Ist Apri.
"EITHER pure Christianity is not fitted for man or man is not fitted for pure Christianity. The theologians may accept that as certain." We are reminded of this blunt way of stating the cause of the present condition of Christendom by reading an examination into the aims and objects of what in the next British Parliament may be a party of some strength—the Labour, or Progressive, party. One's thoughts naturally turn to Sir Thomas More and his Utopia, as line after line in this account opens up long vistas of what might be were man other than he is. Why should there be w: and rumours of wars, strifes, bickerings, jealousies, heart-burnings, and abuse bandied back and forth from nation tonation? Why will men fight and squabble, and hurt, and destroy each other? So far human wisdom has been capable of but one answer, and that comes from Dr. Watts who, with perhaps a sly hit at Great Britain and Russia, says "Let bears and lions growl and fight.
For tis their nature to."
Our new party, it would seem, has a higher opinion of humanity than the doggerel-writing divine. It is plain from what is said of them that old things are to be cast away, and behold all things political are to become new, There are for instance to be "no more annexations anywhere on any pretext." No more British annexations that is to say. What might happen if Russia wanted the Isle of Wight for a coaling station, or Germany proffered a request for a fair exchange of, say, Malta for Samoa is. not quite clear, In all probability the self: denying ordinance is to apply to Great Britain alone, she representing the one practical personification of perfect altruism, 'Again, no' war is ever to be waged until arbitration has been offered and refused. The United States has perhaps had as favourable an experience of arbitration as any Great Power, yet there isa decided frigidity noticeable when certain outstanding questions between her and ourselves are said to be fit subjects for further' recourse to that much-lauded panacea, while there remains a very pertinent question so far as we are concerned, viz,, where within recent years could we have found an arbitration tribunal that would have carried sufficient weight to have satisfied at the same time Englishmen and Continental as to its impartiality? The British case would have been prejudged only to be condemned ere ever a word of argument or evidence had been heard.
We turn to Plank No, III in search of something more likely to win popular approval, and light upon the following: No section of the Ca-operative Commonwealth, ie, the British Empire, shall be' refused Home Rule under the flag. How about Ireland with its Redmonds and its Lynch? What would have hap-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.