the Blankshires were delighted to see the back of Private J. Stubbs. About a week after his departure the commanding officer had good reason to congratulate himself once again on having got rid of him, for a detective called from Scotland Yard and inquired anxiously after the original of a certain photograph which was undoubtedly that of Stubbs, although taken in another and more distinctive type of uniform. In fact, Stubbs was most emphatically "wanted" by the police.

It transpired that he had enlisted to escape from London and in the hope of getting abroad. Unfortunately his partner in the burglary had been captured, and, to use the technical term, had "split on his pal." Thus it came about that fate laid a heavy hand on Private Stubbs, for on emerging from his three months' confinement he was met by two burly detectives, who removed him to a police-station. He was tried at the Central Criminal Court and sentenced to three years' penal servitude for burglary. This sentence was, for some unknown reason, commuted by the Home Secretary to one year's imprisonment.

At the end of that time the colonel commanding the Blankshires met Mr. Stubbs again, this time under peculiar circumstances. The place of the meeting was in the colonel's own study, and the time was about 3 A.M. ExPrivate Stubbs, with the colonel's famous collection of Chinese gold plate under his arm, regarded the colonel by the light of a bull's-eye lantern, and the colonel regarded ex-Private Stubbs with one eye, the said eye being cocked over the sight of a large and ugly-looking revolver.

Once again Stubbs was consigned by a judge to durance vile, this time for a period of five years' penal servitude. Once again a kind-hearted Home Secretary befriended him, and commuted the sentence to eighteen months' im

as

ex-Private Stubbs had probably been incited to commit it by a quite comprehensible if erroneous hostility to one who had been his military superior, and had possibly treated him with undue harshness.

The colonel of the Blankshires possessed abnormal powers of self-control; to the men he was known as "The Iron Duke," and when the nickname spread abroad through the service, as such nicknames frequently do, it was universally avowed that it "hit off" the colonel of the Blankshires to a T. During the whole tenure of his office the adjutant could only remember two occasions on which the colonel had completely lost his temper. On the first occasion this unfortunate event was due to the report of the Home Secretary's action in the case of Private Stubbs, an action which practically amounted to public censure of the colonel of the Blankshires. The second outburst was due to the receipt of a memorandum from the Brigade Office which ran as follows:

"Prison Reform.-In accordance with instructions emanating from the Home Office, the band of the battalion under your command will be required to play at His Majesty's Convict Prison at Blackmoor on the following dates: ... Programmes of the music required to be played on each of these occasions will be forwarded from the Home Office at a later date."

After reading this memorandum through twice, the Iron Duke leapt up so suddenly as to overturn his chair, then strode up and down the orderly

room, and, as the adjutant afterwards put it, "literally raved."

"Heavens! this is the limit!" he almost shouted, and every word came to the astounded officers who stood in the anteroom without. "This is the very dregs of the cup. I am ordered to send my band-the band of the Blankshire Regiment-to Blackmoor Jail to play to the convicts. I cannot believe it; there must be a mistake somewhere. Man! it can't be true. Soldiers in uniform, clean, honest men, to be forced to disgrace their uniforms by being sent to a prison to play for the amusement of a lot of jail-birds. Faugh! they'll stop it-you'll see they will stop it-it would be an insult to the regiment and the whole army. I suppose they call it 'prison reform.' Prison reform! It's part of the general scheme of currying favor with the mob. It has come to this, that the honor of the service is to be prostituted to rake in the votes of the hooligan class. But they will never carry it out; the public won't allow it; they will never allow it!"

The public has allowed it.

The large and brightly lit hall of Blackmoor Jail was crowded to its fullest capacity. One of the bi-weekly entertainments of the "bright and elevating" type ordered by the Home Secretary was in full swing. The rows of hammock-like deck-chairs were occupied by beaming convicts, each supplied with his ounce of tobacco and his mug of beer. Miss Lottie Bobkins had just finished her dance entitled "Springtime," and after three encores, to which she had gracefully responded, had flitted off the stage blowing fairy kisses with both hands to the "boys" below.

Ex-Private Stubbs, who reclined in a deck-chair in the front row of that part of the house which in a theatre would be termed the "stalls," consulted his programme with an air of languid

boredom.

Stubbs looked fit and well cared for; in fact, he had grown positively stout. Like the majority of the audience, he had the general appearance of one who, after years of turmoil and trouble, had at last found a haven of rest. Suddenly he sat up with an air of alert expectation. "Number 5, ain't it?" he asked the man next to him.

"Yes, Number 5," replied the other in a husky voice; he glanced at his programme and read aloud, “"The Soldiers' Chorus,' from Faust, played by the band of the First Blankshire Regiment." Wish they wouldn't put on these 'ere rotten turns," he growled. "Why, what's up, matie?"

Convict Stubbs was sitting bolt-upright, his eyes fixed expectantly on the wings of the stage. "Krikey! this is a bit o' or right," he exclaimed. "I reckon I come on in this hact. This is

a bit o' orl right, I tell yer. I wouldn't 'ave missed this yer, no, not for all the swag in London. Lawd! 'ow glad I am I put off goin' to the Isle o' Wight 'Otel till to-morrer!"

The band of the Blankshires trooped dejectedly on to the stage from the wings. The men kept their eyes on the floor in a shamefaced way, with the exception of one or two who glared angrily and contemptuously at the audience. The last to appear was the bandmaster. He advanced to the footlights and bowed to the audience preparatory to beginning, when the face of ex-Private Stubbs caught his eye.

"Ullo, Rogy, me boy," said the convict, "'ow are yer?" Lieutenant Dunrogan's jaw fell; for a moment he stared at ex-Private Stubbs with an expression bordering almost on horror. Then he turned to the band and rapped on his music-stand as a signal to the performers to get ready. He was obliged to rap several times, for the band too had caught sight of Stubbs. The convict's face was wreathed in smiles;

his prodigious mouth was stretched from ear to ear in one vast triumphant grin. He kept up a running fire of comments sotto voce, to the evident delight of his fellow-sufferers.

"Well, Rogy, me lad, I see they've been an' gone an' made a bloomin' hofficer o' yer. Well, well, who'd 'ave thought it! Oh lor', oh lor'! 'ow long shall the wicked prosper? as the parson said larst Sunday. An' there 's old Sargeant Siffkins. 'Ow are yer, me lord? Blimme! but ye 'ave got fat, Billy-sargeant, I should say, beg pardon. W'y, ye're like a porpoise, me lad; that trombone 'ave blown yer out somethink awful. Chut! chut! keep away from the canteen, an' join the A.T.A., or the drink 'll be the ruin o' yer. Look out for yer eyeballs, me lad, or they'll bu'st! W'ere 's yer manners, a-glarin' at the haudience like that? It'll spoil yer encore for a dead cert; an' there's a bloke from the 'Ome

Chambers's Journal.

Office about somew'ere at the back of the 'all, an' don't forgit it!"

The band struck up and drowned exPrivate Stubbs's further remarks. But he was by no means reduced to inaction; he lay back in his chair still smiling broadly, and proceeded to beat time emphatically with an upraised forefinger. An indulgent warder who observed his antics wagged a warning finger at him; but Stubbs merely grinned and continued his caricature of the bandmaster's conductorship. At the end of the piece there was a round of applause, in which Stubbs joined vociferously. The bandmaster advanced to the footlights and bowed his acknowledgments. As he turned to go his one-time second cornet said in a patronizing sotto voce which was heard with merriment all over the hall, "Rogy, me lad, you ain't got that time quite right yet, yer know."

C. Benbow.

By

The position of Japan in the Pacific is stronger to-day than it has been at any previous time. The Japanese have not entirely themselves to thank. steadily increasing their naval and military forces they have done their share, but they have been considerably helped by the attitude-scarcely intelligible to the Japanese-of the American Senate.

A year ago the position built upon the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was seriously threatened by the proposed arbitration treaty between Great Britain and the United States. Even before the treaty was ratified the Alliance, which had still four years to run, was renewed in a modified form to meet a situation which had not yet arisen. This haste to modify a pre-existing arrangement of great importance in favor of a proposal which had not even

reached its final stage created a very bad impression, not untouched with resentment, in Japan. Moreover, the new arrangement was distinctly unfavorable to Japan, because her principal rival in the Pacific was thereby expressly excluded from the scope of its operation. As the veteran Count Okuma tersely put it, "Japan must help England; but England, in a certain eventuality, need not help Japan." However, the only care of Mr. Asquith's Government was to gratify Mr. Taft. The Japanese were to be put off with a modified Alliance for a further term of ten years.

Such was the situation when, a few weeks ago, the American Senate took the matter up. The result was all that Japan could desire. The Arbitration Treaty, for the sake of which the Al

liance was to be emasculated, was itself emasculated by its Senatorial critics, who may with some justice be accused of throwing away with one hand what they had gained with the other. Indeed, on the whole business the Japanese have scored heavily. Not only has the attack on the Alliance failed, but they have secured its extension for an additional six years beyond the original date, and on the original basis.

Recent events in China have disappointed the Japanese, who would have preferred no revolution at all. A few more years of peaceful penetration and. State-aided commercial enterprise might have sufficed to establish Japanese ascendency in the Middle Kingdom, as well as, incidentally, to replenish the coffers of the Tokyo Exchequer. But the revolution has compelled China to play a financial game in which half a dozen Powers had a hand. In this game Japan, for obvious reasons, stands at a disadvantage, proximity to the scene availing nothing. The Japanese, however, does not know when he is beaten; and will not be confined. Does China fail as an outlet? Then let emigation flow towards the East. This, in the opinion of many close observers, is the real meaning of the affair of Magdalena Bay.

Another factor in the situation is the condition of affairs in Mexico itself. Armed intervention of the United States, followed by an American "protectorate" as a prelude to absorption, is possible at any moment. General Madero knows this well enough, and is ready to give the Japanese foothold on the Mexican coast. From the Japanese point of view the moment is opportune. No time is to be lost. Hence the application of a Japanese company, presided over by a member of the Diet, for "a fishing station" at the wellknown bay in the Gulf of California, and for "fishing rights" along some LIVING AGE. VOL. LVI. 2916

At

800 miles of the Mexican coast. this point the Washington Senate thought desirable to intervene; and, at a hint from the paternal Government of Uchi-sai-wai-cho, the Kongo Marine Products Company retreated.

Nevertheless the enterprise of this Japanese fishing company promises to have far-reaching consequences. The Washington Senate, thoroughly alarmed, seems determined to make the abortive fishery project a pretext for an extension of the Monroe Doctrine which, if persisted in, can scarcely fail to bring up, in the gravest form, the whole question of the domination by the United States of the entire American continent south of the Rio Grande. From the tone of the recent debate it is clear that the war-talk of the Hobsons and the "scares" which from time to time rule the Pacific Slope have done their work, and that a large section of the American public is obsessed by the possibility of a Japanese attack. With such influences acting upon a people subject to sudden gusts of opinion and feeling the extraordinary propositions advanced by Senators Lodge and Bacon may become a settled policy of the American Republic. The "new doctrine" appears to be that the prohibition originally proclaimed by President Monroe should henceforth include "colonization". - whether under Government or promoted by a private company-and, secondly, the acquisition of private property by any citizen of a foreign Government. If this revised and enlarged version of the Monroe Doctrine be put into practice, it must one day be challenged, either from the West or from the East.

The exclusion policy of the United States as to Orientals excites the deepest resentment in Japan because of its imputation of inferiority-a feeling shared by the Chinese. Commercial expansion is to Japan very much what naval supremacy is to England.

It

embodies the sole prospect of her maintaining her position as a first-class Power. If, in the Chinese loan-policy of Western Powers, she is outplayed or fails for want of cards, she will turn to the South American continent. If, again, she finds herself "warned off”. whether through race-prejudice or by reason of the exclusive tendencies of The Saturday Review.

Pan-Americanism

self-preservation will either demand that the Monroe Doctrine be withdrawn or will appeal to force against it. Five thousand Japanese laborers, every one with a Government permit in his pocket, land in Central and South America every year; so the challenge may come sooner than later.

Almost from early sunrise the crowd had been gathering. By ten o'clock it filled the great stone-paved space between the entrance to the Tower and the railings of the Tower gardens round the moat on one side, and the vast buildings of the Mazawattee Tea and other warehouses on the other. It was an East-end working crowd, cloth-capped, drab-coated, wearing no collar, but a colored scarf knotted round the throat. Not a woman was present. The women were at work, or were pawning their bits of things.

That open space slopes up the hill rather steeply for London, and standing at the top of the rise, where so many fine men and women have knelt to "lose their heads," one could look sheer over the undulating sea of caps. Under almost every cap a man who might have been at work, and would like to have been at work (is not regular work the one thing he asks for most?), but who had come out there, vaguely conscious of taking part in that same immemorial contest for rights that has brought so many to death, and never stops from one generation to another, but must daily be renewed. Heavy, outdoor men for the most part, with intellect stunted at fourteen, and blunted by labor-heavy, silent men, incapable of gesticulation, but easily moved to quiet laughter, and to the special irony of the English poor.

So, hour after hour they waited, silent, or seeking laughter in remarks upon the charm of beefsteaks or ham-andeggs for breakfast, such as they and the millionaires had enjoyed..

In front of the big warehouses a level has been made, supported by a containing wall. And along the top of the wall runs a solid coping, which, second only to Nelson's "plinth," is the rostrum and tribunal of our city. Standing in the centre of it, one can command such an audience as even the biggest side of Trafalgar Square could not hold, and there are no fountains or motors to disturb the sound of eloquence. Nothing is around you but the crowd; nothing in front but the Tower moat and those silent walls, full of our history. Suddenly, while we waited, a strange figure raised itself upon that coping-young, pale, powerful in face and voice, emotional in gesture. With indignant eloquence he poured out denunciation. He denounced a Government of fear-a Government that could not be moved by claims of justice, but only by the sound of thunder at the gate. He denounced every party and every class, but especially he denounced the British Parliament as an effete and useless body. For his part, he had one single and infallible cure for the present evils and discontents. He would go in person to the King: starting from Victo