moral achievement which it may be difficult for the rich to attain? certain qualities, and those of the finest kind, which are bound to lie dormant, if circumstances do not call them forth? If so, let us seek for the remedy in the right place. Thrift is not the virtue we need here. It is not so simple as that. What is needed is to make a vigorous stand against the action of surroundings and circumstances, lest we should fall a helpless prey to them: to keep alive by constant effort the conviction that it is necessary to resist them. But it is possible that those whose lives are sunny and prosperous may mistake the content and satisfaction they feel for a condition of moral excellence in which watchfulness is not so much needed. Plato tells us that it is difficult to be cheerful when you are old and poor and we may presume, therefore, that it is not difficult when you are old and rich. But even granting that that is so, which it certainly is not invariably-otherwise we should have a whole class of cheerful old rich whose existence would be of the greatest gain to the community that is not the highest form of excellence. That is the sort of well-being that comes from repletion; you have had your fill of the good things of life, and can sit down well content. It is not philosophical and spiritual calm, arrived at by effort and aspiration. The obvious and disheartening condition of the people who have had enough is that they do not want more; and therefore do not try to attain it. This it is, that may stop the strenuous impulse, both of a moral and mental kind; for the intelligence, as well as the character, may mistake the satisfactory development arrived at by helpful circumstance, for natural endowment. But still this condition, this kind of 'goodness,' which is what, on the whole, the most favourably situated average human being may hope to attain, is of the kind which is the second best. For, after admitting the value of money in procuring the possession, or even in eking out the perception, of the really good things in this world, we must recognise that these are still but joys of the second order. The chosen know something else. There are, happily, some left in the world, who, having but little means, do not care about having more, all their desires and their possibilities being divinely absorbed in the possession of some great and glorious gift—or even, failing the gift, the contemplation and pursuit of some lofty ideal.

The glowing spark of endeavour strenuously kept alive by ceaseless effort until it is fanned into an unquenchable flame; the passionate concentration of purpose in the facing of privation; the unconscious effort at readjustment that may inspire the genius in his need with a fury of purpose to poise his balance with destiny more evenly, all this, in its fulness, is inconsistent with riches. There is something in the fact of the luxurious, cushioned existence, flooded without any personal effort with light and warmth, which seems in some terrible way to put out for ever the flame from within, or at best to prevent it from burning with more than a pale

flicker. The mere fact of the possession of ample means is likely to induce a greater variety of surroundings, of occupation, of intercourse, and must break in on the determination to achieve the single-minded purpose, kept before the eyes of him who has nothing else to look upon. The wealthy man may be a patron of the arts, a connoisseur, an amateur; he may be supported by a deluding inward consciousness that had things been otherwise he might still have conquered fame and opulence for himself. It is better that it should be so. Or rather, I would say, that since it is inevitable that it should be so, let him think that it is better. For it is not given to us, happily, to determine in which layer of the social strata we should like our lives to be cast-whether with those who have more, or have less, or with those who are between, in that middle state which poets and thinkers have assured us is the golden, the happy state of all. Shall we dare, in the face of their utterances, to hint that it is not? and yet . why is it golden? why is it happiest? because, presumably, it is the state which makes for a selfish well-being without responsibility as without incentive? Let us say boldly that the mind that can dare, endure, attempt, would never choose to be seated in the mean' if it could have something else. The highest achievement is not being content with that seat, the highest striving is not compatible with it. No! in my heart I believe that mediocrity is not golden. It is leaden-it weighs down aspiration, it hinders accomplishment, it deadens hope: it lacks alike the spur of poverty and the encouragement of wealth, it stagnates, instead of battling or rushing. There lies the danger of the middle course, different, it may be, from that which menaces either riches or poverty, but danger still.

But, since these different strata are governed by different conditions, and, as applied to detail, different standards; since for some who are within the iron grasp of necessity the alternatives are few, and for others for whom proclivity and not necessity may decide, more numerous; since all alternatives make demands on character and aptitudes, and since those, therefore, who have many alternatives have a more searching test applied to them than those who have fewer, it would be inestimably helpful to us all if we might have a code of life varied in detail according to different circumstances. Such a code would be more pliable, more practicable, more possible than the crude inelastic rule intended for one section of society only, by which all the others, nevertheless, attempt to grope their way. It would be possible for us to face, once for all, the fact that we are not necessarily wicked if we are rich, nor good if we are poor; and that it is not by trying to adopt the methods of dealing with money that are desirable in the poor that the rich will remove the traditional stain attaching to their condition.

FLORENCE BELL.

GROWING BUREAUCRACY

AND PARLIAMENTARY DECLINE

FOR many years there has been an unintermittent controversy as to the suffrage for women. One branch of the subject, as it seems to me, has been adequately, perhaps more than adequately discussed— the advantages of many kinds which the vote would bring to women and the evidence its use would afford of their intellectual equality with men. The discussion has shown how women, like all other groups of our day in every rank and degree, have been affected by the bewildering growth of modern individualism. We seem still, do what we may, to be our own centre and circumference: full of selfanalysis, very sensitive as to our wrongs and virtues, our disabilities and desires. Not that we women are alone in this development: we are but taking a giant's share in a universal change, so insidious and so comprehensive that we are scarcely able to perceive it in ourselves or others, or believe that we were ever different from what we now are. It needs a journey into another century or another climate to make us realise the full extent of the modern individualism.

The discussion, however, of our wrongs and our capabilities is so well worn, the arguments now grown by constant use so trite, that it is difficult to waken fresh thought in this direction. There is the argument of Justice-that Shadow which all mankind is pursuing, which none has ever reached, from the Substance of which we should still be very far away even when the vote had been thrown into our lap. There is the argument of Respect-that more honour will come our way when the decoration of the ballot paper is hung round our necks, and that the magic of an outward and visible sign will work the miracle of bringing to us a credit and esteem which we are, at least so women seem to confess, unable to win without it. I have always doubted whether this external magic would make much difference, and whether women would not as before take rank in their various circles simply by merit and capacity. Indeed, I feel sure that the credit of a whole class will generally be found to depend on the credit of its representative leaders, of what I may call its aristocracy of brain or character; and that a woman who had won a place as a really distinguished authority in any of

the higher questions with which politics are concerned, would have conferred more public esteem on the whole body than the vote will ever do. Let me give a single instance of what I mean. There has been nothing in my memory, till this war, that roused women to the same degree as the question of Home Rule-women I knew who had never troubled about any public question before flung themselves with a paroxysm of zeal into one camp or the other, made Primrose Lodges and Liberal Leagues, and discovered the joys of public life. There has been, so far as I know, not one serious thinker or writer among them all on the subject of Land, Emigration, Taxation, or a Catholic University. They have contributed nothing to the controversy except heat. When it ceased to be a matter of public talk they let it alone with careless cynicism. Their business has been merely to register existing public sentiment on one side or the other; nor was one found to stand aside from party, to carry into this great political problem independent research and observation, to ignore the prejudices, and add to the science of government in this kingdom. The magazines are open to them, the press, and the platform; all the most powerful means of guiding public opinion; the most powerful, too, of winning respect for the whole class. I can imagine an enemy saying-Is it any use to add the vote, except indeed as the public function which can be discharged with the greatest ease, the least intelligence, and perhaps the most inconsiderable results? Does the credit and reputation of women lie here?

There is another argument I might call the argument of Respectability-a morbid anxiety for uniformity, sprung I imagine from a sort of overgrown modesty and self-distrust in women. possible, indeed I think certain, that what is most needed in us for the service of the State is divergence, not similarity. But many of us, passing by all questions of where it is we really want to go, only feel safe if we can get into the common vulgar track, beaten plain by the whole crowd of ordinary people. The broad road with the wide gate, and many there be that go in thereat,' they judge the most honourable and reputable way to be seen in. By a generosity I cannot share, and a fear which I cannot yield to, they assume that the big crowd is necessarily in the right however their course may be tending, and that if women take another, and at first more solitary path, it must needs be a sign they are 'Helots.' I would wish them a loftier pride, a graver self-respect, a firmer spirit, and more intellectual originality.

All these considerations of justice and respect and respectability, however, seem to me after a certain time unsatisfactory subjects for prolonged discussion. Such considerations are what I may call 'impressionist'; they are out of the range of reasoning or demonstration; seen by each person through his own emotional atmosphere; a matter of taste and fancy, round which all the talk and discussion

in the world may fret and fume quite innocuously, making no more impression than a thunderstorm on a glass ball.

Plain and common as it may seem, might we not sometimes turn to reflections of a definite kind: to prosaic matters of fact which can be more usefully subjected to the vigour and heat that healthyminded people carry into controversial wars?

I presume we are all agreed that our first object, clear and unadulterated, is not to obtain a ticket of honour for ourselves, but to discover our true and reasonable service to the State. For that we must have an exact idea of what the State at any given time most needs. Let us, therefore, appreciate at its true value the vote we wish to acquire. Briefly, my argument against seeking the suffrage is that political power is shifting its basis, that we are in the midst of a transition of which we cannot plainly see the issue, and in a situation at once so obscure and so critical that it is as unprofitable as it is unwise to put further pressure on a Constitution already greatly strained; failing, as Lord Salisbury repeatedly tells us, to do its work. In form, the political system remains as it was: in essence, it is becoming very different. Its value has declined; its credit is impaired; and circumstances of a new and unforeseen order have broken its strength and dimmed its glory.

Is it possible, then, that women are flocking in when the fair is over, and wasting worry and substance in buying no more than a poor remainder of the day's business? There is the more ground for circumspection after the experience of the last generation, when for the Education question there was the same activity the day after the fair. This country was then in intellectual matters at a dividing of the ways. Old systems of education were being discredited. England was proverbially behind other peoples. There were great difficulties in the way of men reformers, tied up by traditions and endowments. But women were absolutely free. They might, supported as they were by the most intelligent men in England, have made experiments in a new path, with the experience of all Europe to assist them. It would have meant more intellectual labour, and for a time less credit and renown. They chose rather to throw themselves on the dull old beaten track, for the sake of proving they could walk in it as well as the men. I do not deny that they have won credit in the conventional path they preferred, but a noble opportunity was lost of developing the highest form of intellectual life, of rendering original and conspicuous service to the State, and laying the people of this country under deep obligations to women. We see the result of the whole business now when the question arises as to the form of a University in London, to be the centre of the higher intellectual life of this mighty Empire, the expression of its loftiest intelligence. What influence have women had on the higher policy

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