BRANDES, DENMARK'S FOREMOST
PERSONALITY

he himself was familiar with." From poetry and art that demand for a new and more clear-eyed truthfulness spread to every field of human activity, until, to-day, the three kingdoms are fermenting with new life and new thought. Nor has the fructifying influence of the Danish thinker been restricted to the peoples descended from a common Norse stock. It has made itself felt in Germany and France, in England and Russia, in Italy and the United States. In fact, it may be said that before him no literary critic, with the possible exception of Taine, ever during his own lifetime assumed such a far-reaching international importance. Says Mr. Krogvig, speaking of the scope of the influence exercised by Brandes:

Georg Brandes is the only Danish author whose name may be written across a whole era in the Danish people's history. Even in fields like the political one, where he never tried to become a leader and where he very rarely asserted himself directly, one meets everywhere with the traces of his activity. From everything of importance that may be recorded in cultural, political, social and religious development, threads lead back to him. Throughout an entire human lifetime he has stood as the one overtowering figure in regard to whom every mentally matured Dane has had to take sides. He is the one man to whom everything and every

body must be related for proper understanding. It

does not seem that a literary critic ever held such a position in the life of his own nation.

POETS have not infrequently become dominating influences in the life of a nation. There were moments when the will of Hugo seemed to sway the destinies of France. In spite of all mutual antipathy between Björnson was popularly spoken of as "the un- their natures, Mr. Krogvig holds that Björncrowned king of Norway.' With the mass of son was the man with whom Brandes had his people, the word of Tolstoy went as far, most in common. In both he finds the same if not farther, than that of the Czar. But that happy faculty for catching life in the process such a position might be reached by a literary of growing, so to speak. Both have shown critic was never heard of until Anders Krog- the same restless craving to discover everyvig pointed out in Samtiden (Christiania), thing useful and bring it into light. And both that Georg Brandes, professor of literature have been deeply concerned by the relationat the University of Copenhagen, must be ship between their own peoples and the rest recognized as "the central personality of of the civilized world. Recently Brandes Denmark throughout an extended and event- has given much thought to the widely felt ful period." All the world now recognizes danger of Denmark's absorption by GerBrandes as the most eminent living Scandinavian.

many. And he has sought an escape from this danger in a voluntary submission to an But the influence of Brandes does not only English protectorate. So far his countrymen extend beyond his own field. It has made have not shown themselves friendly to that itself powerfully felt outside the limits of his suggestion, and it remains to be seen whether own country. The renascence of Scandi- he can talk them around. He has done so navian literature is traceable to him. Real- before, in other matters, where the initial ism-not only in poetry but in any art-was antagonism between himself and the rest of unknown in the three Scandinavian countries the people was not less sharply accentuated. until he made his now famous plea that the He has become the most valuable natural artist should sing and paint and carve what asset of his country.

JUS

JOHN REDMOND ON
ON WHAT IRELAND

REALLY WANTS

those other portions of the British Empire-some twenty-eight in number-which, in their own purely local affairs, are governed by free representative institutions of their own.

UST at this moment when the British to be permitted to take our place in the ranks of periodical press has been printing so much on "The Irish Dictator with American Dollars," it may be worth while to quote a few sentences from the latest authoritative statement made by Mr. Redmond as to the aims and aspirations of the Irish Nationalist party. There is nothing new in what Mr. Redmond tells us, in his article in Nash's Magazine (London), but a restatement of the case in his own words will be useful. He says:

What Ireland wants is really so reasonable, so moderate, so commonplace in view of the experience of the nations, and especially of the British Empire, that, once it is understood, all the fears and arguments of honest opponents must vanish into thin air. What Ireland wants is the restoration of responsible government, neither more nor less. The Irish demand is, in plain and popular language, that the government of every purely Irish affair shall be controlled by the public opinion of Ireland, and by that alone. We do not seek any alteration of the Constitution or supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. We ask merely

After recounting the story of Ireland's fight for a separate Parliament, Mr. Redmond proceeds to describe, in doleful language, the retrogression of Irish life to-day.

Education admittedly is 50 per cent. below the standard of every European nation, and the taxation of the country per head of the population has doubled in fifty years, and by universal admission the civil government of the country is the most costly in Europe. The total civil government of Scotland (with practically the same population) was in 1906 £2,477,000. The cost of similar government in the same year in Ireland was £4,547,000. Ireland's judicial system costs £200,000 a year more than the Scotch. The Irish police costs exactly three times what the police of Scotland costs. The number of officials in Scotland is 963, with salaries amounting to £311,ooo. The number of officials in Ireland is 4539, with salaries amounting to £1,412,520. Per head

IRISH JACK (the cowboy): "Say, I guess you're dancing some, now, pard. And I guess you'll jest hev to dance a while yet-so long as I whistle the chune, anyway." From the Pall Mall Gazette (London)

of the population, the cost of the present government of Ireland is twice that of England, and is far higher than that of Norway, Holland, France, Denmark, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Spain, Roumania, Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, Germany, or Russia. In other words, Ireland, probably the poorest country in Europe, pays more for her government than any other nation. The secret of the inefficiency and the extravagance is identical-namely, the fact that it is a government not based upon the consent but maintained in actual opposition to the will of the governed.

ment, labor, industries, taxation for local purposes, law and justice, police, etc.), leaving to the Imperial Parliament, in which Ireland would probably continue to be represented, but in smaller numbers, the management, just as at present, of all Imperial affairs -army, navy, foreign relations, Customs, Imperial taxation, matters pertaining to the Crown, the Colonies, and all those other questions which are Imperial and not local in their nature; the Imperial Parliament also retaining an overriding supreme authority over the new Irish Legislature, such as it possesses to-day over the various Legislatures in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and other wants. When she has obtained it a new era of prosperity and contentment will arise. As happened when Lord Durham's policy was carried out in Canada, men of different races and creeds will join hands to promote the well-being of their common country.

The article concludes with these vigorous portions of the empire. This is "what Ireland

sentences:

We want an Irish Parliament, with an executive responsible to it, created by act of the Imperial Parliament, and charged with the management of purely Irish affairs (land, education, local govern

DICKENS AS A SOCIAL REFORMER

Not only did Dickens make his novels the vehicle for the remedying of many of the social ills and abuses of his time, but it is known by his speeches and letters, writes Mr. Matz, how keenly he had these things at heart. Also we have further evidence that he used his pen vigorously toward the same end in anonymous contributions to Household Words and other periodicals. Take the questions of prison reform, education, the housing of the poor, and the proper care and welfare of children. On all these problems we find that Dickens gave utterance to sentiments and facts regarding them that might have been written within the last few years.

Education of the masses he looked upon as the panacea for most of the ills which beset life. In 1847 he wrote in an article on London crime that ignorance was the cause of the worst evils. He advocated schools of industry where the simple knowledge learned from books could be made immediately applicable to the business of life, and directly conducive to order, cleanliness, punctuality, and economy. At the time of the cholera outbreak in 1854 he addressed a striking_article to workingmen, in which he called upon them to assert themselves and combine and demand the improvement of the towns in which they live. But it was our prisons which were a sort of nightmare to him. Keep people from the contamination of the prisons at all costs. Teach children not only that the prison is a place to avoid; teach them how to avoid it. He also advocated the abolition of capital punishment, and though he in the law, he was instrumental in doing away was not successful in bringing about this change with public executions by a vigorous letter to the Times which started the agitation.

Mr. Matz strongly approves of the scheme put forward by the Strand Magazine, namely,

that there shall be a specially designed from the sale to be handed to the Dickens Dickens stamp issued at a penny for pur- family as a testimonial of the world's apprechasers to place in the covers of the Dickens ciation of what the great writer has done for volumes they possess, the money accruing the benefit of humanity at large.

PETROLEUM IN PAN-AMERICA

THE romantic history of the development ably with that of Ohio and Pennsylvania. of the oil industry in North America has An English company has a well of high-grade often been narrated, but seldom in so inter- oil, flowing at the rate of 80 barrels daily, at esting a fashion as by Mr. Russell Hastings San Rafael, Mendoza. Millward in the Bulletin of the Pan-American Union. The remarkable progress in oilproduction in this country is graphically illustrated by this writer in the following paragraph:

The total flow of oil in the United States for the year 1859, the first of which any official record has been kept, amounted to only 2000 barrels. For the year 1909 the production amounted to over 178,000,000 barrels, which, if placed in a single body, would be sufficient to float a gigantic fleet of 935 Dreadnought battleships of the new 26,000-ton Arkansas type of the United States Navy.

And the accompanying table shows that to January 1, 1909, the production of oil in eighteen States of the United States during the previous fifty years reached the enormous total of nearly 2,00,000,000 barrels, or 84,000,000,000 gallons.

STATE AND YEARS OF PRODUCTION.

Louisiana, 1902 to 1909

BRAZIL'S NEW DISCOVERY

Although asphalt of various grades has been found and largely used in manufactures in the republic, it was only quite recently that petroleum was discovered. A company is being organized to develop the industry in the district of Ibitinga, Sao Paulo. Extensive deposits of lignite occur at Camamu, on the Marahu River, from a ton of which three barrels of oil can be produced.

GREAT PROSPECTS IN CHILE

Until recently crude oil has been imported for use on the Taltal Railway, but an American company has now brought in a 500barrel well at Carelmapu, 500 miles south of Barrels of 42 Valparaiso, and experts report that this field Gallons. will, under proper development, become one 377,108,902 of the world's great producers of high-grade

698,009,862

246,820,562

194,562,894 petroleum.

129,026,455

93,411,140

90,883,206

62,551,789

44,158,931

34,248,641

9,253,938

ASPHALT IN CUBA

Colorado, 1887 to 1909

Kentucky and Tennessee, 1883 to 1909

Wyoming and Utah, 1894 to 1909
Missouri and Michigan, 1889 to 1909

Total (United States-18 States)

6,004,345

1,986,180,942

In 1881 five wells of excellent naphtha were 103,560 sunk at depths from 300 to 800 feet, and 36,917 for many years they have been profitably worked; but crude oil for refining on the island But the production of oil on the American is largely imported, 5,493,314 gallons havcontinent is not confined to the United States. ing been received from the United States in Petroleum has been found both in Central the year ending June 30, 1909. The asphalt and in South America; and Mr. Millward gathered for about seven years at Mariel, gives a comprehensive survey of the various near Havana, is used in London and Chicago oil-producing countries, which we condense for the paving of streets. for the readers of the REVIEW.

INCREASING PRODUCTION IN ARGENTINA

ALREADY A LARGE BUSINESS IN MEXICO

Although petroleum has long been known After three years of persistent effort and to exist, systematic exploration of the Mexexploration, a spring of petroleum, at a depth ican oil fields has extended over a period little of 1738 feet, and several producing wells are more than six years. There is, however, every now being worked by the government and indication that the republic will take a leadby one private company at Comodoro Riva- ing place in the production and refining of diya, Chubut. The product compares favor- petroleum. Wells have been brought in at

This immediately caught fire, and burned for a period of fifty-seven days, during which time the flames mounted to heights ranging from 800 to For the calendar year 1908 the total petro1500 feet and measured forty to seventy-five feet leum production in Peru was 1,011,180 barin width, and it has been variously estimated that from 60,000 to 500,000 barrels of oil were consumed rels. Steamers between Callao and Panama, daily before the fire was extinguished and the fields making 19 knots an hour, burn Peruvian