From The Spectator. THE VALUE OF AMENITY. best the sea in storm and commotion, with ❘ not as a place where the shadows fall as We should like to know the true explanation of the indubitable fact that the common toilers of a beautiful country, with the rarest exceptions, never perceive its beauty, and cannot conceive what it is that so induces visitors to admire. The Swiss and the Highlanders are positively drawn by their mountains, when they are away from them, as lovers by their brides; but when present, they do not admire details, and are perplexed by those who do. The Switzer will point out anything as of interest except the view, unless he has got it up from a book, and the Highlander is enraptured with the new house which vulgarizes a grand prospect. The popular explanation is want of imagination; but the Switzer shows no such want in his legends, and the Highlander is the most imaginative of mankind. Another explanation is the deadening effect of custom; but why does not that affect strangers who settle amid these scenes, and never lose the inner delight the sight of them had originally caused? We presume that villagers see not what strangers expect them to see because necessity has compelled them to think first of other things than effect, to treat the glen, for example, as the place where they live and work, and a member of the House of Commons de- | rat, king of Naples, wished, for reasons clares that unless certain prison rules are altered as he wants them altered, he will, if he ever suffers under them, bring a pail of slops into the House of Commons and dash them in the face of the chief secretary for Ireland, and when a public meet ing allows a member of the Cabinet to be described as 66 base, brutal, and bloody Balfour"? Yet, notwithstanding that hard-headed men who ought to know their own busi. ness, show, by violating every dictate not merely of courtesy but of decency, that they set no kind of value on amenity in politics, we are by no means inclined to think that they are well advised. Let a government be as democratic as you please, and still amenity of language and conduct will pay. Amenity means strength, fairness, tolerance, and comes so obviously from the desire to get at the real issue, and not to trouble with the personal crust which surrounds every political question, that the mob understand and admire it. The lesson that when two men are disputing, the one that keeps his head, grows cool as his opponent gets hot, and refuses to be led into a new quarrel because he is called names and has motives imputed to him, is the one that will win, is soon learned and understood by the most uneducated. The man who does not get angry and does not call names is in every society recognized as the strong man, and strong men always inspire a democracy with respect and admiration. Great, however, as is the value of amenity in inspiring the sense of strength and confidence, it is almost as great from the fact that it does not, like its opposite, make enemies. The man who has no amenity in conduct or language is always making | personal enemies. Now, for one man who will fight hard where principles are involved, there are fifty who will fight to the death for personal considerations. The politician, therefore, who cannot keep a civil tongue in his head often finds this out. Examples might be quoted of sharptongued candidates who, to the apparent delight of the audience, have night after night silenced the askers of awkward questions by some piece of clever insolence, and who, in spite of good prospects, have found themselves at the bottom of the poll. The man who gets a telling, illnatured score off an opponent, may silence that opponent and expose his ignorance; but he creates for himself the most dangerous possible form of enemy, an enemy with a personal grudge. When Mu of State expediency, to abolish a number of monasteries, he issued an edict making the alleged misdeeds of monks his excuse, and so involving himself in a general quarrel with the Church, his astute master, the great Napoleon, read him a very per tinent lecture on the value of amenity in such matters, and pointed out how, if he had pleaded that he made the confisca tions in the interests of the Church itself, he might have attained his object just as easily, and yet have managed to give the minimum of offence. As an example of the positive value of this sort of amenity in politics that is, of the quality of not giving offence by the use of hard words and the imputing of motives may be instanced the position of Lord Hartington in English public life. Lord Hartington, except strength, has few qualities which would render him attractive to a democracy but amenity. Yet so valuable is this quality, that he has a firmer hold on the people of England, taking friends and foes together, than any other statesman. In one sense, indeed, Lord Hartington is a more popular man than Mr. Gladstone himself, for he has no enemies; whereas Mr. Gladstone, though his supporters actually worship him, is an object of bitter hostility to an enormous part of the population. Mr. Chamberlain, since he has differed from Mr. Gladstone, has become the object of the fiercest denunciation among his old friends. Lord Hartington, though his opinions ought to cause much more antipathy among the Gladstonians, is always treated by them with perfect respect as a man to whom it would be impossible to attribute any motives but the highest. To win this place, Lord Hartington has had not the gifts of enthusiasm, nor of buoyant good-humorlike Lord Rosebery. nor of burning eloquence, nor of any skill in the manipulation of public opinion. He is simply a sincere, civil-spoken man, who is never frightened or irritated into trying to get the better of his opponents by covering them with virulent abuse. Certainly his career is a tribute, if one was needed, to the value of amenity in political life. be Yet another value of amenity may found in its effect as an immediate weapon in political warfare. To answer a violent man with violent language is the very worst way in which to deal with him. To remain firm with a good grace is just as important as to yield gracefully. There is no such effective answer as silence, or else language which shall make as vio lent a contrast as possible with the intem-ers possessed of far superior military force. From The Spectator. THE NEW GUNPOWDER. tions, or else downwards. In using gunpowder, therefore, to propel projectiles from a cannon, the cannon has to be made of sufficient strength, weight, and thick. ness to resist the explosion of the charge. The new gunpowder, which is the discovery of a Russian engineer, and has been named "sleetover," is an explosive which only acts in one direction, namely, forwards. This quality immediately does away with the necessity for solid, heavy instruments from which to throw the projectile. It is said, indeed, that ballcartridges loaded with sleetover have actually been fired from cardboard tubes with complete success, and without damaging the tubes in any way. If these statements are true, they certainly mean a most extraordinary change in the complexion of modern warfare. Even if it might not be possible to use paper cannon in actual war though, of course, paper could be made quite stiff and tough enough for the purpose metals far lighter than steel or brass could in future be used for artillery. That lightest, toughest of metals, aluminium, would serve the purpose admirably. But if the artillery train for an army could consist of tubes of aluminium, and a siege train could thus be carIt is rumored in St. Petersburg that a ried on men's shoulders, or, at any rate, new form of gunpowder has been discov-slung between horses, where would be the ered the qualities of which are such as may be expected completely to revolutionize modern warfare. If the compound turns out really to be what it professes, a means of destruction has been discovered which will do away forever with the chance of success always possessed before by a population determined to defend its open country, its hills and forests, against invasion, even when confronted with vastly superior military force. Hitherto, wild and mountainous countries, granted that the inhabitants were of a warlike kind, have been difficult to conquer, in a great measure because of the impossibility of making use of artillery. It is the absence of artillery that often gives a population trained to arms—say, like the Boers or Montenegrins the advantage over pow protection of a mountain range? "Le canon, quand pourrait-il passer le Simplon?" was Napoleon's constant question to the engineers who were building him the first and best mountain road in the world, for till he could take his artillery safely and quickly into Italy, he felt that he had no real hold on the mountain-walled peninsula. If sleetover fulfils its promises, a modern general will have no such cares; for wherever a trooper can go, there can go the guns. Of course, the ammunition and the shells will remain as heavy as ever; but that, since their bulk, except in the case of naval artillery, is not excessive, will not really prevent movements of troops over mountains. To get the cannon across is the real point; that once accomplished, the means for firing it off will follow. The Swiss rely upon the fact that though the'r highlands are now crossed by roads in every direction, they could in a very short time, by breaking down bridges and blowing up rockcuttings and tunnels, render the country as inaccessible for artillery as it was a hundred years ago. With aluminium guns, however, the obstructions on which they think they can rely would be rendered absolutely useless. Again, in the case of India, the Himalayas, if sleetover comes into use, will afford by no means the protection against a Russian attack which they would have done in the case of heavy guns, which could only move along something in the nature of a road. The Russian advance by the snowy passes of the Cabul range, the most direct, and, in that sense, easiest route into India, has always been regarded as impossible, because of the difficulty of conveying the cannon. If now for an army to march "light" means marching with a train of powerful guns, we are certainly placed by the new invention in a far more difficult position than when the hills still forbade the passage of anything but mule or camel batteries. But though in India the invention might in these ways harm us, in other ways it would do us nothing but good. Take, for instance, the pacification of Burmah. If we could be now employing powerful batteries of artillery, which could be moved anywhere on horses' backs, we should have a far easier task in breaking up the bands of dacoits. In the case, too, of those small expeditions into the hills which are so often occurring on the northern and north-western frontiers of India, where it is necessary to march into a wild hill country and attack the stockaded hill citadel of some small hostile tribe, the new invention would indeed prove invaluable. If the attacking force could only take with them a powerful piece of artillery, the difficulties of such expeditions would vanish. Perhaps one of the most efficient ways in which guns of paper or very light metal might be used, would be by their adaptation to tricycles. If two men could propel, by their own energy, a double tricycle fitted with a light aluminium gun, the artillery might be made almost independent of horses. Some recent experiments at Aldershot showed that velocipedes carrying some twenty or thirty soldiers could easily be developed into a very useful arm of the service for occasions where very rapid marching was required. If cycle guns could be made practicable, the terrible difficulties encountered by the general who has to find, first his horses and then their forage, would be very simply got over. We may see the time when cycle batteries will be a feature of every army, and when that most striking of sights, the horse artillery coming up at the gallop, will be nothing but a memory. It is not, however, in artillery alone that the effect of an invention like sleetover would be felt. One of the great difficulties of the repeating rifle is its weight. If, however, the barrel could be made of sheet tin, or aluminium just thick enough to keep its shape, the weight saved might be utilized by adding to the charge in the magazine, and a rifle that would fire thirty shots in succession might conceivably be produced. A curious feature of the new explosive is stated to be its cheapness. The cost of sleetover is said to be only one-tenth of that of ordinary gunpowder. This, however, is not a very important consideration, for the money required for gunpowder, were it sixty times as expensive as it is, would always be forthcoming. The nature of the new composition is stated to be at present a profound secret. If it turns out a success, we very much doubt its remaining so. Some workman, or, as it is in Russia, perhaps some high official, will betray it. If not, a hint will be traced out by some ingenious chemist anxious to benefit the world. Sooner or later, it is sure to come out. It is possible, of course, that the Russians might keep it till the outbreak of a war in wartime the secret must be divulged, for some of the cartridges would certainly be taken or found lying about, and the contents analyzed and might gain thereby a great advantage. But would any power dare to enter on a struggle using the new gunpowder alone? Till tested by actual war, no one could say positively if it would really answer. Probably, therefore, no army would venture beyond an experi ment, and a mere experiment would render them no real assistance. New devices in war show about an equal record of success and failure. The Prussians founded their supremacy on the needle-gun. 1870, the French utterly failed to effect anything with their boasted mitrailleuses. If sleetover is a reality, it may possibly turn out like the needle-gun. It is equally possible that it may, for some unforeseen reason, be utterly valueless; but rumors about weapons of war are usually derived from experts by no means credulous. In For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. * Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. |