hands of a Ministry of State, whose members are appointed by the Emperor and hold office at his pleasure without any responsibility to the Landtag.

In Bavaria there is in its Upper Chamber no representative of the industrial world at all, while in its Lower House, with 163 members, only 29 can be regarded as tribunes of the people. In Würtemberg there are three industrials among the fifty-one members of its Upper Chamber, while in its Lower House there are 17 representatives of trade among the 63 members. Upper Chamber in Baden has 37 members, of whom six are industrials, while its Lower House, with 73 members, has 23 exponents of industry.

The

What has been said specially respecting the condition of political inequality existing in Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg and Baden may be taken as applicable practically to all those other divisions or states which in 1870-71 William I and Bismarck Prussianized into what is now the German Empire. That Empire has two Houses -the Bundesrat or Upper Chamber, and the Reichstag or Lower House. The Upper Chamber, which sits in secret, consists of 58 delegates chosen by and representing the governors of the different States. Its members, who have no discretionary power, vote simply as instructed by their State Governments. The Reichstag is elected by universal suffrage in districts where the voting takes place in the manner already explained. All members of the Bundesrat, including the Chancellor, who is also Prime Minister of Prussia, may speak in the Reichstag. But it is important to note that neither the Chancellor nor any other executive officer is responsible to that body. He cannot be removed by the vote of the Reichstag, from among whose members the Ministers of the Emperor are hardly ever chosen.

No freedom can be said to exist in a community to whom its rulers are not responsible. Yet for years before the British public had realized what miscreants the apostles of Kultur were, Germany was persistently held up by doctrinaires as a country whose institutions were models to be copied. The constitutional practice of Great Britain really furnishes no key to an understanding of the political ways of Germany. In England, for instance, when a Prime Minister is defeated or turned out of office he generally goes into Opposition and becomes a useful critic of the new Government. But no such thing occurs in Germany. There when a Chancellor or Prime Minister is dismissed he completely disappears. From the time when Bethmann-Hollweg made his notorious "scrap of paper" statement he filled the eye not only of Germany but of Europe. He might well have been regarded as having become an indispensable statesman. Since the advent, however, of Michaelis nothing has been heard of him beyond what was casually stated the other day in an Amsterdam telegram that he was going to Munich to study art!

In no democratic country is there any parallel to the position held and the personal power exercised by William II, who asserts that his commission to govern is derived from the Almighty. He never tires of proclaiming, what indeed is the fact, that he is answerable to no Cabinet, no Minister, and no people. Opposition to the will of this imperious master, with his notions of Divine Right, promptly brought dismissal for Bismarck, who had for years successfully directed the ship of State. In "dropping the pilot" and feigning regret at the loss of a tried public servant, the War Lord declared in unmistakable terms hat "the course remained the same-full steam ahead." As the supreme ruler of Prussia

where aggressive war has ever been the chief industry-the Emperor has always entertained a notion cherished by Frederick the Great that it is an important part of his mission to extend his dominions. "My duty," he said in March, 1890, "is to increase

The London Post.

my heritage. Those who try to interfere with my task I shall crush." Believing with Pericles that "it is ever by taking the greatest risks that the highest rewards are secured," he has now made through blood and iron a desperate throw for universal empire.

M. T. F.

Mary Webb follows her powerful study of Welsh life, "The Golden Arrow," by another of even deeper passion and poignancy. "Gone to Earth" is the story of an ignorant, simple-hearted young girl whose gypsymother is long since dead, and whose father-bee-keeper, coffin-maker and harper-takes no responsibility for his child. Hazel's devotion is lavished on outdoor creatures, and her pet fox plays an important part in the plot. The girl's wild beauty draws the desire of a low-lived squire of the neighborhood and the love of the young minister-a dreamer and idealist of rare temper-and their alternating ascendency over her undisciplined spirit can only result in tragedy. "She wanted neither. Her passion, no less intense, was for freedom, for the wood-track, for green places where soft feet scudded and eager eyes peered out and adventurous lives were lived up in the treetops, down in the moss." As in the earlier book, there is an unnecessary insistence on the facts of physical life, but one feels that the author's purpose is sincere and above reproach, and her talent is certainly remarkable. The reader who falls under the spell of the book will read it from cover to cover with tense and painful interest, and then turn back to linger over passages whose beauty he noted even in his haste. E. P. Dutton & Co.

"Christine," with its touching preface in which "Alice Cholmondeley" explains why these letters from her daughter have been kept private for nearly three years, produces so strong an impression of reality that only the publishers' avowal on the "jacket" convinces one that it is fiction. The letters are written from Germany during the spring and summer of 1914 by a young girl of extraordinary gifts who has gone there, alone, for lessons on the violin, and who becomes betrothed to a German lieutenant, and the last is dated August 6th. They give vivid glimpses of the feeling among ordinary, middle-class people, in musical circles, and among the military, as seen by an observer, young, generous-hearted, and at the outset sympathetic. They are brilliantly written, with flashes of keen wit, but to many readers their greatest charm will be the daughter's love for her mother, which is exquisitely revealed. The book is not one to be read only; it will be owned and cherished. The Macmillan Co.

The first volume of "The Journal of Leo Tolstoi," covering the period from the 3d of October, 1895, to the 20th of December, 1899, is published by Alfred A. Knopf, New York. The translation, by Rose Strunsky, is as much a labor of love as the original compilation by V. G. Chertkov, Tolstoi's intimate

friend and literary executor. To both, Tolstoi was an object of near-idolatry, and every word that he wrote was precious. That many of the entries in these journals were trivial does not matter, for the reader has the inalienable privilege of skipping what does not interest him. But, taken together, they constitute an intimate autobiography of one of the most unique characters of his time-a reformer and philosopher who was sometimes in advance of the most progressive of his countrymen, and sometimes behind them, but who never hesitated to accept the consequences of his conclusions and who was never unwilling to abandon any course of thought or action when new light came to him. The selections from the Journals are supplemented by very full explanatory notes, and by a short but illuminating sketch of this period of Tolstoi's life.

Readers of Maxim Gorky's "My Childhood" will not easily forget its vivid portrayal of the conditions amid which the author's early days were spent, up to the time when, in his seventeenth year, his grandfather threw him out of the house to find his fortune in the great but cruel world. What he found and how he fared there is told in grim detail in the second volume of the autobiography, called "In the World" (The Century Co.). As fascinating as the most poignant fiction, but far better worth while is this intimate narrative which depicts Russian peasant life from the inside. The grandfather reappears, and is not less repulsive than before; but the grandmother is a more attractive figure, though she, too, has her faults. Varied are the adventures of the boy, and acute the hardships through which he passes, and he describes them all with a graphic realism which conveys to the reader the sense of actually witnessing a human drama, deeply tinged with tragedy.

The publication of Mr. K. K. Kawakami's "Japan in World Politics" (The Macmillan Co.) is particularly timely now when a Japanese mission is in the United States for the purpose of removing misunderstandings, and bringing the two countries into a closer alliance. And it is especially worth while because the author-a native Japanese for twenty years resident in the United States, who retains his love for his native country, blended with a patriotic loyalty to American institutions-is capable of comprehending both the Japanese and the American points of view, and of interpreting the one country to the other with more than ordinary candor. Many readers have the habit of "skipping" prefaces, but they would do well to forego that practice in the present instance, for an understanding of Mr. Kawakami's motives and purposes will illuminate his reasoning and his statement of facts. The fundamental problems which he considers are the immigration question, the anti-Japanese legislation in the Pacific-coast States, and the Chinese question. These he discusses with the same force and fairness which were shown in his earlier books on "AmericanJapanese Relations" and "Asia at the Door." His book is valuable not merely as a contribution to presentday history, but as an aid to a clearer comprehension of issues which are only temporarily in the background, and which will certainly emerge with an insistent demand for adjustment after the present war is over. Happily, both Japan and China are at present allies of the United States, and this circumstance should promote a clearer mutual understanding, in spite of all the mischief-makers, East and West. In the meantime, the present volume is to be commended to the consideration of all fair-minded

Americans.

hie