by which Jews inhabiting any Rumanian territory do not possess another nationality are to be recogr as Rumanian nationals ipso facto and without the requ ment of any formality. And as Arts. 8 and 9 cc spond to Arts. 7 and 8 of the Treaty with Pol their rights as Rumanian citizens are fully assure them. Art. 11 accords to the communities of the Sa and Szecklers in Transylvania local autonomy in re to scholastic and religious matters subject to the cor of the Rumanian State. Finally, Art. 16 correspond regards the river system of the Pruth, with Art. 1. the Polish Treaty.

The problems discussed in the volume which ste third on our list relate exclusively to the territo settlements made by the Peace Treaties (excepting Turkish Treaty, to which America was not a party). contrasts favourably with The History' inasmuch a is the work of two writers, each of whom undertook half of the chapters of which it consists. A general u of style and treatment accordingly pervades the wh which is more than can be said of the larger book.

No one will doubt that universal compulsory milit service enabled the militarist Great Powers gradually increase the numbers of their trained men, and eventu to realise the theory of 'the armed nation,' which led the war being conducted on such a ruinous scale. must be regretted, therefore, that the 'History' ha whole paragraph devoted to the glorification of this.

"There is only one vital argument against universal milit service, that it increases the chances of war by develop the martial instinct of nations, and by placing in the ha of ambitious rulers a powerful instrument for imposing th will on weaker Powers.'

Perhaps it will be alleged that, most, if not all, of t. autocratic rulers having disappeared from the stage, t danger of their example being followed has vanishe But history teaches that nations are just as easily 1 away by the love of domination as individual rulers, al this passion is also found to animate individuals in position to aim at its gratification.

ERNEST SATOW.

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I. SIR WILFRID LAURIER.

Come SIR WILFRID LAURIER, as was the case with at least two of his predecessors in the premiership of the Dominion of Canada-Macdonald and Mackenzie-began his political career with neither material nor social advantages in his favour. Macdonald was the son of an emigrant, who was a wage-earner at Kingston, Ontario, almost to the end of his working life. Mackenzie was a stonemason, who, like the parents of Macdonald, emigrated from Scotland; and he was at work at his trade until he became actively interested in politics. Laurier was the son of a land surveyor, Carolus Laurier, who earned only a meagre income by the practice of his profession. He was born in 1841, at St Lin, a picturesque and typically French-Canadian village, in the county of L'Assomption. His mother, who was of Acadian descent, died when Laurier was only four years old.

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Until Laurier made his first communion, he attended h the parish school at St Lin. The next three years of his life were passed at a Protestant school at New Glasgow, a small town eighteen miles from his birthplace. At the end of his schooling (1854) he entered the College of L'Assomption. He remained there for the full classical course of seven years. At the age of twenty, he began his short career at the Bar, entering the office at Montreal of Rudolphe Laflamme, who was afterwards a member of the Liberal Administration at Ottawa (18741878). While in Laflamme's office, Laurier took the law Course at McGill University, and achieved some distinction as a student. He was admitted to the bar in 1864, and in 1880 was raised to the rank of Q.C.

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Laurier practised law first in Montreal, and later at Arthabaska. He was, however, at no time really prominent among the lawyers of the Province of Quebec; nor was he ever, from the point of view of income, more than moderately successful in his profession. Ten years after the completion of his studies at McGill, he was elected to the House of Commons (1874), and politics thereafter were his absorbing interest. During the greater part of his life he lived on his salary ($1250) as a Member of Parliament, with the addition, during his

Premiership, of a Premier's salary ($7500), and durin his last phase, as Leader of the Opposition, of the sala of $5000 paid since 1904 to the holder of that position.

Laurier's career in Dominion politics extended ov forty-five years. It is a career, in this respect, witho parallel in the history of Canada. It is, moreover, wit out parallel in the history of the Oversea Dominions, regards its permanent influence on the relations of the Dominions with Great Britain. Laurier had no pa in Confederation. He was beginning his career as lawyer when the British North-America Act (1867) w passed by the Parliament at Westminster. But i Canadian statesman of his time had more influence the relations of the Dominions and Great Britain in t twenty-five years that preceded the Great War, the the French-Canadian Premier of 1896-1911.

The long career of Laurier at Ottawa easily divid itself into three well-marked periods. The first exten from 1874 to 1896. Except for four years (1874-187 the Liberals were in opposition during this period; ar for nine of these years (1887-1896) Laurier was leader the Opposition in the House of Commons, and nation leader of the Liberal party. The second period exten from the general election in 1896, to the defeat of th Liberals, on the Taft-Fielding reciprocity agreement, the general election in September 1911. This was th Laurier era, as the period from 1867 to 1891 had bee the Macdonald era. It was the era during which Laurie left his mark on the relations between the Dominior and Great Britain, and, through the British preferenti tariff of 1897, on the foreign commercial policy of Gres Britain, and also on the trade policy of four of the fiv Oversea Dominions. The third period extends from th formation of the Borden Government, in the autumn c 1911, to Laurier's death in February 1919. It was marke by the division of the Liberal party over the Conscriptio Act, and generally by disruption and misfortune withou parallel in the history of Liberalism in Canada.

Laurier was thirty-three when, in 1874, he entere the House of Commons. He was returned at th general election in that year by Drummond and Artha baska, the riding in which he had practised as a lawyer

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in which he achieved the only prize in his profession that ever fell to him-election as batonnier by the Bar of the county; and in which also he had unsuccessfully attempted to establish a Liberal newspaper, published in the language of the province. It is the riding, moreover, in which Laurier established his first home; for in 1868 he was married to Miss Zoe Lafontaine, and until the end of his life his country home was in Arthabaska. Politics were not a new interest with Laurier when he first entered the House of Commons as a supporter of the Liberal Government of 1874-1878-the Government which had been returned to power as the result of the widespread popular indignation at the grave scandal arising out of the granting, by the Macdonald Government, of the first charter for the Canadian Pacific Railway. In his earlier years in Montreal, and as a lawyer and a newspaper editor at Arthabaskaville, Laurier was a Radical, at times an extreme one; and it was in this period of his career that his Radicalism, especially in the domain of ecclesiastical politics, brought him into collision with the authorities of the Catholic Church.

Before he was elected to Parliament he had served one term of three years (1871-1874) in the Lower House of the Legislature at Quebec. It was his first and only service in provincial politics. In one important respect it was a helpful and memorable term; for, while he was & member of the Legislative Assembly, he greatly distinguished himself by a speech that was remembered to his credit as long as he lived. It was on the relations of French-Canadians in Quebec with the people of the sister provinces-Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia and on the relations of the Dominions with Great Britain.

In 1871, the year in which Laurier made what became known as his United Canada' speech, Confederation was still in some degree an experiment. Not all the old British North-American provinces at this time had thrown in their lot with the newly-created Dominion. Nova Scotia was still complaining that it had been hustled nter into Confederation against its will; British Columbia was driving a hard bargain with Ottawa; and there were still some unsettled and disturbing questions, mostly affecting awyer provincial rights, arising out of Confederation as

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organised and worked under the British North Amer Act of 1867. Laurier's speech sounded the key-note many subsequent speeches on the same subject, ma some in Canada, some in England, after he had esta lished his position in Dominion politics, and, as a politi leader, had become as acceptable to the English-speaki provinces as to Quebec.

At this time Laurier was on the back-benches the Legislative Chamber. His speech, as remarkal for its grace of style as it was for its frankne brought him into a prominence that extended beyo the boundaries of the French province. He rank thereafter as an advocate of a united Canada-as French-Canadian who was opposed to a continuance the old racial and religious divisions between French a English-speaking Canadians. He showed himself al an admirer of British political institutions and Briti civilisation, who from his study of English history cou state the grounds on which his admiration was base and an outspoken upholder of the tie between th Dominion and Great Britain.

Laurier's Quebec speech-his first speech that was ‹ more than provincial interest-together with his di tinguished personal appearance, his genial temperamen and his grace of manner, soon made him acceptable t his fellow-members from the English-speaking province in the House of Commons of 1874-1878. He had the ir stinct for parliamentary procedure which is characteristi of French-Canadians, and a love for the usages an traditions of Parliament; and he possessed these qualitie to a degree that was remarkable even among the men o his province. Moreover, he was a polished and gracefu speaker and formidable in debate. He was equally attractive whether speaking in the House of Common or on the platform in the constituencies. In som respects he was not the intellectual equal of Blake o Cartwright, but he could hold the attention of the House as well as either of these contemporaries; and from his earliest years at Ottawa he was always careful not to weary his audience-a remark that could not uniformly be made of either Blake or Cartwright.

In the Parliament of 1874-1878-the only Parliament in the period 1867-1896 in which the Liberals were in