reign of Elizabeth. Then, however, there was revival, because there were possibilities of golden conquest in America, speculative treasures in the reanimate learning of Greece, and a new faith that seemed to thrust aside the curtain drawn by priests, and to open heaven. It is conceivable that our later world may find itself deprived of all that it valued on earth, of the pageantry of subject provinces and the reality of commerce, while it has neither a disinterred literature to amuse it nor a vitalised religion to give it spiritual strength.

The foregoing argument has assumed that the growth of China will be gradual and peaceable, and that India, if it ever becomes independent of England, will split up into a cluster of states, federated it may be, but not capable of an aggressive foreign policy. There is one possible alternative to this future too important to be disregarded. We are not yet able to say whether Mahommedanism has ceased to be a ferment and a great organising influence. It was beaten in the Indian Mutiny; it has been stamped out in Yunnan and Ili, after wars in which millions of lives were destroyed; and its solitary success in the Soudan has not been followed up, and was due very much to the fact that it was combined with a national uprising against a detested foreign rule. Still it is impossible to forget that an active Mahommedan propaganda is being carried on in

Wars of the Roses, when as many as 30,000-by one estimate 38,000-perished in a single battle, that of Towton, must have reduced the population for a time nearly one-half. It is noticeable that, while 108,000 men were brought into the field at Towton, not more than 30,000 were present at Bosworth.-Pauli's Geschichte Englands, Band v. SS. 359, 360, 511; Lingard's History of England, vol. v. pp. 173, 174, 270.

As

China, and that the province of Yunnan was, at one time, almost in the hands of the followers of the Prophet. Father Girard says that, in a single instance, when there was a famine in the province of Chan - tong, the Mahommedans bought ten thousand children, whom they educated in their own faith.1 The whole number of Moslems in the Empire "is estimated by some officials at 20,000,000 to 25,000,000."2 Observers agree that the Mahommedan may commonly be distinguished from his Buddhist countryman by his erect bearing and fearless tones. Islam, in this country also, transforms its votaries into military fanatics. the popular Buddhism. is nothing more than Paganism of a rather gross kind, though with a fairly good ethical code, it may, in spite of the advantage it possesses of being the faith of the large majority, and backed by the Government, go down before a monotheism that has already been embraced by the Turkish division of the Tartars, and which is the predominant religion in Malaysia. The accident of a leader of genius arising to combine the Mahommedans in a common organisation might conceivably transfer sovereignty to a follower of Islam. In that case it is difficult to suppose that China would not become an aggressive military power, sending out her armies in millions to cross the Himalayas, and traverse the Steppes, or occupying the islands and the northern parts of Australia, by pouring in immigrants protected by fleets. Luther's old name for the Turks, that they were "the people of the wrath of God," may receive a

1 Girard, France et Chine, tome ii. p. 250.

2 Balfour's Waifs and Strays from the Far East, pp. 31, 32.

new and terrible application. It seems reasonable to suppose that such a visitation can only be possible in the distant future, and not unreasonable to hope that it may never occur. Should it, however, take place, the ultimate effect would probably be to drain China of population and wealth, which die out gradually wherever the Crescent floats in triumph. The military aggrandisement of the Empire, which would provoke general resistance, is, in fact, less to be dreaded than its industrial growth, which other nations will be, to some extent, interested in maintaining. Still, even a ten years' conflict against forces far greater than Tamerlane's, and inspired with as ferocious a spirit, would be something so horrible that we may well pray for it to be never anything more than an evil dream.

CHAPTER III

SOME DANGERS OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT

Large armies, large towns, and large national debts are said to be causes of national decline.-As nations increase, large armies will be more and more a necessity, even though statesmen may be pacific. There are compensations to standing armies in the education given and the feelings called out by military training. Neither is war itself an unmixed evil.-The tendency of populations to concentrate in towns is becoming more and more marked. -People flock to towns for work, for large profits, and because the growth of railways tends to concentrate business in a few large centres.-Beyond this, excitement, amusement, social intercourse, economy, are determining motives; and the townsman, once formed, contracts a dislike for country life.-The ancient idea was that city influences elevated and civilised men. Many remarkable men have found their only congenial sphere in a city. -Cities, however, though they attract great men, and develop the life of society, have no tendency to create genius or intellectual distinction. One drawback to city life is that it destroys physical stamina, though science has done a great deal to eliminate disease and protract life.—And though legislation has promoted the wellbeing of the labourer, and though some descriptions of city labour are not unwholesome-On the other hand, the city type is changing for the worse, though the cities are still vitalised by the best life-blood of the country districts. As cities become of monstrous dimensions, the higher society that grows up in them is too various, and habitually too frivolous, to be of much civilising potency. Even more does the lower class suffer by being shut out from nature and debarred the sympathy of neighbours.— The conditions of life in large cities are unfavourable to the privacy and self-respect without which family life cannot grow to any perfection.-Social reforms may counteract some of the evils arising from this tendency, but cannot be a cure for all.-Women are special gainers by the great wealth and variety of amusement

in towns. Nevertheless, amusements in towns are not more intellectual than they were, but less so. The lecture has been killed by the book or newspaper; the higher drama by the novel. -It is only an apparent exception that the drama maintains itself in Paris, and that Ibsen has had a success of esteem.—The city music-hall is not appreciably superior to the city tavern.-The sordid frugality of a country population is due to its circumstances, and the changes imminent in city life are such as will naturally engender avarice.—National debts may be incurred for justifiable and good reasons.-Countries with great natural resources appear to be warranted in mortgaging their future, in order to develop their resources.-There may, however, be periods of depression, even of decline, for prosperous states.-Under the influence of theories of State Socialism, a country may engage in a vast speculation, such as buying up the land and leasing it to small cultivators; and this speculation may prove to be unremunerative. -In such a case, there might be a danger of the taxpayer repudiating his engagements to the fund-holder, and, indeed, that he could not fulfil them.-Examples of national bankruptcy are very numerous in the past.-Repudiation lowers the tone of national character; and the impoverishment of the fund-holders would extinguish a class that is very conservative of certain valuable qualities. Whether large armies, large cities, large debts are to ruin modern society, depends upon how we use the armies, how far we can neutralise town influences, and whether we allow the indebtedness to corrode national morality.

THE late Mr. Ticknor, a learned student of history, and who was also a sagacious observer of modern society, used to express the opinion that the "ancient civilisations of the world had been undermined and destroyed by two causes-the increase of standing armies, and the growth of great cities; and that modern civilisation had now added to these sources of decay a third in the hypothecation of every nation's property to other nations.” 1 It has been a part of the argument in these pages to show that the maintenance of large armies, easily mobilised, is as much a necessity now as it has been in past times. For many years to come the nations of the Temperate Zones will be trying to encroach upon 1 Ticknor's Life, vol. ii. p. 403.