he was far too clever not to do it well. Hervey was what the Scots call "flea-lugged" and could hop from one flirtation or a reform to another with a smiling heartlessness none the pleasanter that you see that he can act in no other way; indeed, there were times when his lordship strongly reminded of a faun in a bishop's apron. Let us be not too magnificent in reprobation; there are thousands of Frederick Herveys still extant and breathing good air, but few of them have his income or his station. The world was much smaller then and such a figure stood out.

Women were only a detail in his general scheme of enjoyment: in 1794 he writes from Siena, "I bathe every day at Noon in a whale of a tub," with the cheerful exultation of a boy of sixtyfour. Goethe once decidedly dusted his jacket for him, but when they parted, Earl and jacket were as resilient as ever. If he ever felt love, it was for Italy and a sensuous charm that holds many more simple-minded than the Bishop of Derry. Back to Italy he went again and again, the last time to stay as an old man laughed at for his costume and his sycophants, sneered at or reprobated for talk that came too easily from his lips. He loved the sun steeped air and the velvet nights, he loved the pictures and the architecture, but what he loved best was the irresponsibility. He had seen "those Baboons", as he called the French, take his collections in Rome, he had seen the disappearance of the Irish Parliament, he had known Franklin and written notes in the best Sternese to La Lichtenau, he proposed to Von Humboldt to go to Egypt in a yacht "with a kitchen and a well provided cellar," he had hopped about to the last when one July day in 1803 he set out from Albano, fell ill and was taken off his horse dying far from Downhill and Ickworth. Much abused while he lived, after death he was described, not praised, except by two groups much unlike; the artists at Rome and the Protestant and Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland. His history, if it be called that, is almost fascinating for its accessories of the most crowded, the most lively and the most intelligent of centuries, in which Frederick Hervey chose to waste and spill what in a plainer man would have furnished forth a splendid career.

Short of a supplement to Landor, we cannot say what Arthur Wellesley or Frederick Hervey would have made of William T.

Stead, or he of them, but Mr. Frederic Whyte has written a very good biography of a man that he evidently admired. A mere critic cannot share this enthusiasm at its crescendo, but he can say that Stead's was a life to interest and the biography does this. Touching this same matter of interest, and of the attraction such a man's life can have for different spectators, let us recognize that men of a certain upbringing and turn of mind will never praise Stead, that is, without a wrench, as they must praise some things that he did. When they do, it will be in spite of a downright repugnance for some of his other qualities. On the other hand, there will always be some to regard him entirely with admiration and a resolute denial of all analysis.

He was a master of bad form and, as Mr. Whyte virtually acknowledges, quite without the understanding of good form. It may be that the latter reeks of the pride of life, it seems to be anathema to some hot gospellers, but there are others who do not think it negligible or vicious or that its knowledge bars one from honesty and good deeds. In a manner, Mr. Whyte takes away the ground for criticism on this point, for when he shows us Stead not too nice about printing interviews, borrowing a couple of thousand pounds from Cecil Rhodes, forcing himself on Suzerains, Sovereigns and Satraps, constantly talking about himself, performing a series of acts that were the denial of the physical and moral reticence called self-respect-when he shows us all this, he virtually tells us that it could none of it be helped. Why? Because it was Stead's way. To our thinking, this is dogmatic apologetics with a vengeance and not much of a defense. Why could not Stead amend his ways? Mr. Bernard Shaw throws some light on this when he says that Stead "had to work single handed because he was incapable of keeping faith when excited; and as his hyperæsthesia was chronic, he generally was excited." Mr. Shaw is not an uncharitable man, in maturity of thinking indeed he towered above Stead, but he here simply states a dispassionate conclusion and you cannot make much out of it but that Stead would not control himself. Shaw's estimate is decidedly charitable in its implication that over this hyperesthesia Stead had no control. We think rather that his "æsthesis a trifle leathery and that he was content.

This is why Stead is an easy study; for some he is impossible and there's an end on 't; for others, he is a gratifying combination of Horace Greeley and Oliver Cromwell. One man has the more than welcome task of picking him to pieces; another, the sacred duty of showing that in this naughty world Stead alone was right, even if it were with headlines. Of course, there will always be a modest minority, sometimes called humorists, that will regard this restless North Countryman with a good deal of indulgence and with the compassion which was explained in not classical Greek to a startled world some time ago. His faults were such as to make some loathe him, yet two such men as John Morley and Alfred Milner could know and like him; Morley, the rationalist Radical with the door of the eighteenth century ever ajar, and Milner, the Balliol man, of whom a Frenchman said later, "Sir Alfred Milner n'agite rien, il précise"; they both could compassionate, though perhaps they were never conscious of it.

As a matter of fact, the man's life was so crammed and so restless, that you can in this compass but hope for a general impression, which Mr. Whyte's book does not deny you. There is a great deal of detail, but it does not blur the general effect. For example, read some words spoken by Stead in the 1890's in talking about peace; "I have talked with as many sovereigns as would consent to meet me, and as many diplomatists as I had time to meet.' Mr. Whyte quotes Miss Huntsman that Stead's words were "arresting". They must have been all that, but one can use other adjectives as well, for there is a good deal of impudence, innocence and vanity compressed in these twenty-three words.

Mr.Whyte modestly describes himself as editor, but he is a great deal more than that and in his comments is clearly bent on fairness. His extracts from Stead's letters and writings are perhaps more voluminous than always necessary, but he has the right to praise a man whom he admires. His comments, Stead's writings that he gives, and what he quotes from others, are so well handled by him that he gives a picture that makes first-rate thinking material for the reader with a conscience.

JOHN HUNTER SEDGWICK.

A FAR EAST PROBLEM

MANCHURIA: A Survey. By Adachi Kinnosuké. New York: Robert M. McBride Company.

Can a land have as dramatic a history as a man? One who reads this book, modestly characterized by the author as a survey of the resources and the history of an ancient empire, will find thrilling drama in the many parts the land has played and is playing. Its most fascinating development will be found in its change from battlefield to nursery of the peace of the Pacific, if not of the world. Physically, Manchuria is an irregular inverted triangle, covering 382,627 square miles, with its base in the north along the Amur river, which separates it from Siberia, and its southern apex where Port Arthur thrusts into the Yellow Sea. Korea is on the east, and westward lie Mongolia and China.

Peopled at the dawn of history by the virile Tungus of the Mongol Tartar blood, a race of hunters, herdsmen and warriors from whom are sprung the Japanese and Koreans of today, the land has been flooded by waves of immigration from China, and has been the scene of countless battles, notably those of Japan against the Chinese and the Russians. Always it has been rich in forests, grain and coal. Centuries ago it was called the granary of Asia. Today it is serving the cause of peace by providing a vast field for Japanese activities as well as food for the Japanese people. Says Mr. Adachi:

The question of war or peace for Japan will be settled-not in Japan nor on the Pacific, as some of the navy people on both shores of that ocean dearly love to believe. But in Manchuria. The question of food for Japan is being settled there to a considerable extent. And the question of food is one of the aliases of war or peace. This must be of some interest to the people of America, where every time money is needed for a warship the propagandists feel it a moral duty to drag forth the overworked ghost of a Japanese menace. . . . Japan is about to find in Manchuria the source of life and national peace. For of all the thousand troubles Japan has, two are serious: the lack of food and the lack of vital materials, such as iron and oil. And Manchuria seems to be the answer, to a large extent.

The food products of Manchuria range from wheat to rice, and include the wonderful soya bean. Good lumber is plentiful along the upper reaches of the rivers; enough, if carefully used, to

supply Asia for centuries. Coal, bituminous and semi-anthracite, is present in enormous quantities. The Fushun bed, the thickest seam on earth, is estimated to contain twelve billion tons. It is mined largely by the open cut system. Careful surveys indicate in Mukden and the Anshan district nearly 600,000,000 tons of iron Oil shale to the amount of 5,500,000,000 tons has been surveyed in Fushun, which it is believed will supply Japan's annual need of 6,000,000 barrels of petroleum for the next three centuries.

ore.

The chapter on the South Manchurian Railway Company is a tale of modern magic. In less than twenty years of existence this enterprise, shares in which were one thousand and sixty-six times oversubscribed by the people of Japan, has worked a phenomenal improvement in the country and earned undreamed of profits. The Japanese Government invited the Government of China to invest in the company, but the Chinese declined. Of the company's total investment of 536,000,000 yen, nearly forty per cent. has been spent in building and equipping its lines with American mechanism throughout, including two hundred and five bridges, the mile-long tunnel through the mountain at Fuchinling and another of 3,254 feet through Chinkuanshan. The company operates the Fushun coal mines. It has greatly enlarged and modernized Mukden, the capital city, and the port of Dairen, and has created throughout its territory a system of free public schools teachers' training schools, public health bureaus, hospitals, playgrounds and parks, all of which are used as much by the Chinese as by the Japanese people. At Mukden the company has established a university and medical school which occupy four full city blocks of buildings. The company's electric light and power plants deliver to five cities energy rate at 20,000,000 kilowatts a year. In a word, the South Manchurian Railway Company seems to have become the social and economic fairy godmother of Manchuria.

It is cheering to read of the constantly increasing productiveness and commerce of peaceful Manchuria, and especially to note that many of the business enterprises are owned by companies in which Chinese and Japanese stockholders, executives and workmen are pulling together as a harmonious team.

W. O. INGLIS.