but not less genuine, desire that America shall be freed from the tyranny of a corrupt and corrupting monopoly. If, however, we may do so without offence, we should like to address a word of warning to the American public, and to ask them not to be misled by false or hasty or ignorant accounts of English public opinion. The American people are just now most naturally in a state of anger and excitement, and when people are angry and excited they may be easily misled. Now it is obviously the interest of those who are implicated in the Trust scandals, or who are afraid that future revelations may damage Trusts and monopolies which are at present untouched, to do all they can to turn public attention away from themselves. Every effort will, we may be sure, be made by the astute and not over-scrupulous men who are in danger from public opinion to divert attention from themselves by raising the cry of the hostility of the British people. That, we would ask our American friends to remember, is The Spectator. altogether a sham outcry and a sham RICHARD SEDDON: A PERSONAL STUDY. Thirty years ago the little colony of them were allied self-made colonists, New Zealand showed few signs of be- hard-headed noureaux riches, whose incoming the democratic laboratory of the dustrial and social ideals were summed Empire. Indeed, it passed as conserva- up in the terse sentence, “the devil take tive amongst colonies. The Australia the hindmost!" When in 1877 Sir of those days was defined as Democracy George Grey rallied a Radical party tempered by Banks. But in New Zea- round him, and for a moment suatched land demos was repressed by some- office from the champions of property, thing more than the overshadowing in- an outburst of excitement which was fuence of financial institutions. The a curious mixture of amazement and island had attracted in the early days contempt shook the small New Zealand of the Colony an unusual proportion of communities from south to north. All educated members of the English mid- Grey's eloquence and courage could dle and upper-middle classes. En- not save him from defeat, defeat to dowed, some of them, with much abil- which his own following added humiliity, these men dominated the young ation. They met and deposed him. community, filling the professions and Amongst the few who stood faithful to occupying much of the land. With the fallen chieftain in the crisis was a a а young “miner's agent" just returned to Parliament by a goldfield district. He was noteworthy for a huge chest-girth and an equal measure of self-assertion; for a rush of words; for a plentiful ig. norance of political theories, and for a knowledge of parliamentary procedure quite striking in a novice. His head made one think of steam-hammers and tomahawks and other things forceful and aggressive. And the pallor of his face was lit up by two alert blue eyes and by a peculiarly pleasant-nay, a sweet-smile playing round wellshaped mouth. Richard Seddon had, moreover, an instinctive grasp of tactics and an utter disregard of hard knocks. Of these latter he had, in his early days, to take more than he gave, for the triumphant respectability of the Colony, flushed with victory over Grey, was not inclined to be forbearing. It looked upon Richard Seddon as a grotesque apparition in Legislature whose friends fondly regarded it as still perhaps the most orderly and dignified in the British Colonies. He became Respectability's favorite butt and bête noire. When he was obstructive, as he very often was, he would be pelted with threats, imprecations, entreaties and sarcasm, of none of which he took the faintest notice. Making many mistakes, he went doggedly on, and in the scuffles of the years that followed Grey's eclipse, it began to be understood that his athletic follower, Richard Seddon, was a man who could not be disregarded. Naturally enough, New Zealand bas in sixty-five years produced very few names of Imperial distinction. Gibbon Wakefield and Bishop Selwyn can scarcely be classed as New Zealanders. Grey and Seddon can. They both had come to man's estate before setting foot in the far-off Colony. Even so, they are the only two public names on the Colony's roll which are widely known in the outside world. Externally and in tone and methods no two men could be more unlike than the cultivated exViceroy who founded the New Zealand democratic party and the rough Lancashire lad who captained it when it reached the pinnacle of its success. Yet there was something alike in their destinies. Grey, who by birth and temperament seemed made to be an English official of the aristocratic type, ended as a colonial tribune of the people. Seddon, whom fate seemed to have qualified to be a labor-anarchist, will best be remembered outside New Zealand as an outspoken advocate of Imperialism. And the two men, again, had this in common: that they sincerely sympathized with the lot of the masses, and that in the battles of politics they did not know what fear was. Great, however, would be the injustice of suggesting that Jr. Seddon's only rema ble qualities were a rude indifference to blows and the sort of burly strength that shoulders competitors out of the way. Strong he was, or he could not have overcome the intense prejudices he had to encounter. Burly he was, or he could not have trampled on opponent after opponent during twenty-seven years passed on the confused battlefields of colonial politics. But even the strength of a giant, and the disposition to use it as a giant, would not have availed him had he not been gifted with a more than common share of mental acuteness and practical sagacity which Britons choose to call commonsense. His industry, moreover, though in part wasted over ignoble details, was very great, and his concentration almost prveter-human. He lived for politics as New York millionaires live for finance. He had no social ambitions, no recreations, no power of enjoying idleness. From his father, a schoolmaster, he had a common school education. But he cared little for books. Hard experience constituted his library, and the struggle for life had taught him useful if bitter les- by what he says nearly as much as sons. Englishmen are so accustomed by what he does. It is by his acts to associate statesmanship with a clas- that we must mensure Mr. Seddon, and sical training and an Oxford accent thus measured it will be hard to conthat they are apt to forget that the tend that he does not emerge triumworld has often produced men of vast phant from the test. It is all very organizing and administrative power well to say that New Zealand's experiwho never read a book, and some who mental legislation-the work of a group could not write their names. At any of men of whom he alone had the stuff rate, Mr. Seddon did not despise edu- in him to achieve celebrity-has yet to cation. He was, throughout his pub- stand the test of time. That is a comlic life, a sympathetic supporter of the monplace concerning institutions and New Zealand National School system, achievements of our own day. What and it has been pointed out that in the can be claimed for Mr. Seddon is that last few years of his life, when he took the highest political office in already overburdened with work, he an hour when his adopted country was snatched time to subsidize and depressed to the verge of despair, and liberalize the secondary schools of that he died leaving it prosperous behis Colony. Of course he paid for his yond precedent. In 1893 the socialistic comparative lack of education and the policy of the Ballance Cabinet had incoal'se surroundings of bis pioneer deed gained enthusiastic support, but days. He never appeared able to esti- it was only balf passed and not half mate the precise value of comparatives digested by the country. Under Sedand superlatives; to the last he seemed don it was passed almost in its ento imagine that strong language was tirety, was amplified and given free the only language befitting a strong play. Yet never were the limits of man. His megaphonic exhortations to safety transgressed, never was social the political parties in this country oc- order disturbed, never was intolerable casionally lent themselves to ridicule. wrong done. Thirteen years of work But there was at least no mistaking may not be a final test, but to show his views; and the patriotism, which that strange and daring experiments took the shape of sending ten contin- can be made to work, and work safely gents of mounted riflemen to fight for for a number of years, is in itself a the mother-country in South Africa, had very great achievement. Even should a right, if it chose, to express itself failure come, it will always be open loudly. Looking round us we can see to Mr. Seddon's friends to claim that in high places an abundance of cul- failure did not come in his time. And, tured people; of refined pedantry; of on the personal side, they may claim timidity at critical moments; of per- what is rare indeed, that as a political verse skill in criticising constructive captain he was never beaten, and died work and throwing cold water upon unconquered. For, in a colony where enthusiasm. There is much to be said Ministries had been brief and some. for the occasional intrusion into public times absurdly impotent and ephemelife of the bulky, strenuous man, wliose ral, he not only held power for thirteen intentions are clear if their expression years, but when he died had well-nigh be rugged, and for whom patriotism annihilated opposition. He survived or and the prosperity and happiness of his outwitted equals, knocked over smaller people are good enough as working antagonists, crushed intrigue within ideals. After all a public man is a his party, routed open opposition. He man of action; he niust be judged not did this because he not only gained but, to the last, retained a personal popularity that amounted to a national affection. It was not uncritical; it was half-humorous and by no means blind to his foibles. But, expressed as it was in the household words "King Dick," it brought him in an allegiance that never wavered and only strengthened continuously to the end. Ersul, Tbe Outlook. HARDYANA.. "The stretch of country . .. herein contributed to this result. Since then described cannot be regarded as infe- the "Hardy country" has been "written rior to any scenery of the sort in the up" in all manner of publications of the West of England or perhaps anywhere daily, weekly, and periodical order, ilin the kingdom. It is singular to find lustrated and otherwise. The highthat a world-wide repute in some cases, ways and byways of Wessex have been and an absolute obliviousness in others, carried on the wings of the post to the attach to spots of equal beauty and four corners of the British Isles and equal accessibility. The neighborhood to the Anglo-Saxon reading public overof ... teems with landscapes which, by seas in innumerable picture-postcards, a mere accident of iteration, might have And the book now under review, by been numbered among the scenic celeb- Walter Tyndale and Clive Holland, is rities of the day.” only a further addition to the literature So wrote Mr. Hardy in his preface to of the subject that has already apVol. VII. of the Wessex Novels, dated peared in book-form. August, 1895. If the country to which Some of us may regret these consehe referred still enjoys any of the ad- quences of Mr. Hardy's work. It may vantages or disadvantages of 'scenic be that birth or other chance of assoobscurity, it is not for any lack of ciation has assigned to us for our own "iteration" since the day when these particular corner of the earth some one words were written. Indeed, the proc of the scenic lions of the land, so that ess of advertisement had already at we know something of the price that that time made son way. Mr. Hardy is paid for notoriety. So far as our was already at the head of the front concern is on behalf of the country itrank of contemporary novelists. Books self and its natives, it is, no doubt, misabout bis books--or, at least, the first placed. Wessex has been a mark for the of such, by a writer of some distinction invader ever since it can remember, and -had already made their appearance. an invasion of tourists bringing with And it is only in the nature of things them money to the pocket of its inhabthat the fame of the country about itants and variety, amenity and mild which he writes should have grown sensation to the social side of its life, commensurately with the popularity of may be reckoned an agreeable substi. bis novels. A map published at the tute for the inroads of Romans, Eng. end of each volume of his collected lish, Danes, and Normans, not to menworks, enabling his readers without tion Monmouths and the more dreaddifficulty to identify the scenes of his ful sequel to a Monmouth rising. It is fiction with their originals, no doubt not the professional dweller upon the • “Wessex": painted by Walter Tyndale: described by Clive Holland. London: A. C. Black. 1906. 208. Det. "Three Dorset Captains at Trafalgar.” By A, M. Broadley and E. C. Bartelot M. P. London: John Murray. 1906. 159, Det. land who objects to tourists and pub- Little exception need be taken, on licity. His sound stomach is proof any of the grounds that have been against the vulgarity which they in- mentioned, to the book under review. volve. It is the sentimental amateur. Mr. Tyndale's illustrations may be rooted to the soil only by the delicate taken to be the raison d'être of the feelers of a more or less artificial asso- work, seventy-five sketches of town and ciation, who feels the breath of intru. country, reproduced by the three-color sion like a blight and is sickened by the process, very bright and pretty, pleaseasy familiarity with which the liter- ing to the eye, and suggestive to the ary caterer retails the scenic intima- imagination. The letterpress by Mr. cies of a country side. Holland is full of information. R. L. The individuals of this class who Stevenson says that no human being happen to be connected with any par- ever spoke of scenery for more than ticular corner of the country are of two minutes, and concludes that we course not numerous, and certainly hear too much of it in literature. The need not be considered, but there are inference is doubtful, but the warning many who sympathize with their con- is, perhaps, a useful one, and Wr. Holservatism. Few of us have not some- land is evidently alive to the danger where at the root of our nature some in question. His book contains a chapexclusive propensity which causes us ter on "The Four Seasons of Wessex," to take pleasure in the existence of which might probably have been things that are enjoyed by the few, omitted for the above reason, but, exto rejoice in the unexploited. We like cept for this chapter, and one entitled to think that there are still trout- "A Famous Fair and Some Wessex streams accessible to the public but Types," he has refrained from writing un visited by the readers of the Field of the "creative" order. The last chapin general; restaurants in shy streets ter gives a very comprehensive index to where the prices have not yet been the scenes of Mr. Hardy's novels, conspoiled by the rich, nor the quality of necting them with their originals, and the wines and cookery by the many; is illustrated by the map at the end of old china still on the shelves of dressers the book. Otherwise the book consists not yet transferred from the farmhouse of a perfectly straightforward histori. to the furniture shop or museum; Old cal and descriptive account of the prinEnglish songs not yet set to accompani- cipal towns of Wessex. ments by Mr. Fuller Maitland; Old Three Dorset Captains at Trafalgar is English ale not yet tasted and de- a book which may be alluded to not inscribed by the professional Borrovian, appropriately under this head, inasetc., etc. Even if we are not fortunate much as these naval heroes, and the enough to possess the secret of any times with which they are associated of these good things, a sort of vicari- figure no less prominently in the Midous selfishness makes us enjoy the Wesses of Mr. Hardy's creation than thought that they exist in privacy. in the actual annals of the county of And we like to contemplate those Dorset. The part played at Trafalgar portions of the map of our country by Captains Hardy, Bullen, and Digby which may still be marked with the was celebrated at Dorchester last year gray shading that indicates scenic ob- by a Nelson and Trafalgar exhibition, scurity, and are conscious of a certain at which these three names shared the regret whenever a new area is picked honors with the greater name which is out in purple by the pen of some pop- claimed by the Eastern Counties. The ular author. book, besides being the first life of Cap |
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