umes on "The Museums and Ruins of earnest, yet silent and modest men.. Rome” which visitors to Rome,- The present author was a man in his whether hasty tourists or painstaking boyhood. He has the entire workings. students-will find extremely useful. of the Fenian movement at his fingers' They are of convenient pocket size, and ends. When only twenty-six, he was. fully illustrated,—the Museums with called to London as adviser to the 170 and the Ruins with 98 illustra- Home Office in matters of political tions, besides plans. Dr. Walter crime, and occupied a position of great Amelung writes of the Museums, and influence and responsibility. He has has added to the present edition three retired from office. chapters which are not contained in the original German edition; and Professor Two narratives of travel make up the Heinrich Holtzinger describes the twenty-first volume of the reprint of Ruins. Both are competent students Early Western Travels, published by and critics, and the fruit of their joint the Arthur H. Clark Company of labor is far enough from the ordinary Cleveland. Both relate to adventures hack work of the professional maker and explorations in Oregon in the fourth of guide-books. All the memorials decade of the last century, but they which remain in Rome of its splendid are written with quite a different purpast, all its collected antiquities and pose.

The first is the now very rare works of art, all its historic sites and monograph “Oregon, or a Short History ruins are described and pictured in of a Long Journey," written by young these two volumes with a lucidity, a John B. Wyeth, of Cambridge, who acjust appreciation and a sense of pro- companied the Oregon expedition of portion which leave nothing to be his stouter-hearted cousin Nathaniel J. desired.

Wyeth, in 1832, but abandoned it en

route, and wrote this narrative quite Among early forthcoming publica- as much as a deterrent against like tions of E. P. Dutton & Co. is “Side- enterprises as an account of his own lights on the Home Rule Movement,” experiences and observations. The by Sir Robert Anderson. Sir Robert narrative, naturally, has a vivacity not is the son of Mr. Matthew Anderson, usual in graver travel-records; and, in who was Crown Solicitor in the City of spite of the temper in which it is writDublin, and the younger brother of the ten, its interest justifies its inclusion late Sir Samuel Lee, who succeeded his in this series. The second monograpb father in the office. To these two men, is John K. Townsend's Narrative of a Samuel and Robert, the stability of the Journey Across the Rocky Mountains British government in Ireland owes to the Columbia River. This is an acmore than to any other individual. count of a second expedition, partly They were, in office, moved by the commercial and partly scientific, made most stern sense of duty, and "wise in 1833 and 1834, under Wyeth's leaderas serpents”; and on their social side, ship. It is graphic and well-written they were “harmless as doves." They and gives a more serious account of were both when very young men, in- Wyeth's enterprise than that written by fluenced by a deep sense of religion; his disheartened young kinsman.

SEVENTH SERIES
VOLUME XXXII.

No. 3244 Sept. 8, 1906.

FROM BEGINNING
Vol. CCXLX.

CONTENTS.
The Political Powers of Labor : Their Extent and Their Limita-
tions. By W. H. Mallock.

NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER 579
The Laying Waste of Pleasant Places. GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE 589
Wild Wheat. Chapter XIX. Prue. Chapter XX. Solemn Vows. By

M. E. Francis. (To be continued.) LONGMAN'S MAGAZINE 594 Citizens of To-morrow, By Margaret McMillan

INDEPENDENT REVIEW 600 The Shadow of Good Fortune. By Nellie K. Blisseit. TEMPLE BAR 609 The Mind of a Dog. By S. Alexander CORNHILL MAGAZINE 612 International Art: A Duologue. By F. P. Seeley

NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER 623 The Revolt of the Veg. .

Punch 627 The Education Judgment,

SPECTATOR 629 The Pope and the Separation Law.

ECONOMIST 632 Persia's Quasi-Parliament.

SPEAKER 634 A New Study of Meredith.

ATHENÆUM 636

V. VI. VII.

VIII.
IX.
X.
XI,
XII.

XIII.

A PAGE OF VERSE
The Spirit of Hidden Places. By Lance Fallov

MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE 578
Cornish Wind. By Arthur Symons

SATURDAY REVIEW 578 BOOKS AND AUTHORS

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THE POLITICAL POWERS OF LABOR

THEIR EXTENT AND THEIR LIMITATIONS

I.

WHAT IS MEANT BY LABOR IN CURRENT CONTROVERSY

a

an

The presence in Parliament, for the terests of Millais or

Almafirst time in any considerable numbers, Tadema. The root-idea which the of a party claiming par excellence to Labor members form of labor may represent what is called Labor, is a be best described as those forms of fact whose significance has been thus muscular and manual activity of which far very inaccurately understood both all normal men are capable to an apby the Labor members themselves and proximately equal degree, and which by others who either sympathize with the majority of men in all ages have, or are hostile to them. This misunder- from the nature of things, been obliged standing has in each case the same to exercise. Such labor, no doubt, aporigin, which consists of the looseness proximately equal though it may be in of the ideas associated with the word a general way, admits of, and requires "labor." Labor, of course, means some different degrees of skill; and we find form of human activity, or it means in labor, consequently, certain different nothing, but it is evident also that, as grades, which are elicited in accordused in the present connection, the ance with the talents of the individual form of activity meant by it must be laborers. So much our Labor members of some special and limited kind. would without doubt concede; but all Otherwise a party which claimed to forms of labor, according to their conrepresent Labor would not be specifi- ception of it, are alike in this—that cally distinguishable from a party, for each is an exertion of manual and musexample, which represented the inter- cular energy on the part of men as inests of active capital. What, then, in dividuals, which is applied to the perthe minds of the Labor members them- formance of separate industrial tasks. selves does labor stand for as that That such is the conception of Labor which is specially and distinctively prevalent among the party as a body represented by them?

is illustrated by the occupations of the It would be difficult to give a defini- great majority of its members. ACtion of this which did not require quali cording to an interesting statement fications in respect of exceptional cases; published in The Review of Reviews for but, broadly speaking, we may say June, eleven of them are coal-miners; that it means for them first and fore- six are mechanics employed in various most what is commonly called manual metal industries; four are mill hands; la bor. But here at once the need for four are farm-laborers; three are railexceptions arises. The writing of a way employees; there is a bargebook, the drafting of an Act of Parlia- builder, a bootmaker, a stonemason, ment, the painting of a great picture, several printers' employees, and all involve labor of the hands. The maker of watch-cases. In men thus painting of a picture is essentially occupied we have the bulk of the inseparable from this. But the La- party, and it is in virtue of occupations bor members in Parliament certainly such as these that they make their do not claim to represent the in- claims to represent labor directly.

Labor, then, translated from

abstract into concrete terms, means that section of the population whose one distinguishing characteristic consists in this-that its members individually devote to individual industrial tasks those manual and muscular energies which such tasks demand, and in respect of which all normal men are, approximately at least, equal. Members of this class may have other faculties also, as, indeed, of course, they have; but, in so far as such faculties are those which are possessed and exercised by the human race generally, these faculties are in no way distinctive of the laboring class as such. They belong to its members as representatives, not of labor, but of humanity. On the other hand, if members of the la boring class, as many doubtless do, possess, in addition to the average faculties of labor, faculties of other kinds, which are above the average and exceptional, such men represent in virtue of these, not the labor which makes the whole class one, but some kind of superiority which separates a part of that class from the rest of it. Thus

the mining population in Wales enjoys the reputation of possessing exceptional gifts for music; but the miners who have been sent to Parliament by the Welsh mining constituencies lay no claim to represent the distinctive interests of musicians. If labor stands for anything distinctive of any comprehensive class, and if the Labor members represent this class in any distinctive sense, the word labor, as used in current political discussion, means the application of ordinary hands and muscles to tasks of the kind just indi. cated-such as the extraction of so much coal, the hammering of so many rivets, the setting up of so much type, or the ploughing of so many furrows. It is only by using the word labor in this specific sense that such phrases as “the Labor members," “the Labor party," or "the cause of labor" can have any specific meaning. And such is the sense, though for the most part not consciously defined, which is actually attributed to the word in the political discussion of to-day, both by the public generally and by the Labor members themselves.

II.

ILLUSIONS OF LABOR AS TO THE NATURE OF ITS OWN IMPORTANCE

What, then, is the real significance of smaller is the efficient force at the the rise of the Labor party? Within back of them, than they themselves, or what limits does it stand for a legiti- than those who fear them, suppose. mate political force, with reasonable The intelligible and legitimate funcand practicable ends? And how far tions which may conceivably be fuldo its own ambitions and the fears of filled by a party representing the interthose who are out of sympathy with it, ests of the laboring as distinct from all lie beyond the region of what is inhe- other classes, are obvious enough, as a rently possible? We shall find that few examples will show us, and arise for a party representing the interests from the broad fact that a variety of of labor as such, there is a very dis- social questions really do concern the tinct and legitimate field of action; but laboring classes either exclusively or the more clearly we realize what the in a special way. Thus the fencing of character of this field is, the more machinery in factories, the construction clearly shall we realize how far outside of factories with due regard to sanitaits borders the aspirations of many of tion, the obligation of employers to the Labor members lie, and how much compensate employees injured in their