his public, must be rigorously confuted: it would be more true to say that the author makes the critic and his journal as well, at least so far as its literary character is concerned. He supplies the pabulum, the basic substance, upon which the reviewer exercises such faculties as he may possess, be they acute or otherwise. The author, that is to say, places in the journalist's hands, entirely upon trust and without inquiry as to his moral or intellectual fitness, the work it may be of a lifetime, to be diffused by excerpt, epitome, or evisceration among the thousands of average persons who read the paper he serves. Moreover, he supplies it without fee or charge, a proceeding so contrary to all business principles that it proves him the same unmercantile creature to-day that he was before the Society of Authors attempted his sophistication. This, indeed, is the crux of the whole matter; and beside it the mere question of whether the critic makes the author, or the author the critic, or whether they make each other (which, to be just, is what they really do, or ought to do, under normal conditions) sinks into insignificance. In other words, the point is that while the author and the critic together enliven the world's newspapers, the newspapers pay the critic for his share in the joint entertainment, but the author pays the newspapers (to the value of the book he and his publishers supply gratuitously) for the privilege of raising them above the standing of merely political or commercial sheets. The reason hitherto put forward for the author's surprising benevolence is that the sales of his work are increased by the advertisement thus given to them -a wholly specious and illusory argument in view of the well-known fact that the reading public does not now buy books. The New Culture, indeed, dispenses with books, and depends almost entirely upon the daily Press for its mental food; and in doing so shows its wisdom, for the modern newspaper, if diligently studied, is a liberal education. This is the new democratic régime, which the Press proprietor well understands, but neither the author nor his publishers have yet grasped. Under its rule, which grows more absolute every day, the essayist, biographer, historian, and poet enjoy (by way of excerpt, epitome, &c.) a circulation of tens of millions, from which directly they derive no other reward than the empty futilities of fame!

Mr. Brown's array of facts, based on his estimated circulationmany millions, as just intimated-of the journals supplied him by his agents, need not be given here. Nor need we accept his arguments (not perhaps of the soundest, and probably biassed by his personal experience) for the payment, by the journals whose pages they brightened, of his brother bookmakers who did not possess beds of fireclay on their estates, or indeed any estates at all; but his generous advocacy of their cause must command our respect. He was careful to limit the principle to the rank and file of literary practitioners (with their publishers as well, for these, he pointed out, were joint sufferers under the existing arrangement), and to the newspaper Press; leaving out the popular novelists on the one hand and the strictly critical journals on the other, though not, it must be owned, offering any practical solution of the difficulties of his plan. Also, he was careful to demand for his poorer brethren no more than the minimum of a living wage, the lowest cash reward compatible with the claims of their butchers and grocers. He did not ignore the free libraries and book-clubs; but these, he insisted, merely cultivated the wives and daughters of the people, not the people themselves. He endeavoured

to show that the proletariat had never bought books; that the burgess and middle class who formerly bought them could not do so now, having to keep up greater appearances on disproportionally increased incomes; and that the upper class, who never bought many, had now to keep up their motor-cars. On the other hand, he showed that the new democracy, which included the first and second classes with no very sharp lines of demarcation, were keenly appreciative of literature in the peptonised form supplied by the daily Press, and relished their snippets and tabloids of philosophy, history, biography, and poetry, as much as their book-buying elders did their larger mouthfuls of the same commodities. He showed also that they were quite ready to pay for it in pence and halfpence, though preferably in the latter coin; and asserted that this new reading public must henceforth be the mainstay of the higher literary producer, to whom (jointly with his publishers) the Press proprietor should pay toll in proportion to the numerical output of his paper. There need be no undue friction in the readjustment; but only thus, he urged, can the torch of pure literature be kept burning, and its maintainers saved from the workhouse.

We make our daily Press proprietors knights, baronets, peers, and foreign ambassadors [he said in his peroration], and our poets and essayists paupers, eleemosynaries, and schoolmasters-dwellers in caves, colleges, places of secondary education, disused granaries, and like dim and sepulchral abodes; and not until the balance is redressed will the New Culture rest on the sound and permanent basis of financial equity.

A. G. HYDE.

BRITAIN'S TASK IN EGYPT

JUSTICE, firmness, tact, and sympathy should be the guiding principles -the watchwords-of Lord Cromer's successor in the difficult part he has to play, if success is to attend his efforts in continuing the beneficent work so ably and uninterruptedly carried on in Egypt since 1882-the work which is, and which will long remain, Britain's task in Egypt. And to-day the most important of these watchwords is sympathy; sympathy the solace; the complete sustaining charitableness which is as instructive as it is animating; the fellow-feeling which whispers conviction that no evidence can authorise'; the sympathy that is part of our being. Consequently in this paper I shall endeavour to make every suggestion helpful and calculated to strengthen the bonds of harmony, and every criticism well-natured so that mutual sympathy and understanding may be engendered between the two peoples who are manifestly destined to work together in the interests, and for the future well-being, of the fertile Green Egyptian Fan and of the New Soudan.

Evidently Lord Dufferin was in agreement with this view when he wrote deprecating any 'irritating and exasperating display of authority,' and when he advocated a policy of 'sympathy and guidance' and of 'sympathetic advice and assistance.'

So also, in the final paragraphs of what, unfortunately, proves to be his lordship's last report on his administration of Egypt, Lord Cromer strikes the same note, with no uncertain emphasis and distinctness, when he writes:

I often hear it stated by those who are in a position to judge-both Europeans and Egyptians-that of late years there has been a tendency amongst some of the British officials to get out of touch with the Egyptians, and that, in fact, the sympathy between the two races, which ought to increase as the beneficial results of British interference become more and more apparent, is somewhat diminishing. . . . But if there be any widening of the breach between the two races, it is capable of repair. I am frequently told that the younger race of British officials, who have come to this country of recent years, are not so careful to abstain from wounding Egyptian susceptibilities as their predecessors. . . . I wish to draw the very marked attention of every British official in Egypt to this subject. No reasonable person in this country thinks that any of the British servants of the Khedive are dishonest or unjust. It is almost equally

important that they should be sympathetic. It is reasonable that I should be asked to explain more clearly what I mean. It is difficult for me to do so... but I am none the less certain that generally that confidence can be commanded and that good will can be acquired. It is for each individual British official to learn by experience, and by constant study of the characters of those with whom he is brought in contact, how to command the one and to acquire the other. Notably he should remember that.... under the peculiar conditions existing in this country, any thoughtless or inconsiderate word or act may not only wound, when there is no intention of wounding, but also produce consequences of a far-reaching character. . . . One of the most important of their duties is to endeavour to acquire the sympathies of the people with whom they have to deal. If they succeed, they will meet their reward in the comparative ease with which the various reforms in which they are interested are accomplished.

Corroboration of what Lord Cromer states is needless to those who know, and have worked under, him. Yet I am constrained to mention that when in Egypt this winter many of my native and European friends bore out this charge of want of sympathy among the younger race of British officials. I am thoroughly in accord with Lord Cromer in all he says and particularly with his lordship's dictum that the widening of the breach is capable of repair.' During my long service in Egypt I had no difficulty in gaining the confidence of all classes, from the Khedive on the throne to the patient, unsophisticated fellah, and when, in September 1904, this Review published My Friend the Fellah,' the late Sir Charles Cookson, a staunch friend to Egypt, wrote to me-'I believe that your article will, when translated into his language, serve to promote that mutual understanding and sympathy which is after all the surest bond of union between the governing and the governed.'

It may be urged by persons but slightly acquainted with Egypt that however much the British official may strive he will find no answering chord in the native. So I must make a short digression. Leading London journals have stated that Lord Cromer, when news of his resignation became known, was the recipient of many touching letters from the native peasantry. One can only surmise in what language these letters were actually couched-probably in somewhat fulsome terms but nevertheless assuredly written from the heart. I have before me a bundle of similar letters, written, it is true, not to an uncrowned king,' but to a much more humble official when he quitted Egypt after labouring in that country nearly twenty-five years. But because these letters show that the native is responsive to sympathy and is really grateful I venture to quote (in translation) three sentences, each one culled from a different letter, and written from a different province of Egypt:

(1) The spirit of fairness and the great kindliness you have ever shown in dealing with us has gained for you not only our gratitude, but, if you will permit the expression, our affection.

(2) I find it quite impossible to describe the sorrow your departure occasions.

(3) My heart weeps when I think of your fatherly goodness, generous support, and extreme kindliness. I crave pardon for having so often worried you, but I ventured thus frequently to have recourse to your goodness because I believed blindly in your counsel.

To continue quoting extracts, which could be extended for many pages, would be wearisome. Enough has been said to clearly demonstrate that Egyptians are amenable to sympathetic treatment.

But our task in Egypt is so beset with difficulties that it behoves all Englishmen to help in so far as they are able—and not to leave the whole burden of responsibility on the shoulders of the British Agent and on those of the devoted band of hard-working, and often over-wrought, Anglo-Egyptian officials. Even loyal friends of Egypt are not always helpful, however well-intentioned. For instance, Mr. Dicey, in his recent little book, The Egypt of the Future, sows broadcast seeds which, should they fall on congenial soil, are calculated to produce a crop of troubles. Fortunately the misleading representation by Mr. Dicey of Lord Dufferin's policy has been pointed out and corrected by Sir Auckland Colvin in this Review for April. Further refutation is needless, but it is necessary to nail another false coin to the counter. In his current article entitled 'Lord Cromer's Legacy,' Mr. Bourne has so re-stated his lordship's plan for a Legislative Council as to make it appear that, were the proposal adopted, Great Britain would have a certain majority-i.e. would command twenty voices out of the total of thirty-six members. I am convinced that the writer had not the slightest intention of misleading anyone, and that it was in perfect good faith that he proceeded to argue against Lord Cromer's ideal. Yet his premises cannot be held, on careful examination of the facts, to be sound. His statement of the case is as follows:

...

If, as Lord Cromer recommends, the number of members composing the new Council is fixed at thirty-six, the suggestion is that four of them shall be English officials in the service of the Egyptian Government, that five shall be unofficial members nominated by the Egyptian Government, and that seven shall be European judges, who, of course, are also public servants in the pay of the Egyptian Government. The other twenty are, it is proposed, to be elected by a process designed to give to each European nationality represented in Egypt a voting power approximating to its numerical and trading value. . . . The number of elected members chosen from a single nationality being limited to four, four British subjects are certain to be elected, and assuming that on most occasions, if not on all, these four British subjects will vote in support of British policy—that is, in company with the sixteen official and unofficial nominees of the Government-the British Agent may safely count on a majority of votes on any legislative project he favours, seeing that, as the reader scarcely needs to be reminded, the Egyptian Government, though nominally subordinate to the Khedive, is really in absolute dependence on the instructions of the British Agent.

The fallacy of this contention is apparent to those acquainted with the composition of the Mixed Tribunals in Egypt and with the