season; "bai bai" and "cheer-oh" usually end these colloquies. And how dearly we should like to hear two company-promoters conversing on the wire about their flotations, or a publisher and author over volumes advertised as the next best thing to Shakespeare.

There is another side to ordeal by telephone. It is printed, not spoken. It reaches us on a pink, though unblushing, form, monthly, asserting that our "deposit" is nearly exhausted -as if it were a gold-mine. We have been away for a short respite, nor do we ever use the thing often; and though we are exhausted, arithmetic suggests that our deposit is not. "On His Majesty's Service," however, demands one pound ten from us. We send ten shillings, which are joyfully accepted. It is a very humorous concern, the telephone.

Some may consider such light criticisms as a kind of blasphemy. They resent any strictures on their pet amusement, just as others are offended The Saturday Review.

if we do not relish their favorite watering-place. We expect that the telephone always goes right for those who are young enough to stand it. For our own part being in what we once heard a shopman call "the sore and yellow leaf," it has often tempted us to do what a man did to a barometer that always rose when the rain fell. He threw it out of his window on to his lawn with the trenchant words, "Lie there, you liar, and see what the weather is for yourself." And yet the telephone's very caprices infatuate us. At this moment by some fresh freak we have been "disconnected"-shut off, lock stock and barrel. The blessed bell is dumb, and the Supervisor is left gently philosophizing. The instrument itself seems to chuckle silently at the crisis. And yet we are not so elated as we hoped to be. We miss the drams of the telephone habit. Like the Russian bonds in the city articles we are "flat," "steadily idle," and "inclined to be dull." We rest, but not in peace.

Speaking on behalf of the Government, the Leader of the House of Commons has refused to publish the accounts of the party funds. The decision of the Government is to be regretted; and the time is not far off when the Government themselves will regret it. The question put by Captain Wright was simple enough, despite its cumbrous Parliamentary phraseology. It was "whether the Government would take the requisite legislative or administrative action to ensure the yearly publication of the investments of the various political parties and of all contributions made to the party funds, with the names of the contributors." In other words, the

Government are asked to do what any charitable agency or society formed to obtain a particular object with collected money does as a matter of course. And the Government declines stubbornly to do anything of the sort. Why? Because this apparently innocent demand is in fact the axe to be laid at the root of the caucus tree, under whose fruitful branches the politician is nourished. It was not even suggested that the party accounts should be audited, but that demand will be made also. What are the party funds? Ostensibly they are made up of private contributions given by rich men in support of a particular party holding certain polit

ical principles.

So far, so good. The contributors are performing a meritorious action. Why, then, this objection to publishing it? If the generous donor felt any natural modesty to letting his light shine before men, the difficulty could be resolved by adopting a pseudonym. But no. Every detail of the transaction must be strictly concealed. Upon what, then, is the money expended? It is upon record that when Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, complained that a general election would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, his spinster cousin ingenuously asked, What for? and that, observing the gathering indignation of her august relative, she hastened to explain that what she really meant was, What a pity!

The story of "Bleak House" presumably took place in the days before the Reform Act. Briefly described, the party funds today are expended in defeating the purpose of that Act and of subsequent extensions of the franchise. You cannot buy a vote; but there is such a thing as what the old arithmetic books called Exchange or Barter; and the party funds are simply the medium of that esoteric transaction. It is curious that although you cannot buy a vote you can buy a seat. And yet it is not bought. It arrives. A certain sum of money is put down, somewhere; and presently the gentleman who bestowed it thus absently finds himself elected to Parliament. And so remarkable is the spell of this enchantment that other gentlemen who never had any money to put down also find themselves members of the best club in London. It is extraordinary how various are these manifestations; for when a sufficient offering has been laid upon the shrine of the veiled oracle the pious donor suddenly finds himself a Knight, or a Baronet, or a Baron, or a Viscount. And by a singular

coincidence, the rank he thus unaccountably attains bears an accurate relation to the richness of the offering. Noble Lords in the Upper Chamber have been heard to express the utmost astonishment at the suggestion that there was any connection between the offering and subsequent events. If we remember aright, Viscount Curzon was particularly shocked. He had never heard of such a thing before, and evidently he did not want to hear of it again if he could help it. Moreover, there are patriotic and philanthropic and progressive persons who want nothing for themselves; who (like Mr. Podsnap) cause it to be inferred from the fact that they are not in Parliament that they don't want to be in Parliament; but who nevertheless do good by stealth and take excellent care that they shall never blush to find it fame. And what is their reward? In the language of the vernacular, they get a pull, or, as it is called in America, a cinch, on the Government in power. If a certain man believed, for instance, that the salvation of the country depended mainly upon the suppression of tea drinking, and was willing to back his. conviction to the extent of a check for (say) fifty thousand pounds handed to the Chief Whip in an impressive silence on both sides, would the Government introduce a Bill to prohibit tea or would they not? Has anything of the sort ever been done? Having paused for the chorus of denial from outraged innocence, we observe that such things have been done, and are being done every day.

This is the Party system as it works out, and it has rotted English politics to the bone. Against this corruption the National Party has raised its voice, and in so doing it expresses the conviction of the people, always excepting the horde of political parasites

statement that they always, for choice, travel against the wind leaves me cold; one has only to see how a bird rises against the wind and flies down wind to escape danger to realize that it knows the advantage to be gained by making use of air currents. That incoming birds are often visibly fighting against a wind is to my mind evidence that they are striving thus because they had, at the time, no alternative.

Our knowledge of artificial flight has advanced by leaps and bounds during the last few years, and we can now learn much about problems which have long puzzled us from those who have had practical experience. If we can find out how birds are such wonderful masters of the air we may glean hints which will improve the rigid machine. So far, however, I have only heard of two instances of birds actually on migration being noticed by airmen, though I have some recollection of seeing a record of ducks at a great height. Doubtless other pilots and observers have noticed birds, but have kept no record of their height, nor perhaps known what species they saw.

Before we argue that this lack of evidence suggests either that birds fly near the earth or at so great a height that they are not visible from our high-flying aircraft we must bear in mind that only a small number of our airmen are ornithologists or are likely to store in their brains instances of passing birds. The ordinary terrestrial traveler seldom troubles to notice birds, or knows them if he does; less frequently still is he able to say if they are on their migratory travels. Even with an airman who is a keen ornithologist there are difficulties, for his attention may well be concentrated on sterner work-keenly watching the ground below or those hawk-like rivals which may attack or have to be attacked.

One experienced airman, also a keen ornithologist, tells me of an even greater difficulty, which he thinks may explain why he has seen so few birds. "We must not be blind to the fact," he writes, "that even a large machine flying a thousand feet below one, if painted brown, takes quite an appreciable effort to locate, and after looking above me into the blue the glare of the sun makes it very hard to locate objects." How easy, then, for birds, either above or below, to pass unnoticed.

Though this friend has but seldom seen birds his observations and comments are most enlightening; he knows his birds and noted their height of flight. At 2,500 feet he saw a carrier pigeon; at 6,000 some two hundred golden plovers passed him, and two other pilots, flying near him at the time, also saw them. In the "Field" a short time ago there appeared a note signed by "An Observer" stating that when flying at 9,500 feet he saw birds high above him, and aided by his glasses identified them as swallows. These practically are all the actual records from airmen that I possess, but I am sure that many others have had similar experiences which, perhaps, they have not thought worth recording. My friend is very honest about his golden plovers. As a heavy bombardment was in progress at the time, and many machines were up at various heights with anti-aircraft shells bursting around them, it was "an unpleasant belt of land to cross, which might have caused them to rise to the height mentioned."

In America birds passing across the field of vision of telescopes were calculated to be flying at from about 3,000 feet to about 15,000 feet. Similar observations in England gave heights between 10,000 and 15,000 feet, whilst other Americans' experiments of checking heights by taking simultaneous

observations from two points and thus getting a base-line resulted in elevations of from 1,200 to 5,400 feet. In addition we have all the records of visible migration-visible from the ground by the naked eye,-of birds skimming a few feet above the waves, of others passing high overhead, of them crossing high mountain passes at known heights. Evidently migrating birds may fly at any altitude up to, say, 15,000 feet; beyond that we have no certain evidence.

The conclusion we may safely draw from these very varied observations is that the height at which birds travel probably differs according to the conditions prevailing at the time. We know from meteorological observation that the speed and direction of wind varies at different altitudes; this, again, the flying man now confirms from actual experience. Wind speed, my friend tells me, may at 3,000 feet be double its rate at ground level; at 6,000 feet it may be trebled, and it may also be from a very different quarter. Is it not conceivable that the bird seeks a helping wind, one which will drift it onwards in its desired direction? In an air current the bird flies in a moving medium; with a wind behind it its speed is its normal rate of progression plus the rate of the wind; against it it can fly

The Manchester Guardian.

just as easily, but will be drifted on its aerial medium. The aeroplane flying against a strong wind may remain stationary over a particular spot on the earth; it may even travel backwards. It has often been argued that the study of bird flight is of no value to us because we are wholly dependent upon the rigid machine; we do not fly by wing progression. Up to a point this is true, but there is much to be learned and much that has been learned from the bird. Dr. Hankin, in his book on "Animal Flight," has entered carefully into the methods by which birds adjust their balances, and we have the same difficulties to overcome. The bird corrects its loss of balance, its side-slips or tendency to rise or fall, by reflex action. When we make false steps in walking we do the same; if we had to stop to think we should inevitably fall. The more experienced our pilot becomes the more reflex are his actions; he touches the right lever, adjusts his balances, avoids difficulties, without actual thought; the slightest loss of balance is the stimulus for his corrective action. Thus if we find out how the bird corrects itself when in difficulties, and can adapt our machines to imitate the method, the pilot will act as instinctively as his model. He is the brain of the machine.

T. A. C.

The objective of this War is always stated to be the suppression of Militarism, but this, if accomplished, would almost seem to imply the triumph of Pacifism. These are really the two extreme antagonists in conflict, and the complete prevalence of one would probably be neither better nor worse than the prevalence of the other. Both are extravagances, and

neither are fit for human nature's daily food. The world would seem to generate more and more Faddists as it progresses, and Faddists become more and more intolerant of each other's point of view. Pacifists, who profess above everything else to eschew war, ape the dignity of ignoring that such a thing as war exists, and their fatal levity in regard to the whole subject