drink. There is a pompous, high-pitched sentence for you. Only, I am never morose, and life amuses me.'

'It is well-fitted to impel and kindle youth.' So wrote Brooke of Emerson's Essays; and the remark was made in admiring homage. No commendation can be more fitly made of Brooke's own critical work. It is praise that might easily be misunderstood in view of the kind of thing that is not uncommonly supposed to be suitable for this purpose, but, rightly considered, it implies no easy distinction. The young mind, in its first delighted and uncertain consciousness of the life of poetry, could have no better fortune than to come under the influence of Brooke's essays. It would suffer there nothing of the indignity that is nearly always done by age to youth in the name of instruction; it would find an unblemished eagerness to match its own, it would come continually upon profound yet simple generalisations to help it in the exercise of its judgment, and it would profit incalculably by having before it a rare example of humility. This last quality lies very sweetly at the roots of all Brooke's critical thought. It is so beautiful a poem,' he writes of 'Maud,'

'that the small regrets of criticism are as nothing in comparison with the large delights its poetry gives. Moreover, the criticisms may be all wrong. When we approach a great poet's work, our proper position is humility.' And, again, 'It is not by saying that one poet is better than another that we shall win a good delight for ourselves. It is by loving each of them for his proper work, and by our gratitude to them all.'

It is not necessary to attempt any detailed survey of what is a very considerable body of work, work that has, within its easily definable limitations, a durable distinction. Throughout the essays are scattered passages that could have been achieved by none but a critical mind of a very high order, a mind half directed by genius, as we have seen. Here are two examples taken indifferently from among scores. He asks what kind of poems will be written (by a poet whose instincts are sound in the matter) at a time of national crisis.

"They will not be directly written on the special national

excitements. The poet is kindled by these excitements, but he does not write on them. The stirring in his heart which he receives from the nation he applies to his own subjects, those which are personal to him.'

And this is what he says of Meredith

'It is easy to be obscure, but there is a certain difficulty in being as obscure as Meredith was; and he liked that difficulty, and kept it with him, as a king keeps a jester.'

His style, too, often touches a most felicitous precision. 'Their manner,' he says of Milton's prose works, 'is always victorious; an audacity and a defiant life fill their controversy.' The limitations that keep his critical work as a whole from the first rank which, by the evidence of its finest moments, it might have taken, are imposed by that same defect of concentrative power that has already been examined. Just as in life he responded, too readily for serene spiritual self-realisation, to the multifarious claims of the world, so he was often so eager to explore every mood in the poet he was studying and to pour out his sympathy upon every turn in his poet's deliberation, that he left the hard way of close and exact analysis of the particular in relation to general principles and strayed into the diffuseness of unprofitable paraphrase. Both in his character and in his writing he suffered, it would seem, more than any man of his measure whose life has been recorded, from the defects of his qualities. But the qualities were of the very finest texture, and, had they been as little disturbed by conflicting elements as by every chance of nature they ought to have been, he would not only have been the memorable and distinguished figure that he is, he would have been one of the greatest men of his age.

JOHN DRINKWATER.

Art. 14.-THE GRIEVANCES AND AIMS OF LABOUR.

IN 1910 the late Hubert Bland was writing newspaper articles under the heading 'The Labour Sphinx.' In 1914 members of a Borough Council were brought before a magistrate 'for telling the People that in time of war they were told they were good boys, and sent out to fight, while in time of peace they were locked out for twentyseven weeks.' To-day we are constantly hearing such questions as:

1. What are the grievances and aims of Labour?'

2. What are the views of Labour on excess profits, profiteering and food shortage?'

3. Why does Labour distrust not merely the Government but also its own leaders ? '

4. What influence have Syndicalism, Socialism and Pacificism on the mental attitude and activities of Labour?'

5. What is Labour's attitude on the War? What influence is being exercised by the Shop Stewards?'

6. 'What is the explanation of the general tendency to break away from Trade Unionism?'

Labour has never been understood by its rulers. Today, though certain of its members have at least a voice in the government of the country, it is less understood than ever it was. Much redundant mental energy and pounds of good printers' ink have been spent over discussion of the psychology of the child mind; little or no serious effort has been made to comprehend workingclass mentality. Deep down even in the best minds among us there exists a tendency to regard the term 'misfortune' as synonymous with 'inferiority.' Here it is of the utmost importance that there should be no failure, on the part of either the unfortunate or the fortunate, to comprehend the position. An ideal Government would understand every section of the governed, and would permit itself to be in some sort dominated by unalterable world-conditions, this submission arising out of its own wide knowledge. The more nearly our rulers approach a state of omniscience, the better will they govern, provided they be honest. Yet, if questions similar to those set forth above are actually being discussed, it seems to be clear that our Government

does not understand the working classes. Nor is it easy to see where, in past times, whole-hearted effort has been made to arrive at any such understanding. On the contrary, we find that Government after Government has encouraged the Capitalist Press in its continued policy of deceiving the general public with libels concerning Labour, while suppressing Labour's reasoned answers to such libels.

Every section of the community has its grievances, its aims and its opinions. So deep and real are the grievances of Labour that it is not remarkable to find its ambitions too exalted. Yet, so sound is the common-sense of Labour that, given correct premises, its opinions are trustworthy. Unfortunately, the reading public is given very little opportunity of realising how grossly it has been deceived by the Press in these matters. The demagogue whose avowed object it was to anger the crowd never accomplished that end with the thoroughness constantly achieved by our daily papers. Should there be a revolution within the next ten years, it is safe to predict that it will be brought about by the Capitalist Press.

Let us take the above-mentioned questions in order. 1. What are the chief grievances of Labour? Four of preeminent importance may be considered here: the working hours are too long, the pay is too low, the education provided is defective, and there is generally complete failure on the part of more fortunate persons to realise that working men and women are human.

In normal times the hours are long because the pay is low. A week's holiday in adult life is a fiscal impossibility for the very great majority. Evenings, Saturday afternoons and Sundays are, more often than not, spent in some form of irregular employ that a little extra money may be earned or some expenditure avoided. The pay is so low that suspension' is a real punishment and charity a necessity. The extravagance of the poor is infinitesimal when compared with that of the well-to-do. In each generation a small percentage of workers manage to save enough to maintain them when past work, but almost invariably it will be found that this struggle has resulted in permanent injury to health. Labourers are forced to retire at a much earlier age than are Cabinet Ministers, Judges and others in the educated upper classes.

That the education provided is inadequate, every employer will testify and almost every Education Bill demonstrates. Such Bills deal as a rule with everything except education, and much of the education now supplied is useless to the ordinary man. With all respect to learning, it is surely a mistake to throw open the avenues leading to it to children who have no chance of following them up. Only sound elementary education should be offered to the majority for a generation or two. Before everything else, soundness and real utility should be insisted upon.

That Labour is not generally considered human is indicated by many facts-the treatment of domestic servants and artisans as though they were unbreakable automata, the contempt felt and sometimes shown to that vast army whose members labour among dirt that the rest of the community may be clean, and so on. Nor, in this connexion, must we forget some of the after-war suggestions which have been put forward and welcomed in higher circles, notably those relating to the widespread introduction of Mass Production, which, if adopted, will degrade human beings to the condition of attachments to automatic machines, attachments more cheaply replaced than parts composed of iron or steel.

What, then, are the aims of Labour? They are essentially human; sometimes mean and paltry, generally a little selfish, occasionally noble. What, in fact, are the aims of the average man in any class? To better his lot in life, to provide adequately for his natural dependants, and to strive that the lot of his children shall be as happy as circumstances will allow; these, too, are the aims of Labour. But there the similarity ceases. Labour-can show a greater justification since its claims meet with less recognition. Law and custom combine to provide the majority with less fresh air, less open sky, less leisure, and nothing to look forward to in life. It is true that there are those among them whose only aim in life is drink, and whose main achievement it is to bring misery on the few and undeserved opprobrium on the many. With this small minority the Law should deal.

Even so brief a consideration of the aims of Labour cannot be completed without reference to the methods adopted in the attempt to further those aims. Great