and remote speculations, the prompting, indeed, of aery monitors, are more proper for verse than prose, and in fact are already contained, explicit or implicit, in the odes. It is easy to accept the incomprehensible when the noblest rhythm of verse awakens and sustains the attention and gives thought the speed of wings; but the idea expressed as a sudden revelation in an ode may seem a mere paradox in the curt prose of 'Religio Poeta. True the prose is brilliant and hard as a jewel, but it provokes dissent and resistance as the verse seldom does. But for these essays we should not have seen so clearly Patmore's limitations, we should not have known that in aspiring towards an unapprehended world, of which the highest of earthly things are but symbols, he was contracted more and more narrowly into himself until, in his last years, his thought was but a thin rod of light springing from the nether to the upper darkness.

Nevertheless, he was a whole and consistent being. He is rightly called a mystic, and is in no sense a merely intellectual writer of mystical sympathies. He is no

an English Maeterlinck than Maeterlinck is a Belgian Shakespeare, and it would be preposterous to confuse him with writers who are willing to give mysticism a trial, as if it were a secondhand coat that could be cut down to fit, or stretched to disguise the gross protuberance of age. Mr Burdett attributes to him a system of thought, but the intellectual coherence which that implies was not within Patmore's reach. His constancy was emotional and founded in character, and he was incapable of rationalising the impulses of his heart.

It is not easy to forbear a question as to his position as an English poet, now that a hundred years have passed since his birth and nearly thirty since his death. In 1886 he wrote:

'I have written little, but it is all my best; I have never spoken when I had nothing to say, nor spared time or labour to make my words true. I have respected posterity; and, should there be a posterity which cares for letters, I dare to hope that it will respect me.'

In the case of certain of his great contemporaries, Tenny. son, Browning, and Swinburne, much of their prolific work

can be disregarded, and enough will yet remain to compare with Patmore's entire production. They dealt with varied subjects, their sympathies were diffused over the colonies and outliers of the intellectual empire; but Patmore's virtue is shown in concentration. He is the peer of the greatest of them in his utterance of ecstasy and the nobility of his style. He alone is a metaphysical poet and is not properly comparable with them at all, but with Meredith. Being metaphysicals, Patmore and Meredith perceived the world, both intellectually and spiritually, as other than it seemed; to the one it was less real, to the other more real than its appearance. Patmore saw man in the visible world as the beloved of God, his soul as the bride of God; Meredith saw him as a brave or fretful being, come out of brutishness' indeed but still subject to the sacred reality'-inscrutable Earth. Each poet at length was absorbed in his theme, but while Patmore's music became aerial and fine and so died away, Meredith's became perplexed until its obscurity matched perfectly the obscurity of his faith. But all these comparisons are foolish, for genius is unique and therefore incomparable, and the final impression of Coventry Patmore's poetry is an impression of pure genius. It fulfils Swinburne's strict test by eluding all tests and outsoaring criticism.

JOHN FREEMAN.

Art. 9.-STATE PATERNALISM IN THE ANTIPODES.

POLITICAL philosophers, both ancient and modern, have frequently emphasised the remarkable points of resemblance between absolute democracies and monarchies. In his famous Reflections' Burke quoted Aristotle's opinion to the effect that, under both forms of government, citizens of the better class are equally oppressed, and few thinkers challenge the Greek sage's statement to the effect that the courtier and the demagogue are political twin-brothers. The former prostrates himself before Cæsar, the latter before Demos; that is the sole difference. Certainly, as the instrument of oppression, the tax-collector has superseded the executioner; while the courtier of the mob, less attractive so far as external graces go than that of the monarch, bawls uncouth flatteries to his exacting masters in our parks and public halls. Hypocrisy and servility do not always appear in court dress. One may find among the innumerable appeals of the French revolutionary orators to the sovereign people more than a century ago, and among the utterances of the Bolshevik leaders in Russia to-day, expressions of adulation as ridiculous as any recorded in Persian or Byzantine annals. 'Les extrêmes se touchent.' And in policy also the parallel holds good. The preachers of extreme democracy in their proposed levies on capital and other confiscatory designs show the inclination ascribed by De Tocqueville to absolute monarchs to follow the example of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to obtain its fruit. The demagogue in power is an even more energetic, if less highly skilled, axeman than the despot. It is noticeable, too, that State paternalism attains its highest degree of development in communities under ultra-democratic and those under despotic rule. Motives of self-preservation urge the monarch to feed and clothe to the best of his ability the masses whose contentment is the foundation of his throne. Those of ambition and selfinterest impel the demagogue, invested with precarious authority, to lavish material comforts on the poorer class of electors to whose capricious favour he owes his elevation. Political necessity in each case compels the

sacrifice of the minority for the majority, the capable for the incapable, the fit for the unfit.

Among all civilised countries in the world to-day Australia may with some reason claim the dubious distinction of having made the greatest progress in what is commonly called 'humanitarian' legislation. From infancy to senility the average Australian citizen is the object of the State's paternal solicitude. Each Australian mother on the birth of her child receives from the hands of a sympathetic Government the sum of 5l., nominally to defray the expenses attendant on maternity, actually in a considerable number of cases to provide herself with some little memento of the happy event. Among the flippant in the Commonwealth references to the bangle' bonus are common, and the young mother there is frequently distinguished by a maternity ring on her arm as well as a wedding ring on her finger. Occasionally, it is whispered, the happy father thinks the event worthy of celebration with festive rites, and the maternity bonus takes the form of paternity beer. It serves also other purposes not originally contemplated by a well-meaning Legislature. For instance, some time ago the Council Clerk of a large Australian town received with gratification a letter from a defaulting ratepayer threatened with legal proceedings in which the writer pleaded for a short respite, explaining that his wife having just blessed him with twins of the immediate value of 10%., he hoped within a few days to be able to discharge his obligations.

The effects of the maternity bonus in Australia have fully illustrated the difference between benevolence and beneficence, and there are now heard, in medical and other well-informed circles there, insistent demands that a more effective and less crude specific shall be devised for meeting the claims of indigent motherhood without weakening in the case of the father that proper sense of parental responsibility which is the main support both of the family and the State. It is not gratifying to find that in more than ninety out of every hundred cases of child-birth in Australia within recent years the ignominious dole offered by the Government has been eagerly claimed; and even wealthy parents are now not ashamed to take it. During the last six months of the

year 1922-1923 no fewer than 68,745 claims for maternity allowances were granted in the Commonwealth as compared with 68,258 for the corresponding period of the previous year. These figures have a doubly unpleasant significance. They show increasing public expenditure, and a declining sense of self-respect among the people. While, however, the objections to the maternity bonus as now dispensed in Australia can be sufficiently justified on practical and financial grounds, those based on moral considerations which will be referred to later are far stronger. On the other hand, the most competent observers are unanimous in holding the opinion that no perceptible improvement in the birth-rate, or amelioration in the physical condition of Australian mothers and infants, has resulted from the indiscriminate and unconditional distribution of State doles of the kind now referred to, and the provision in their stead of free maternity hospitals for all really necessitous cases, and skilled medical advice and treatment wherever needed, is strongly recommended.

It may be added that among political philanthropists of a common type in Australia there is now a strong movement in favour of the State endowment of motherhood and childhood. The late Labour Government in New South Wales was pledged to the introduction of a measure under which practically all the children of wage-earners in the State would have been supported up to the age of fourteen by the tax-payers. At the late Federal General Election the opponent of the Prime Minister in North Sydney, Mr Piddington, K.C., who stood as an independent candidate, strongly advocated a scheme by which each employee would receive & minimum wage of 41. a week, while, in addition, the employer would be required to pay the sum of 128. weekly to the Government for every person employed by him. All contributions from this source, it was proposed, should support a fund out of which an allowance of 12s. weekly would be made to all married workers for each child under the age of fourteen. Thus, an unmarried employee would receive a weekly wage of only 41. a week, while a man-possibly an inferior worker-with five young children would be paid by the employer and the State combined no less than 7. a