever will be. So at least says Night to one who sits by the river in the midnight hours and is passive to the mystery, the beauty, and the suffering of London. STEPHEN GRAHAM. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake to return unaccepted MSS. NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER XIX -XX FEBRUARY 1924 Imperial Preference Founded by JAMES KNOWLES. Enham and the Disabled Man Reunion CONTENTS No. 564 Vol. XCV By THE RIGHT HON. STANLEY M. BRUCE, M.C. (Prime Minister of Australia) By THE LORD HENRY CAVENDISH BENTINCK, M.P. By THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM Politics and Politicians To-day : (1) Labour and the Dragon (2) The Pessimists and Labour (3) Ex Parte . By STUART HODGSON (Editor of the 'Daily News') (4) Stalemate and the Sequel Walks with Thackeray (concluded). Reg. v. Mason 'Up-to-date' Music 'Fair Maids of February Legacies of the War By GENERAL SIR HUBERT GOUGH, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., K.C.V.O. (Chairman of the Council of the Imperial War Relief Fund) By MRS. BERNHARD WHISHAW Spain and England The North-West Frontier By LIEUT.-COLONEL C. À COURT REPINGTON, C.M.G. LONDON: CONSTABLE & CO. LTD., ORANGE STREET, LEICESTER SQUARE, W.C.2 PARIS: MESSAGERIES HACHETTE, III, Rue Reaumur. Registered for Canadian Magazine Post NEW YORK: LEONARD SCOTT PUBLICATION CO. All rights reserved PRICE THREE SHILLINGS VICE-ADMIRAL SIR LIONEL HALSEY says: "I have never seen the 'Arethusa' excelled." A GOOD WORK IN SORE NEED THE PIONEER SOCIETY. FOUNDED 1843. Patrons: THEIR MAJESTIES THE KING AND QUEEN. President: H.R.H. THE PRINCE OF WALES. THE ARETHUSA" TRAINING SHIP AND THE SHAFTESBURY HOMES Urgently Need £25,000 (RECEIVED TO DATE £12,000) TO PREVENT CURTAILMENT OF ANY BRANCH OF THE SOCIETY'S WORK 10,000 boys have been sent to Royal Navy and Mercantile Marine. 9,000 boys have been trained for Civil Employment and Emigration. 1,100 boys and girls now being maintained. Chairman and Treasurer: C. E. MALDEN, Esq., M.A. Deputy Chairman: F. H. CLAYTON, Esq. Chairman of Ship Committee: HOWSON F. DEVITT, Esq. Joint Secretaries: H. BRISTOW WALLEN and HENRY G. COPELAND. Cheques should be made payable to, and sent to The Shaftesbury Homes and "Arethusa" Training Ship, 164, Shaftesbury Avenue, London, W.C.2. If the bonuses recently declared continue uninterruptedly an assurance at death will be doubled after 37 years and trebled after 55 years. An assurance of £1,000 costs £27 or £34 a year to men aged 30 or 40 next birthday respectively. Equitable Life Assurance Society (Founded 1762) No Shareholders. Mansion House Street, London, E.C. 2. No Commission. THE idea is so usually held that the British Empire owes its greatness to Free Trade, and that Britain's great prosperity is due to her achievements under the play of the forces of unrestricted competition, that it comes as rather a shock to discover that the British Empire was built up during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries under a drastic system of tariffs to protect home industries, colonial preferences, prohibitions, and, perhaps most important of all, Navigation Acts to restrict the commerce of the British Empire to British vessels. A careful study of the historic bases of the economic upbuilding of the Empire makes it clear that the long-sighted vision of British statesmen of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries so directed and controlled both the industries of Britain and the commerce between Britain and her overseas possessions as to build up Britain's industrial strength, to establish a mercantile marine, and thus to assure the future greatness of these wonderful islands. Ships, colonies and commerce are the foundations upon which the present greatness of Britain and of the British Empire has been built. Vol. XCV-No. 564 157 M |