language. Noblesse oblige, and it also behoves those who would appreciate la peinture claire to achieve clarity of language; clarity of thought may follow.

Those who write with confidence of the 'inexorable laws' of Art are rarely eager to commit them to paper. That, in painting, such laws are concerned with subject, form, tone, colour, quality, and composition may be inferred from Sir Philip Burne-Jones's article, but neither he nor any man has yet been able to define them. In truth there are few inexorable laws in Art. The Greeks painted their sculpture; the colour was obliterated by the hand of time; a later race deduced from the colourless statues the 'inexorable law' of absolute form in sculpture as opposed to the 'accident of colour'; and the first modern statue that was tinted was received with execrations for its violation of the law. All art is a convention; it is the triumph of the human mind that it has created conventions whereby beauty may be made manifest. Things cannot be represented as they really are' by a painter; from the moment that he asks us to assume that his flat canvas is not of two but three dimensions, to the stage when he excludes from his palette, with Hobbema, the brightest colours of the prism, or, with Monet, the blacks and heavy colours, it is a convention. In Nature there are three dimensions, and all the colours. The Luminists are not unconventional-all that they do is to offer us a convention which differs from others; if they see a shadow striped with blue, rose-madder, and green, rather than as a darker shade of colour seen in light, they are justified in so far as they achieve beauty. It should be remembered, too, that all men see colour differently—a fact well known to painters, but hardly realised by the majority of mankind.

It would be well, since passion still darkens counsel, that every critic should adopt a fruitful suggestion once made by Mr. J. M. Robertson, and disclose his idiosyncrasy. Let this, then, be the present writer's confession of faith in landscape painting-that he admires the Dutch painters as much as Ruskin disliked them, that he loves the Norwich school, and that for Turner's Frosty Morning he would renounce all the chromatic splendours of the painter's declining years. Much else might be added, there is a roll of illustrious names; but this will suffice to indicate the direction in which bias would incline him. Yet, if there be sincerity, it is easy to admit that the Luminists have sometimes transmuted the visible things of life into a convention of beauty; and though, with diverse tastes, one would not wish to live with their pictures, one may be grateful for having seen their best. They cannot shelter us in the cool shadows of the earth, where we are refreshed; but they may fascinate us with the phosphorescence of dawn, or flash upon us the luminous aspect of a sunlit world, in which we may rejoice. It is significant that Monet, the founder of the school, during a most

impressionable period of youth, painted in Africa. How interesting it is to contrast his treatment of summer with that of Constable! The latter is preoccupied with the absolute, heavy greens of summer, which block the landscape, Monet with the 'green and golden immortality' of the fields. And then how passionate is Monet's love of reflections -of light reflected by snow, where each flake may be a prism, by water, where every drop may be a jewel. It is curious to observe how Sir Philip Burne-Jones ignores the chief painter of the school, to whom he makes but one critical reference. He has grudgingly admitted 'attraction' to Pissarro; though few, one would have thought, could deny the beauty of his boulevards, when Paris dons an evening cloak of blue. The vision of Manet was more austere. Sisley is rather uninteresting, and Renoir has at times painted so badly that one approaches him with misgiving. But in several of his landscapes, notably the Farm on the Bank of the Seine, and Autumn, the Seine at Argenteuil, Renoir has proved his fellowship with Monet. Mme. Morisot has sometimes charm, and many of Boudin's paintings exhibit distinguished work, the credit of which should not be denied to the school because the painter represents a transition period. At their best, the Luminists have plucked a nosegay of the visionary flowers of Nature, and, if they are not culled from the Rose Garden of Laurin, at least there are jonquils and peonies.

ARTHUR NICHOLSON.

THE DEFENCE OF THE GRAIN ROUTE

AMONG the most important subsidiary questions arising out of the great issue of Protection or Free Trade now agitating the Motherland is that of Britain's food supply-how it is to be maintained in war time, and how the grain routes are to be defended? This problem takes on a special significance because of the recent difficulty between Canada and Germany on the one side, and Mr. Carnegie's threat on the other, that the United States may withdraw the bonding privilege from the Dominion.

The economic and strategic aspects of the situation created by any foreign Power menacing the food supply of the British Isles have already compelled the appointment of a Royal Commission to investigate the subject. The gravity of the matter is accentuated by the proposal of Canada to establish a National Transcontinental Railway' traversing the wheat belt north of the C.P.R. line, and opening up another vast arable area to cultivation. Canada's avowed aim now is to become the British granary, and she is advancing by leaps and bounds to the realisation of this ambition.

The inflow of settlers to the North-West is arousing the jealousy of the American Press; the increase of cereals grown in Canada is a portent of mighty progress; the imperialistic tendencies of the Dominion constitute a standing arraignment of the vaunted American supremacy. The United States is faced with the unpalatable fact that within a few years-ten at the most-Canada will be able to supply the British Isles with all the wheat they now obtain from American farms. At present two-thirds of the wheat grown in the latter country is consumed there. The increase in acreage does not keep pace with the augmentation of the population by births and immigration, and therefore a much smaller quantity of grain proportionately will be available for export as the years go by. The very contrary conditions are now coming to prevail in Canada, where wheat-growing has attained amazing dimensions, so that Manitoba and its sister provinces are regarded as the most promising centres for settlement of any in the world to-day.

Canada's important new venture, the Grand-Trunk Pacific, or National Transcontinental Railway,' has been undertaken in order

to provide an adequate outlet for the flow of grain from the West which the C.P.R. is unable to tap. In the same spirit is Canada once more inquiring into the navigability of Hudson's Bay with a view to making it a short summer route for the grain of the NorthWest. Similarly Canada's endeavours to establish a fast Atlantic steamship service have been dictated by a desire to fully equip herself for the struggle against her Southern neighbour for the supremacy in British trade which is seen to be inevitable. Canada's preferential tariff in favour of British imports was the first step in this direction, her yeoman work for the Pacific cable a second, her railway policy may be accounted a third. But it is a pity that these substantial services have not been properly rounded off by an equally effective participation in the maintenance of the Imperial Navy.

To-day 90 per cent. of Canada's grain exports are sent to the British markets, and there is no reason to doubt that in the future the same proportion of her exportable wheat will also have its destination there. But of the present total export 48 per cent. finds an outlet through American instead of through Canadian ports. This lamentable fact, from the imperialistic standpoint, is due, in the first place, to inadequate facilities for the shipment of the grain from Canadian ports, and in the second place to the evil notoriety of the St. Lawrence route. Sir William Van Horne recently observed that 'Canada's hopper had become too large for the spout,' that her products had outgrown the transportation facilities she possessed. Another eminent Canadian declared about the same time that 'the St. Lawrence route stank in the nostrils of the underwriters,' owing to the frequency of marine disasters in that basin. Canada is to-day manfully facing the obligation of remedying these defects. She is preparing to build a new transcontinental railway, and to so improve the navigation aids in the St. Lawrence as to make that route as safe as any of the rival American waterways. Assuming, then, that she will be successful in these aims (as every Briton must wish that she should be), and that her grain acreage expands as it bids fair to, it is certain that we are within measurable distance of the time when the bulk of the wheat imported into the British Isles will be obtained from Canada, and shipped across the Atlantic from Canadian ports. Under present conditions, with the notorious unsafety of the St. Lawrence route, Lloyd's discriminates against Canadian in favour of American ports, and marine insurance rates of 9 per cent. are exacted on ships plying with Montreal, when only 4 or 5 per cent. is demanded on ships plying with New York. But even with this disadvantage to contend against the Canadian ports are doing a steadily improving business; and when additional safeguards lessen the total of wrecks in their vicinity and cause a fairer adjustment of rates, the diversion of grain carriers to the St. Lawrence will grow in proportion to the freight to be transported. Ever since the Boer war kindled the flame of imperialistic

sentiments in colonial breasts the desire for inter-imperial trade has been growing, and given an equality as to other conditions, or even without it, the feeling that better commercial relations should exist throughout the length and breadth of Greater Britain is one which every right-thinking citizen must cordially subscribe to.

It seems scarcely necessary to point out that in the event of a great naval war, with the altered conditions under which sea fights would be waged in these days, it would be hopeless to expect to supply the British Isles from such distant granaries as Argentina, India, or Australia, owing to the risks attendant upon such long voyages. The main reliance must be upon the United States and Canada, and one danger in regard to the former country is that grain may be 'cornered ' and advanced to famine figures. But as the wheat area of Canada expands this risk will diminish; and when the need for the hurried transport of foodstuffs to the Mother Country arises, a 'corner,' in grain at least, will be avoided.

The only problem then which will present itself to the Admiralty is that of safely convoying the grain carriers across the Atlantic. That neutral vessels will be allowed unrestricted access to British ports with foodstuffs is generally recognised, for it is impossible to conceive of a nation like the United States permitting her ships to be seized and their cargoes to be confiscated. And it is equally probable that much British shipping will be transferred to foreign registry to avoid the danger of capture. But it is altogether undesirable that Britain should be obliged to labour under such disadvantages or resort to such expedients, and the necessity for her (if only to retain her prestige as mistress of the seas) providing such a fleet and such facilities as will enable her to keep the sea-road open, and retain the British mercantile ensign as the most familiar flag upon the deep, is one which requires no emphasising.

That Britain can accomplish this, as matters now stand, admits of considerable doubt. Her supply of handy, speedy, well-armed cruisers suitable for scouting and convoy work is maintained by naval experts to be wholly inadequate. Certainly, the naval programmes of the Powers most likely to assail her are becoming so ambitious of late that it may very well be doubted if the British ideal of a navy equal to the combined fleets of any two other Powers can be much longer realised; but even if the naval strength were adequate for the emergency, the fact remains that the Canadian seaboard is destitute of a shelter port except Halifax, which is hundreds of miles from the real danger-zone, the Grand Banks. Around the British Isles are many naval bases. Berehaven, on the west coast of Ireland, was converted into one lately with a special eye to its use as a shelter for ships of war or commerce making the Atlantic passage through the smoke of battle. St. Margaret's Hope, in Scotland, is now being fortified as a defence against Germany, as Dover is being improved