to the Mother Country that they were 'ready and determined to take up the burden of Empire Defence in their part of the world. It was quite unreasonable to expect the Mother Country, with the enemy at her gates, to devote her attention to the defence of the distant dominions, whose strength enabled them to act upon their own behalf. "The national development of Australia and New Zealand," said Mr. Fisher, "would be stimulated if they relied on their own resources by maintaining a naval force which was a direct part of the British Navy, but was under local executive control. Experience showed that local control was the best and probably the only practicable method. The day had already come when self-respect should persuade Australia and New Zealand to abandon their policy of reliance upon the British taxpayer."

New Zealand's co-operation in the war was marked by great eagerness and enthusiasm. The New Zealanders are just as British in their breeding as the people of the Mother Country itself, and their response was just as ready and whole-hearted. From every portion of the island came young volunteers of the anest physique; many of them were South African veterans, and 11 were excellent rifle shots and splendid natural soldiers. A few months after war was declared some 10,000 of these men had been transported to Egypt, but long before then a small flying expedition had proceeded to German Samoa, and put an end to the Kaiser's colony in that portion of the Pacific. Like the Commonwealth, the despatch of the first little army to Egypt was only the beginning of New Zealand's support. Since then many additional thousands of young men of the best quality have been enrolled at the training camps. These will be sent to the front as they are trained and required, and their numbers would gladly be quadrupled at the request of the Imperial Government. New Zealand has also given handsomely to the patriotic funds, and subscribed a large amount of money to the relief of the Belgians. Indeed, as in the South African War, the practical loyalty of this little island people could not have been exceeded.

III. POLYNESIA.

Up to the outbreak of war little occurred to mark the year in these islands. For several weeks after the beginning of August, however, there was unprecedented excitement in the various white settlements. The possibility of a visit from an enemy war vessel and the eager anticipation of a call from ships flying the Union Jack with tidings of the great campaign, kept these lonely dwellers in a state of constant unrest. Generally speaking there was no trouble with the natives, and fair headway was made in planting and in trade. Some notable instances of individual patriotism were reported in the case of young planters and others, who at great material sacrifice and the exercise of much resource, travelled many thousands of miles in order to return to England and participate in the fighting.

PART II.

CHRONICLE OF EVENTS

IN 1914.

JANUARY.

1. The official list of New Year Honours comprised one new Viscount (the Rt. Hon. James Bryce, who took the title of Lord Bryce of Dechmont), four new Barons (Sir Rufus Isaacs, Lord Strathclyde-the Scottish judge, Mr. Alexander Ure,—Sir C. A. Cripps, and Sir Harold Harmsworth, whose titles were respectively Lord Reading, Lord Strathclyde, Lord Parmoor of Frieth, and Lord Rothermere), and five new Privy Councillors (Lord Colebrooke, Sir Guy Fleetwood Wilson, the Hon. William F. Massey, Premier of New Zealand, Mr. W. H. Dickinson, M.P., and Sir Christopher Nixon, Bt.). There were six new Baronets, among them Sir Gerard Lowther, G.C.M.G., lately Ambassador at Constantinople, and Colonel Sir Edward Ward, K.C.B., Permanent Under-Secretary at the War Office. Among the twentytwo new Knights were Mr. Owen Seaman, Editor of Punch since 1906; Judge Lumley Smith, late Judge of the City of London Court; Mr. W. E. Garforth, an inventor of safety appliances in coal mines; and Mr. Ernest Rutherford, F.R.S. The Order of Merit was conferred on Sir Archibald Geikie, President of the Royal Society.

Mr. Llewelyn Archer Atherley Jones, K. C., appointed a Judge of the City of London Court, vice Judge Lumley Smith, retired.

At Paris, in a Rugby international football match, Ireland beat France by eight points to six.

3. The Home Secretary refused to reconsider the sentence of four months' imprisonment passed at the Stafford Assizes on Thomas William Stewart, a Rationalist lecturer. The reasons for the refusal were, in substance, that the prisoner was punished, not for holding opinions or arguing in support of them, but for utterances designed to wound the feelings of his hearers, and that his speeches on religion were intended to advertise, for his own profit, his lectures on other subjects and certain appliances sold by him, in respect of which he was accused of indecency.

A

3-4. Further severe storms on the New Jersey coast, doing much damage at Atlantic City and Seabright.

5. Final abandonment announced of "The Romance of India," a spectacle projected at Earl's Court, and designed by a well-known artist, Mr. R. Caton Woodville, but objected to by the India Office and Indian residents in London as likely to give offence to Hindus and others. Several hundred performers were left destitute.

The tank steamer Oklahoma was broken in two by a wave fifty miles off Sandy Hook and sunk; seven lives saved, about thirty-two lost.

At Johannesburg, the third Cricket Test Match was won by England by ninety-one runs. England had now won the first three.

7. Announcement that Sir R. H. Brade had been appointed Secretary of the War Office and the Army Council vice Colonel Sir Edward Ward, retired.

Announcement that Mr. Joseph Chamberlain would retire from Parliament at the next general election.

Railway strike in South Africa. (See post, For. and Col. Hist., Pt. I., Chap. VII.)

At the King's Hall, Covent Garden, a mock trial was held of John Jasper for the murder of Edwin Drood, the hero of Dickens' last and unfinished novel. The literary problem involved in the book, the subject of much speculation, was not solved. Mr. G. K. Chesterton was Judge, Mr. George Bernard Shaw foreman of the Jury. The verdict was manslaughter, but the Judge committed all those present for contempt.

Attempt to blow up Territorial barracks at Leeds, temporarily used as police quarters; damage slight.

8. Fire at St. Paul's Training College, Cheltenham; damage over 5,000%. 9. At Cambridge, Dr. Henry Frederick Baker, D.Sc., F.R.S., Fellow and Tutor of St. John's College, was elected Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry, vice Sir Robert Ball, deceased.

9-10. Severe snowstorm in North-West Russia.

9-11. Severe floods on the German Baltic coast, owing to storms and the bursting of dykes; floods also in Würtemberg, the Rhine Valley, Switzerland and Belgium.

10. Barton Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds, burnt down in the early morning; most of the art treasures saved.

11. The Chinese Parliament formally dissolved.

12. At Pretoria, the return match between the M.C.C. and the Transvaal cricket eleven was drawn.

12-15. Severe winter weather in England.

13. Volcanic eruption near Kagoshima, Japan; about 200 lives lost.

Martial law proclaimed in South Africa.

The Royal Mail Company's Steamer Cobequid (late Goth), from the West Indies to St. John, N.B., went ashore on the Trinity Ledges, near the entrance of the Bay of Fundy; the passengers and crew were saved after severe sufferings. The Board of Inquiry (Feb. 2) severely censured the

captain, but in view of his subsequent exertions for the safety of those aboard it did not deal with his certificate.

13. Extreme cold in Ontario; at Toronto 54 degrees of frost were registered, at Ottawa 60 degrees, and at White River 80 degrees.

14. At King's College, London, Lord Rayleigh unveiled a memorial tablet to Lord Lister, the founder of antiseptic surgery.

The inquest on the victims of the Senghenydd Colliery accident (A.R., 1913, Chron., Oct. 14) resulted in a verdict of "Accidental Death." The jury found that there was no neglect, and that the fire probably originated with a naked light at the lamp station.

15. The Special Committee for promoting English representation at the Olympic Games in Berlin retired. (See A.R., 1913, Chron., Dec. 31.)

Announcement that Sir E. Hildred Carlisle, M.P., had given 105,000l. to Bedford College, as a memorial to his mother.

Surrender of the Johannesburg Unionists besieged in the Trades Hall. (See post, For. and Col. Hist., Chap. VII., 1.)

16. Submarine A 7 disappeared in Whitesand Bay, near Plymouth, during exercises; her officers and men, numbering eleven, were lost. She was located on January 21, but attempts to raise her were abandoned at the end of February, and the mystery of her loss was unsolved. A memorial

service was held on March 5 at the spot where she lay.

Under the Ancient Monuments Act of 1913 the desturction of a Georgian house, 75 Dean Street, Soho, London, was forbidden by the Office of Works.

17. At Twickenham, England beat Wales in an International Rugby football match by ten points to nine.

At Frankfort-on-Main, Karl Hopf was convicted of murdering his first wife by poison, and attempting to murder his second and third wives and his two children, and was sentenced to death. He had purchased and used typhoid and cholera bacilli.

19. Final collapse of the Dublin strike. (See Eng. Hist., Chap. VI.)

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At Kimberley, South Africa, the M.C.C. cricket eleven beat Griqualand West by an innings and 101 runs.

At McAlister, Oklahoma, three convicts escaped from the State penitentiary, but were ultimately shot after a fight; in all seven men were killed and two men and one woman wounded.

20. The dead body of Thomas Kent Reekes, an Australian and a marine engineer, was found in a disused pit shaft at Ettingshall, near Wolverhampton. Death was due to gunshot wounds. Efforts to account for his presence in the district and to trace an alleged companion failed.

21. The King in Council ratified the Orders defining the boundaries of the new sees of Chelmsford, St. Edmundsbury, and Ipswich.

Lieut. Seddon, R. N., flew from Sheerness to Plymouth (down the Channel) on a Maurice biplane-nearly 350 miles in 5 hrs. 35 min., exclusive of a stop.

21-28. Strike of 7,000 London coal porters. (See Eng. Hist., Chap. I.)

23. At Brussels, Princess Victor Napoleon, before her marriage Princess Clementine of Belgium, gave birth to a son, the direct heir to the Bonaparte dynasty.

25. At the Hendon aerodrome, George Lee Temple, an airman, was killed while flying.

26. On Salisbury Plain, Mr. Gibb, an airman, was killed while flying and a passenger injured.

An explosion took place aboard the Cunarder Mauretania among men engaged in brazing the turbine blades; three men killed, six seriously injured.

An equestrian statue of King Edward VII., by Landowzki, was unveiled in the Rue Edouard VII., Paris.

27. Announcement that Mr. Arthur Jacob Ashton, K.C., had been appointed Recorder of Manchester vice Sir Joseph Leese, Bart., resigned.

Announcement that Lord Denman had resigned the post of GovernorGeneral of New South Wales through ill-health.

Mr. F. W. Vanderbilt's steam yacht Warrior stranded off the Colombian coast; all on board saved.

An Interim Report of the Dominions Royal Commission dealing with the needs of Australia condemned the methods of recruiting immigrants in Great Britain, recommended reduction in cable rates, and held that the existing postal service was inadequate, but that it would be inadvisable to bind the State to a new contract by the Brindisi and Suez Canal route.

storm.

Narrow escape of St. Petersburg from serious flooding after a great

28. Labour leaders deported from South Africa. (See Eng. Hist., Chaps. I. and II., and For. and Col. Hist., Chap. VII.)

29. Announcement that Mr. John Horace Round, D.L., LL.D., had been appointed by the Attorney-General honorary adviser to the Crown in Peerage Cases.

30. Announcement that the Archbishops of Canterbury and York had appointed a Committee on the relations of Church and State. The Earl of Selborne was chairman and Mr. Balfour one of the members.

At the Parliamentary bye-election for North-West Durham, due to the retirement of Mr. Ll. Atherley Jones, K.C. (see Jan. 1), Mr. Aneurin Williams (L.) was returned by 7,241 votes; Mr. J. O. Hardicker (U.) obtained 5,564 and Mr. G. H. Stuart (Lab.) 5,026.

-The liner Monroe, plying between New York and Norfolk, Va., was run down by the s.s. Nantucket; forty-one persons in all were drowned.

Explosion in a coal mine at Achenbach, Westphalia; twenty-two men killed, seventeen injured.

31. The German sailing ship Hera was wrecked off Falmouth; of the crew of twenty-four nineteen were drowned.

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Strike of elementary school teachers in Herefordshire; it was settled February 25.