perhaps, its worst feature. When one considers that the construction of Kingsway and Aldwych involved the erection of dwellings for 300 persons, one can scarcely wonder why more schemes for new streets are not undertaken. Yet this is the most valuable work that a local authority can perform, and in the majority of towns there is great need for further improvement schemes. But as long as this re-housing obligation exists, local authorities wisely besitate to embark upon street improvements.

Finally, this enforced re-housing is bad in principle because it tends to prevent local authorities from doing their real work properly. It encourages them to spend their substance and their energies in becoming the landlords of a small portion of the community, rather than the governors of the whole.

It remains to consider the different attitudes of political parties towards these questions. The attitude of the Socialists is simple enough. They are animated by the ambition to abolish private property, and they therefore naturally encourage every form of municipalisation. The Radicals regard housing as but a small part of their coming land crusade, and they are so closely associated with the Labour-Socialist party as to be severely infected with its doctrines. Unionists can claim that the principal housing legislation of the past has been due to Conservative Governments, and at the present time many Unionists are exhibiting a sincere interest in the housing problem. This is a hopeful sign, but the temptation for politicians to sacrifice principle in order to gain an immediate advantage is so great that a Bill prepared hurriedly by a party in opposition ought to be scrutinised with the utmost

care.

Certainly the Housing Bill prepared in 1912 by the Unionist Social Reform Committee at the instigation of Sir Arthur Boscawen, M.P., deserves a good deal of the criticism that has been levelled against it, notably by Mr. John Burns. The authors of that Bill forgot that their main object ought to be to secure decent housing conditions everywhere rather than to establish model conditions in a few places, and that the Unionist party can gain little credit for itself, and do little good to the country, by slavishly following the lead of Radicals and Socialists. The Unionist Housing Bill undoubtedly provides many improvements in the law for which there is urgent need.

Thus, as regards the re-housing obligation, clause 7 proposes to allow local authorities to re-house, not on the actual sites cleared, but on the outskirts of their districts where land is cheaper. This reform would lessen the cost of municipal house-building, but it is submitted that a policy more in consonance with Unionist principles would be to enact that the building of dwellings should no longer of necessity follow the undertaking of clearance schemes. The erection of costly dwellings for a superior class of inhabitant is by far too indirect an advantage to the community to justify the financial risks and administrative difficulties involved. Again, clause 6 of the Bill deals with the question of by-laws and is to the effect that by-laws 'shall not apply to new buildings con'structed or new streets laid out.' But this exemption applies only to development schemes prepared by local authorities. The Unionist Bill, like the Town Planning Act, admits the futility of our by-laws, but it refrains from any endeavour to reform them. Once again the legislature is being asked to secure by municipal trading model conditions in favoured spots rather than a universal minimum standard of health and amenity.

Unfortunately at the present time there is much uncertainty among Unionists as to their fundamental political beliefs. Some indication of this may be gathered from the policy followed by the Municipal Reform party (which may fairly be termed the London branch of the Unionist party) in their conduct of the affairs of the London County Council. When the Progressives were in power, the Municipal Reformers bitterly opposed the Progressive housing policy, recognising that municipal trading, being a branch of Socialism, could have no place in their programme. When the Progressives were driven from power in 1907, certain attempts were made to restrict the development of the previous housing policy. The Municipal Reformers endeavoured, for instance, to dispose of the large estate at Tottenham, which the Progressives had purchased. Yet the party pushed forward several similar schemes originated by the Progressives, and the Housing Committee of the Council have more than once reported in favour of municipal housing. On the other hand there are signs that Unionists and Municipal Reformers are beginning to realise that their proper programme is to control rather than to supersede the operations of individuals. The Progressives

have recently urged that the County Council should undertake an extensive scheme under Part I. for the demolition and rebuilding of the Brady Street area in Bethnal Green. In opposing the proposal at the Council meeting on the 10th of June last, the Municipal Reform leader said: 'This was a 'slum which ought to be put in order by the landlords, and 'the Council ought not to launch a new clearance scheme 'and buy the landlords out at an exorbitant price at the ' ratepayers' expense.' And on the 23rd of July the Housing Committee reported that 'it is increasingly felt by people of 'all shades of opinion that, under the law as it stands at present, landowners receive and the ratepayers have to pay too much for property of this description'; the Committee consequently refused to recommend the preparation of a clearance scheme. They also consulted with Mr. J. S. Nettlefold as to the possibility of proceeding under Part II. rather than under Part I. It is difficult to tell how far this indicates a change of policy, or rather a reversion to the old Municipal Reform doctrine that local authorities should govern and not trade. But it is at least a step in the right direction.

Some months must necessarily elapse before the Unionist Housing Bill can again be brought before the House of Commons. In its present form there can be little doubt that the Bill does not command the complete support of the Unionist party. It is the production of the advance-guard, and the Conservative element in the party is suspicious of the Socialist tendencies noticeable in this Bill. The present is a period of political transition. Liberals, the heirs of Bentham and Cobden, have abandoned their past beliefs and are rushing headlong upon the Socialist road. The coming fight must be between Collectivism and Individual Liberty. A hedging policy may be momentarily profitable in some constituencies, but loyalty to sound principles is the condition of permanent and national success. The time is ripe for hard thinking on fundamental problems, and the housing question forms an excellent ground for testing the real worth of party doctrines. Unionists would do well, if they truly desire to add another Act to the code of housing legislation, to employ this autumn in rendering their Bill, not only valuable in its detail, but sound in the principles upon which it is based. GEORGE FLEET.

THE TRIUMPH OF SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM

Le Matérialisme Actuel. Par MM. BERGSON, H. POINCARÉ, Ch. GIDE, CH. WAGNER, FIRMIN ROZ, DE WITT-GUIZOT, FRIEDEL, GASTON RIOU. Paris: Flammarion. 1913.

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subjects of study are more attractive, and few indeed are more beset with difficulties, than an inquiry into the fundamental social changes which are at work in the society in the midst of which we live. The difficulties are not merely due to the fact that profound analysis, elaborate statistics, and difficult generalisations have to be employed: they are perhaps more due to the all-pervasive political sentiment which is almost invariably intruded into the study of social problems. The methods of the philosopher differ radically from the methods of the politician. The politician aims at improvement: action of some sort or other is his goal he studies social problems, not for their own sake, but to guide himself in taking rational steps for the improvement of the lot of man.

Very different is the sphere of the philosopher. He is not interested in practical affairs: he is indifferent to efforts at political amelioration he is not concerned with action to attain an end. He studies social problems with a singleminded effort to find truth, and to read the facts as they are. He is not by intention a philanthropist, as the politician is. Quâ philosopher he is indifferent to human welfare. His mind has to reflect outward nature with the accuracy that deep, still waters reflect the trees from their banks. Every ripple of emotion breaks through the calm, and sends distorted images, which change from moment to moment, and which appear quite different according to the position of the observer. The politician, in short, is moral: he works for humanity, he is driven by emotion and indifferent to truth for its own sake. The philosopher is a-moral: he cares nothing for humanity, his whole soul is given up to an almost inhuman and callous search for truth.

It is clear that the politician's outlook must for ever be more popular than that of the philosopher. It permits a

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warmer and more generous mentality, it carries the excitement and pleasure of action and work done. It is in extreme contrast to the passivity and desperate stillness of the philosopher. It gives the rein to idealism and schemes of progress and welfare it is not bound by chains to the hard and uninspiring realism of natural facts. It shakes off the bondage of what is' and revels in fancies of 'what ought to be.'

In the present essay it is not proposed to enter into ethical speculations, but merely to indicate certain important features which distinguish the intellectual tendencies of the present generation from those of the generation which preceded it. Of these tendencies the most conspicuous are the remarkable decline of scepticism and the growth of positivism, which especially characterise the thought of the present century in comparison with that of the end of the previous century. Philosophically, the dominating fact of the nineteenth century was Darwin's discovery of natural selection, and the triumphant establishment of the theory of evolution. The new doctrine did not merely shake existing beliefs, it introduced an altogether new way of looking at things. It produced an intellectual upheaval, in which so much was destroyed that a tendency towards general scepticism rapidly became apparent. The succeeding generation eagerly seized upon the term 'agnostic' to represent its views. Discussion was directed for preference towards problems whose solution was beyond the power of the human intellect, in which there was the freest play for doubt and vagueness. The victors in such discussions were naturally those who most vigorously emphasised the limitations of knowledge. Du Bois-Reymond started the famous cry Ignoramus, ignorabimus' which echoed back from the majority of thinkers specially distinctive of that time. The name agnosticism, purely negative in sense, embodies the quintessence of an almost Pyrrhonian scepticim.

Agnosticism, invented by Huxley, soon came to be regarded as the creed specially associated with science, and proclamations of ignorance were supposed to be specially favoured by scientific authority. Now it is obvious that this non-committal attitude towards philosophical problems is somewhat barren, and leads on to no further conclusions of interest or importance. A generation which speculates about the unknowable, and looks upon ' Ignorabimus' as the highest wisdom, sacrifices progress for the sake of safety. The fortress of truth will never fall