appreciate the chagrin with which they have stood on watch and ward during the past months.

Japan, far removed though she is from the main theatres of war, has played a notable part, employing her navy, her army, and her industrial resources in promoting the cause of the Allies. Germany had strongly established herself in the Pacific, where she was represented by a considerable squadron of cruisers and other ships, normally based upon her recently acquired colony, Kiao-chau. This position, Germany's point d'appui for the peaceful penetration of China, had been greatly developed economically and provided with strong defences both by land and by sea. Only a naval Power could dislodge the Germans, so long as China maintained her neutrality. Japan, interpreting in generous terms the alliance with Great Britain, undertook to cooperate in this task. The German squadron under Admiral von Spee had fled from far eastern waters on the opening of the war. While Allied cruisers were hunting down these enemy ships, while the German islands in the Pacific were being subdued, and while convoy was being afforded to the Australian and New Zealand contingents, Japan undertook the siege of the fortress of Tsing-tau, the bulwark of the German settlement in China.

Within a few weeks of the opening of hostilities in Europe, a Japanese squadron, under Vice-Admiral Kato, reinforced by several British men-of-war, was detached for this special duty; and a siege force of the Japanese army was organised under the command of Lieut.General Kaimo. Brigadier-General Barnardiston, commanding the British troops in North China, furnished some infantry. Throughout September and October, 1914, this amphibious operation was conducted with skill and patience, the Japanese ships vigorously pressing the Germans from the sea, while the soldiers crept round the landward side of the defences. In the first week of November, Admiral Meyer Waldeck signed the terms of capitulation, after suffering heavy casualties. The Commandant and his staff, together with nearly 3000 prisoners, were sent to Japan. In the course of the war few operations have been carried out with better judgment, skill, and resource than the reduction

of this German fortress. Success was not attained without loss, the third-class cruiser Takachiho,' a destroyer, a torpedo boat, and three mine-sweepers being sunk, while the casualties on land exceeded 1500, 236 of the soldiers being killed. In the light of recent events in China, the Republican Government having broken off diplomatic relations with Germany, the importance of the cooperation of the Japanese fleet will be appreciated at its high value. History will record that this Ally, far removed from the main centres of conflict, placed a generous interpretation on the terms of the AngloJapanese alliance and thus made no mean contribution to the final victory over the Central Powers.

It is unnecessary in a survey of the work of the fleets of our allies to make more than a brief passing reference to the influence of the submarine campaign. Underwater craft have not affected seriously the general naval situation in the Mediterranean or cut the communications of the armies, though losses have been incurred; while in the Baltic, employed as a weapon of offence in legitimate warfare and not as a weapon of outrage, British and Russian submarines have inflicted considerable injury on the Germans and disorganised their sea transport. The submarine will speedily have limitations forced upon it by the development of offensive-defensive measures. It is not destined to exercise a decisive influence on the course of the war, even though it be employed without respect for law or humanity. The intensified campaign which is being conducted in British waters, as in the Mediterranean, represents merely a phase of activity on the part of the enemy, and, on examination, must be regarded as proof of the success which the British and Allied fleets have achieved. No Powers would resort to such undersea operations-costly in life and treasureunless they realised that they had been driven from the surface of the world's seas and had no reason to expect that they would be able to wrest from the opponents the supremacy which the British, Russian, French and Italian fleets, in association with the navy of Japan in the Far East, have triumphantly asserted and maintained.

ARCHIBALD HURD.

Art. 12.-THE PONTIFICATE OF PIUS X.

1. La Politique de Pie X. By Maurice Pernot. Paris: Alcan, 1910.

2. La Séparation des Églises et de l'État. By Julien de Narfon. Paris: Alcan, 1912.

3. Histoire du Modernisme Catholique. By Albert Houtin. Paris: Chez l'auteur, 18 rue Cuvier, 1913.

4. Un Programma di Pontificato. By Romolo Murri, in "Bilychnis." Rome: September 1914.

5. Guerre et Réligion. By Alfred Loisy. Paris: Nourry, 1915. Translation by Arthur Galton. Oxford: Blackwell, 1915.

THE death of Pius X followed so close upon the outbreak of the war that it passed with little notice. When every day, as it comes, makes history, men live in the present; and civil interests fall into the background in the clash of arms. We need not wholly regret this. For we form a truer estimate of events when we stand at a certain distance from them. The controversies of the late Pontificate are now ancient history; we can see them in a drier light than would have been possible before the memorable August of 1914.

The conception of Roman Catholicism commonly entertained in this country is curiously wide of the mark. "Those rites and those doctrines which have made most noise in the Romanist controversy are those which are the least of the essence of Romanism. The Virgin and the Saints, Reliques, Images, Purgatory and Masses-these bywords with the vulgar and the unthinking, are powerless decorations, or natural developments. The one essential principle of the Catholic system is the control of the individual conscience by an authority or law placed without it, and exercised over it by men assuming to act in the name of Heaven.'*

This authority reaches its formal completion in the Papacy. Either a man accepts this institution, in which case submission follows; or he does not accept it, in which case he is not a Catholic, in the Roman sense of the word. There is no middle term. Nor is the notion of dogma less definite. So eminent a man as

* Mark Pattison, Essays,' 11. 255,

Harnack thinks it conceivable that the Vatican Definition of 1870 may serve to relieve the Church from the burden of the past and enable her to move freely in the modern world. But he overlooks a central position of Roman Catholicism, which insists upon the unity not only of the direction but of the content of truth. The Church is a dogmatic as well as a political unity; and change, as such, is excluded. The Decree Lamentabili (1907) explicitly condemns the notion of an evolution, or process, of truth. To keep this in mind is to possess the key to Catholicism, and to distinguish the permanent element in it from the personal and passing. The passing affects the manner rather than the substance of things; the permanent makes history, which records the play of lasting forces, not the changing moods of men. The Acts of Pius X reflect more than the personality of the Pontiff. This coloured, but did not produce them; they were the outcome of the permanent tendencies for which Catholicism stands. An opportunist Pope can retard, an intransigent Pope can accelerate, their working; more than this he cannot do. It is on this restricted field that action and reaction operate; a Pius IX is succeeded by a Leo XIII, a Leo XIII by a Pius X. Benedict XV is a lesser Leo, whose lot has fallen in more troubled times. Scarcely could even that wise Pontiff have steered the Church in safety through the tempest of the present war.

It was a saying of Professor Mivart that modern science had one disadvantage-it kept Popes alive too long. Leo XIII was a victim to this survival. His predecessor had left the Papacy in evil case. Leo restored its credit, which stood higher between 1878 and 1892 than at any period since the Reformation. But a man of ninety has outlived himself; in Leo's last years the Curia, which he had ruled with a high hand, reasserted itself; and there were worse influences than that of the Curia in the Church and in Rome. His later pronouncements breathed another spirit than that of the Encyclicals which had won for their author the title of 'Le Pape des Ouvriers'; he had become an old man. The characteristic features of his policy were his refusal to break with France, and his unwillingness to declare

* Dogmen-Geschichte,' iii. 681.

+ Propositions,' 58, 59.

war upon the modern mind and life movement. This did not mean that he was a Liberal; his years and his training made this out of the question. But he had the instinct for fact and the flair of a statesman-both in an exceptional degree. He felt rather than knew that France was the central plank in the Catholic platform; and that the modern movement was, and would remain, a factor in the situation with which the Church had to deal. He was better aware of this than any ecclesiastic, Protestant or Catholic, of his generation; and he had the habit of affairs. He temporised, therefore. He was patient, under much provocation, with the Republicand he was not naturally patient; he refused to proceed to extremities with Modernism; if he might not bless, he would not ban. He believed that he could catholicise democracy and science. He could not; the one and the other escaped and outstripped him; this was the tragedy of his reign. With his death the proverb of the dead lion received a new illustration; the outcome of the forces of ignorance and intolerance which were unchained-he was rather their instrument than their conscious ally-was Pius X.

Different estimates of the character of the late Pope have been formed; he has been represented as a tool and as an autocrat, as an inquisitor and as a saint. There is an element of truth in each of the pictures; motives are various, and the colours of good and evil mixed. The Jesuit Oliva tells us of the Popes of his time that, while they were excellent men before their elevation, there was not one who did not deteriorate after it. Nisi imperasset sums up many a ruler; and the Papacy is an office too great for human frailty. 'It is the voice of a god, not of a man!' The incense is deadly; who can breathe it and live? His election was as great a surprise to himself as it was to others; he is credited with a protest that it would be the ruin of the Church. This may well have been his feeling; for he was humble-in the sense in which Rowena was forgiving. "I forgive you, Sir Knight, as a Christian." "That means," said Wamba, "that she does not forgive him at all." Such humility is an ambiguous virtue. 'I hope that I am not humble,' said Father Tyrrell, 'from what I have seen of humble men.' The saint who believes