Humanly Speaking

discussion. It is useless for one country to point the finger of scorn at another, or to assume an air of injured politeness. It is more conducive to good understanding to join in a general confes

bstance is shown by the way it holds up a stone of considerable weight attached t

ety as laid down by Confucius. The Conservative newspapers of England bewail the fact that there has been a lamentable change since the present Government came in. The arch offen

he passions of the populace, has destr

xpect. We have from our earliest youth been taught to believe that the law-abidingness of the Englishman was innate and impeccable. It was not that, like the good man of

mbolic of an ordered life. The multitudinous rooks suggest security which comes from triumphant legality. No irresponsible person shoots them. When one enters a cathed

ody, he imagines, in this country knows his place, and there is no unseemly crowding and pushing. And what stronger proof can there be that this is a land where law is reverenced than the demeanor of a London policeman. There is no truculence about him, no sho

cy a Congressman being treated with such respect! But the argument which, on the whole, makes the deepest impression is the deferential manners of the tradesm

ct idea of Law which is common among Americans. Indeed, he is accustomed to treat most abstractions with scant courtesy. There is nothing quite corresponding to the average

limitations. A good deal depends on what is meant by "ourselves." An act of Parliament does not at once become an object of reverence by the members of the op

and manner of life of the people that it is deeply respected. The English reverence is not for statute law, but for the common law which is the slow accr

hould cease. The council of perfection is that the law should be obeyed till such time as it can be repealed or explained away. If it should become a dead let

passed Parliament and received the royal assent. The question is whether it will receive the assent of the people. Can it get its

the consequences. Passive resistance-with such active measures as may make the life of the enfor

rs has always been notable. Emerson's "the chambers of the great are jails" was literally true of the England of the seventeenth

"their coats, their hosen, their hats and their other garments" in the fiery furnace. If Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego wore their hats before Nebuchadnezzar and kept them on even in the fiery furnace, why should a free-born Englishman take his hat off in the presence of a petty Justice of the Peace? Fervent Fifth Monarchy men were willing to die rather than acknowledge any king but K

o Baal nor to his betters. He likes a man who is a law unto himself. Though he has little enthusiasm for the abstract "rights o

opinion and violence of party spirit. All sorts of non-conformities struggle for a hearing. One is reminded of that most

ask of doing what they are told not to do. Their enthusiasm t

nto disrepute. They go on hunger-strikes, not in order to be released from prison, but in order to be treated as political prisoners. They insist t

Insurance-Law Resisters are organized to nullify the act. Its enormities are held up before all eyes, and it is flouted in every possible way. According to this law, a lady is compelled to pay three-pence a week toward the insurance fund for each servant in her employ. Will

ressed by a duchess who was "supported by a man-servant." What can a mere Act of Parliament do when confronted by such a combinatio

of organized labor, for advising the British soldier not to o

He is not content with opposing the Irish Home Rule Bill: he gives notice that when it has become a law the opposition will be continued in a more serious form. The passage of the bill, he declares,

." If the Government does not have the nerve to employ its troops, "It will be for the moon-lighters and the cattle-maimers to conquer Ulster themselves, and it will be for you to show whether you are worse men, or your enemies better men, than the forefathers of you both. But I note with satisfaction that you are preparing yourselves by the practice of exercises, and by the submission to discipline, for the strugg

s to disendow, as well as disestablish, the Church in Wales. Noble lords denounce the outrage. Mr. Lloyd George replies by reminding their lordships that their landed estates were, before the dissolution of the monasteries unde

George beloved by the people to whom it is addressed.