upon 10,000,000l. a year. Now, if the Khedive were relieved from the necessity of keeping up an army out of all proportion to the real need of the country, as well as from the obligation of paying tribute both directly and indirectly to the Porte; if he were further restrained from costly schemes of annexation, from insane outlay on unremunerative works, and from reckless personal extravagance, the cost of the administration and the court might be well defrayed for some two millions. Moreover, given the protection that would be secured by British control, and we might reckon safely on a rapid increase in the revenue, which is mainly derived from the land tax. The climate is so perfect, the soil so fertile, the population so industrious, that it is difficult to assign limits to the productiveness of Lower Egypt under decent government. If there were anything like security of tenure, if there were any reasonable probability that the tiller of the soil would reap the fruit of his own labour, and the profit of his own improvements, if there were any approach to certainty that when once the legal taxes, however onerous, had been paid, no more would be required of the tax-payer for a stated period, you would witness a perfectly marvellous development of native industry. Moreover, the area of cultivation might be almost indefinitely enlarged by the extension of irrigation works. If once you had security for property, foreign capital would find few more lucrative employments than the reclamation of the desert fringe adjacent to the Delta, which only requires water, as may be seen along the banks of the canal, to render it the most fertile of soils. It is not an exaggeration to say that under British control Egypt could liquidate her debt in half a century, without laying any greater burden on the tax-payers than they would gladly and cheerfully pay in return for protection to life and security to property. Never was there a country which from its natural configuration and the character of its inhabitants could be more easily or economically governed than Egypt. Questions of hostile nationalities or rival creeds hardly enter into the consideration of an Egyptian ruler.

Moreover, if we had once a locus standi in Egypt as the dominant power, we should occupy a commanding position over the whole. region lying between the Red Sea and the frontiers of India. It is no mere accident that the dominion of Syria and Arabia has, with rare intervals, belonged to the Power which held the Isthmus. Given a strong military position in Egypt, and we could afford to be indifferent to any attack on India along the Euphrates valley. The Egyptian troops, when well led, are excellent; and the services of the Bedouins, which would be at the disposal of any Power exercising a protectorate over Egypt, would supply us with the means of conducting desert warfare. All these, however, are collateral and subsidiary advantages to which I attach little value. The one thing needful for us is to secure the free passage of the canal. I see it

often stated that, in the event of our holding the canal, we ought to hold Candia also, in order to keep a fleet stationed in its harbours. How far this is necessary for our safety is a strategical point on which I need express no opinion. But, unless it is absolutely necessary, I should deprecate our encumbering the question of an occupation of Egypt with that of the annexation of Candia.

If, however, competent authorities should declare that the possession of Candia is essential to the protection of the Suez Canal, then all other considerations must give way to this. For, if I have made my meaning clear, it has become to us, under the existing, and still more under the impending, conditions of Eastern Europe, a matter of absolute imperative necessity to secure a permanent free right of way through the canal in times of war as well as in times of peace. No scheme of neutralisation can meet our wants. Indeed, neutralisation, in any intelligible sense of the word, would place us in a worse position than that which we at present occupy. International guarantees, whatever their intrinsic value may be, are not securities on which we can afford to stake our free communication with India, or, in other words, the security of our Empire. A conviction of the absolute necessity of our securing command of the canal is shown in the demand recently raised for its purchase. But even if by arrangements with the shareholders we could place ourselves in the shoes of the Suez Canal Company, we should only have advanced one step towards the attainment of our object. As our route to India, thanks to the canal, lies across the Isthmus, and as the holder of the Isthmus commands the canal, we ourselves must, for our own safety's sake, be the holders of the Isthmus. Either we must be prepared to see our highway to India barred or interrupted in the event of war, or we must occupy Lower Egypt. From this dilemma I can see no

escape.

To recapitulate-I have shown, or at any rate endeavoured to show, that the reopening of the Eastern Question renders our transisthmus route to India of more vital importance to us than it has been hitherto; that it lies within our power to make ourselves masters of the canal and the Delta without any immediate difficulty; that, owing to the existing relations of the European Powers, we could now, for the first, and possibly the only, time in our history, become masters of Egypt without exposing ourselves to the risk of an European war, and without giving mortal umbrage to any other nation; that the various rights of ownership in the canal might be purchased by us at no very heavy cost; that the Khedive himself could, with no great amount of pressure, be induced to accept our protectorate as an escape from more urgent and formidable perils; and that the protectorate thus established would be a positive advantage not only to ourselves, but to the people of Egypt. In plainer words, an unparalleled opportunity is afforded us for obtaining

possession of the canal and the Isthmus with little cost or risk; and this opportunity comes, too, at a time when the possession of the canal is exceptionally important to us. Shall we avail ourselves of this opportunity or let it pass by? That is the question. I am not blind, no thinking man can be blind, to the ulterior consequences of such a step. If we take it we must be prepared to run the risk of an extension of our Imperial responsibilities, of possible complications in the future, of not improbable entanglement in the issues which are sure to ensue upon the settlement of the Eastern Question. My answer is, or would be if I were called to decide, It is too late for us to shrink from responsibility. If it were given to any Englishman to say now whether, if the past could be undone, it would be wise for us to enter on the career which has made these small and remote islands the centre of a world-wide Empire, I can understand how the most patriotic and fearless of our fellow-countrymen might shrink appalled from the magnitude of the task we should be called on to undertake. But the time has gone by when we could enter on any such speculation. For evil or for good the burden of an Empire has been placed upon our shoulders. We would not, I believe, lay it down if we could; we could not if we would. We, too, have our manifest destiny, which we have no choice save to follow. The same causes which compelled us the other day to annex the Transvaal Republic in the south of Africa compel us also to occupy the Isthmus. And if a want of resolution, a shirking of responsibility, from an irresolution of purpose or a dread of incurring reproach, should cause us at this crisis of our fate to hesitate about establishing our right of way across the Isthmus, then I can only say that as a nation we have lost those imperial qualities by which our forefathers created the England of to-day.

EDWARD DICEY.

DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOW

MENT

It is with a feeling akin to sacrilege that the pen is taken up against the institutions of old times, which have weathered many storms, and still hold up their heads, claiming to have made good their rights by the very remoteness of their origin. Few, if any, of our institutions, except the Church herself, can compare, in the matter of antiquity, with the prescription of more than fifteen centuries which the principle of Establishment has attained. Unhappily, however, the antiquity of an institution does not always prove even its wisdom, much less its fitness under changed circumstances, with changed political relations, changed habits of thought and society, and changed necessities which have grown up amongst these changes, to serve a present generation. No one can doubt that the whole state of things as regards the relation of the Church to the State, and of the State to the Church, has altered entirely since Constantine first declared himself the patron of the hitherto despised Church of Christ, and even since St. Augustine first planted his mission to the English at Sandwich. Is there anything in these changes to show that what was good for past generations is bad now? Or is there even anything to lead to the conclusion that from the first the establishment' and ' endowment' of the Christian religion were a mistake?

It will be necessary first to make sure that we have clear conceptions of the meanings of the words we are using. What is the 'Church of Christ'? What are establishment' and 'endowment'? What is the 'State' of which we speak in its relation to these other facts?

What then do we mean by the Church of Christ? The question can only be answered by words of the Church's Founder. We have to deal not merely with a portion of some earthly State, or with a corporation of human institution, but with that which is divine in its origin, in its life, and in all its conditions. Now by the declaration of Christ and His apostles the Church is a kingdom, not of this world,' founded at Pentecost by the gift of God, into which men are to be admitted by the imparting to them a new life, declared to be the glorified life of Christ Himself, who thus lives in them, and in

whom they live, so that they become, by entrance into it, not so much subjects of a kingdom as members of their Lord's body, and partakers of His life; that these members are to live in the world,' but not to be of the world,' that they are to be hated, despised and persecuted, and thus are to fulfil the end for which they are left on earth, namely the conquest of sin, and the bringing sinners to be reconciled to God through Christ. No other picture has Christ left of His Church, no other end of its existence on earth has He assigned. I do not think I have misquoted or misrepresented the teaching of Holy Scripture on the subject, but believe that not only Churchmen but even every earnest Nonconformist, however much he might differ from me on the results of this definition, would agree to its accuracy. It is then manifest that the Church is a kingdom which differs from all human organisations in that it has to do only with the souls of men; it affects their spiritual interests only, but affects them with an exclusive jurisdiction, with which no one who does not belong to the Church can interfere. This Church consists of all baptised persons who have not separated from her communion, or been removed from it, with the bishops as at once their ministers and rulers in all purely spiritual things, subject to certain rights of the priesthood and laity, which we shall meet with again further on. Existing in a State, its members are subjects of that State in all temporal relations, and bound to obey the authorities in all that is not contrary to the law of Christ, while at the same time the authorities themselves of the State, if they be its members, take their places in the Church not according to their civil rank, but merely according to their position as Christians. This description, I think, fairly sets forth the meaning of the words Church of Christ' according to His own teaching. In the Church all her members, from the chief ruler of the State to the poorest beggar and the youngest child, are on a level, except so far as differences of spiritual status and condition put one before the other; in the State all persons, whether belonging to the Church or not, from the highest to the lowest are equal, except so far as temporal dignities and personal qualifications in secular things make the difference of higher and lower.

Our next question is an easier one. What is the State? For our present purpose at least, we may define the State to be the aggregate of human beings composing the nation, united by the bonds of common nationality, inborn or acquired, common laws, and a common government, presided over by emperor, king, queen, president, or other supreme governor, as the case may be. As the end of the Church's being is to deal with souls and form them for the future life with God, so the end of the State's existence is the perfection of the life of the citizens in social virtues which contribute to the temporal prosperity and general happiness of the whole. This end will necessarily include morality so far as vice either from its