temptuously refused to send a Mission, has been treated with the utmost courtesy.

To an Englishman who expressed grave doubts as to whether or not British capital would come to Russia, one of the Bolshevik leaders said: 'Your capitalists would invest their money with the devil, if they got 15 per cent. on the investment.'

In short, they treat us as sordid and low-spirited shopkeepers who will put up with any amount of abuse and any number of kicks, for the sake of big profits. This question concerns us, therefore, very closely. It touches our national honour.

FRANCIS MCCULLAGH.

WANTED-SOME LESSONS IN DEPORTMENT

If a man of a pessimistic turn of mind were to return to London to-day after an absence of ten or fifteen years, he would find ample pasture on which to browse his pessimism in the noise and general vulgarity which seem to have overtaken us. Our ear-drums are almost split by the ubiquitous newsboys, with their ' Threeerclock WinNER!' and by the tuneless, hideous whistling of other youths of similar type. They do not whistle because they are happy; they do not whistle because they like the tune-there is no tune. They whistle simply to assert themselves, to call attention to their existence, and their whole expression and demeanour while adding to the general din is one of thrustfulness and aggression. The present-day office-boy starves himself for years to buy a motor-bicycle (in itself a most worthy object), then makes the ultimate sacrifice to buy a large copper exhaust pipe for it that he may add to the general din. Theatrical advertisers vie with each other in displaying photographs of various chorus girls clad as scantily and suggestively as the laws of the land will permit, the daughters of ancient and honoured families take jockeys with them everywhere as their dancing partners, and in the House of Commons men of birth and education, who ought to know better, brawl with Labour members, whom they should be instructing by example in dignity and respect. A Cup Tie crowd storms the barriers with every variety of noise-making instrument, then adjourns to the West End to gibber and yell and wave blue parasols all about nothing. Meanwhile the assault on the ground has not been made without minor accidents, so we have special editions about the 'Frightful Casualties,' which seem to have ranged from sprained wrists to damaged hats. If anyone within the four-mile radius gets a trifle intoxicated, the correct procedure now is to go at once to Piccadilly Circus, climb on the roof of a taxicab and call attention to one's condition. At night the West End is made hideous with illuminated signs advertising someone's claret or breeches. Never anything really useful, never a thing which the ordinary man is helped by being told about, but a chimera of glittering, flickering lights, ingeniously contrived, full of amusement for the children, but from an educa

tive or artistic point of view crude to the last degree. Even the Thames has not been spared. One might have looked for some respect for that ancient river, that has figured so often in the history of our race, seen such sights of pageantry and tragedy, borne kings and queens in their gilded barges, decked in the full panoply of sovereignty, on its quiet bosom, and taken great nobles on their last journey to the grim Tower of London. But no! Swift to appreciate the commercial value of certain physical properties of water, advertisers have set up illuminated signs along the banks that the water may reflect them, and each one appear twice.

The Thames Embankment now is like a private view at a firework show, designed for some revolting trade exhibition. The nearer to the Houses of Parliament the better, as the more people are likely to be there to see.

From becoming a nation of shopkeepers we are becoming a community of booth-owners, bawling out wares from the gutter. Can we not be tradesmen and gentlemen too? Is there to be no recognition of our other side, that deeper side of us to which beauty, calm, unconscious dignity, quiet humour, tradition and the finer emotions appeal? It is still there, and any great national happening, whether it be a triumph or a crisis, brings it out as truly and spontaneously as ever in the past. But muscles that are never used turn to fat, and if we ignore these things they will go from us.

Pericles, the leader of Athens at the summit of her golden age, was no mere dreamer; he was a practical man, a soldier and a statesman. Yet it was his first care to see that the Athenians were surrounded by beautiful things in their daily lives, fine temples, statues and sculpture. He gave them some of the greatest works of art the world has ever seen, and he made it compulsory for the citizens of Athens to attend the theatre, arguing that such close contact with art and beauty was the true education. Results proved his theory right. Can we, in the face of such evidence, regard the vulgarisation of London as only a negative evil that can be ignored? Logically it would appear that, in the end, people continually surrounded by such things will themselves become vulgarised, and cheap electric signs, bawling newsboys, brawling M.P.'s, etc., are far more than a nuisance— they are a national menace.

Everywhere noise, vulgarity, commercialism—that is what our returning pessimistic friend would see, and his eyes would not deceive him. Being a pessimist, however, he would see nothing else. He would be content to welter in his slough of dismal foreboding. But just as true courage is dependent upon a realisation of danger, so true optimism demands that one should see the

gloomy side and still rejoice in the belief of a successful issue arising from it: therefore let us not be afraid to look through the pessimist's spectacles, see things as they are, and keep our courage and our hope intact. It is cowardly and enervating to throw up hands and cry: 0 tempora! O mores!' Let us rather try to discover the cause and the remedy indicated.

The popular reason given for all this vulgarity is' reaction from the war.' It sounds quite well, it is easy to say, while it suggests indulgence and the path of least resistance. Personally I think it unfair to make the war the scapegoat. Besides being an enervating doctrine, it is not true. Discipline may have been enforced up to a point, but our army was different from the German Army. It did not delight in discipline of the blood-and-iron variety for the pure pleasure in its inexorability. After the recruit was trained discipline became more an instinct than a burden, and our officers, for the most part, performed their task with justice and humanity. The soldiers in France did not whistle by order, they whistled-in tune-of their own accord, and it was delightful to hear them. When off duty, enjoying the 'reaction of temporary relaxation from the more irksome forms of discipline, they did not creep away into corners and noisily assert themselves, but behaved like the plain, decent-minded men they were. If the nerves of the fighting men did not drive them into vulgarity and hooliganism the moment they were more or less free from discipline, surely the civilians staying at home could have managed to keep their self-respect, even if they did work overtime (at overtime rates) on munitions, etc.?

The barbarians who are making London hideous to-day are not the ex-service man type, but the men who never had the Army discipline.

It has been said quite recently that the men who have come back from the war are inclined to be quiet and taciturn, and do not laugh easily; it has been remarked upon as one of the afterresults of the war that these men, who have seen sights and suffered agonies of mind and body that it is not good for men to see and suffer, will carry the imprint to their graves, and will always be a little reserved, a little over-serious. It is a sad thing that their sufferings should have quenched one smallest part of their joie de vivre, but the brainless, noisy vulgarity of their opposites is sadder still. It is the right of every man to enjoy life to the full. In the perfect state every day would be filled to the brim with joy for everyone, but those who are yelling and shouting cannot be said to be finding any real enjoyment— they are trying to hunt it down, to capture it by force, and so long as they use such methods it will always elude them. Instinctively they know it, and shout the louder. The war cannot be

saddled with all the blame. It is something deeper and more fundamental, of which the war was only the turning point, the last weight laid in the scales to load them down.

The real cause is a social revolution, that has slowly been taking place for years, and quite lately has speeded up its action and made itself felt everywhere, though sometimes not recognised. The old order of classes is changing; the many are no longer content to be governed by the few; the privileged classes are being called upon to give an account of themselves, to justify their privileged position; and the will of the people is becoming a definite voice rather than an elusive influence. As in the case of all revolutions, even when bloodless, it is at first a vulgar voice. They abuse their new-found liberty just as the public school boy may over-smoke and over-drink his first few terms at the 'Varsity. In addition to this, industrialism has been steadily growing into commercialism.

Money is becoming the touchstone of human happiness and human endeavour, even of human respect, for a man is no longer raised to the peerage, etc., for his loyalty to the King-he is raised for his cash value to the Government.

The people have at last acquired a smattering of education (always dangerous in its early stages); democracy has awakened, and, still half asleep, has mumbled: 'Why?', then 'Why not?' Without bothering much about an answer, it yawns, stretches its limbs, hears its great muscles crack, and feels itself a giant. For the first time it is beginning to realise its strength, to question the authority and supremacy of those who have been its master, and to ask itself why it should not enjoy equal privileges and power. No force in the land is strong enough to stop it once it gets the bit between its teeth, and it sallies forth in its suddenly discovered freedom, feeling a little sore at the thought that it has been tricked for so many years, determined to make up for lost opportunities and assert itself in every possible manner. Most of the shackles are gone, there is nothing to restrain it, and, in its first flush of youth and power, it is quite naturally a little vulgar and flamboyant.

Many ideas are dangerous, and none more so than an idea that permeates a great number of people none too well educated at the same moment. We are at one of the biggest crises in the history of our race, and triumph or disaster will depend entirely on the British themselves and how they deal with it. We are in the melting pot, our worthiness of the high destiny that lies before us is being tested, and can we but survive the test, it is certain that a brilliant future awaits our empire. All progress suffers the pains of labour at its birth, and nothing great or beautiful is given us intact in purest isolation, so let us not be dismayed at