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instruction is left wholly to the priests, enjoy at least an apparent advantage over those whose pupils are members of the Church of England, and therefore are assumed to be in need of its rites.

In almost the only place where an impartial observer can check Mr Parker from outside knowledge he passes the test unscathed. He was evidently a boy at school when Warre succeeded Hornby as headmaster. We know from Mr Fletcher's biography of the former, that early in his career as head, Warre was rudely treated by some of his Sixth Form boys, and that he was deeply distressed. This is how Mr. Parker relates it:

""Judwin says there's a row on."

6.66

""What sort of a row?" Martin looked back from the turn of the path. Mist rose white beyond Fellow's Eyot. 'Well, it isn't exactly a row. It's ructions. With the Head. Judwin heard Hassall talking about it to Rodwill." ""How could you have ructions with the Head? I don't

see

""It's something to do with changes. And the new things Sixth Form have to do they never did before. Alterations of time and schools and all those new School Orders. Judwin says Hassall said he was sick of seeing the Head's signature and his blue ink, and Judwin says Hassall said the notice board's getting like a paper chase" ['Judwin says Hassall said '—what skill, what simplicity, what truth, are in the repetition of those four words! We should like to have been introduced to Hassall and Judwin, but Mr Parker is far too good an artist to indulge us here]. "Hassall says we've got on very well all these years without School Orders printed and hung up and all that, and everybody's known what to do and how to mind their own businesses, and it's impossible to keep count of all these new things you must do and musn't do, and anyway Hassall says the Head will find out that Sixth Form

'They turned the corner of the wall leading to Weston's Yard. Under the arch strode a tall figure in black.'

There follows an eight-line portrait of Warre which carries conviction, and, if it be accurate, must have made his biographer green with envy.

* We must not be understood to say that Catholic priests would perform the difficult task better than English laymen; we offer no opinion on this point.

R

If we have devoted the greater part of this article 3. to a single book, it is not because we regard it as the single book on the subject, for we cannot say this while 'Tom Brown' remains in print. But we are quite prepared to make a first class of these two books only, and it would be a first class in which 'Playing Fields' would definitely be Senior, and Tom Brown' Second, Classic. To suppose that a better school story would never be written would be to set bounds to human imagination; to suggest any better way of writing one would be impertinent, and for the present reviewer impossible. Indeed, he has only one concluding reflexion to make, and he makes it in some fear and trembling. 'Happy is the School which has never had its intimacies thrown open to the world outside its gates.' It is tolerably well known that there is such a school,* and that it is not the least among the great colleges and schools of England. This silence is not from want of time, for it is a very old school, so old as to be, in common with Eton and Westminster, specially exempted from the restrictions of the Mortmain Acts.

There is a very brief sketch, called 'School Life at Winchester,' written early in the 'sixties, published in 1870, by Robert Blachford Mansfield, describing the experience of a junior in college between 1835 and 1840. It was no doubt inspired by Tom Brown,' and its author was a family friend of Hughes. It was reprinted in 1893. But it is in no sense a novel or even a 'tale.' It has been suggested to the present writer that the earlier pages of a very 'modernist' novel called 'Sonia' may have reference to Winchester, but there is no proof of this, and little real internal evidence; nor, we believe, was the author of that novel a Wykehamist.

Art. 3.-THE NEXT NAVAL CONFERENCE.

THERE can be little doubt that a very general desire exists amongst the civilised peoples of the world to see the burden of expenditure on armaments lightened and 'peace on earth' more firmly established. Ardent supporters of the League of Nations, Internationalists, Pacificists, and Economists are wont to regard a reduction of the means of making war as one of the most potent measures which can be taken to ensure peace. In consequence, we see Governments being continually urged by these enthusiasts to call a new conference for the 'limitation of armaments.'

The success of the Washington Treaty of 1922 and the fact that the Navy takes the heaviest toll of the public purse have combined to produce in this country a tendency to seek a reduction of that rather than of the other two Services. The British Army has already been whittled down until it can scarcely fulfil our manifold commitments, and it is so reduced and scattered that it constitutes neither an asset for bargaining with on our part, nor a cause for alarm or offence on the I part of the most sensitive foreign Power. Our weakness in the air, compared with our nearest neighbours, is so obvious and the horror of air attack so firmly implanted in the man in the street' by the experiences of the late war, that there is little inclination to urge a further reduction of the Royal Air Force.

Peace is lulling the nation to a sense of false security at sea. The most serious danger to this island seems to the unthinking to be that latent in the air forces of Continental Powers. The public forgets that this country is now more dependent on oversea commodities than any nation at any time in the world's history, and that the Navy alone can ensure the safe arrival of those commodities. It has come to take abundance for granted. It also overlooks the fact that the one and only defence against air attack-our own Air Forcewould be paralysed in a very short time if petrol supplies failed, and that practically the whole of our petrol has to be brought by long sea routes from sources which lie, almost entirely, outside the British Empire.

Of course, these domestic considerations need not, by

themselves, preclude an investigation of the problem of a further reduction of naval expenditure. To carry the issue to extremes, if all other Sea Powers would agree to reduce their navies to a strength not exceeding that of the present Portuguese fleet, let us say, we in this country could undoubtedly afford to reduce our own navy very considerably, but even then our reduction could not be proportional to that which the United States, for instance, would be making. In practice, however, the balance of Sea Power cannot be struck by the simple process of comparing the numerical strength of the various types of warships of the respective navies of the world, much less would such a process make for a stable peace. The lasting peace on earth' which is the high ideal of all statesmen can, we know, only be ensured by universal' goodwill towards men.' There is that type of goodwill which might be maintained between two nations fully content with their own lot, living fraternally like two God-fearing neighbours needing no barriers to prevent each trespassing on the other's property. In the present state of the world, however, such international affection is far to seek. The great war has left the victors watchful and insistent on due compensation, the vanquished resentful and evasive, and neutrals suspicious and ill at ease. this atmosphere it is vital to the promotion of increased tranquillity that the 'strong man armed' should retain his strength and use it to prevent that disorder which springs most readily from weak and restless communities. It is in the fulfilment of that rôle that the British Empire has grown to its present greatness and in which it has brought peace, security, and prosperity to innumerable millions who would otherwise be in a perpetual state of strife and unrest.

In

Great Britain is the eldest child of the biggest family of nations in the world, and as such she has immense powers for keeping the peace of the world if she maintains her sense of responsibility and the means of exerting her authority in that great cause. So long as human nature remains what it is there will be two potent dangers to peace. Firstly, there is the man or nation with great possessions who invites attack because he has not taken adequate measures to safeguard them.

Secondly, there is the instinctive inclination to challenge authority which is lacking in the power to uphold its decrees. It is as well to keep these axioms in mind when examining the question of reducing naval armaments.

Now, the British Navy is the sea-police of the Empire. Just as the police force on shore safeguards the King's highways, the nation's storehouses, and our hearths and homes, so the Navy safeguards the ocean highways and our harbours and coasts all over the world. Remove or unduly weaken either of these police services, and we invite robbery and assault by the unruly elements of mankind. On the other hand, a nation which maintains a navy far in excess of its normal and peculiar requirements may come to be regarded as having aggressive intentions. Such display of force creates an atmosphere of suspicion and encourages that competition in warship construction which, in the interests of peace and the improvement of social and economic conditions, it is so desirable to avoid. We can, therefore, formulate two further axioms on which to establish a firm balance between the Sea Powers:

1. The strength of a nation's navy should be such that it will constitute an adequate safeguard to that nation's maritime interests, and that it will act as a strong deterrent to a rival who might otherwise disturb the peace by assailing those interests.

2. No nation should create or maintain a navy of such a size that it constitutes a menace to peace because it is out of all proportion to normal needs.

The second axiom in no way implies that the nation with the largest navy necessarily constitutes a threat to other Sea Powers nor, on the other hand, that one of the lesser navies may not assume aggressive proportions because it does not possess superiority in numbers. Germany, for example, in the years leading up to the war was the most aggressive of nations in the way in which she accelerated warship construction to an extent out of all proportion to her normal requirements, although she never attained first place as a naval power.

Keeping these considerations in view let us examine the existing situation. In 1922 the chief maritime nations met and came to an amicable agreement stabilising the naval position throughout the world. The