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in the heavens, should have come to be regarded as powers influencing the destinies of men. The necessity for regarding some of them as enemies, to account for adverse rulings in earthly courses, has, happily, been cleared away, and now all are friends in "the house of life,"-cheerful friends, to boot, for they are always shining. Earth mists dim at times their brightness, or even conceal them wholly from us for a season. But this only adds to their charm. The face of the human friend must at times be clouded to be lovably human. The same bright, unvarying smile would become unmeaning, if not repellent. The love is warmer when embracing the glittering brightness of a star on a frosty night, its globular radiance from a mountain height, and the softer light in summer.

The great majority, unfortunately, pass through life without having made friends with the stars. They have been too intent upon everyday struggles. Market prices are not quoted in star-script. They have Nature's usual kindly compensation of not realizing their loss, for the highest friendship is largely unconscious of itself. The determination to be friendly defeats its purpose, and we only realize the meaning and worth of friends when it occasionally strikes us what the world would be like without them. As dreary as the sky without the stars. Pregnant of misery and disaster are the comments upon the supposition by all to whom it has suggested itself, and especially by those sacred writers who turned for their highest inspiration to the book of the heavens. "Let the stars of the twilight thereof be dark." "For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light." "The stars shall withdraw their shining." "I will cover the heaven and make the stars thereof dark." A deeper gloom must have been cast over

the soul of Satan when upon his first visit to earth he found it not only

"Dark, waste and wild under the frown of night,"

but also "starless."

The stars, as seems natural, were kindly friends to human St. Paul, for when in tribulation on the sea, he writes that "when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away." There is no more cheering and hopeful presence to the storm-tossed sailor than the peep of a star through a ragged rift in wind-torn clouds, and in times of less stress, with a hundred of its brethren, it is ready to point out his path to him upon the waste of waters.

From the human standard the stars necessarily lose in the objective solidity of friendship, owing to their mysterious distance from us; but, on the other hand, they gain subjectively in its range, elevation, and purity. Human nature is too commonplace to be able to supply all that is unconsciously looked for in a friend. The one who expects does not possess it himself, although he is not aware of the fact. To make up for deficiencies, subjective bias magnifies what is small, and supplies what is lacking, and as there is not so favorable a field for its exercise when friends come often into contact with each other, friendship is stronger and more lasting when they meet more rarely. We readily find the qualities we most desire in our friends the stars, and there is no danger of being disappointed in the materialism of closer contact, unless temporarily when listening to the lecture. In particular do we find them the true friends of adversity. Ask the invalid, with the dragging length of a sleepless night, or the wearier length of the longed-for day, pressing on his soul, what he thinks of the morning star, or the

first glimmer of that of evening! They are truly to him "the lamps of God."

A steady look at the stars is the most soothing anodyne to pride and self-esteem unjustly bruised, oftentimes harder to bear than physical pain. But our friendships, happily, are but infrequently those of pain. In the long courses of life free from it, love gains a greater depth, ambition a loftier tone, and sympathy a nobler breadth after a communing with our friends the The Spectator.

stars; and as for the petty worries of which every life has a full share, they appear too insignificant to be worth troubling about. And this high dignity of friendship the stars will always carry, for was not the deepest expression of the friendship of God Himself towards man heralded to him on the beam of a star, that bright Star of Bethlehem whose light has brightened, and will ever continue to brighten, many a dark corner and weary hour of earth?

WHY THE BUDGET IS "POPULAR."

[Addressed to the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER by a typical member of the class which constitutes the vast majority of the electorate.]

You ask me if your little Bill,

Round which the bees of faction buzz,

Causes my heart a happy thrill?

My answer is: "It does."

I like a thing that knocks the folks

Who mote and bloat and dance and dine,
That takes the stuff from out their pokes
And puts it into mine.

Not that I care who pays my way;

Such worries never make me fret;
I'm always free, come whence it may,
To pouch what I can get.

The thought of charity I detest

But mean to bear it like a man;

You tap the source, I'll do the rest
And swallow all I can.

And, though you chop and change your Bill
From what was perfect at the start,

In my opinion it is still

A noble Work of Art.

Whether the owner or the State
Should pay the valuation fee
May be a matter for debate

But makes no odds to me.

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Lord Curzon, in his recent excellent speech made clear the feeling of British good-will towards Turkey. The cry of "Effendimez Chok yasha" rang through the great room at Hôtel Cecil as the delegates from the Imperial Ottoman Parliament acclaimed the toast to the health of Sultan Mahomed V. We were glad to hear that of all the Indian feudatory princes none were more loyal than those of the Moslem faith. Lord Curzon spoke only the truth when he alluded to the difficulties of the task before the Turks. Reactionary forces, temporarily hidden, may at any moment, like an after-burst

of Vesuvius, upset and destroy perhaps all around them. The various evil traditions and customs of their own country had to be combated by the members of the New Turkish Parliament, and they had jealous and powerful neighbors in Europe who may (although Lord Curzon did not voice this feeling) profit from the fact that the fringe of States who have gained their liberty at Turkey's expense are not yet all contented. It is indeed "a stupendous task" before our friends! To find the experts to organize and train; to mould activities and repress extravagances in their midst; to retain the

loyalty of their magnificent army; to secure the defences of their Empire; to reconstruct the navy; all this will demand money as well as courage. We are indeed glad to welcome among us the patriotic Turks who desire our support. We must be prepared to give them help, financial-and perhaps of another sort-though it must be, as Sir Edward Grey assured the delegates at the House of Commons luncheon, "help without interference.". Above all, we trust the Turks will sternly repress all attempts to revive those feuds amongst their own people that have only lately filled their most ardent sympathizers with horror. For it is these feuds that alienate the sympathy of nations and give the enemies of Turkey-open or secret-the greatest assistance in attacking her.

Mr. E. F. Knight, in his excellent book The Awakening of Turkey, points out that a sharp distinction must be drawn between the governing or Turkish race and those subject Moslem races, Kurd and Circassian, whose fanaticism and cruelty, fostered by a decaying despotism, have been so often held up as typical of Turkish character. The men who first undertook the task of regenerating Turkey are not those who are now reaping the reward. The pioneers of the movement for freedom suffered in exile and in prison for their propaganda. In the drawing-room of the old house of the Binns which shows the initials of its restorer, Thomas Dalyell, who commanded the Royal Army at Worcester in 1651, one met in the fifties and sixties of the last century, Reshid, Fuad, and the gentle yet dauntless Midhat. These men, under the reigns of Sultans Abdul Medjid and Abdul Aziz, laid the "solid foundations of Liberalism in the Turkish Empire." It was not easy to build such an edifice on the soil watered by the blood of so many martyrs, stiff with the prejudice of ages. The rocks

were the intrigues of Bulgar, of Greek, of Serb, of Wallach; the craft and ambition of Armenian; the lust and cruelty of Kurd and Lazi. The Lazis, who inhabit the country between Trebizond and Batum, are often called Circassians. Call them what you will, they are cruel oppressors. And not only the Christian subjects of the Sultan were terrorized by them and the Kurds. Ask the Arabs of Irak-Arabi, of the borders of the Great Nefud, the Syrians of the desert, how they suffered during the despotism of Abdul Hamid's reign. A wave of sympathy from Exeter Hall ran through England in favor of Turkey's Christian enemies. but any stick was good enough to beat the Turkish dog with. The most absurd falsehoods were circulated against the Ottomans in London; so that our old ally of Silistria and Kars suffered perhaps more from our ignorant criticism than from the callous indifference of other Western Powers.

If the task of the Turks be considered seriatim it will be found no small one. Albania, coveted by Austria, remembered by Italy, whose Southern population is intimately associated with the Albanians, is now being pacified by Djavet Pasha's troops. It is in a state of constant ferment. Macedonia is recovering from the throes of internecine feuds and international surveillance. The gathering of harvests will keep the people of the regions of Monastir (Bitolia) and Salonika quiet until the atar gûi and plums and corn are made or carried. About Grevena and Diskata the troublesome Greeks have to be carefully watched, and their relations with their brothers in Salonika and the capital considered. In the Adrianople district the tramp of armed men is heard. The necessity for concentration has passed as regards Bulgaria, but the riffraff of Anatolia has been transferred there for surveillance. This, so far, is European Tur

key, not too promising a look-out. But the prospect there is pleasing compared with that across the water.

Brussa, connected by rail with Mudania on the Sea of Marmora, is quiet, for there and in Ismid the cultivation of mulberrytrees and cocoons occupies the peasantry. The production of attar of roses is encouraged by the Government, who supply stocks of rose plants to the people. The provinces of Asia Minor are rich in minerals if the mines were worked. In the Smyrna sanjak both gold and silver are found. The turbulent Greeks of the islands are kept in awe by the arrival of Admiral Gambier, for since he came to Turkey the new cruisers can move. They carry convincing arguments in the shape of 6-inch and 4.7-inch guns. The district of Erzinjan and Erzerum is very turbulent, the reactionary elements in the Fourth Army Corps are opposed to the new régime. Of the Lazis in Lazistan next to the Russian frontier, it will be enough to say that they, with the Kurds, filled the saddles of the Hamidian cavalry. In Kurdistan are the devil-worshippers. They dwell in the mountains which feed the Tigris and Euphrates, and make life a burden for those who inhabit Diabekr, Mosul, etc. Syria is full of troubles. It is the playground, or rather the battlefield, of Turks, Arabs, Druses, Maronites, Jews, and Germans. The latter, engaged in agriculture, are orderly and peaceful. In Anatolia the people turn from weaving to warfare, and vice versa. The recent massacres at Adana, forty-two miles by rail from Mersina on the seacoast, are only too fresh in our memories. To amalgamate these various races and creeds is no easy matter. Asiatic Turkey and Arabia have still to be won over to the reform movement. The Young Turks have a heavy task before them. They deserve our sincere sympathy. They are introducThe Outlook.

ing into Turkey the reforms that the Barons forced on John; that Hampden, Pym, and others wrenched from an unwilling Charles.

But all these troubles are little in comparison with that which the Ottoman Greeks will give to Turkey in the future. It is doubtful whether they will accept army service, and they may send out new bands in Macedonia. They are financed by rich merchants in Constantinople, Salonika, Athens, Liverpool, London, and Brighton. I need not give their names. Even now the Osmanischer Lloyd is putting out its feelers for them. The Young Turks know that whilst Athens' attitude may be formally correct, the cheques from London and Salonika are passing into the hands of the Komitajis. Our Press and public must "gang canny," for our friends the Italians do not see in this affair with our eyes. We must give and take, and establish an agreement. After all, the Cretans, we are told, "are a turbulent race, of proved and proverbial mendacity, bold, independent, and hard to govern." We need not take for gospel truth all their assertions.

The Powers made a mistake at Halepa in 1869. The convention signed there made concessions to the Islanders which were not fully carried into effect. We have a reputation for truth in Turkey and in Egypt, let us not lose it in the labyrinth of Greek intrigue. The Cretans are practically independent. Let them beware, lest in pursuing the shadow of Minos' crown they let fall the tangible benefits which the Powers at so much difficulty have procured for them. The nation that holds Crete must possess the command of the Levant. The Romans, Greek Emperors, Saracens, Crusaders, Venetians, and Turks in turn ruled the waves. That is the lesson which the Turks may take to heart in the twentieth century.

Ex-Diplomat.

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