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posed of one representative of each of the following Government departments, viz., the Board of Trade, the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, and the India Office, with the addition of six representatives of commerce, such commercial members being nominated by the President of the Board of Trade for a definite period of office. This institution, valuable as it is, does not secure the general representation, and thereby the general responsibility, of the great commercial interests; but its services form a part of the wider task which would fall to a representative council.

One well-known and old-standing corporation may be cited as a valuable instance of a public body representative of varied commercial interests, viz., the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, composed of twenty-seven members. Here the views of each interested party are tempered by those of the others; their task is to study the interests of all and singular, in sympathy with those of the trade of the port of Liverpool. The result is that the utmost efficiency in handling the various trades, and every reasonable development for accommodating those trades are secured.*

It may be taken for granted that the recommendations of an advisory council, as indicated above, would strengthen the hands of a responsible minister; and as it is to be expected that competent men would be found to welcome a position not only highly honourable in itself but free from specific restraints put upon members of the House of Commons, the council might do work which Parliament, with all its party fetters, could not successfully undertake. We feel that in such a way the nation might take upon itself the responsibility, too great for a minister, of suggesting its own commercial policy; and the statesman who could with such help draw the truest inspirations and guide our commercial destinies for time to come would render a service to his country comparable with the cementing together of the Colonies or the saving of South Africa. An appeal to the electorate

*The recently issued report of the Royal Commission on the Port of London recommends the creation of a single dock authority for London. This would embody, so far as can be gathered, the features and advantages of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and it is proposed that forty nominated and elected members should constitute the new authority.

for encouragement and support in such a direction would not be made in vain.

It is our conviction that had trade problems been studied, trade and industrial possibilities foreseen, and the results communicated to the nation, the great tradeunions of the country would have been organised on a different basis, and relations between employer and employed of a more logical and a more considerate character would have grown up. Governments past and present have been seriously remiss in neglecting to instruct and to warn the industrial masses of the country.

A healthy symptom of awakening intelligence on the part of trade-unions has been the recent despatch of parties of observation to the United States and elsewhere; a notable instance, among others, being that which resulted in the conclusions arrived at by Mr Abraham, member for the Rhondda division of Glamorganshire. Mr Abraham, on his return, stated that at one time he thought that working with machinery would not be to the advantage of the working-man, but that his recent experience had thoroughly cured him of that prejudice, and that he would in future advocate the use of machinery wherever possible. If England were to cope with other countries she must adopt the American plan; and, if capitalists would lay down the machinery, he would do all he could to dispel the prejudice against it in the minds of the workers.

Mr Higson, chairman of the North and South-East Lancashire Manufacturers' Association, the head of a similar deputation, stated on his return that, in laboursaving machines, America is in advance of this country, that Lancashire will have to learn this, and that she must adopt similar methods to keep abreast of the movement.

Sir Christopher Furness, speaking about his recent visit to America, said that the natural advantages of that country, combined with the energy and intellectual acumen of its people, pointed to devolpments in the future with which England could hardly hope to compete. He felt that the duty of Englishmen was to be more alert and active, and to seize every opportunity of perfecting their methods so as to carry war into the enemy's camp.

It is not our purpose, as will be apparent from the

foregoing remarks, to attempt to define national policy; our aim is to insist that the mind of the nation requires enlightening and quickening; and we think it reasonable to suppose that this would best be accomplished by the sustained study and investigations of representative and practical men, familiar with the interests and profits and risks of business-an experience which cannot by any stretch of imagination be obtained by permanent officials immersed in the surroundings of a government office.

In conclusion, it appears to us that the Government would do well to suspend emergency legislation until after the establishment of a thoroughly efficient system of investigation; and such an institution as that outlined above might prove of more lasting value to the country, and in the long run more likely to be appreciated by the diverse commercial interests, than any imperfectly considered legislation involving the introduction of new principles or the departure from old. It is easy to find fault with existing conditions; but we may safely assert that the more the commercial position of these islands is studied, the more the need for consideration becomes apparent; and the more practical the means of such study, the more valuable the results will be. We are not driven to take pessimistic views by a passing wave of depression, or drawing conclusions from fortuitous conditions affecting our trade. The perils which we foresee are too likely to be of a permanent character. They are not indications of ebb and flow, but of what may prove to be, if unheeded and unstudied, a continuous ebb in England's fortunes.

Art. XII.-ITALIAN POETS OF TO-DAY.

1. Poesie. By Giosuè Carducci (complete poetical works in one volume). Bologna: Zanichelli, 1900.

2. Poesie Scelte; Valsolda; etc. By Antonio Fogazzaro. Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1900.

3. Dopo il Tramonto; Li Danaidi; Morgana; etc. By Arturo Graf. Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1890-1901. Medusa. By the same. (New edition.) Turin: Loescher, 1890. 4. Fatalità; Tempeste; etc. By Ada Negri. Milan: Fratelli Treves, 1895; 1896.

5. Myricae. By Giovanni Pascoli. Livorno: Giusti, 1890. Poemetti. By the same. Milan: Sandron, 1900. 6. Poesie (Edizione Definitiva): La Gioconda: Francesca da Rimini; etc. By Gabriele D'Annunzio. Milan : Fratelli Treves, 1896-1901. La Canzone di Garibaldi. By the same. Florence: Barbiera, 1897.

7. Dai Nostri Poeti Viventi. An Anthology. Edited by Signora Eugenia Levi. Florence: Barbiera, 1891.

8. Le Tendenze Presenti della Letteratura Italiana. By Fausto Squillace. Turin: Roux, 1899.

It has been the vogue for a considerable time to speak of contemporary Italian literature as a negligible quantity; as at best a beautiful garden, now untended and unkempt, where the few flowers are all but undiscoverable among the wilderness of weedy growths-a garden illumined, it may be, by the sunset radiance of Carducci, or by the summer-lightning of Gabriele D'Annunzio. Generalisations of the kind are notoriously misleading. Guy de Maupassant trenchantly alluded to them as the boomerangs of the would-be clever, that on occasion might hit their object, but were more likely to return upon the thrower. The other day we read in a foreign summary that, since Walter Scott, no novelists of note had appeared in our country, and that since Byron the British muse had been silent. This statement is not further from the mark than that alluded to as common among us, nor than the rash assertion made a short time ago by one who ought to have known better, that there was not a latter-day poet, painter, or musician in Italy who stood above mediocrity-and this in the Italy of Carducci, of Segantini, of Verdi!

A juster note was struck a few years ago by one of the foremost French critics, the Vicomte Melchior de Vogüé, in whose now famous essay on the Latin Renaissance occur these significant words :

'L'Italie est à cette heure le foyer d'une véritable renaissance de la poésie et du roman. L'esprit, qui souffle où il veut, rallume là des clartés évanouies sous d'autres cieux.'

In the same year an Italian critic of repute, Alberto Manzi, thus hopefully concludes a summary and outlook':

'Young, strong, feverishly studious and laborious, Italy is passing through a fertile period of preparation which will before long lead to a great and splendid display of her artistic, literary, and scientific vitality.'

The truth must be sought somewhere between these optimistic declarations and the deep despondency of the late Ruggero Bonghi, who (writing, it must be remembered, some five or six years earlier, and at a time of exceptional national depression) expressed himself thus:'In the literary life of the nation there are signs of the same languor that paralyses its economical life. I see no sign of improvement. I should be very glad if there were a way out of so great a lethargy; but I do not find it. I think that the chief cause is the lack of any strong moral movement; there is nothing that agitates the public mind.'

The gracious phrase of Monsieur de Vogüé not only aroused European attention, but was welcomed in Italy, and sank deep into the finer national consciousness. The distinguished French critic was accepted as a prophet. For Italy he foresees a worthy destiny. It is not, perhaps, the destiny dreamed of by those who carved the inchoate 'geographical expression' into the solidarity of a united realm; or of those who to-day would strain the national resources for the fata morgana of a militant world-power; but it is a destiny at once high and possible. It is not, says M. de Vogüé truly, to be achieved by war, or with great ships. It is not a destiny to be won by the sword, but by the pen ('avec quelques condottieri de la plume').

But what is of more immediate concern is that the Vicomte de Vogüé discerns clearly what the student of contemporary Italian literature must realise if he is to

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