arranged at the expense of the party requiring aid, in what manner, and in what time. So many soldiers, so many ships, victualled for so long. The aid provided was to be kept up so long as the party requiring it stood in need of it and paid for it. Powder and shot were allowed to be purchased in the allied country.

The offensive and defensive treaty laid down that upon invasion made by any third prince the confederates were mutually to proclaim him an enemy, and were then to invade his territory in such and such places, with such and such numbers, and at the expense of both parties, neither making peace except with the consent of the other. Free passage by the confederates through each other's territories was to be guaranteed.

Questions then arose whether definite numbers should be stated in the treaty, and how much should be paid by the party requiring them. The Queen was against the mention of any numbers as she did not wish to be bound by such an engagement, while Walsingham was for stating the numbers, because 'there hath risen always great controversies about these circumstances' in the past. There were various revisions in the drafting, and then the Queen proposed a new article:

Item, to covenant with the French King, that he shall not give open aid to any enemy of the King of Spain, thereby to provoke him to make war upon the said French King, but that he shall first advertise her Majesty thereof, and have her allowance, otherwise her Majestie shall not be bound to aid the French King, or to make war upon the King of Spain. In like manner the Queen of England shall not, etc. Ut supra, mutatis mutandis. This was practically Article 5 redrafted and made quite clear.

The treaty fell through, for reasons not worth discussing here, but the ideas at the back of the plan come out very clearly. It was to be for the lives of the two contracting monarchs and for mutual defence. The prince requiring aid was to pay for it, unless the enemy was invaded, when the cost was borne by the two confederate princes. The Queen would not have the number of the contingent fixed, and she took care that the French King should not drag her into war surreptitiously against Spain. Had this treaty been signed, and effectively carried out by both parties, England would not have confronted Spain alone as she did in the Armada year, while France would have been spared part of the fearful losses entailed by Spain and the Leaguers. In the thirty years of religious wars and invasions which ended with the Treaty of Vervins the population of France was reduced from some sixteen million to twelve million souls. The failure to complete the treaty of 1581 must be ascribed solely to the French King, whose most inadequate reasons for refusing to sign will be found by the curious in the letter addressed to Cecil by Walsingham,

Cobham, and Sommers, and sent from Paris on August 27, 1581.

COMMENTS

What can we carry forward from these Elizabethan practices ? First, that complete education and ripe experience are necessary for the conduct of international relations. We can say that in these respects Elizabeth and Burghley were completely equipped and were superior to either France or Spain in the directing minds of those times, while we have only to read the English books and correspondence of the sixteenth century to be aware that the Queen and her Lord Treasurer did not stand alone in their comprehension of the arts of government. Under democratic systems such training and experience may be difficult to obtain, but at the same time no substitute can be found for them.

The Council in Elizabeth's day was practically in permanent session. The aid of Parliament was not invited nor desired in great affairs of State. The Council, and particularly the Secretary, were well informed by carefully chosen ambassadors whose couriers covered distances with great speed, while secret service was extensively used, and the reports of travellers supplemented official despatches. Special missions abroad were confided to great nobles and others who could speak the language of the country to which they were sent, and were schooled by travel in the manners and customs of foreign Powers. The records of all transactions were carefully kept. Cecil's method of laying before the Council a questionnaire (as we should call it now), and of inviting replies to each point, produced decisions as far as the Council was concerned, and it then remained for the Queen, if she had been absent from the Council, as she often was, to notify her assent or dissent.

Those who have leisure to examine a series of reports of these Councils will not all share the disapproval of the Queen's indecision and procrastination of which we find so many examples in contemporary letters. Elizabeth was very far-seeing. She had many advisers outside the Council, notably in the Church dignitaries, whilst the gossip of the world, carried by her ladies-in-waiting, penetrated to her Court. She had a large correspondence, and her penetration into the meaning of things was profound. Many cases submitted to her for urgent decision settled themselves by mere lapse of time, while as for her long dallying with foreign suitors, she seems to have understood better than her advisers that if matrimonial arrangements remained in the stage of negotiations the country of the prince making his suit was inhibited from doing England harm. Would anyone now, looking back, wish the Queen to have married a foreign prince? It is VOL. XCIII-No. 552

T

hard to believe it. A successor had come with the birth of the son of the Queen of Scots, and the best successor of all, since he was heir to the two Crowns, and effected that union for which the wisest heads in both countries had long sighed. Elizabeth had very good reasons for not actually appointing her successor, and facts in the end proved that she had been right in refusing, and that her Council and Estates had been wrong in so constantly urging her to marry or name her heir.

In matters of general doctrine the Queen and her Council pursued the system of balance between France and Spain that had been established by Henry VIII. and Wolsey, and had long served, in another sphere, to preserve the security of Italy by holding the scales between Naples, Florence, and Milan. It was a delicate business for Elizabeth, because in those days England was numerically weak compared with the other two great Western Powers. But England's insularity, the renown of her old wars in France, and the military forces which the Queen could rapidly levy on land and sea gave her a privileged position. The danger of a Catholic Confederation was avoided, partly by the desire of France and Spain to keep each other weak, and partly by the balancing ingenuity of English statesmanship and the unofficial war it waged in favour of the Protestant subjects of her two rivals.

It is one of Elizabeth's claims to honour that she kept the peace. It was not an easy thing to do in the sixteenth century. It was done because Elizabeth hated war, found the prosperity of England sufficient for her glory, and never hankered for annexations abroad. Cecil was pre-eminently a man of peace, and so was Walsingham. Most of the Council were of the same mind unless it was a question of supporting Protestantism, when they were all prepared to take considerable risks. There was no militarism in England in the Queen's long reign. There were many good leaders like Sussex, Hunsdon, and Mountjoy, and many fine seamen who made history, but no one presumed to interfere with the Council nor to deflect or influence the decision of the Queen in questions of war and peace. The people were ready enough for a fight if one was offered, and flew to arms as the Armada came up the Channel, but otherwise remained content with their new prosperity. It was England's sober statesmanship that enables us to look back with pride to the great Elizabethan period.

C. À COURT REPINGTON.

1923

OUR MISDIRECTED SCHOOLS

QUITE apart from the interest on enormous sums of money bequeathed to particular institutions by pious benefactors, we are spending at the present time out of rates and taxes alone over a hundred millions a year on education. Any attempt to reduce materially this expenditure would probably be frustrated by opposition general, vigorous and sincere. It might, therefore, be imagined that the House of Commons, fairly representative of the people as it is, would exhibit real interest in the subject, and clearly indicate what it expects in return for an outlay so generous. As far as the last House was concerned, however, there was not even a considerable section, articulate at any rate, really interested. Revolutionary changes, many of them probably wise, some of them possibly unwise, were effected, but the House refused even to discuss them. In spite of energetic protests from one or two isolated individuals, two hours only were devoted to the subject during the first two years, and the whole of that time was occupied by detail comparatively unimportant. It would be idle of course to blame Mr. Fisher, the late Minister, for this scanty allotment. Busily occupied in effecting administrative changes in which he believed, he had everything to lose and nothing to gain from discussion. He knew that, at the best, he would but get a formal approval of that which, without discussion, he was entitled to take for granted. At the worst he would receive clear instructions which might run counter to his own ideas.

The writer upon one occasion had a rather amusing personal experience which is worth recording. Early in 1919 his attention was called to the fact that the Ministry of Education, by means of circulars, was busily effecting sweeping changes, which, whether they were right or wrong, expedient or inexpedient, represented a reversal of policy clearly enunciated by previous Parliaments and in their operation adversely affected a large number of institutions, notably some of the ancient grammar schools whose valuable work in the past could not be disputed.

The actual points at issue do not much matter. It might, however, be said in passing that the principles involved were,

firstly, the public control of public money, and, secondly, the differentiation in favour of certain institutions as opposed to others. It is not argued that the enactments were necessarily wrong. There was certainly much that could be said in their favour. It can, upon the other hand, be confidently affirmed that they represented a reversal of policy so far-reaching in its consequences that had there been half a dozen members of the House really interested in the subject, they would not have been allowed to pass without anything in the nature either of explanation or discussion. In the event of any supported demand, the Government would have allotted the necessary time. The official Opposition, however, remained silent, and the Labour Party, acting not maliciously but, as is more than usual, ignorantly and stupidly blocked the motion of a private member which would have raised the issue. Confronted by the normal evasive replies to questions and a polite but firm refusal to give time for discussion, the writer decided to raise the matter on the eleven o'clock adjournment-the resort of the destitute. Notice was duly given, and although it was realised that nothing serious in the way of opposition could be effected, it was hoped that sufficient interest would be excited to ensure something in the nature of an official explanation.

Any such hope was doomed to disappointment.

At a quarter past eleven the corridors of the House were strangely empty, and the cause soon became obvious in the person of an old member, a personal friend of the mover, who stopped him. Beads of perspiration, generated by the energy with which he had performed his self-appointed task, were freely dotted over his bald head, and he spoke quickly and earnestly.

I am emptying the House as fast as I can [he said]; whatever you do, get away before eleven. Some damned fool is going to try to talk about education. Who, in the name of goodness, wants to talk about education?

He was right. At eleven o'clock there were nine or ten members present in the debating chamber. They waited patiently to hear what the matter was that was keeping them from their beds. The last syllable of the word "education," however, had not been completed before a member had risen hurriedly to his feet to call the attention of the Speaker to the fact that there were not forty members present. Had the subject been one of many which had been discussed ad nauseam, in regard to which not a shadow of doubt existed as to the feeling of the House, there would have been no difficulty in securing the necessary quorum.

This indisputable apathy cannot be accounted for by the fact that the average member is satisfied that the business