The very rapidity of its progress almost stales a statement before the ink is dry. It makes such headway that annalists toil after it in vain. The calendar of its busy year contains vivid events-a royal opening of Parliament, the boat-race, the Whitsuntide exodus, the trooping of the Colour, the Eton and Harrow match at Lord's, the tourneys at Wimbledon or Hurlingham, the Temple rose show (where the white and crimson are redolent of wars that took their rise in this very garden), the brilliance of Epsom and Ascot, the river season, and all the pomps of autumn down to the bravery of Lord Mayor's Day-showing London's interest to be mainly an open-air one, say what we will of the climate. It is this continual recourse to the open air that cures the fret and stress of London life and keeps the balance of equanimity. If there is a secret of sanity, it is here. There are occasions, say, on the eve of a great man's passing, or after a vote which averts a national calamity -when the contending forces of London seem disciplined to an almost gyroscopic poise, whirring with inconceivable intensity, but preserving at the core a perfect calm. It is the expression in hyperdynamics of the old paradox about solitude in the midst of crowds. At such a moment one feels the sincerity of Matthew Arnold's prayer:

'Calm soul of all things, make it mine

To feel amid the city's jar

That there abides a peace of thine

Man did not make and cannot mar.'

One memorable glimpse of London's calm came years ago after a wild March night spent in the tiny gallery under the cross of St Paul's. For many hours one was, as Sartor said, 'above it all, alone with the stars.' At last, with indescribable awe, the night reluctantly withdrew. First came the changing revelation of the sky, passing through all the shades and colours of Nature's palette, from indigo to a cool and lucent pearl. Then the river came back to light, but not to life; that was an hour or two ahead. Slowly as one watched, there emerged from the plain of twilight Wren's white towers, posted like sentinels about the sleeping battlefield below. The sea of slate resolved itself into the chequering of a

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myriad roofs. Smoke began to ascend like an incantaadv tion. The signal lights of streets and railways burned themselves out, and one's ears began to tingle with something better than cold, for a swarm of sparrows broke into shrill clamour about the eaves below. Motion came into play along the streets in ant-like detail, and an eager breeze of morning, like a shepherd's collie, seemed worrying the drowsy city back to life. Ecstasy was lost in the fascination of watching the magic of everything. The spell reanimating the rest of men, however, was one for you as well. You thought of many Londons woven into the texture of the carpet of life beneath-the London of crime and poverty, the London of affliction and the great hospitals and charities, the London of civic splendour and the guilds, the London of trade and wealth and merchandise, of letters and skill and learning, of government, of sport, of leisure and society. You bethought yourself of the London of the children and of gracious, ministering womanhood, and you remembered how a great American critic once said he had found here in London

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'that most perfect expression of a noble demeanour and large-heartedness which can only be found where the best type of mind has been permitted the largest and richest culture and the completest freedom of hereditary development in the most favourable external circumstances.'

Then as you descended to the ground the emotions found a voice and you returned to the scene of things with a profound content. It is the humanity of London that counts after all, and in the region of feeling the part is often greater than the whole. You may admire London in the mass, and in spite of its magnitude, may champion it, study it, and add to its records. But the London of your affections is no abstraction or ideal; it is the London of men and places and things-its interminable streets and pavements, its monuments and churches, its clubs and theatres, its shops and markets, the river and the bridges, the parks and gardens, galleries and museums-including the London Museum at Stafford House, which is a veritable treasure-house in its wayall sorts of London legends and survivals, the music and beauty and drama of everything, and the very winds

and showers for the glory of the sunsets they afford. But most of all the mind dwells on the ceaseless scurry-A and medley of human beings, intent on working out a dim converging purpose they cannot grasp, but helping in the maintenance of a great and splendid entity that Time the fugitive can never deface or destroy. It may be there is something of the serene impersonality of Nature herself in the aloofness of London towards those who h serve her. They experience something of the heartache that weighs upon the devotee who takes farewell of lake or mountain knowing how little, how much less than nothing, he can ever be to the object of his interest. But the spiritual rule of life is service, and the best of service is its disinterestedness, so there is reward and comfort after all in the murmurs that come from the oracle for the few who hearken. And those who have been proud to serve at her altar for years will depart in a lasting serenity, fortified by knowing that, let the years bring what they may, London remains, as ever, throned on a long and proud tradition, the mother of great movements and true men.

J. P. COLLINS.

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Scur Art. 4.-AN EXPERIMENT IN SOCIALISM.

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AUSTRALIA may justly claim the distinction of possessing the most elaborate system of racial and economic protection hitherto contrived by any civilised nation in modern times. While, certainly, it cannot be said with truth that her shores are adequately protected by fixed tac or mobile barriers such as forts, fleets, and armies, the 'White Australia' policy protects the Australian worker from the dangerous competition of the coloured alien, Australian manufacturers are shielded by an almost unscalable tariff wall, shipowners and seamen by the Navigation Act, and the organised wage-earners, who now number rather over 700,000 out of a total population still below 6,000,000, are, so far as possible, protected against those fluctuations in the rates of wages which, under normal conditions, attend free competition in the labour market by an elaborate code of industrial laws and the operations of a number of wage-fixing tribunals. It is true, indeed, as many ardent protectionists in Australia are now beginning to perceive, that these privileges bestowed on special classes tend to neutralise one another; and their cumulative effect is greatly to the disadvantage of other classes, pre-eminently that of the primary producers, who remain outside the favoured circles.

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The farmer, for instance, has to pay inflated prices for his implements and other requirements owing to the tariff; the freight charges on his goods are enormously augmented by the Navigation Act; and his wages bill, as well as that of the manufacturer, is substantially increased through the lavish generosity of the Arbitration Court. The prevailing 'beggar-my-neighbour' system detrimentally affects the interests even of the favoured wage-earners themselves. Besides necessarily limiting opportunities of employment by discouraging the investment of capital it appreciably raises the general costs of living, and these affect the workers as much as others. The bricklayer, for example, has to pay more for his boots when his fellow-worker in the boot factory succeeds, by appealing to some industrial tribunal, in obtaining an increase of wages. He retaliates by Vol. 244.-No. 484.

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demanding higher pay for himself, the consequence reas being that the boot-maker soon has to pay a higher rent and c for his dwelling. As the exactions of their employés are multiply, the manufacturers clamour for more and more perat protection; and this necessarily leads to further increases the in the general costs of living. And so the game of grab in goes on, the players being so immersed in the pursuit of ha their own interests as entirely to forget those of the feet community as a whole. The root cause of this singular state of things, as well as that of the class jealousies aim and friction which necessarily accompany it, is to be by th found in the prevailing system of wage-regulation. This, the ignoring as it does all economic considerations, has placed an the industries directly affected by it on an artificial and tr most unstable foundation, and, at the same time, by its tion. indirect effects, has seriously threatened the stability of those industries which have hitherto escaped its malign operation.

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Soon after the establishment of the Federal Arbitra-sti tion Court, by far the most important of all the wagefixing tribunals in Australia, it was found that, as conditions were at the time, one class of workers was entirely excluded from the blessings of the 'living wage.in Manifestly the President of the Court could not dictate wages and conditions of employment for the mercantile marine of Great Britain and all foreign nations, and it was equally clear that, if the Australian shipowner was compelled to pay his crews much higher wages than those paid to the crews of non-Australian vessels, he would soon be crushed by his British and foreign rivals. The maritime unions, therefore, raised a doleful clamour, and loudly demanded the protective measures necessary to enable them to share in the largesse distributed among their fellow-workers by the President of the Arbitration Court. Their Parliamentary representative, Senator Guthrie, opened a vigorous offensive against British and foreign shipping interests with the object of driving them from the Australian coasting trade, and the champion of the seamen received the powerful support of the whole Labour party. The result of the strenuous efforts of the trade-unions and their political delegates was the passing of the Navigation Act in 1912. This measure was originally drafted in 1902, but owing

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