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old warrior, the mad Berserker rage.' Then 'Thor with his giant hammer springs forth at last, and breaks Gothic domes to atoms.' He prophesied, not indeed the present war, but democratic revolution in Germany; a return to Paganism, to the ancestral religion of blood and iron, when once it was divulged that transcendental Idealism was but a veiled and godless Pantheism.

There is one religion, at any rate, common to the intellectual few, and the simple many, in present Germany. The German race is the elect of destiny, say the one; of God, repeat the other. Neo-Romanticists, racial mystics, may dream with Gobineau of the conquering Aryan race, on whose shoulders rests the future of humanity. That which is not German is created to be enslaved.' H. S. Chamberlain somewhat modifies the theme. The French and the Slav are also Aryans; indeed any one, if so he wills, and fitly equips himself, can be an Aryan in the spirit, as it were by an elective affinity, and await the religion that is to be. But this is all too subtle for present Germany. The Aryan, the Superman, is the German. Pangermanism is the simple and sufficient creed.

As we have it in an endless series of pamphlets, Pangermanism is frowned on or favoured by the bureaucracy, according as occasion serves. These pamphlets, and the periodical organs of the various leagues, with their lists of approving professors and magnates, are equally monotonous and nauseating. One of these organs bears, or bore, as legend and ideal aim: From the Skaw to the Adriatic! From Boulogne to Narwa! From Besançon to the Black Sea!' But that is little, compared with the demands put forth in the pamphlets. Take a single one for a sample, as far back as 1895, the better to secure modesty and moderation, if possible. In it we learn that the great German Confederation of the future is a national State, which includes the majority of Germans living in Europe. Its inhabitants are not exclusively German, but it is ruled exclusively by Germans. Thus by allowing only Germans to exercise political rights and to acquire landed property, the German people will regain the feeling which they had in the Middle Ages-that of being a ruling race. They, however, gladly tolerate in their midst the presence of foreigners for the performance

of lower manual labour. And thus will grow up a people 'capable of transmitting to humanity in the ages to come all the treasures of German culture.' This, at least, is more moderate than Treitschke. The civilising of a barbarous nation'—and all are barbarous except Germans-is the offer of alternatives, 'either to merge itself in the dominant nation, or to suffer extermination.' But then, what blessings will result to the conquered, if they choose aright! Prussia, nobly exercising its hegemony over the United States of Europe,' will guard Europe against the competition of Asia, and of those other United States, whose commercial rivalry needs to be checked.

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The Germans are naturally systematical. France subdued, and Russia, it was to be the turn of the robber and peddler State to which we unfortunately belong. And the 'peaceful penetration' of Brazil would in good time furnish a casus belli against the United States. 'Never have the Germans given up an idea without fighting it through in all its consequences,' Heine declared long ago. Only there is no sign of a Moltke or a Bismarck among present Germans. 'Never have the Germans been psychologists,' said Nietzsche. They have failed to isolate and attack each single Power in turn, as they have failed to grasp the true character and resources of the nations which they would forcibly sweep aside. H. S. Chamberlain cites Luther's dictum that the Germans 'a blind people,' and Herder's epigram that 'the Germans think much, and—not at all.' The German is not a good critic,' he adds. Acuteness is not a national possession of the Teutons.' He regrets that, 'entering recently into the history of the world,' they have not yet had time to ask themselves how things are going on in their immediate neighbourhood.' Till they find such time, they will sport on the edge of the abyss, as if it were a flowery mead.' Such carelessness is part of their character; and he finds it almost praiseworthy, since the Greeks and the Romans before them rushed to their ruin, totally unconscious 'how the pressure of events was removing them from the face of the earth, lively to the last, mighty and proudly sure of triumph to the last.' This is lyrical, after the manner of his ethnical mysticism. But he has said it.

Upon illusion, follows disillusion. How soon will the Germans awake to the truth of things? They know the Greek tragedies, and yet forget the penalty that befalls the overweening. Trained in history, they are acquainted with the rise and fall of Spain, of Louis XIV, of Napoleon, aiming at universal empire; and yet will not derive the due lesson. Napoleon they hate, as the cause of their long suffering; and, admiring, would imitate. There are blots on the moral scutcheon of all the nations; but the Germans would deliberately and consciously accomplish, on the largest scale, that which other nations have done in the past, almost unconsciously, and as it were by hazard. Machiavellians, they reprobate the growth of the British Empire, and would fain use force to wrest it away for themselves. On one occasion, at least, Treitschke deviated into moral sanity. The future course of human history cannot consist in the creation of a single dominant power; the ideal we should aim at is an orderly society of peoples.' But Treitschke, no doubt, meant that this orderly society should lie under the hegemony, the heel, of Prussia. In what way then, and how soon, schooled by adversity, will they confess their error? If the State,' he says, 'can no longer accomplish what it wills, it falls into ruin and anarchy.' Will they, at less cost than this, repudiate that national egoism, that 'will to Power,' that instinct of domination which is the fruitful mother of illusion, confusion, and lies? Will they admit at length that there is a political as well as a commercial morality; that patriotism can too often be, as Dr Johnson said, 'the last refuge of a scoundrel'? The Germans must be freed from within, the attempt from without is useless.' Meanwhile the friends without-lovers of liberty two of them, and the third well in the way of becoming so, friends made foes against their will-prosecute this war in order to end war, it may be; to break down the evil spirit of militarism which has beset a great people overwrought by pride, arrogance, infatuation, and megalomania.

Art. 4.-THE BOARD OF ADMIRALTY.

1. Naval Administration. By Admiral Sir R. Vesey Hamilton. London: Bell, 1896.

2. Encyclopaedia Britannica. Eleventh Edition. Vol. I, Art. Admiralty Administration.' Cambridge: Uni

versity Press, 1910.

3. The Times Book of the Navy. London: Published by The Times,' 1914.

PART I.-THE POSITION OF THE FIRST LORD.

As an organ of administration, the Board of Admiralty is quite unique; and, since its constitution, powers, functions and responsibilities appear to be very imperfectly understood, it is worth while to examine them in some detail. The Board consists of a certain number-the number has varied from time to time-of Commissioners. These Commissioners are officially styled 'The Lords Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral,' or more briefly 'My Lords Commissioners of The Admiralty'; and they derive their authority to act in that capacity from a Patent issued by the Crown as often as a new Board of Admiralty is constituted. The terms of this Patent have, with certain exceptions to be presently mentioned, remained substantially unchanged since it was first issued by Queen Anne in 1709, on the death of her husband Prince George of Denmark, who had held the office of Lord High Admiral. From that time forward the office has been in commission except for a few months in 1827, when it was revived by Canning in favour of the Duke of Clarence, afterwards King William IV.

But the Patent of Queen Anne was not even in those days the sole source of the authority exercised by the Board. Her Board was not the first Board of Admiralty. The office of Lord High Admiral had been in abeyance more than once in earlier days; and, in particular, it was in abeyance-its powers being exercised by a Board-when the Battle of Beachy Head was fought on June 30, 1690. Arthur Herbert, Earl of Torrington, was held to have misconducted himself in that battle, and it was proposed to bring him to a Court Martial.

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But it was objected that the Board of Admiralty could not order a Court Martial involving issues of life and death, inasmuch as that power had by a Statute of Charles II been reserved for a Lord High Admiral alone. To get over this difficulty a declaratory Act was passed, reciting that all powers lawfully vested in the Lord High Admiral by Act of Parliament or otherwise' did and should appertain to the Commissioners to all intents and purposes as if the said Commissioners were Lord High Admiral of England.' That Statute is still in force, but it was not passed without strong opposition; and it is worthy of note that in a protest recorded by seventeen members of the House of Lords one of the objections taken was that

'the judges having unanimously declared that the law marine was nowhere particularised in their books, whereby the power and jurisdiction of the Lord High Admiral may be ascertained, so that the practice is all that we know of it, we conceive it unprecedented and of dangerous consequence, that the jurisdiction exercised by the Lord High Admiral should, by a law, be declared to be in the Commissioners of the Admiralty, whereby an unknown and therefore unlimited power may be established in them.'

It is manifest from this that neither the Patent granted by Queen Anne nor any of its successors down to the present day could in any way restrict the powers vested in the Board by the Statute of William and Mary; and those powers were expressly declared by the judges in 1690 to be 'nowhere particularised in their books,' and by the protesting Peers to be 'unknown and therefore unlimited.' As a matter of fact the Patent was framed in exact accordance with the Statute:

'Granting to any three or more of you full power and authority to do everything which belongs to the office of Our High Admiral, as well in and touching those things which concern Our Navy and Shipping as in and touching those which concern the rights and jurisdictions of Our High Admiral.'

The only substantial change which has been made in the Patent since it was first issued by Queen Annethere are other verbal and textual changes of no great moment is that, wherever the words 'any three or