of repressive legislation, the Church, without running counter to what was sound in the principle of such measures, mercifully legislated for the well-being of the whole community-for the outcast leper as well as for the legally protected-and with the true instinct of charity inspired the kings and queens, the bishops, nobles, and burgesses in the middle ages, who founded or endowed hospitals throughout the land for the shelter and seclusion of the leper, to adopt the only sure means of really coping with the greatest and most mysterious of the maladies that afflict mankind.

In insisting on the paramount importance of the segregation of lepers it must not be supposed that I make no account of the improvement of the general condition of the people as a factor in the extermination of leprosy. The one ought to be accompanied or supplemented by the other. But, as it has been proved in the case of Cyprus and Norway, segregation is the prompt as well as the necessary remedy: improvement in the general condition of a whole people is a slow matter of time. And here I must quote the last annual report of the chief medical officer of Cyprus, for the year 1883-4 it did not reach England until the first part of my article was in print, otherwise I should have given it before. Dr. G. N. Stephen says:

I have come to the conclusion that leprosy in this island is markedly on the decrease, and I am of opinion that in time it will entirely disappear. For this purpose, however, two points have to be observed: firstly, the general amelioration of the condition and welfare of the inhabitants, which time only can bring about; secondly, the gradual seclusion of all lepers as they are met with. To this latter measure the Government has given its full attention. It is greatly to be desired, for the sure and radical extermination of this disease, that some more absolute mode of isolation should be adopted. I am considering the best manner in which this could be done, and I will shortly lay my views on the subject before the Government.

Of course, dealing with leprosy in Cyprus is a very different matter from dealing with it in India. How to supply hospital accommodation for over a hundred thousand lepers, might well stagger any Government. But a scheme has been propounded to meet the difficulty by Dr. Munro, whose important work on Leprosy I have already alluded to. I cannot do better than conclude with it.

'It has been objected by the Government of India that the expense of segregating over 100,000 lepers in asylums would be too great, but I hardly think this is a proper view of the case. No such asylums need be built, but segregation could still be enforced by the compulsory confinement of lepers to certain spaces of land, on which proper villages could be built for them, while they would when able be encouraged to work on the surrounding land. Properly managed, such communities might be partly self-supporting. Of course, after a leper was once put into such a village, a severe penalty should be

enacted from anyone aiding or abetting him in leaving it. At the same time there could be no harm, I believe, in allowing the lepers, under proper supervision, sometimes to see and converse with their friends at some place near the village, as long as no contact was allowed.

'Probably over two hundred such villages would be required for the whole of India. Of course medical officers would be required to live near each of them, but the work could be nearly, if not quite, all done by lepers. Such segregation would, I believe, with the other means already mentioned, succeed in stamping out the disease.'

AGNES LAMBERT.

ENGLISH SUPREMACY IN THE EAST.

NOTWITHSTANDING the public interest excited by the expedition to Egypt, undertaken for the purpose of securing our commercial highway to the East, it is doubtful if the English people as a whole have as yet formed a true conception of the value of the magnificent colonial heritage which has been bequeathed to them by the energy and enterprise of past and present generations of their countrymen abroad. It is difficult, in the absence of special knowledge regarding the course of our trade, to realise the grave importance to the national welfare of the successful maintenance of a close political and commercial connection between the Mother Country and her numerous dependencies, which, being peopled or nominally occupied by semicivilised races, owe the conditions of their progress to British rule. At a time when the destinies of the Empire are about to be removed from the control of the classes who have hitherto directed them into the hands of a numerical majority of the population, whose political education is imperfect, and whose uninstructed impulses might imperil by a few hasty measures the organised results of the work of a century, it is more than ever important that a just appreciation should prevail of the character of the unique political system which, in the course of three generations, has evolved throughout the East order out of chaos, and established in countries, previously the theatre of chronic revolution, the mild sway of British authority. No figure of speech, but an actual fact, is involved in the assertion that the constable's staff preserves law and order in the vast provinces under our rule which compose the main littoral of Asia between the Straits of Malacca and the Gulf of Aden. The national prestige, however, upor which this rule depends is maintained by a very slender naval and military force held in reserve; and few persons who are acquainted with the facts can regard without anxiety and apprehension the inadequacy of that force to meet certain not altogether improbable contingencies, by which the existing order of things might be roughly challenged.

The keynote to a national policy, which all classes of Englishmen are deeply interested in pursuing, may be struck by the statement of the double proposition that upon the political supremacy of England in the East depends the continuance of her commercial prosperity,

and upon her commercial prosperity depends her ability to support the enormous population which is contained within the British Isles.

In effect, we may safely assert that the possession of India and our Eastern colonies, and the systematic development of their resources, are essential to the very existence of the present population of the United Kingdom.

Considering the indiscriminating opposition which, on principle, is offered by important political parties in the country to any extension of our boundaries or influence, and the disposition which is from time to time shown to retire from and lessen our responsibilities towards the inferior races, it may be well doubted if the truth of this proposition, so obvious to many, is thoroughly recognised by Englishmen in the present day.

It is too late to discuss the question whether Great Britain would not have been a happier, a more harmoniously ordered, and an altogether stronger country morally-and, having regard to relative responsibilities, materially-had not the possession of India given her that control over the commerce of the world which has so largely contributed to make London the centre of finance, English provincial towns huge hives of uncertain and varying industry, and has been the main cause of the collection within the three islands of a vast population, exhibiting extremes of wealth and poverty, and offering a fertile field, in the event of sustained commercial reverses, for the promotion of social and political agitation. We have entered upon a path necessitating the prosecution of a work which, manfully undertaken, is not unworthy of a great nation, and we could not retrace our steps without being subjected to ruinous disaster. Apart altogether from any consideration of our responsibilities to the peoples with whose natural destinies we have interfered, it can be conclusively shown that to abandon or to lose India and the commercial vantage ground afforded by its possession would necessitate a serious diminution of important branches of our trade, and consequently a reduction of the present population of Great Britain, leading to a general decline in the value of all description of property throughout the kingdom-a process not to be contemplated without dismay, in view of the intense suffering which could not fail to be inflicted upon all classes. The emigration on a large scale of the industrial classes would only occur after the silent endurance of great misery on the part of the masses; while so largely interdependent are the ramifications of commerce all over the world that any sudden collapse of work in one great centre of industry produces a sympathetic effect in most other centres, and for a time at least no country would be in a posi tion to offer an asylum to our emigrants, thus causing the pauperism of the world to be greatly increased.

If one may judge from the controversy with regard to the com parative merits of Free and Fair Trade which not long ago occupied

the platform and the periodical press, the echoes of which have as yet scarcely died away, the real operation of the Eastern branch of our commerce upon British trade and industry as a whole is far from being generally understood. Let us consider, for example, the continued reiteration by a not unimportant body of writers and speakers, and the acceptance of the doctrine by a much larger class in the country than is commonly supposed, of the alleged evils arising out of the so-called adverse balance of our trade with the United States, France, and other Protectionist countries. So far from this condition of our trade being injurious, it may be demonstrated to be of singular advantage to the United Kingdom-of greater advantage probably, relative commercial power being considered, than if all nations were to abandon a Protectionist policy and adopt a system of unrestricted trade. For until countries such as the United States-the condition of whose potential manufacturing capacities would naturally make them more or less successful competitors of the United Kingdom in the markets of the world-abandon their Protective tariffs, they leave extensive fields of commerce open to the almost exclusive action of the only nation which bases the success of its manufacturing policy upon cheapness of production and State-unaided skill. The process by which they exclude us from their own markets effectually shuts them out from being our successful rivals in any other market.

The influence which our Eastern possessions, apart from their purely direct trade with the United Kingdom, exert upon our commerce as a whole may be briefly described by two illustrations. The United States sells to Great Britain annually cotton and bread stuffs to the value of 88,000,000l., and buys from Great Britain direct imports of cotton, woollen, and iron manufactures, etc., to the value of about 40,000,000l. How is this adverse balance, which in some quarters is regarded as so great an evil, adjusted? Not by means of bullion payments, for Great Britain produces no bullion, and holds none beyond what is necessary for currency requirements, and the returns of trade show that, taking one year with another, the imports and exports of specie to the United States as nearly as possible balance each other.

The question we have put is to be answered by a study of the course of Eastern trade.

The United States buys in India, China, the Straits, and the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, seeds, spices, coffee, tea, silk, etc., while her exports to those countries, beyond a few special articles of cotton manufacture and kerosene oil, are almost nil. The means of payment are provided, partly by the interest on British capital invested in America, but mainly by the proceeds of cotton, woollen, and iron manufactures and coals exported from Great Britain and sold in the East, which are handed to the Eastern bank agencies in exchange for bills on London. On the other hand, the money thus