the disorganisation which followed on the Japanese war making opportunities for both the revolutionary and constitutional movements, of which both parties availed themselves. Pressing requests were made to Tolstoy to lend his influence to one side or the other; but the old Prophet held fast to his faith that reform can only come from within the moral nature of man, and that every attempt to impose it from without must end in failure, however excellent be the motives from which it has been evolved.

His work continued to be interrupted by serious illness, the worst attack necessitating his removal to the Crimea for the winter. But always as soon as he was able the work was resumed, though such efforts delayed recovery. He was so impressed with the importance of what he was writing that he would not publish several completed works, fearing the diversion of his energies to their improvement when he saw them in print. So the years passed in apparent placidity till the Western world was startled one morning by the news of his sudden disappearance and death. Though for thirty years he had ardently desired simpler conditions of living, and escape from the curious who flocked to Yásnaya, he would never on his own initiative have forsaken his home and family without the persuasion and assistance of men, younger and more vigorous than himself, who were anxious to remove the appearance of inconsistency between his teaching and practice. A letter written thirteen years previously, to be given to his wife after his death, is proof of how long he had cherished the idea of flight, but also of the difficulties in the way of its execution. With that desire to retire from the trivialities of the world on the approach of death it is not difficult to sympathise, but the oppression which Tolstoy felt from what we may call terrestrial pressure indicates how indifferently he had assimilated some of the creeds from which he believed himself to draw inspiration. The teaching of Buddha was for him only second in importance to the teaching of Christ, and the illumination of its psychology coloured even more deeply his philosophical speculations. During long walks together through the Yásnaya woods, and many a ride across more distant country, he spoke of his deep indebtedness to Gautama's teaching, and heard with the most earnest interest of his followers in the East.

Yet, though he knew it not, he never attained the attitude of a yogi, still less to the Sanyasin's indestructible calm. He proclaimed his ignorance of the secret of peace by imagining

that it could only be found in solitude. The Kingdom of God is within you,' and he only is the true yogi who cannot escape from peace because the peace of his own soul radiates always into the spaces about him. India could have taught him that spiritual emancipation can never be a question of mileage, and that it is by removing the soul, and not the body, by losing the sense of separate consciousness, that a man attains to perfect freedom. But he could not learn that lesson. The shadow of the Church which he had renounced, the gloom of a wintry northern faith, always hung about his splendid spirit, and obscured from his passionate endeavour the open avenue for its escape.

He drew in Karatáef the true initiate; but he could not attain to that supreme simplicity, that serene indifference of the soul to its terrestrial environment. He flew from his home to escape the social consciousness; but his flight only drew it the closer about him, and, as if to save his vision from a renewed disappointment, Death mercifully closed his eyes.

ART. X.-THE CORONATION AND THE CON

STITUTIONAL QUESTION.

THE Coronation year of King George V., affords remarkable and most satisfactory evidence of a practically almost complete unanimity of national sentiment existing throughout the vast and scattered dominions of the British Empire. The Monarchy unites us all. The Throne is everywhere recognised as the symbol of this unity; for it is the sole political institution that belongs to us all. In Canada and Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, and amidst the various races of India, men own and feel the same allegiance to the Sovereign as is felt by the inhabitants of the United Kingdom. Parliaments, such at least as they have been hitherto known to Englishmen, are by their constitution and nature local. Representatives are chosen on local, often on almost parochial grounds. Moreover, Parliaments are of necessity given to reflecting the party and political differences that divide men rather than the common feeling of Nationality and Citizenship that unites them. The Sovereign, and the Sovereign alone, gives a living and personal representation to that invaluable sentiment of common Nationhood so strongly felt by British subjects all over the world-amongst men who differ in political sympathies, in race, in colour and in creed. It is as fellow subjects of one King, not as units in the general political abstraction of Empire, that most men realise their common nationality.

'Britain's myriad voices call
Sons be welded each and all,

Into one Imperial whole,

One with Britain, heart and soul!

One life, one flag, one fleet, one throne!

Britons hold your own!'

How far the process of welding' can be carried at the present time is a question to which British and Colonial statesmanship must address itself. The problem is a very different one from that with which Washington, Hamilton, and their successors had to deal, when confederating separate American States in a great Union. The circumstances are also unlike those in which our greater colonies have found it possible to draw provincial governments together. We must beware of disregarding facts in the pursuit of an ideal unity not yet capable of realisation. What at present exists, so far as the

great self-governing colonies and the Mother Country are concerned, is a League of Free Nations, each with a virtually independent Parliament and Executive Government, each owning, and proud of its allegiance to, the same Sovereign, each deeply interested in the relations of the Empire as a whole to the rest of the world, and each therefore having a claim to be consulted as to the common action. It is a happy circumstance that the year for the meeting of the Colonial Conference has coincided with the year of the Coronation; and that it has been made manifest to all men that at no period of our history have better and heartier relations existed, than at present between Mother Country and Colonies. Whether the time is approaching when each autonomous portion of the Empire, including the United Kingdom, will be willing to accept as regards the international relations of the Empire, or as regards fiscal policy, some authority superior to its own Executive and Parliament, may be a question. It may be that a solution will be found rather on the lines of a Grand League or Alliance, affording ample means for continuous consultation between the sister nations, than on the lines of American or Colonial experience, and the establishment of a supreme Executive over all. The interchanges of views during the present year between the Ministers of the King at home, and the Ministers of the King in the great Colonies cannot but have been of the greatest use in elucidating the true conditions of the problemhow best to strengthen, consolidate, and cement the fabric of the British Empire.

It has been a further subject for satisfaction that in this Coronation year there has been nothing in the relations between the British Empire and other nations of the World, or in the state of foreign affairs generally, to cast a shadow over our national rejoicings. Europe it is true remains armed to the teeth; and this perforce compels Great Britain to maintain her naval and military forces and to incur annual expenditure, on a scale hitherto entirely unprecedented in time of peace. Still, comparing the present time with past experiences, it can hardly be disputed that we have rarely been on better terms with other nations, and that seldom have there been so few real causes for friction or misunderstanding in our foreign relations. Neither now, nor in times past indeed has the tone of mind with which Great Britain regarded, or was regarded by, the great European Powers been an invariably amiable one. In France, or Russia, or Germany-in one or the other-it has been the usual British practice to discover a calculating and dangerous enemy of the Empire. In the last few years, for

instance, it is hardly too much to say that certain English and German newspapers have gone far by hurling insults at German and English rulers and statesmen, to embroil the relations of the two countries; but the better part of public opinion in both has held itself aloof; and a much better tone has begun to prevail.

In the management of Imperial affairs-Foreign, Colonial, Indian, the Liberal Ministries of the last half dozen years will certainly earn a favourable judgment from history-all the more remarkable perhaps when we call to mind that when the Fiscal controversies of 1903-1906 came to an issue in the General Election of the latter year the country was solemnly warned that Imperial disaster, and probably Imperial disintegration, would be the inevitable result of Liberal success and of British adherence to the policy of Free Trade! As matter of fact it is on the Imperial side that the Liberal Ministries of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman and Mr. Asquith have won most credit. Sir Edward Grey, Lord Morley, Lord Haldane, and Mr. McKenna, have certainly not proved themselves inefficient successors of the statesmen who preceded them in their great departments. The present Ministry has shown itself the prudent guardian of Imperial interests. It has fully maintained, in fact has greatly increased, the armed strength of the nation and at the same time by shewing a conciliatory spirit in dealing with other Powers it has done much to promote the peace of the world.

It is not however probable that in the eye of history the year 1911 will be rendered memorable by the happy circumstances attending the Coronation. Old-world ceremonies, gorgeous pageants, cheering multitudes, a universal sentiment of enthusiastic and exuberant loyalty-these things for the time absorb public attention, to the temporary exclusion of matters of the deepest importance to the future of the nation. The Ministry, it has been cynically said, has been endeavouring to run at the same time both a Coronation and a Revolution. Whilst the grandeur of the ancient monarchy was being upheld with more than ancient splendour, state, and solemnity, the Ministers of the Monarch have been engaged in pressing forward constitutional projects which, if they do not deserve the name of revolution, will at least both in form and substance at once subject our legislative system, and the relations to each other of the component parts of the Parliamentary machine-King, Lords, and Commons-to changes such as the lapse of centuries has not witnessed.

When one turns from the contemplation of the conduct of