Parker (Sir Gilbert), A Word for Small Passavalli (Mgr.) and Père Hyacinthe's Patriotism and duty as illustrated by Patriotism, socialism, and the 'Inter- Payment by Premium versus Payment Peacock (Wadham), Nicolas of Monte- Peninsular War, Adventures at Sala- Petrie (Prof. Flinders), Three Hours: Pickthall (Marmaduke), The Outlook Picture sales, record prices, 319-328 700 Political Outlook, The, as seen by a British Canadian, 1065–1076 505-516 Prinsep (Sir Henry T.), The High Purdi, Behind the, 811-821 SYN Religion and Science, The Conflict Republican China, Anarchy in, 645-664 Rome and the Goths, 589-599 Russo-Turkish War, British officer's SALAMANCA, Captain Synge's Ex- Samuel (Herbert), Federal Government, Sarawak, The Future of, 1202–1210 Sellers (Edith), Where Women sit in Servia, Montenegro, and Old Serb West African Snead-Cox (J. G.), The 'Ne Temere' and the Marriage Law in Canada, Social and economic reform in China, 615-626 Tariff, A, Will it harm Lancashire? Tariff Reform and unification of the British Empire, 869-878 Taxation of land values under the Territorial Forces, The, 517-520 Tottenham (Lieut.-Col. F. St. L.), Trade-unionism and syndicalism, 913- Trans-Sahara and Trans-Persian rail- valence of Dental Caries in Modern United Kingdom and the Empire, 686 United States, Great Britain and Universities, The, and the Public ZEN Wales, The Endowments of the Ancient War, ancient and modern, and national War, Horses for, Our Shortage of a Ward (Wilfrid), The Edinburgh Review Weigall (Arthur E. P. B.), The Morality of Excavation, 382-396 Welsh wooing and wedding, 348-370 Westminster (Duke of), Practical Im- White (Arnold), The Future of Sara- Williams (J. B.), Fresh Light on Crom- Women in China, The Position of, 'Women in Parliament's Athens B.C. 393, 292-318 Workers and wages, State interference ERE (Stephen de), Social Aspects of YELLOW peril, The, and Australia, VERE Home Rule, 665-675 Vivisection and the Central Nervous System, 397-411 1-10 WA AGE-EARNERS, employers, land- Zenana women of India, legal and PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., LONDON COLCHESTER AND ETON RECENT epoch-making events, of profound interest to the world at large, have served to direct the serious attention of thoughtful Australians to the international outlook, and impelled them to reflect upon the position their island continent occupies as an integral portion of the British Empire. Foremost among these events may be classed the revolution in China, the ill-advised (from the Australian point of view) check to Germany's policy of expansion in Africa, the disturbance to the equilibrium of European relationships by the Italian descent on Tripoli; and, not least in significance, the parasitical and poisonous growth on industrial bodies of the spirit of Continental syndicalism. There are other considerations, more general in character. These need not be specified. They are obvious enough. In the present paper I endeavour to present, as accurately as careful observation enables me, a reflex of Australian thought on the outlook for the immediate future, and on the trend of developments among foreign nations as they may eventually threaten the corporate unity of the Empire, and especially as VOL LXXII-No 425 B they may affect Australia. The subject can be treated without raising that wolf-cry of the yellow peril, or offending the susceptibilities of any foreign Power. The yellow peril is not immediately at hand, but there is a history in the making which shall determine its strength and its proximity. By reason of her peculiar geographical position, her vast area and varied resources, her rapidly extending maritime and commercial interests, and, not least, her scanty population, Australia must in future enter more largely than in the past into the calculations of nations whose internal necessities compel them to seek territorial expansion and new outlets for their surplus populations. Rich and valuable a possession as this continent is of itself, its value is enhanced a hundredfold by the fact that it is the key to the whole South Pacific. To this important consideration the average Australian is now thoroughly awake. He, a dweller in a land of unbroken peace, has quite recently assented to comprehensive and costly measures of naval and military defence. These measures, if not intended for mere outward show, mean, in plain English, that there is a possibility of this great British outpost being some day detached from the Empire of which it forms a part. Remote contingency, maybe, yet undeniably a possible one; nay, well within the region of probability in the not far-off future. Australia enjoys this singular distinction, that it was acquired without conquest. A few naked savages pointed their spears at the intruders and ran away; nor did any tribe ever think seriously of disputing the right of the white man to push the primitive occupiers from their happy hunting-grounds and make the country his own. The Britisher has for 124 years remained in undisputed possession, and Australian history is an unbroken record of peaceful progress, its soil untrod by the foot of an invader, unstained by bloodshed in its defence. How much longer Australia may enjoy immunity from the bloody arbitrament of the sword' no man can pretend to say. 'What a city to sack!' said the old Prussian Marshal as he drove through the heart of London. What a continent to take!' may be said, is probably now being said, by foreign nations, of Australia. What a possession for, say, the Asiatics. There are 450,000,000 of them within easy striking distance. With Australia's immense potentialities, her spaciousness, her rich soil, her unrivalled climate, here is a sea-girt land hungering and crying out for more people. In the eyes of starving and downtrod millions of Asia, Australia must appear an all but vacant paradise, a continent which, but for the British flag and the British fleet, could be had almost for the asking. Here are four and a half millions of people occupying three million square miles of territory-roughly speaking, about three persons to every two square miles. Let anyone reflect for a moment upon Australia's wonderful strategic position for naval and military enterprises. Sufficiently peopled, say, by Asiatics, with the armies that could there be raised, the navies that could be built, the supplies that could be furnished, such a continent could safely defy the rest of the world in arms. Mark the significance of the sea-girt position. If England, that little speck on the map, owes her security, her invincible power, largely to the circumstance that she is 'compassed by the inviolate sea,' what Power or combination of Powers could touch sea-encompassed lands, sufficiently peopled, which in area (including New Zealand) are more than twenty-six times as large as the United Kingdom, more than fifteen times as large as France, more than half as large again as Russia in Europe, and almost equal in extent to the Continent of Europe or the United States of America? In the hands of Asiatics, captained, say, by the Japanese, Australia could at no distant time send forth armies. able to sweep over the face of Europe, and navies that would make Japan the unchallengeable mistress of the sea, and queen of the fairest portions of the earth. The incorporation of Australia into the dominions of the yellow man must to the Oriental mind seem a quite natural, even a divinely appointed, event. Had the East not been asleep while the West was wide awake, the yellow man might to-day be chanting the refrain in the Great Southland: This bit of the world belongs to us.' But the East is now awakening from its long sleep. The yellow man is looking about him, going to and forth in the earth, and walking up and down in it.' Especially he has an eye on the South Pacific, studying its map, even having some bad dreams of the South Pole. The South Pole! A trifling incident may here be mentioned. Some five or six months ago a small Japanese exploring ship, the Kainan Maru, anchored in Sydney Harbour. The captain, officers, and men camped on its hospitable banks, remaining there several days. It was given out that the destination of the party was the South Pole, which they were one and all solemnly pledged, under a binding oath, to reach or never to return to their native land. That so tiny a craft, imperfectly equipped as she was for Polar exploration, should ever reach the South Pole, or get anywhere near that point, was laughed at by everyone who had seen the little ship. Still, the explorers were indulgently treated. They were variously the objects of curiosity, sympathy, and suspicion. They were regarded as either fatalists or heroic and patriotic enthusiasts. No one looked on them as plain fools. Their mission interested many, in a way. Professor David, the |