THE parliamentary sky is once more full of clouds. The stormcone has been hoisted, and we are in the midst of another of those blinding political blizzards which ever and again disturb the peace of decent people. Wise men are retreating to their tents, hammering in their pegs and tightening their ropes, hoping that they will ride the gale. The storms that the countrymen know have their inconveniences, but they clear the air. 'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good' is the sound popular verdict. But these urban storms in the tea-cups of politicians are of a different kind. They rarely clear anything; they only stir up a great deal of mud; and when the hurricane is over we are left to live, as best we may, a respectable public life amongst the unsavoury sediment.

There was much turmoil of a like kind only twelve months ago; and after the dirty political weather of the previous few years, the result gave considerable satisfaction to the nation. Being solid and full of quiet intelligence of a domestic sort, the VOL. XCIV--No. 562

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plain man did not expect that the new Government would turn the world into an earthly paradise, even if it lived to the full statutory term of parliamentary life. He certainly did not expect Utopia at the end of twelve months. In any case, he certainly has not got it. But he would have waited a little longer in patience. However, the plain man does not count in political life. The magnates who make general elections-who exactly they are is one of those mysteries hidden from common eyes-have grown restless again. The people with common-sense have no desire for another election at the moment. But they have got to go through with it! The quiet citizen would not mind the inconveniences, if there were any reasonable chance of any resulting good. But he does not rate the power of politicians so highly as they rate it themselves; and he thinks it most improbable that a new Parliament will be ableor will desire to do anything more than could have been done by the last.

We must be brave and face the inevitable. The world is not going to be made perfect by any smart conjuring trick. Half the affairs that are being discussed by the political troupes at present on the stage are of only limited importance; and the other half are of that gigantic nature that will never be solved by political wirepulling, however smart, but rather by the slow building of the succeeding years. The method will be much more in the stately manner of geology than of political rhetoric. Take the settlement between France and Germany. It gave plenty of anxious thought to Charles the Great in the ninth century, and it is not likely to be solved completely by Mr X. the Little if he gets returned to Westminster. There is, alas, small hope that the troubles of Europe will be more quickly remedied by any change in the present Government's unheroic inactivity. There are, on the contrary, plenty of energetic politicians who might bring Europe into another great war in a short time. A great deal of the trouble of this unruly world is that it will not listen to human advice, however wise.

As for the present loud war-cries of the rival political armies, one would not say that they are of no importance whatever. They are merely of small dimensions when measured against the vast problems that are troubling mankind. For example, it is possible -nay, probable-that it would be well worth the risk of a tax on wheat and meat if it would give England her prosperous fields again. But the expert agriculturists-such as Mr. Christopher Turnor-tell us that the training of farmers in the latest scientific methods and their organisation into co-operative societies are far more efficient remedies than a duty at the ports. It is all a matter of proportion. The Government has gone to the country on the cry of tariffs, which may or may not be necessary, whereas

organisation and expert training are always fundamental. But politicians never fight on essentials.

The history of the world is open before us as proof that neither Protection nor Free Trade is a sovereign remedy for economic disorders. At best they are drugs of temporary effect. Germany took the advice of Friederich List, and the result was a great success—such a congestion of goods and people that a desperate nation tried to cut its way out to new markets at the point of the gun. List may have made the Germans the most prosperous people under the sun, but it is no idle paradox to say that Germany was brought to ruin by her industrial progress. Turn to Cobden and Bright. They believed in a manufacturers' paradise of cheap corn and cheap labour; and their theory has certainly brought England very near their golden gates. And can any sane man affirm that he likes the result? Little wonder that hasty, impulsive election agents are rushing in a panic-to embrace the economic principles that brought Germany to the gutter! The quibblers will say that post hoc is not propter hoc, but wiser people will suspect that greed of material gain was the root motive of both List and Bright, and economic Utopias will not be reached by following avaricious merchants or landlords in any direction whatsoever.

The Labour Party is in a like case with its cry of the Capital Levy. Even if it prove a possible financial manœuvre, and is carried into action, it will leave us much as we are at present. It will not in itself reorganise industry or relieve unemployment. It may or may not prove a temporary relief to the less wealthy middle classes, but at the best it is nothing but a piece of financial jugglery, and the deep-seated troubles of mankind have never been much affected by the devices and cures of bankers and Chancellors of the Exchequer.

Let it not be imagined that reasonable people will make unreasonable demands on our governors. To be quite fair, it must be admitted that probably it will never be the duty of stately Cabinet Ministers to give their attention to such a poetical fancy as the millennium. Their urgent business is to perform the more earthly (and perhaps more difficult) task of timidly taking the next safe step. Any quite ordinary person, with the aid of a good cigar and a bottle of wine, can write out a most attractive Utopia; for he is not hampered in his fancy by stupid majorities in legislative chambers, or by dull-witted citizens who are unable to understand the perfect beauty of his new laws--and still more unwilling to obey them. Utopia is the sort of thing that one can make in a hammock during the hot afternoons in summer.

But no one will accuse Mr. Baldwin's Government of wasting its time over the millennium. Like most Ministries that have

gone before it, and like most that will come after it, it has spent much of its time jumping from one slippery foothold to the next, in much the same way that children scramble over the rocks on the beach. Strictly speaking, a Cabinet is rarely engaged in considering problems of statesmanship. The supreme work of most Governments is to keep themselves in office and keep their opponents out. The successful Cabinet Minister is a politician first, and, this being a very difficult trade, he has rarely time to think out schemes of scientific government.

Such being the state of our political affairs, it is suggested that there is room for a new party in the Legislative Chamber. We have plenty of political groups-indeed, far too many. What is urgently wanted at the moment is a party of statesmen who will start with almost a new conception of the function of government and the duty of law-makers. If not new, at least it is a conception which has been forgotten during the last two hundred or so years. One may say that it practically disappeared during the Puritan Commonwealth, which was conducted by political and military adventurers. Statesmanship was finally banished by the Whig politicians of the eighteenth century; they were so absorbingly occupied in important party squabbles for office that they had little time to attend to trivial national interests. But this is not the place for history; it is necessary to consider the present necessities.

One uses the word 'statesman 'in its strict sense, a sense which has been very grievously overlooked and buried under a heap of rubbish which should never have been allowed to collect over such a valuable and dignified term. A statesman is one who is concerned in the affairs of the State-a man who considers the State as a whole the primary factor in his work. He is, therefore, a man who considers that the welfare of the nation, as a complete body, is more important than the success or failure of any particular class. He is always thinking in terms of society as an organic body, and is quite unprejudiced by any class or party reasons which cut across the interests of the whole social structure.

This statesman is the precise opposite of the party or class politician, who is returned to further the interest of some large or small section of the electorate. It will be noticed that the fact that a candidate has a democratic and numerical majority does not necessarily save him from the charge of party politics. A majority which merely thinks of itself and ignores the rest is only different in degree, and not in principle, from the most selfish despot who runs the State for his personal convenience.

There are certain root factors in human society without which there can be no such thing as civilisation or culture at all. The peasants, and the nomads who have nothing worth calling a State,