mittee regarding the organisation of a regular service for the rest of the world was at last put into execution. The emoluments of the Service, although certainly an improvement on the starvation wage of Lord Palmerston, did not attain a really adequate scale, in spite of the novel benevolence of the Foreign Office, until the requisite impetus was given by fresh blood from outside in the person of Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, appointed in 1917 as Joint Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Foreign Office and Head of the Department of Overseas Trade, who had not only the acumen to see that it was bad policy to starve any branch of the public service, but also to the energy to carry through a scheme to rectify the situation. Thanks to the vigour of this gentleman, who must ever occupy a prominent niche in the hagiology of the Consular Service, the pay of all ranks was was immediately raised what, though not a lavish, can be considered a satisfactory amount. Nor was this all. The claim of the Consul to be housed, long recognised in the case of the diplomatist, was now acknowledged, and an allowance allotted for the purpose, with an additional allowance to meet the cost of hospitality and other non-personal expenses which his official position entails. Salaries and allowances are now as follows: SALARY. The above salaries are identi- the Consular Service, which cal with those received by the junior ranks of the Diplomatic Service up to and including Counsellor, but the allowances show a considerable falling off. The Levant, Far Eastern, and General Services together now include 59 Consuls-General, 117 Consuls, and 210 ViceConsuls on the regular list, besides 51 unpaid honorary Consuls and 475 Vice-Consuls. The entrance examination for formerly varied in character as the vacancies to be filled were for the Levant, the Far East, or the General Service, is now one, and identical with that in force for the DiplomaticForeign Office group. In spite of the improved conditions, the number of candidates who come forward is strangely limited, and in recent petitions barely enough qualified to fill existing vacancies. The Service appears to offer On the other hand, the younger members of the Diplomatic Service could not but benefit greatly by occasional excursions into the more roughand-tumble atmosphere of a Consulate to obtain an experience of men and things denied them in the guarded seclusion of a Chancery where their early years are wont to be spent in a round of trivial routine. small attraction for eligible youths, nor does a spirit of entire contentment reign amongst those already in it. Although a Consul has a fair living assured him and a comfortable pension to look forward to, there are no prizes within his reach such as the diplomatist may expect to win. The permanent position of poor relation is not one to which an able and ambitious young man aspires, and unless a fair prospect of attaining something better than a Consulate-General is held out to him, he may be expected to give the Consular Service the cold shoulder. It would be different if all the Foreign Office services were amalgamated, as has been done in the case of the Foreign Office itself and the Diplomatic Service. The difference between the Diplomatist and the Consul is now one rather of nomenclature than of principle, to such an extent do their functions often overlap. In the very rare cases where fortuitous circumstances have enabled a Consul to break down the barrier set up between the two, he has been a striking successwitness the careers of Sir William White at Constantinople, and Sir Ernest Satow and Sir John Jordan in the Far East; and there seems no ground for supposing that the interests of the country would suffer were diplomatic posts bestowed occasionally on members of the Consular Service who have proved their capacity. The question is no new one. In 1842 no less a personage than Mr Disraeli brought forward a motion in the House of Commons to the effect that "It appears to this House that great inconvenience and injury to the public welfare have arisen from the civil affairs of Her Majesty in foreign countries being carried on by two distinct services; and that with a view to advancing those commercial interests which at this moment so much occupy our consideration, it is expedient that measures should be forthwith taken to blend the Consular with the Diplomatic body." The motion was not adopted, and when the idea was again discussed before the Select Committees of 1858 and 1861 the Foreign Office representatives expressed repugnance to anything of the sort. But with a more progressive atmosphere now prevailing, it is permitted to hope that favourable consideration may be accorded in the end to this as to other salutary reforms which were at first rejected with contumely. HIGHROAD AND TOW-ROAD. BY EDMUND VALE. ALL August and all of September, save those four days that were not yet spent, it had rained in Manchester. It was not raining now, but it looked as if it might do so at any moment. Anyhow I determined to take my chance with the weather and go to Wales on my bicycle, visiting en route a town in the Potteries, where I had last heard of my faithful batman who had served me three years in France. I was swayed, moreover, by the fact that in the neighbourhood of Tunstall was a certain canal tunnel, famous all over the system of inland waterways for its ghost. I had heard many accounts of this apparition, and I had a great desire to visit the site of its activities. Every one I had ever spoken to about it was agreed that its name was Kit Crewe, but opinions varied as to whether it was a man, a woman, a dog without a head, a white mare, or a snatching hand. As the superintendent of the Bridgewater Canal had been good enough to grant me permission to cycle along the towpath of that waterway if I chose, I determined to avail myself of the privilege for a short distance. The Bridgewater Canal is the oldest of our inland navigations, and has a romantic his tory. "It were all through a woman as this canal come about," I have been told more than once. "T' Dook were jilted by t' gurl 'e were keepin' company wi'. And 'e were that took aback that 'e built this ere canal just to show yon woman what oo could do." There is perhaps more than a modicum of truth in this tradition, the fact being that the Duke was attached to the youngest of the three famous beauties, the Gunning sisters. This lady, who had secretly married the Duke of Hamilton "with a ring of the bed-curtain half an hour after midnight,” and a short time later had been left a widow with a title, money, and power to add to her attractions, was no doubt much sought after. She became engaged to the Duke of But the Duke was of a rougher stuff than Cupid's thralls should be made of, and required his own. way, so the engagement was broken, and instead of becoming Duchess of Bridgewater she presently became Duchess of Argyll. The Duke, no doubt a little mortified, forswore gallantry, and came down to his estate in Lancashire, where he threw himself into the business of developing the collieries on his land. And owing to the genius of Mr Brindley, wheel Bridgewater. "And what were her palmy wright, a canal from the Bridge- It is extraordinary how much for granted people take the canals, their buildings, and their shipping, while with their talk of the "good old days" they will dwell lovingly on the old stage-coach and on old coaching inns. Yet the greater part of the canal system is years older than coaching inns or stage-coaches. Moreover, the manners, customs, and hardihood of our ancestors are still kept alive by this unobtrusive community of watermen. I left the highroad at Stretford and took to the tow-path. At Broadheath a canal employee was cleaning a stable, and I asked him why a certain well-worn flight of steps descended to the quay from a doorway now blocked and blind. "Why, that goes back from when the old Duchess Countess used to run," said he. "What was the Duchess Countess ?" said I. 66 Well, of course, she was a fly-boat, did used to carry passengers," said he. "I can remember her plying very well, though not in her palmy days, you understand.” Well, of course, she was a smart turn-out in her palmy days, you understand. He did used to bring her out of Warrington with his passengers at six in the morning, sharp as a train; change his horse in Lymm, just gone eight; be here by nine, and change his horse again; and take on his passengers as had took their tickets at that public over the road there-you see it's still called 'The Old Packet House,' and then away for Manchester, where he'd get by eleven o'clock. Then he'd have a bite of dinner, and back he'd come at two o'clock, get out the horse he'd left in the morning, and be off-Lymm five o'clock, sharp as a train,-and be back in Warrington by seven o'clock." Over eighteen miles each way," said I. "That's good going, taking the stops into account." "It is good going, I tell you," said he, "and I wish we saw the horses in the stables now like what they had in those days." And what has become of the Duchess Countess ? " I asked. "She doesn't ply no longer, but she's still afloat," said he. "Wooden ships last a pretty time," I said. friend. and the layer upon layer of grained paint that had been laid on it, gave it a historic air. Indeed, a peculiar atmosphere of seclusion pervaded that snug little room, as if the tranquillity of more leisured times had been preserved to it by its long association with the water. I was duly shown the book. But that work had very little in it relating to the canal. It contained either cuttings from newspapers or long paragraphs in careful handwriting on the most diverse "Seventeen sixty!" said my "She'd been tied up in Manchester for long enough, and she went down to Runcorn not two months ago, and there they did her up and painted her smart she looked a picture when she came by here the other day. She's to be an inspection boat, like, for the directors now. 1760 ! There subjects-passages extolling the aren't many boats as old as that, I'll bet, and she's made proper old-fashioned, figurehead and windows in the stern, and all just like a Spanish Armada. She's the very same to look at to-day as when Victoria opened the canal on her. But if you go over the way now and ask Mr at the warehouse to show you the book, you'll find lots of things in it about all such things as that." I went as he recommended and visited Mr in his office in the warehouse adjacent to the "Old Packet House " that had served as a bookingoffice in the brave days of old -this canal carried passengers at a penny a mile before railways were dreamed of. The office still contained the same furniture. The massiveness and height of the desks compared with modern office furniture, Conservative Party, anecdotes of my lords spiritual and temporal, and notes on the Royal Family. There were such facts as the number of bones a man has in his body, how to brew beer, how to find the correct day of the month without looking at a calendar, &c. I was soon less interested in the matter I had come to seek than in picturing to myself Mr's predecessor, the old official who had worked with such infinite pride and pains at compiling what he considered to be the essentials of knowledge. The rain held off, but the weather preserved glum cheerless face, and kept the sun hidden in a cloudy pavilion tinged with yellow mirk. No definite horizon was visible owing to the dull atmosphere. The poor soaked crops gathered 1 The boat was actually built in 1851 for the use of Queen Victoria, when she came to Manchester to open the Royal Exchange ninety years after the opening of the canal. VOL. CCXVII.-NO. MCCCXIII. P |