7.
October 3, 1904.]
of the Prime Minister to encourage the faculty of mental detachment that is as necessary for perfect sanity as physical exercise is for health. We have been familiarised with the axiomatic value of attention by the petty tradesman com- mencing, who, in his announcement to the public, usually promises the quality in its strictest form. A learned Frenchman (RIBOT) in a study of the psychology of nttention has, however, defined it in such a way as to quite unintentionally awaken us to the risk we run in adapting ourselves too much to a predominating thought. Whereas inattention leads to incoherence, vagueness, and error, attention overdone may become fmonomania. Thedanger of war for break. ast, war for tiffin, war for dinner, and war for "between meals," as MARK TWAIN would put it, ought to be sufficiently obvious to excuse a digression in the direction of a topic whose usefulness to the average mau may not be prima facie apparent.
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CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
230
now that
due to defective or incomplete observation | manufacturing, and as the world's largest of phenomena. As time goes on, and suppliers, we should be setting about the
phenomena are disclose l fresh
(as ensurance of a permanent supply of the radium) we still have to depend upon raw material, from sources less likely to be our inductive crutches, reasoning from the shut to us during unforeseen embarrassments whole of the particulars, new and old, to such as have brought the question into the general. What other course is open to prominence. us Mr. BALFOUR does not seem clearly to It is of particular interest, in view of have indicated. In his conclusion that local hopes and enterprises, to note the "there is a certain inevitable incoherence result of investigations and experimenta in auy general scheme of thought which is that have been made in other districts that built out of materials provided by natural are under the British flag. It is a striking science alone," he seems to us to have fact that in the majority of our territories doue no more than give a verbose rendering abroad the natives have been cultivating of the thought supposed to be embodied in cotton, by rule of thumb of course, since In certain HAMLET's famous remark to HORATIO. times long prior to our advent. This, while pretty enough in poetry, is not parts of West Africa it has been ascer. the lucidity and definity we expect from our tained that cotton has been grown for philosophers; and if such obscure repre- over a thousand years. As it is established sentations arising in consciousness are to be that such a large proportion of Greater dignified with the name of "reflections," Britain enjoys those conditions of soil and what are we to expect from the same mind climate that are essential to the profitable applied to practical, everyday concerns, in culture of the cotton plant, it should be which we are more immediately interested? equally well recognised that we are in a Wonderful as are the later discoveries of position to make ourselves much less de- science, we must not repeat the errors of pendent upon foreign cultivators. More- our ancestors, and imagine that they have over, used as our manufacturers are to the brought us to finality. The British Associa-particular product of the American cotton tion has on several occasions gone too fast, fields, those who have been experiment. and Mr. BALFOUR's reputed deliberate judging and investigating tell us ment did not prevent him, apparently, ou we should not have to trouble about August 17th, from encouraging that weak-acclimatising Gossypium Americanus, which, ness. He would, unless we have misread him, by the way, was itself probably of Asiatic impatiently carry us from the one extreme origin. Indeed, they assure us that better of the encyclopedists to the other extreme practical results are obtained by avoiding of "Mother" EDDY and her disciples. The exotic varieties, and improving the species work of science as we have learned to think indigenous to most of the colonies where of it is not the throwing of a bridge across the cultivation is to be extended. to some further shore that is seen and Germans hit upon the same important dis- known, but the cautious building of a pier, covery as a result of their most thorough stoue by stone, out into the uncharted sea. and exhaustive experiments in Togo-land, We are already abutting on what was once between our Gold Coast Settlements and presumptuously styled the Unknowable, Dahomey. The experts assure us that most and having come so far, we take it unkindly of the cotton so raised will meet all the re of Mr. BALFOUR to find fault with the quirements of the spinners at Home, and methods of the builders, just because the that the quantity will undoubtedly maintain pier of Truth is not completed in time for pace with the quality. In any case, it is to the unceting of the British Association!
be remembered that “ shortage of supply in any one particular quality leads to an | increased demand for the quality either immediately above or immediately belo it, thus increasing the pressure in regard to either or both of those qualities, as well as the one directly concerned. In the same way any largely increased supply in the case of one quality may leave a surplus which will relieve the demand for the next qualities; while, still further, cotton which did not suit Lancashire might serve the
of Eastern or
Continental markets, and allow of a larger supply of American being available for general use." Whatever drawbacks may appear to those who are not yet impressed by the arguments adduced, we do not imagine that any Bri- tishers can be found who do not heartily wish success to attend the efforts of the Cotton Growing Association.
THE COTTON GROWING ASSOC- IATION.
If Mr. BALFOUR has been correctly reported, he has given utterance to some remarks (they can scarcely be called ideas); which will not commend him either as an original or sound philosopher. It may be. supposing we are able to demonstrate his rashness, that it can be taken as an argument against the value of distraction; or, on the other hand, that the Premier's temporary departure from statecraft is not a genuine case of relaxation, but a return to a first love already wooed with excessive assiduity. We are unable to see any parti- cular movement in advance in the statement that the object of present-day physical speculation is something more than the dis. covery of the laws connecting phenomena; that it is the physical reality constituting the permanent mechanism of the physical universe." Therein Mr. BALFOUR has pro bably suffered at the hands of the reporters. We hope so, for the dictum is indicative more of an attack of logorrhoea than of a flight of inspiration. In the summarised report before us, Mr. BALFOUR is credited with "describing the theory of the physical universe which obtained about the end of the 18th century," and with “pointing out how that conception had been modified by the development of the theory of the universal diffusion of ether through space, and by It may be that we are wrong, but we do the discovery of the part played in nature not at present see our way to agree with the by electricity. Two centuries ago electri- general principle enunciated by an expert city seemed but a scientific toy. It was
contributor to the London Times, that the now thought by many to constitute the work of such a body as the Cottou Growing reality of which matter was but the sensible Association should be of an educational, rather than of a purely commercial charac- expression." Up to the point where we en- counter the somewhat startling reversal of ter. Or, on further reflection, we would terms with regard to matter and its expres- suggest that the methods of the Association sions, we are on safe premises; and it is appear to embrace both those features, and therefore.disconcerting to find the lecturer that the word "purely," as applied to the quarrelling with inductive logic, and deny commercial enterprises of the Association, ing its usefulness in dealing with "the is misplaced. Is not the practice of the problems suggested by the new theories." Cotton Growing Association, in growing Since the new theories, the electro-ethereal | and selling cotton, as inseparable from the hypotheses with which Mr. BALFOUR encouragement of cotton culture by natives is presumably enamoured, were not reach and settlers, as faith is from works? If ed in a strictly legitimate manner, we example be better than precept, then there presume inductive logicians will have mo could be no better way of advancing its dealings with their "problems." The saner objects than by showing that cotton caŭ not scientists are not like the Old Testament only be grown in our colonies and depeu- kings. The dream that is dreamed suggests dencies, but that it can be grown and sold no problem to them. It seems a little hard profitably. Plantations managed by the on inductive logic to twit it with impotence inost modern methods, and with the most in the matter of questions that do not arise practical types of implements and ma- in its own province.
chinery, are the best kind of object-lesson the cotton “griffin" could possibly have.
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1
(Daily Press, 28th September.)
It would almost appear after all that our comfortable fancies with regard to The need for new sources of supply has detachment and relaxation were
not become apparent because of any sud ten healthy, and that the philosophic or and temporary interference with existing political shoemaker would do better to sources, as it was when the American Civil "stick to his last." Those very mis- War caused such distress in Lancashire. The conceptions catalogued by Mr. BALFOUR | demand, we are told, has grown larger as appertaining to the 18th century were than it ever was in the history of cotton
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purposes
THE CHINAMAN ABROAD.
The
(Daily Press, 29th September. The Chinaman from the oldest times has had a tendency to spread himself abroad. In theory he is expected to stay at home to add to the strength and dignity of the Celestial Empire; and by her ancient laws China forbade the emigration of her chil dren. In this, however, as in so many other things "L'homme propose, et Dieu dispose." Luws or no laws, a redundant population becomes a force which cannot be restrained, and which is certain to find its outlet in one direction or another. A Chinaman, with his practical instincts, considers that emigration; like other good things, should begin at home, and if he cannot afford to pay for the shelter