supposed to rest upon the same conditions as those of nations whose frontiers march with those of other land Powers. We ought to be able to defend these islands on land, but not from any distrust of our sea-power, and not with any idea that by some arrangement of a Swiss militia, admirably adapted as that is to the defence of a mountain inland State, can the defence of our island home be best maintained. Moreover, though these islands are the head and heart of the Empireand head and heart are vital parts of the body-politic that must be securely guarded at all cost-they are not the whole Empire; are not the whole or even a large part of the home throughout which the nation is dispersed. Paralysis may set in as surely if hand or foot become cankered as if heart or head receive a sword-thrust.

Just at this moment, therefore, when we are watching from day to day the issue which will decide the fate of one of our most important and extensive colonies, it is not a little interesting to observe the new development which has come over another branch of our national forces. The offer first made by Colonel Balfour and the London Scottish, since extended by Sir H. Vincent and others, however little possible it may be that it should at this moment be accepted, is none the less significant on that account. The criticism we have ventured to make upon a particular point of the proposed Militia Bill is based entirely on the principle that in all attempts to regulate effectively our armed strength it is essential that the conditions of English life as it exists should be taken into account; that our armour and our armed organisation must be fitted to the limbs of the nation, not the nation to some abstract idea of the conditions prevailing in foreign parts. Now there is a certain factor in English life which it is very necessary that he who would deal with the problem which puzzled Ulysses, "how to get the Greeks to arm themselves for the fray," must seriously take into account. The great majority of Englishmen, or, at all events, a very large proportion of them, have no particular wish to become soldiers-that is to say, that whether as officers or as privates they have no hankering after barracks and parades. But when once national feeling is aroused and they are interested in a struggle that is going on in the field, they have then a very hearty wish to be present in person. They do not like the feeling that others are fighting their battles for them. They feel the battles to be theirs. They do not want to be in the background. This feeling we believe to have been always latent. Various circumstances have tended of late years to increase its force: the general rise of what has come to be called Imperial feeling, but is in fact something very different from what Mr. Gladstone, by one of the greatest mistakes of his life, during the war between North and South, characterised as a love of dominion. It is the unity of ourselves here in these islands and of those who have gone out from us to America, Asia, and Africa that

inspires our English Imperialism. It is against that sentiment, which they have never understood, that Sir William Harcourt and Mr. Morley fight in vain. The example of the United States, where thousands of volunteers are as surely available for any distant enterprise on the call of the President as if a conscription were enforced, has exercised on our own people a contagious influence. On that point we shall have something further to say presently, but it is an element that must here be seriously taken into account. Again, the offer of forces from our colonies, their, at least occasional, acceptance, and the common assumption that they will be accepted in the future, has naturally had its effect in making some of our excellent volunteer battalions say to themselves, and now say by Colonel Balfour with clear voice in public, "If these good fellows go, why should not we?" Lastly, the progress of the long-sustained volunteer movement has gradually developed a class of officer of whom Colonel Balfour is an admirable example, who have really devoted themselves to studying both theoretically and practically the conditions of actual warfare, and feel an exceeding desire that the training that they have acquired should be turned to advantage for the service of the nation. It is a most patriotic aspiration. There are certain obvious objections to the offer being accepted, such as no one will understand better than Colonel Balfour himself and those officers of his own calibre among the volunteers. We propose to state them not because we wish that the proposal should be rejected, but because we should exceedingly like to see it tried on a small scale, and, therefore, think it well that all sides of the question should be fairly examined.

The difficulty, then, and the cost of dealing with the Boer question will not consist in providing men for the service, but first of all in the preparing of sea-transport, and notably in putting the necessary fittings for horse-transport on board a sufficient number of ships within a reasonable time. Again, in the field the keeping of the army efficient at the front in a region where horse-sickness is prevalent will depend on keeping up the supply of horses, of mule transport, and of food, medical comforts, and warlike supplies. Obviously, therefore, as whatever number of men there are at the front, the food, transport and supplies must be proportioned to that number, it is advisable that the fighting efficiency of all who are at the front should be as great as possible for the number of mouths fed. Now, splendid as would be the material provided by such corps as the London Scottish and others, it can hardly be expected even by them that a general in the field should prefer out of a given number of mouths to have them in preference to a regularly trained British regiment. Man for man the Scottish volunteer would probably be the superior fighting animal; very probably he would be the better shot; but the trained unity of working of a good British battalion would make its practical

way.

fighting efficiency incomparably greater. And here it is that we think it well to put in a caveat against the reports which have reached us of the fighting efficiency of the American volunteers in Cuba. It is absolutely certain that those reports were dished up for the American palate, that the truth in numberless instances was deliberately burked, and that for those who know the facts no campaign in history has more conclusively demonstrated the superiority of regular troops. These formed the bulk of the American army engaged in Cuba, and, despite the personal gallantry of the volunteers, the attempt made to throw numbers of them, without any adequate training, upon a hostile shore was fraught with disaster, and very narrowly escaped ending in a great catastrophe. We have no doubt whatever that in all respects the training of the best of our own volunteers is incomparably superior to theirs, and we believe that a corps might be selected that would be very valuable. Supposing that war in the Transvaal does take place, we think that, from a larger point of view, it would be well worth while that a small body of volunteers should be there as representatives, and we should like to see legislation which would provide for the occasional volunteering for active service for the term of a campaign. As the case at present stands there are obvious legal difficulties in the A short Act, which could be easily passed if Parliament had to be called together for a vote of credit, would be necessary. Otherwise, as has been suggested by some volunteer commanding officers, there does not appear to be any means by which the volunteers could be present in the field unless they were enlisted for the term authorised by the Army Act, which would clearly not be what they want. The point raised by this offer seems to us to be of much importCareful observers have long been doubtful whether we have not very nearly reached the limit of the number of men whom we can by any possible terms obtain for the regular army. That number is about sufficient for our needs for the ordinary garrisoning and maintenance of the Empire. If we are right as to that particular tendency of Englishmen to wish, when the time comes, to be actually at the front, a great statesman ought to be able to utilise this desire in creating a vast possible reserve for real emergency not for service at home only, but for Imperial needs. The possibility of such employment would give an immense stimulus not only to volunteer recruiting, but to the zeal with which the volunteers would prepare themselves to be fit for it. It happens that, for a subsidiary reason, it might in the present case be particularly useful to have the Scottish volunteers at the front. Quite lately an Edinburgh crank addressed to Paul Kruger an absurd letter, in which he wrote in extravagant denunciation of England, as though there were some differences between Englishmen and Scotsmen, warning Kruger not, by yielding to our demands, to place himself in the present condition of Scotland. Ridiculous and harmless as this

ance.

sounds to us who know the truth, it by no means follows that it would be without its effect on an ignorant Boer. Coupled with the unfortunate incidents connected with Sir William Butler's resignation of his command, and with the speeches of such Irish members as Messrs. Davitt and Dillon, it is very possible that it might largely help to lead Mr. Kruger to believe that there were serious discordant elements among us. Mr. Rhodes has, we understand, expressed the confident opinion that there will be no war, but that it will require the placing of 30,000 British troops on the borders of the Transvaal to prevent it. We hope that, if we are obliged to take strong measures, the Government will be sufficiently well advised to place at least that force in the field as the surest means of averting war. If, therefore, the primary object of our sending out troops is to produce a certain effect on Mr. Kruger's mind, clearly it might not be amiss to let him have ocular evidence of the feelings of Scotsmen in the matter. It could not be, to put it on its lowest ground, a serious detriment to an army in the field to have, say, a thousand picked shots from among the volunteers. As an experiment it would be at least very interesting, and might be very valuable.

After all, however, neither the provision for the future of a means of raising our Militia to its required numbers, nor the supplementary services of the volunteers abroad meets the main conditions of Imperial strength. It is on the power given to us by our navy and our mercantile marine, and on an army adapted by its readiness to take advantage of the facilities which they present that our substantial power depends. Though we can, no doubt, prepare transport far more rapidly than any other Power, it would take at least six weeks at any time to have the necessary transports made ready in any considerable number, and within that time, under our present arrangements, our troops would be in all respects fit for war and prepared to embark. The more solid the force we show the less danger will there be either of resistance to our just demands, of further local complications in South Africa, or of any foreign Power obtaining an excuse for interference. Penny wisdom will here, indeed, be pound folly if it leads to the placing in the field at first of inadequate forces tempting resistance to be reinforced only after some indecisive efforts.

MILES.

ZIONISM.

I

T was in Philadelphia-"The City of Brotherly Love "that the first piece of work for modern Zionism was achieved. For here, in Baldwin's world-famous works, was turned out "a Mogul Locomotive Engine, having three pairs of coupled wheels and a two-wheeled swing bolster truck, for the Jaffa and Jerusalem Railroad."

The whistle of that engine is the keynote of the new movement. Palestine is no longer the mystic dream-place of angels and prophets, the land whose very soil Jewish thought figured as animated with a holy abhorrence of murder, licentiousness, and idolatry. It is a country like any other, only worse. The electric cars whizz past the mediaval peace of Milan Cathedral, and Zion's Hill is no longer safe from the Funiculaire. The world's childhood is passing, with all its charming and fantastic visions of fairies and fiends, and even in Jerusalem, Whitman's "years of the modern, years of the unperformed" must have their tardy turn.

And, in harmony with this modern Weltanschauung, comes the prospectus of "Zion, Limited," the conception of "The Jewish Colonial Trust," with its capital of two million pounds in one pound shares, for the regeneration of Palestine and its ancient people.

When the steamship was first launched, a son of Philadelphia and the projector of an American Jerusalem, Mordecai Manuel Noah (whose fame Noah's Times and Weekly Messenger yet preserves), prophesied that it was the steamship which would ingather the Jews from the four corners of the earth. And who can doubt but that Steam and Electricity, which have given our earth a nerve-system, must transform the problem of Israel?

The object of Zionism is not, however, to ingather Israel or to fulfil the prophecies. No great wave of national emotion, of longing