plexities of the moment could be resolved, and how the essentials of the ancient creeds could be restated in terms of the most modern science. He made it clear to many doubtful and troubled minds that, in spite of the triumphs of naturalism, it was still possible, and indeed necessary, to hold fast to faith in human freedom, in Divine immanence, and in personal immortality. He based his conviction of individual liberty, of the presence of God, and of the reality of the life eternal, not on external evidences which criticism can question or scepticism assail, but on intuitions and revelations peculiar to the patient and expectant soul:

If e'er when faith had fall'n asleep,

I heard a voice "believe no more" And heard an ever-breaking shore That tumbled in the Godless deep;

A warmth within the breast would melt

The freezing reason's colder part, And like a man in wrath the heart Stood up and answer'd "I have felt.”

It was because he felt so acutely the perplexities of the age, and because he wrestled with them faithfully and resolved them hopefully, that he made so strong an appeal to the conservative culture of his generation. Not all his poems, however, were didactic. Many, and prominent among them thosee.g., the "Idylls of the King" and "Enoch Arden"-written during the thirty years (1850-1880) when his powers were at their maturity and his fame at its height, were purely descriptive and narrative. These owed little of their popularity to their content of thought. Their appeal was exclusively literary and sentimental: but they deserved their fame as splendid monuments of the capacities of English verse: Enoch's white horse, and Enoch's ocean-spoil

In ocean-smelling osier, and his face,

Rough-redden'd with a thousand winter gales,

Not only to the market cross were known,

But in the leafy lanes behind the down, Far as the portal-warding lion-whelp, And peacock-yewtree of the lonely

Hall,

Whose Friday fare was Enoch's ministering.

Where else, as Bagehot long ago asked, can be found a more magniloquent

statement of the trivial fact that a fisherman caught and sold fish?

"Alfred," said Edward FitzGerald as he read verses of this kind, "is full of poetry, but has nothing to put it in." The truth is that during these central years Tennyson was engaged in undecided battle with his spiritual foes, and not till in later life he emerged victorious and serene could he return to the deep themes whose treatment forms his great and distinctive contribution to the literature of his time. It is not in virtue of "Enoch Arden," or even of the "Idylls of the King" (wherein rude warriors of the sixth century wear the arms and accoutrements of the fourteenth, and give utterance to the philanthropic sentiments of the nineteenth), that he will live, if live he does, but in virtue of his earlier and his later poems of faith and hope and love.

But this suggests the second question. Will he live; or will the comparative neglect and indifference with which he has been regarded during the past quarter of a century continue to be his lot during the present and subsequent generations? There can be no doubt that at the time of his death he had lost touch with the world. He was old and weary; the courage of "Ulysses" and the confident optimism of "Locksley Hall" had given place to the apprehension of "Locksley Hall Sixty Years After" and the gloom of "Despair." In an age become wholly democratic

he remained invincibly aristocratic. Among а people rapidly drifting towards Socialism he clung to the principles of mid-Victorian Individualism. From the new cosmopolitanism he held aloof, firm in his patriotism and his insularity. Even the philosophic and religious conflict in which he had played so prominent and noble a part was moving away from the fields with which he was familiar, and was being carried into regions unrealized by his imagination. The battle against materialism and agnosticism in which he had valiantly fought had been won; the new struggle, for which his weapons were not fitted, was being joined on the unfamiliar grounds of pseudo-spiritualism, superstition, charlatanism, and religious imposture. Tennyson, in short, was so emphatically the poet of the Victorian era that the passing of that era with its transitional doubts and its ephemeral perplexities rendered much of his didactic poetry obsolete. Men had ceased to feel the weight of the particular burdens from which he had sought to deliver them. As to his epic and descriptive verse, changed literary fashion had already begun to turn popular taste away from the flawless metrical forms of which Tennyson was the supreme exponent to the shapeless and cacophonous impressionism which claims to be the authentic Georgian poetry.

Nevertheless, though the vogue of Tennyson has waned, and though it is improbable that he will ever be restored to that place of eminence which he held in his lifetime, yet it is certain The Spectator.

that his cult will be revived and that his essential greatness will receive enduring recognition. He will survive, first, as a permanent memorial of the age whose dominant intellectual and moral characteristics he so perfectly depicted. No historian of nineteenth-century thought will be able to ignore him, for, as Jowett once said to him, his poetry has in it "an element of philosophy more to be considered than any regular philosophy in England." He will survive, secondly, as the writer of some of the most exquisite lyrics in the language. Such verse as the four stanzas of "Tears, idle tears" will be found in all treasuries of song as long as knowledge of the English language continues upon the earth. He will survive, finally and pre-eminently, for his religious quality. For though it is true that he dealt with doubts that were transient, and with perplexities that were peculiar to the circumstances of his own day, yet he stood forth before all others as the champion and exponent of the resolute and unchanging "will to believe." He felt the necessity, old as humanity, of faith in a deity with whom man can hold communion. He felt the need, old as death, of hope of a spirit-world where nothing loving or beloved is lost. Because he gave expression to man's passionate determination not to let God go, and not to surrender the blest anticipation of reunion with those who have passed beyond the veil, he will live as long as there are men who have souls to aspire or hearts to grieve.

F. J. C. Hearnshaw.

FINANCIAL HEROISM.

We live in a heroic age, in which the greatest contest ever fought by the nations of the earth is being carried out with a display of courage by the combatants on both sides which is probably unparalleled in history. There were many who thought that if a great war ever came again it would be marked by the effects of the recent migration of the population of civilized countries from agricultural life into the towns, and from open-air work into sedentary occupations. There was some reason to expect that the effects of this movement would be a lowering of the animal courage of the combatants, and one of the most remarkable features of the present war is the total collapse of this expectation. The courage with which the combatant forces of the Allies have fought for liberty and justice, and the existence of civilization, is only paralleled by that with which those of the Central Powers have fought for ruthlessness and the rule of force, for domination and destruction. On this subject we in England may well feel a special pride, seeing that the army with which we are now regularly beating the well-trained German legions has been almost entirely improvised out of a population devoted to civilian pursuits, and nourished on civil and pacific ideas. Our new armies, and those of our Dominions, have shown themselves fully worthy to take their place in history beside the professional armies that fought our battles in the past; and the heroism of our merchant seamen, and of our mine sweepers, and of many other obscure fighters

who help to keep us fed and comfortable, can be best recognized by saying that it is fit to stand side by side with that of the British Navy. The courage, tenacity, and endurance with which this war is being waged by the fighting men of the world is only another example of the unknown stores and resources which human nature had at its disposal when this great crisis in its history called them out.

In curious contrast with this tremendous effort that is being made in the battlefield and on the seas by the champions of liberty is the apparent apathy with which the financial side of the problem is being dealt with by those who are left at home. We are of the same blood and bone as those who are daring all things in the trenches and in the mine fields for the cause of progress, and yet in the fourth year of war we are still very far from doing what is our plain duty in the field of financial warfare. Why should this be so? We believe that it is due to lack of imagination, deficient grasp of economic facts, and the failure of our leaders to put our financial duty clearly and continually before us. No one needs to be told that if the Germans beat us in the field or at sea civilization is doomed. That is so clear that all who can fight see that the fighting has to be desperate and determined, and are stirred to the necessary effort by the appalling danger which threatens them and all that they hold dear. But the nation that has always believed itself to be so rich that it can face all financial problems without effort has been left

by its financial rulers without the necessary guidance and stimulus, and still more without the necessary example.

Thousands of men and women, who if age or sex had allowed them to go to the front, would have fought as well as any of our champions there, continue to waste on self-indulgence and fripperies money that is needed for the war. It is more than high time that we should put this right, and that the heroism which is fighting our battles at the front should be supported by some attempt to imitate it by those of us who are left at home in the use that we make of our money.

The sort of financial heroism that is required of us ought not to be a very great strain on our patriotism. To be asked to save all we can, and subscribe to

a British Government security yielding us roughly 5% per cent, with the possibility of temporary depreciation reduced to a minimum by a bonus on redemption, with the certainty of getting our money back with a comfortable capital increase in five, seven, or ten years, according as we may choose, with an option of conversion into the 5 per cent loan at 95, or of using our bonds at their face value for cash if at any time the Government brings out a long-dated loan for the purpose of the war-this is a form of financial heroism which, if it had been put before us 20 years ago, when Trustee Securities yielded 22 per cent, would have seemed to the average investor an impossibly beautiful dream. Such, however, is the appeal that is now made to us, and it is well that we should understand the duty that this appeal imposes upon us. The new issue has been frequently described as a new loan, implying that it is more or less on the lines of the great effort made last January, followed, as such efforts usually are, by a reaction into extravagance. That is not the kind of effort that is

now expected from us. The New National War bonds are to be on sale until further notice, and what is asked of us is not to make a great temporary effort, but from henceforward to cut down our expenditure to the bone, save, and continue to save, every shilling except what is essential to health and efficiency, and to put what we save from time to time by steady instalments into this new form of Government borrowing. By this process, instead of using up the productive power of the nation (which is the only source, apart from borrowing abroad, from which the war's needs can be met) on our own amusements, enjoyments, and frivolity, we hand it over to the Government to be invested in victory. By this continual transfer of buying power from us to the Government we check the rise in prices, cheapen the cost of the war, and reduce the Government's excuse for financing the war by inflation, and so making everything dear for us and for our poorer neighbors. Financial heroism, if it can be so described, will thus pay us directly and indirectly. It may also, if we carry it out on a really heroic scale, enable us to feel that we at home are making some small effort, not worthy to stand with that which is being made by those who are fighting for us, but just something to show that we are the same men as they are, and have done what we could. Not many of us can yet flatter ourselves that we have made any such effort. Plenty of people have suffered privation and cut down expenditure, but in most cases when this has been done drastically it has happened through compulsion. The revolution in our spending habits, which for years has been preached as essential to the sound finance of the war, has not yet been accomplished. The new National bonds give us one more opportunity. We believe that the nation will take it

if the need is properly put before it by authoritative voices whose every word commands attention. It has to be recognized that the work of our Finance Minister at such a time is not a task to be undertaken as a side issue along with other exacting duties. Rumor indicates that a change in this respect may be announced before long; and though the admirable qualities of the present Chancellor have won for him the respect of all parties, any change will be welcomed that means more earnest concentration on the business of finance, more efficient appeals to the country to do its duty, a more vigorous use of the weapon of taxation, and a check on the public extravagance, which is criminally dissipating the nation's resources.

The Economist.

much about gold-mining, and presumably the founders of the AngloAmerican Corporation know what they are about. The matter is of interest, as it denotes a further stage in the development of the American financial exploitation of the world, which the war has made imminent. If American skill, industry and inventiveness thereby penetrate into hitherto undeveloped, or only partially developed, areas of the world (and goodness knows there is room enough in Russia, Brazil and South America generally), American financiers certainly-the inhabitants of the respective countries and the world at large, possibly-will benefit very considerably.

The New Statesman.

AMERICAN GOLD-MINING ON THE RAND.

The formation was recently reported of the Anglo-American Corporation, the object of which is to take an interest in and develop some of the gold-mining leases on the Eastern Rand. The new Company has been formed by some of the leading financial interests in the United States in conjunction with certain members of the Transvaal mining industry, and while its entire capital is only £1,000,000, it is stated that its total resources may be increased later to £6,000,000. Some of the leading mining engineers and managers on the Witwatersrand have been Americans, but American capital has hitherto played no part in the development of that great goldfield.

One would think that with the ever-increasing rise in the price of commodities, and the consequent fall in the purchasing power of gold, goldmining would cease to be a paying proposition, except where the gold contents were of a high percentage; but one cannot teach the Americans

WANTED, A MINISTER OF COMMERCE.

The Government has elected to anticipate the action of the House of Commons, and to put into operation, without waiting for discussion in Parliament, its scheme for the collection of Commercial Intelligence in Foreign Countries. They are acting in this matter, in fact, on all fours with the policy they pursued in the case of Lord Faringdon's Committee, and trying to force the hand of Parliament by presenting it with a fait accompli (just as the Kaiser attempted to do in his intrigue with the Tsar to force the hand of France). Sir A. SteelMaitland has been appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary-as the Pooh-Bah, in fact, of the schemeand has resigned his late post in favor of Mr. Hewins. Action, moreover, has been taken in connection with the Chambers of Commerce which is sure to provoke widespread dissatisfaction amongst those bodiesin fact, has already done so. Association of Chambers is faced with a revolt amongst its constituent

The