In the Commons, after one or two questions, members were summoned to the House of Lords as usual, and, on the return of the Deputy Speaker, loud cheers greeted his announcement of the passing of the Home Rule Bill, as also the last clause but one of the Royal Speech. Then, before the customary leave-taking, Mr. Crooks (Lab., Woolwich) asked if it would be in order to sing "God Save the King," and, after a moment's pause, began to do

Every member rose and joined; so did the strangers in the galleries; Mr. Crooks, after calling for three cheers, which were heartily given, exclaimed "God save Ireland," to which Mr. J. Redmond responded " God save England." Members then took leave of the Deputy-Speaker, and thus this most exciting and astonishing session came to its close.

The war had produced much " emergency legislation," of which the most important items have been noticed; it had also increased the "massacre of the innocents," besides eliminating the debate on the Indian Budget. Of Government Bills passed and not previously noticed at length we may mention the Nationality and Status of Aliens Bill (tending to make this status uniform throughout the Empire), the Criminal Justice Administration Bill (extending the time for the payment of fines in lieu of imprisonment, and extending the probationary treatment of youthful offenders on the "Borstal system"); the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Bill, facilitating the establishment of residential schools for such children by local education authorities, the Board of Education finding half the cost; a Merchant Shipping Bill, giving effect to the chief recommendations of the International Conference (p. 9), the National Insurance Act, Part II., Amendment Bill (p. 115), the Milk and Dairies Bills (p. 115), and a Housing Bill. This originally empowered the Board of Agriculture to build cottages in rural districts at a cost of 3,000,0007. and to house workmen at Rosyth (where the lack of houses was a scandal, at a cost of 2,000,000l., but it was eventually cut down to apply to Rosyth only, and subsequently extended again to provide employment during the war (p. 182). An Importation of Plumage Bill, prohibiting such importation in the case of certain foreign birds mercilessly destroyed-often during the breeding season— was strongly supported by zoologists and humanitarians, but opposed by the trade and by a very few members as destroying British industry, and was drastically amended in Committee and finally crowded out.

Among private members' Bills which became law, we may mention the Education (Provision of Meals) Bill, extending the existing provision (A.R., 1906, pp. 41, 252) to vacations and instituting it everywhere in England and Wales; a non-party Agricultural Holdings Bill, giving compensation to tenants for unreasonable disturbance with a view to the sale of their holdings; a Grey Seals Protection Bill (saving a species threatened with ex

tinction), and a Bill prohibiting the exportation of worn-out horses (in which there had been an extensive and very cruel traffic to Belgium), unless they were certified not to be permanently incapacitated for work, and requiring horses not so certified to be slaughtered at the ports.

Among private members' Bills discussed and dropped were two Bills restricting the sale of intoxicants on Sunday; a Weekly Rest Day Bill, which the Commons rejected (May 21) by 117 to 105, mainly because it was badly drafted; a Bill facilitating the further creation of small holdings in Scotland; a Children's Employment and School Attendance Bill, raising the age of leaving school to fifteen, enabling local authorities to compel attendance at continuation schools, abolishing half-time, and forbidding street trading to boys under fifteen and girls under eighteen; this was strongly opposed by a small minority, and dropped for want of time. A Unionist Housing Bill, setting up a Housing Department of the Local Government Board and providing a Government grant, preceded the first Government Housing Bill above mentioned and failed through Ministerial refusal to provide the grant. A Health Resorts and Watering Places Bill would have allowed local authorities to advertise the attractions of their borough or urban district to an extent limited by the yield of 1d. rate. It passed its second reading in the Commons by 109 to 28. Four unsuccessful essays at legislation in the House of Lords must also be mentioned-the Criminal Law Amendment Bill for the better protection of young girls, presented by the Bishop of London, greatly amended, and eventually withdrawn; a Moneylenders Bill; Lord Newton's Betting Inducements Bill, modified from that of 1913 (A.R., 1913, p. 196), which passed the House of Lords; and Lord Gorell's Matrimonial Causes Bill, based on his experience as Judge of the Probate and Divorce Division. This made the grounds for divorce the same for both sexes, and allowed a marriage to be nullified on account of insanity, incipient mental unsoundness, and epilepsy; but after a debate of the usual character (July 28), it was withdrawn to be reintroduced in 1915.

The Prime Minister had not waited for the prorogation to leave for Edinburgh, where he spoke at a meeting of 3,500 persons, primarily consisting of those eligible for the new Army, on September 18. Great crowds were unable to enter, and were addressed either by him at an overflow meeting or by speakers outside. Lord Provost Inches, who presided, mentioned that Edinburgh had enlisted 11,000 men in the new Army. Mr. Asquith began by referring to the origin of the war, and to Sir Maurice de Bunsen's despatch (p. 215), as showing that, largely through Sir Edward Grey's efforts, a peaceful settlement was already in sight when, on July 31, Germany deliberately made war a certainty. The only attempt to controvert the facts was by circulating such wanton falsehoods as that France was beginning to violate Belgian terri

tory. England was at war (1) to vindicate the sanctity of treaty obligations and the public law of Europe; (2) to assert the independence of small States; (3) to withstand in the interest of civilisation the claim of a single Power to dominate Europe. Rebutting the German charge that England had never cared for treaties save in her own interest, he quoted Pitt's speech in 1793 on the French annulment of the treaties guaranteeing to Holland the navigation of the Scheldt, and cited Mr. Gladstone's action regarding Belgium in 1870 and his vindication of it at Edinburgh in 1880. The Germans practically did not contest the British statement that their aim was to dominate Europe. They avowedly believed that the supremacy of German culture was best for the world. Mankind owed much to Germany, but her specific share in the movement of the past thirty years had been intellectually the development of the doctrine of the prerogative of material forces, and, practically, primacy in the fabrication and multiplication of means of destruction. To those accepting this gospel treaties were merely pieces of parchment, and talk about the rights of the weak and the obligations of the strong merely threadbare and nauseating cant. Their creed had proved a purblind philosophy; they had miscalculated the strength of the British Empire, the feelings of the Colonies and India, the state of Great Britain. The fruits of this culture were seen in their action in Belgium and France-Louvain, Malines, Termonde, their proclamation at Reims. The British task might take months or years, but the economic, monetary, and military and naval position was encouraging; but more men were needed, and he eloquently appealed for them, reminding them of their hardships and dangers, and of their noble opportunity.

Next day the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke for a similar purpose at a meeting of Welshmen at the Queen's Hall, London. He said that no man detested war more than himself, but it could not have been avoided without national dishonour. France had respected Belgian neutrality at Sedan at the cost of her own ruin; Prussia's interest was to break the treaty, and she had done it. The German Chancellor called treaties " scraps of paper.' Then let them burn their bank-notes; they were only scraps of paper. "What are they made of? Rags. What are they worth? The whole credit of the British Empire." The machinery of the world's commerce had stopped; it was moved by bills of exchange-wretched little scraps of paper, which yet moved great ships with precious cargoes across the world. What was the motive power behind them? The honour of commercial men. Treaties were the currency of international statesmanship. German merchants were as honourable as any, but if the currency of German commerce was to be debased to that of her statesmanship no trader would ever look at a German signature again. The German doctrine was the straight road to barbarism. It was as

if one removed the magnetic pole whenever it was in the way of a German cruiser. The tales about conspiracy of France and Belgium had been vamped up afterwards. He dwelt on the outrages in Belgium, and on the Austrian treatment of Servia; and he remarked that, the greatest art, the most enduring literature, even the salvation of mankind had come through little nations. He contrasted the Russian action to free Bulgaria with Bismarck's saying that "Bulgaria was not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." German civilisation was hard and material; the Emperor claimed to be God's Vicegerent; "there has been nothing like it since the days of Mahomet." He did not mean all his speeches, but the men around him did. They meant to destroy Christianity; the new diet of the world they held was to be blood and iron. Britain was not fighting the German people, who were under the heel of the military caste. The Prussian Junker was "the road hog of Europe." If the old British spirit was alive, that bully would be torn from his seat. It would not be easy to beat them, but in the end we should march through terror to triumph. It was a great opportunity, and a greater blessing was emerging-a new patriotism, richer, nobler, more exalted than the old. We had been living in a sheltered valley; the stern hand of fate had scourged us to an elevation whence they could see the great peaks of honour-Duty, Patriotism, Sacrifice. We should descend again, but this generation would carry in their hearts "the image of those great mountain peaks whose foundations are not shaken, though Europe rock and sway in the convulsions of a great war."

Speaking at a recruiting meeting at Nottingham (Sept. 21) the Marquess of Lansdowne attributed to Germany a design to establish a great military despotism from the North Sea to the Adriatic, and described the action of the Dominions and India as unparalleled in history. The response to Lord Kitchener's appeal was magnificent, but two men in training were needed for every one in the field. The First Lord of the Admiralty on the same evening at Liverpool said that circumstances had so far been unexpectedly favourable to the Allied cause; if the British Empire had the time and the Navy would give it-he thought, if its resolution did not fail, it could finally settle the fight as it chose. Without a battle, Great Britain was enjoying the advantages of a battle in which the German Navy had been destroyed. If the German ships did not come out, "they would be dug out like rats in a hole." Mr. F. E. Smith and Mr. T. P. O'Connor spoke also, and it was announced that the former was leaving for the front.

Mr. Churchill's speech, unfortunately, was promptly followed by the sinking of three British cruisers in the North Sea, with a heavy loss of officers and men; but encouragement was given by the news of the daring British air raid on Cologne and Düsseldorf, by the indignation roused throughout the civilised world by the Ger

man bombardment of Reims Cathedral (post, Chron., Sept. 20, 22), and still more by the announcement that, on the eleventh day of the Battle of the Aisne, the Allies were gaining ground. No full account, however, was given of the doings of the British Army in France till Sir John French's despatch was published, October 19; and we may here continue the story (p. 199) by summarising his account of the movement from the Marne to the Aisne.

The battle on September 6, he said, began on a front running from Ermenonville through Lizy, Mauperthuis, Cortecon, Esternay, Charleville, to a point north of Verdun. About noon a German retreat began, and a series of battles followed till, on the evening of September 10, the enemy, driven back to a line running from Compiègne to Soissons, were preparing to dispute the passage of the Aisne. He specially mentioned the forcing of the passage of the Petit Morin River (Sept. 8) by the First British Corps, and of the Marne by the First and Second Corps, and of the battle on September 10, when these Corps, assisted by the Cavalry division on the right and the Third and Fifth Cavalry Brigades on the left, drove the enemy northwards, capturing thirteen guns, seven machine guns, some 2,000 prisoners, and much transport.

A further despatch, dated October 8, but published with the first, practically completed the history of the fighting on the Aisne. On September 12, Sir John French stated, the enemy made a stand, and prepared to dispute the passage of the river (somewhat to the east of Soissons). The river valley, he explained, ran east and west; the bottom was flat, the hills bordering it were about 400 feet high, with numerous spurs and re-entrants; they were backed on the north by a high plateau with patches of wood, admirably adapted for concealing troops. The enemy held a very strong position on the north of the Aisne (a winding stream, 170 feet wide, and unfordable), commanding all the bridges, and with great facilities for concealment. On September 13 the British forces were ordered to advance and make good the Aisne. Portions of them that day crossed at various points a distance of about twelve miles from Bourg to Venizel (the latter some three miles east of Soissons), with comparative ease on their right, with great difficulty on their left, the Fifth Infantry Brigade, in particular, crossing in single file under heavy fire on the broken and only remaining girder of a bridge. The crossing was not completed till the evening of the 13th, when the enemy (though still holding some points on the Aisne) effected a general retirement and entrenched on the high ground two miles north of the river, leaving, however, detachments of infantry supported by powerful artillery, in commanding points on the slopes of the spurs of the high ground. The river was further bridged, under heavy artillery fire, by the Royal Engineers, and on the 15th there was a general advance, to ascertain whether the enemy intended to hold his position