and that and the other man, peremptorily, without alleging cause, so we have a right to like this or that author without saying anything more than that he pleases us. Perhaps you can give no good reason for your partiality for my poor literary labors

perhaps you will not be content with my solution, though I do not think I claim what would be denied me.

At any rate I have made you a shade, a thought, an appreciable atom happier for having written, and you tell me as much, and I feel the same kind of gratitude that a young girl does to the youth who whispers in her ear that he loves her. I do not know whether it is logical to be grateful under such circumstances, but I know it is natural. The Cornhill Magazine

This letter might well frighten you if it threatened more like itself. But your father said you would n't mind receiving an ‘autograph,' and I could not resist the temptation of prefixing a few words, which you can make into curl papers or candle lighters and keep the slip below with all the signature of Yours devotedly,

Oliver Wendell Holmes. Boston, Oct. 20th, 1870.

This letter, again, is written in exquisite caligraphy on only one small sheet. But the piece of paper made a friend who still cherishes the memory of the man who wrote on it.

MR. E. V. LUCAS, writing, of course, as a non-musician, had an interesting article in one of the London papers the other day on Rosing's recitals exhibiting "The Soul of Russia' in song. Mr. Lucas asks whether 'The Soul of England' could be illustrated by a song recital in Petrograd; and, if so, what would be the singer's choice of songs?

Rosing divides his cycle into five sections, entitled 'Folk Songs,' 'Oppression,' 'Love,' 'Suffering,' and 'Satire and Gayety.' Mr. Lucas naturally doubts whether such a scheme would apply in its entirety to England. He rules out at once the heading of 'Oppression'; for this, he thinks, 'Conquest' would have to be substituted. I am not sure that he is wholly right. Oppression from abroad we may not have known since the Norman Conquest; but there has been oppression enough within our borders. The suf

ferings of the poor under the protectionist or the cotton-spinning régime of the first half of the nineteenth century ought surely to make as good emotional stuff for music as the sufferings of the Russians under an invader. These working people had their own. poet in Ebenezer Elliott; had we, as a race, been a little more musical, they might have had also the musical equivalent of the 'Corn Law Rhymes'the feelings of the suffering poor expressed in music by some one of their own class.

On the whole, English music would make rather a poor show in a recital of the Rosing kind. By drawing not merely upon the song but upon our music in general we might, possibly, just manage to give the foreigner a glimpse of the English soul; but it would be only a glimpse. (I hope no furious 'nationalist' will write in triumph to the

Observer to point out that here am I talking about 'the English soul' after denying for years the existence of such a thing. A term like 'the English soul' or the English character' only becomes a danger when used as the musical nationalists use it; but no one in his senses denies that local conditions have made us in some respects different from foreigners, and 'the English soul' may serve as a convenient piece of shorthand for these local idiosyncrasies.) Nothing, in fact, could demonstrate the limitations of English music so forcibly as an attempt to make a selection of music that should really reveal us to the intelligent foreigner as our poetry or our fiction does. The central fact in our national life is surely the sea. We have some sense of the sea voiced for us in our poetry and prose, though even there for the best things that have been said on the subject we have to go to a Pole like Mr. Conrad. But our music has almost invariably failed to catch the color and the mystery of the sea. If there is a distinct type among us it is that of the sailor; the sea has made of him a being more different from the rest of us in character, in psychology, even in appearance, than the average Frenchman or Russian is. But though we have plenty of songs about the sailor, we have no songs that express the sailor. Some of Dibdin's come nearest to doing it; but Dibdin's musical equipment was a meagre one. For the rest, the composers of sailor songs give us nothing but a lay figure. It is always the hero of the three jolly sailor boys' type, the shore sailor compounded of a love of grog and a love of the tradesman's daughter; of the strange, remote look you can see in the eye of any sailor as you pass him in the street-the unconscious look that comes of always look ing over vast spaces and of being more solitary of soul than the rest of us

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of this the songs give us absolutely nothing. There is not a single English song that could represent to a foreigner the part played by the sea in making Englishmen what they are nothing comparable to the expression that Sibelius has given to the forests and lakes of Finland. Delius has painted the salt sadness of the sea very wonderfully in 'Sea Drift,' and Bantock has given us the true sea sense in some parts of his 'Hebridean' Symphony; but the real sea and the real sailor do not exist in English song.

It is astonishing, when one comes to think of it, how little of our English character (or characters) and how little of our English landscape and seascape is reflected in our music. Some people will have it that Parry's music expresses the English bluffness. But Parry's musical bluffness seems to me · only an affectation of the 'three jolly sailor boys' order; his admirers persuaded him that it had fallen to him to be the representative English musician, and he dressed for the part, so to speak for the part, that is, as he conceived it. Personally, I should be sorry to have foreigners derive their notion of the Englishman from Parry's music: I should prefer a little less bluffness and a little more beauty. We are really not as dull, as stiff jointed, mentally and physically, as Parry's music would make us out to be. The truth is that we English have as yet hardly found ourselves in music. Think of what the war produced in the way of poetry, and then of the total failure of all our musicians, except Elgar!

In other fields we have quite a number of good songs, but few of them really represent England. Bantock's Oriental imaginings, for instance, beautiful as they are, are only English in the sense that they are the work of an Englishman, not English in the sense that A Shropshire Lad, or Clayhanger, or

Kipps is. Here and there we get, in English music, a real breath of the English countryside. Sullivan, in a modest way, has given it us in the duet between Elsie and Prince Henry in the middle of 'The Golden Legend'; and in the final duet between the soldier and the landlady in 'The Boatswain's Mate' we have unmistakable English types expressing themselves in a natural English idiom. We have few firstrate English love-songs. Among the best of those that seem to me truly English are Mr. F. C. Nicholls's Tennyson settings. Nor is our peculiar English cheerfulness well expressed in our songs. Those that aim at it merely exploit, for the most part, one of two well-worn clichés - the 'three jolly sailor boys' trick applied to the rollicking countryman. For the real thing we have to go to the second of the 'Pomp

The Observer

and Circumstance' marches. In a short column I cannot profess to cover the whole ground, and I must ask my readers not to imagine that I have forgotten such good and characteristically English things as Roger Quilter's 'Julia' cycle, or the songs of Butterworth and others. But, on the whole, England is expressed very poorly in English song. It may be because our composers have lived too much in conservatoires and concert rooms, and have not used their eyes and ears enough in the actual world. There is no reason in the nature of things why some English composer should not do for the English village idiot what Moussorgsky has done for the Russian idiot in his marvelously pathetic 'Savichna' - no reason, except that our conservatoirebred musician would think the village idiot beneath his notice.

The Nation

THE ECONOMIC PROSPECTS OF THE CZECHO-SLOVAK

REPUBLIC

FROM the economic standpoint the Czecho-Slovak State is so far the most prosperous of all the National States in what was formerly the Dual Monarchy. Its wealth in natural products of every sort proves this conclusively. It is true that there are no signs apparent that normal production will be resumed. The eight-hour working day is already law, but while in German mines the eight-hour shift counts from the arrival of the miner at his work, in the OstrauKarwin district an hour is deducted for the time spent in going into and out of the pit. Wages show no tendency to fall. In the Ostrau district there have been repeated increases, and since a minimum wage of 75 per cent of the average earnings in the period immediately preceding the introduction of the new system has been settled, every hewer draws at least 14 Kronen a day, however little work he gets through. In addition there are bonuses for children, etc. The output of coal is therefore always in arrears, and is from 35 to 40 per cent below the peace figures, and some 25 per cent below the summer output. As the Czecho-Slovak State is only concerned about its own coal requirements and does not trouble to supply the neighboring States, there is enough coal extracted to work the railways and important undertakings. The railway traffic is not so congested as in Germany; in fact, over the frontier express trains are running with ample accommodation. The sugar factories are able to cope with the harvested beet, and the Czechs are counting on

having a large surplus for export. This, with a number of other products, is intended to procure an equivalent value of foodstuffs and raw material, which are as much required by Czecho-Slovakia as by the rest of Central Europe. The harvest is sufficient to feed the population for several months, and so, since the secession from the Monarchy and the export prohibitions, the prices of foodstuffs have fallen and living is cheaper than it was and than it is actually at Vienna.

Production is not, however, normal, except in the foodstuffs industry. The textile industries, which are dependent on foreign raw materials, are in much the same position as before, as also the heavy industries, in which the munition works have found it difficult to change over to peace conditions. In many great works, as, for example, at Witkowitz, the workmen, whose number has been greatly reduced been greatly reduced directly after the outbreak of war the numbers fell from 23,000 to 13,000 owing to the defection of Poles, Germans, etc., but they have risen again to 17,000 through the return of the soldiers have been employed on making peace articles, more especially railway material, but as no special orders were on hand the output has chiefly been switches, pairs of wheels, and such stock articles. The Skoda works, with their enormous plant, are almost at a standstill. The workmen have decreased from a maximum staff of 32,000 to 15,000; in any case, the shortage of coal and disinclination to work would have checked the transition to peace manufactures, even if the break-up of the Empire had not brought about another critical position. The Skoda works, the largest in

dustrial concern of the Czecho-Slovak State, counted on a large export of their cannons, etc., which had gained great reputation during the war, and also wished to produce peace-time articles on a large scale of steel and cast iron in the railway department, and especially in the proposed locomotive works. The Skoda works have indeed actually supplied the Czecho-Slovak government during the revolution with cannon, but on the whole the government, although the company's premises are in Pilsen, regards the business as German, since hitherto its centre for capital and credit has been Vienna. They are among the largest creditors of the War Administration - and it is calculated that the orders, including those not yet completed, may run to 200,000,000 Kronen, and the CzechoSlovak government is very slow in recognizing their claims. The Skoda works have indeed only received from the Liquidation Commission in Vienna the barest amount for pressing wage and other payments. It is conceivable, therefore, that they look to the CzechoSlovak government for support, and there are rumors of negotiations with the Zivnostenska Bank. Baron Skoda holds nearly half the shares and could easily part with some of them to the bank and give it an interest in the concern. Some such arrangement is probable, unless the Czecho-Slovak government wishes to destroy this and other concerns by non-recognition of their claims on the war administration. It is doubtful whether such policy is wise, even if it allows the government to get the works cheaply into its own hands, and it is not calculated to discourage Bolshevism. Many other works in the Czecho-Slovak State are in a similar plight. Where the war material industries have made large demands on the old War Treasury they are crippled, as they can barely obtain new credits for

their working expenses. Concerns which have large holdings in war loan are hampered by its unsaleability and the refusal of the government to allow its use for payment of war taxes.

The Czecho-Slovak government issued a Freedom Loan of 500,000,000 Kronen in 4 per cent, 4-year Treasury Bonds at par. There were 191,000 subscribers, who subscribed altogether 1,048,400,000 Kronen. In consequence, only the small subscriptions up to 1,000 Kronen could be satisfied in full, while of the larger subscriptions up to 10,000 Kronen, 50 per cent, and of those up to 50,000 Kronen, 40 per cent, and of those above that amount 30 per cent only were allotted. In any case the loan is quite inadequate to meet the increased demand for money. One of the first financial measures of the Czech government was the issue of emergency money by the Bohemian Landesbank. These bills- which carry no interest, and may only be used in commercial discount and banking transactionshave a circulation of 90 days at most. The bank may issue such bills to the amount of four times the 'cash' held by it in notes of the Austro-Hungarian Bank and in denominational coins of Krone currency. The bills are legal currency in the Czecho-Slovak State equally with bank notes of the AustroHungarian Bank, and are accepted at public banks. Another institution started by the Czecho-Slovak State is a Post Office Savings Bank of its own, which will compulsorily take over the clients of the Austrian Post Office Savings Bank living within its domain. A Giro-bank has been founded in Prague, on the model of that at Vienna, with a capital of 1,000,000 Kronen to develop the business in money and securities on the Prague Bourse, but difficulties seem to be in the way of reopening the bourse, which is under predominantly Czech management. Another step