of his peasants, not as an effort of philanthropy but strictly as a business proposition.

Again, there is no longer any doubt that India needs an enclosure-policy. Enclosures exist, but the bulk of the land would have been described by one of the classical English writers as 'champion country,' parcelled out as it is into fields of irregular shape and often of minute dimensions, separated only by a strip of varying width which may serve as pathway or as a watercourse, and open on all sides to the depredations of animals wild or tame. And in this patchwork of fields the holdings of individuals are often incompact; a peasant may have fields scattered in every quarter of the village, and there is, as a rule, no machinery available for the processes of adjustment and consolidation. It is unnecessary to enter on a recital of the evils which result from this arrangement, for they are familiar to every student of agricultural history; but it is desirable to point out that the economic loss increases with every rise in the cost of labour and power, and that the need for adjustment becomes greater as the scope for improvement becomes wider. Already the experts employed by the State find that the progress of reform is hampered in many directions, in controlling the spread of weeds or insects, in regulating the flow of surface-water, or in promoting the most economical use of cattle and implements. And the need will continue to grow; if the consideration of the question be delayed, there is grave risk that it may have to be decided in a hurry, and in that case the unnecessary evils which have followed on enclosure elsewhere are only too likely to be reproduced in Indian conditions.

There is also the problem of ensuring that no part of the value of a peasant's improvement shall be claimed from him either by the State in the form of increased revenue or by the landholder in the form of increased rent. Improvements are already protected to a certain extent by laws and regulations which vary in different parts of the country. The provisions in force are on the whole not ill-adapted to the state of agriculture with which they aim at dealing; they contemplate for the most part tangible improvements, such as wells or drains; and, while their suitability to the new conditions is at

present uncertain, the more pressing need is perhaps to provide for such a change of practice on the part of courts and authorities, and for such recognition of the weight of expert evidence, as will ensure that the peasant shall retain the extra income due to his efforts and outlay.

Lastly, the shadow of morcellement lies over the future. The ordinary laws of inheritance involve the subdivision of a holding among the children, or other heirs, of a deceased occupier; and, in existing social conditions, a progressive reduction in the size of holdings and an increase in the number too small to be worked economically appears to be unavoidable. The laws in question are integral parts of Hinduism and Islam, and their alteration would be an operation of the utmost delicacy. At the present time there are signs that Indian public opinion is becoming alive to the danger; and this is the first step in the direction of a solution.

The foregoing enumeration of present or impending problems does not claim to be complete, but enough has been said to establish the proposition that the future of Indian agriculture cannot safely be ignored by the statesman or the administrator; the progress already made on the technical side only brings into stronger relief the need for renewed attention to those wider economic questions which have been subordinated to the political development of the last few years. These activities were necessary to the welfare of the country; but, while it is true that India cannot live by bread alone, it is not less true that bread is her first need, and that an increase in material prosperity is a condition precedent to development on other sides.

W. H. MORELAND.

Art. 4.-THE NEW POETRY.

1. Georgian Poetry 1911-12. The Poetry Bookshop, 1912. 2. Georgian Poetry 1913-15. The Poetry Bookshop, 1915. 3. The Catholic Anthology 1914-15. Elkin Mathews, 1915.

THE difficulty which has always beset criticism in its attempts to arrive at a satisfactory definition of the word Poetry is by no means confined to the elusive nature of the art itself. For not only is the art of Poetry so sensitive and subtle as to escape again and again from the process of analysis, but the very standards by which it is controlled are continually changing, and the artist's own conception of his business is in a state of perpetual transition. Religion, philosophy, imagination, fancy, rebellion, and reaction-these, and many other elements in human thought, have left their impress upon the poetic tradition; and the function of criticism, as each new generation breaks with some established canon, has been more and more to hold to what is best in tradition, to test new movements in the light of that best, and yet to keep an open mind towards innovations, and to welcome any change, however revolutionary, that is calculated to enlarge the field of poetic vision and activity. This last function is the hardest of all the tasks that criticism is called upon to undertake; but the more intelligently the critic embraces it, the better will he fulfil his responsibilities. The history of literature has proved with weary iteration that the worst and most retarding fault that criticism can commit is the tendency to doubt every new movement, and to challenge and defy methods whose novelty may indeed be disconcerting, and yet may contain the germ of artistic emancipation and enlightenment.

It behoves the critic, therefore, to walk warily among new movements, without losing touch with the permanent laws of his craft; and, to guide him amid all minor differences of period and taste, there will be found certain main conceptions of the poetic art, which have stood fast in the face of change and revolution. Pre-eminent among these, the very charter of Poetry itself, is the conception that poetry consists in the imputation of universality to the individual idea and impulse; and

conversely in the interpretation of the individual impulse in the light of universal truth. The personal quality of the emotion or impulse expressed has been always regarded as essential, because it is only through personality that the artist can make his appeal. But the individual personality acquires acceptance precisely as it relates itself to the universal heart of the world. When we read a poem, or a passage in a poem, and exclaim instinctively: 'That is true. I never thought it before, but now it is said, I recognise it as true, and as so well said that it is never likely to be said better': when, in short, we find ourselves face to face with an eternal idea expressed in flawless language, we acknowledge instinctively that we are in the presence of poetry of the essential, classic order, against which time and the ebbing tide of taste are powerless. But there must be this complete fusion of thought with expression. The qualities of form, beauty, and music, which tradition has accepted as inseparable from poetry, remain inseparable from it to-day. Without the universal, living idea, embodying itself in personal experience, you may have agreeable, charming verse, but you cannot have poetry. And, with equal emphasis, unless the idea is clothed in language that fits it, embodies it, and gives it poetic currency, you may have rhetoric and eloquence, but you will not and cannot have poetry. For poetry so indissolubly blends the universal and the personal that idea, image, expression, and symbol are indistinguishable from one another in the perfected harmony of their union.

These considerations (trite enough, perhaps, in themselves) would appear to be worth recalling at the present time, since there is evidently some danger of their being forgotten in the indefatigable search for novelty and sensation which, after vexing the field of the English novel with varying fortunes, has recently attacked the poet's art as well. We have been passing through a period of intellectual transition and readjustment. The stirring and revolutionary movements which convulsed the Victorian era have exhausted themselves; the world of ideas has grown stagnant; and the art of poetry has made but little recognisable advance for a period of something like twenty years. And now we are suddenly confronted by a new movement, on whose behalf the claim is made that

English poetry is once again putting on a new strength and beauty,' so that 'we are at the beginning of another Georgian period which may take rank in due time with the several great poetic ages of the past.' These are proud words; and one of the most conspicuous revolutionists of the new school has elsewhere defined the movement with which he is identified in no uncertain terms. Our aim,' he says, 'is natural speech, the language as spoken. We desire the words of poetry to follow the natural order. We would write nothing that we might not say actually in life-under emotion.' It is, perhaps, not surprising to learn, as we do in the same context, that the herald of this new standard of poetry has 'degrees of antipathy and even contempt for Milton and Victorianism and the softness of the nineties' ; * and, though it is improbable that his contempt for what he describes as the Miltonian quagmire' would be endorsed by many of the other champions of Georgian Poetry, it is at least certain that the atmosphere of all the three volumes cited at the head of this article is an atmosphere of empirical rebellion. Since, moreover, this atmosphere of rebellion is introduced with a confidence quite gloriously cocksure, it may not be without value to consider the claims of these young innovators, and to estimate the effect which their influence seems likely to exercise upon English poetry in the immediate future. It is evident that such influence is by no means negligible, for the first anthology of Georgian Poetry is already in a twelfth impression, and many of the names that decorate it are among the most enthusiastically acclaimed of the younger generation. But, before we consider their performance in detail, a few reflections upon the art which they practise may help us to appreciate the precise standard of poetry to which their workmanship and spiritual outlook conform.

Poetry, it will be generally conceded, even by the most enterprising claimant for plain speaking in common speech, must work in one or other, or in all combined, of three different media-ideas, emotions, and moods. When poetry was defined as 'a criticism of life,' the framer

'The Poems of Lionel Johnson.' With an Introduction by Ezra Pound. Elkin Mathews.