the regalia of the demonstrations there had been found British and even American insigniæ. But now all this was past. Worse even, as one moved along the streets of Tokio the gutter gamin would shout after the European the word "foreigner," coupled with some opprobrious epithet, and there would be no dissentient voice to admonish or restrain. The seeker after truth had been away for some weeks. He remembered Tokio as it had been and returned to find it as it is. And it pained him sorely, for he had expected otherwise, and he went straightway to one of his own kind, and as the wheels of his jinriksha revolved he seemed to read in their creaking a refrain,—“Get thee from me, take heed to thyself, see my face no more. And he came to one of his own kind, and he found him in a Japanese garden, a place beautiful in the emerald green of summer, and flashing with the blended colour of a thousand iris flowers. The man of his kind was seated in the midst of all this beauty and a dainty maiden of the country nestled at his feet, and the man was counting the gains and the losses. And the money was Japanese money. And he looked up from his pleasant labours and greeted the seeker after truth. "Who are you, and what is your business with me?-this is not the business hour!" And the seeker after truth stated his business. The white man smiled the cunning smile of the man who under stands the ways of the East. "Go back, thou fool; wherefore have this alarm? These people are struggling for the good of humanity. It is engrossing the whole of their attention; they have not time for the things which are but your own vain imaginings." And the seeker after truth left him abashed, but as he passed away to his own place of residence it occurred to him -"Have I not read these sentiments in the newspapers?" and even as the thought crossed his mind three soldiers in the pathway pointed at him and jeered him as a foreigner fit to be killed as the Russians were being killed. And then with one swift flash the truth burst upon him-"This is not a war between Russia and Japan: it is a war between East and West." And in sorrow he betook himself back to his place of residence. And many men stood gathered at his place of residence, and the seeker after truth told them openly of his new discovery. And they laughed him to scorn. But a very old man stood in their midst, and he of all the crowd refrained from mirth. He took the seeker after truth aside and said: "My friend, what is your business?" "I am a seeker after truth." And then in his turn the old man was moved to mirth. "You are a seeker after truth, and you have come to Japan! Young man, I have spent the sixteen best years of my life in Japan, and I have not yet found the very shadow of truth. Take the advice of an old man, give up your quest and return, for truth is not to be found here." The seeker after truth turned away abashed. A VISIT TO TOGO'S RENDEZVOUS. The man at the wheel seemed to be steering by instinct. It was so dark that as we clung to the rail on the bridge we could not see the whaleback of the destroyer. All that we could tell was that we were passing in through an archipelago of islands. The false horizon which their rocky summits from time to time vouchsafed to us was, however, the only proof that we had of this. The lieutenant-commander maintained a discreet silence. It was his business to convey us to the rendezvous under cover of darkness, not to explain the intricacies of his uncharted course. He was politeness itself, and never tired of relating his experiences in the destroyer fight off Liautishan. Not once, but a dozen times during our brief stay with him, did he take us forward and point with pride at the marks which that struggle had left upon his boat. His little beady eyes would sparkle like electric points when he called to mind the details of that desperate fighting. How it seemed a miracle that the destroyers had not collided, how the stained muzzles of the 6-pounders almost touched as the shelllike vessels came abreast. How his bridge was torn and scored by splinters. How his sub-lieutenant and signalman were carried overboard by the same projectile. It was all marvellously interesting, but it was not as interesting in the recital as the circumstances of our present position. We were entering the passage which led to the rendezvous of Admiral Togo's fleet. It does not matter here who we were or why we were allowed to make the visit. But it was so arranged that we boarded the destroyer late in the afternoon, and it was dark, pitch dark, before we made the land-marks which would have disclosed the situation. Steadily at half speed the destroyer held on her course. There were no lights, -as far as we could see there were no points at all beyond the stars by which the master could correct his bearings. Silently, almost weirdly, the long thin streak of a boat slipped through the water. The sea was as smooth as a frozen lake. Suddenly the commander put his hand on the telegraph. peered into the darkness ahead, we could see nothing, but after a moment's hesitation his hand went down. He had rung the engines off, and almost immedi ately we were going full speed astern. Then it was, and then He only, that we saw that there was a dim shadow of a body in front of us. For the first time we descried a light. The signal lamp was in requisition. A call, an answer, and then all was darkness again, and we were going half speed forward again past the guard - ship. Presently, as it were out of nowhere, we were able to discern the dim outline of a moving body on either beam. These outlined into thin long streaks like unto ourselves. In short, if the night had not been clear, one would easily have mistaken them for our own reflection on the mist. Then from the port beam came a hail. The answer was given in Japanese, again the telegraph spoke to the engineer. Slow-and in a few seconds we were being piloted by the port boat right in through the lines of Togo's fleet. to rest on that point with the simple information that he was about to tie up for the night at the torpedo transport. It has not been given to every one to witness the victorious Japanese fleet lying at ancher in its rendezvous. It was a sight once seen not easily to be forgotten. The four squadrons lay at anchor in four lines. Just clear of them lay the transports, colliers, torpedo transports, and the dockyard vessels. At the entrance to the bay lay the guardship and the destroyers. Three destroyers and one cruiser were on the mud to facilitate the attentions of the dockyard hands. Two of the battleships had colliers alongside, and another of the colliers was filling the bunkers of two torpedo boats. Across the entrance to the bay one could just make out the faint line of a boom. Since we had heard so much of the damage which the Russian guns had wrought upon the Japanese fleet we looked anxiously for evidence of it. As the morning light strengthened we scrutinised each of the battleships in It was a strange sensation. Here we were passing between two lines of giant engines of war. We could just make out each indistinct mass that in the darkness indicated a ship. But there was never a light and rarely a sound. Once a turn. There were six of them, picket-launch steamed up quite close to us. We could hear the pant of her engines and just make out the suspicion of flame from the rim of her funnel. Then the pilot boat shouted us clear, and we bore down upon one of the darker patches. We hoped that it was the Mikasa, and that we were destined to spend the night on the flagship. But the commander put our mind great gaunt leviathans stripped for the fray. Though the friendly glass made each rail and stanchion clear, yet we could discover no trace of this ill-usage of which we had heard so much. Then for the 1st class cruisers, they at least had been knocked to pieces. Here they were, six of them, anchored line ahead. There was nothing that the non-professional eye could detect amiss with their lean symmetry. The picture was in a manner oppressive: there was nothing within view that was not connected with scientific butchery and destruction in its most ruthless and horrible form. The ships themselves, stripped of everything that was wooden or superfluous, gave the morbid impression of merciless majesty and might. The nakedness of their dressing attenuated the ferocity of the gaping guns. One thought of the shambles on the main deck of the Variag and the fate of the Petropavlovsk, and one shuddered. But in all, if not exhilarating, it was a mag nificent picture. And one bowed in tribute to the diabolical and misapplied genius of man. At three o'clock came the crowning scene. A signal fluttered up from the bridge of the flagship. As if by one movement the little torpedo craft slipped away towards the entrance, while the whole air hummed with the rattle of cable chains. Signal after signal from the flagship, and then majestically Admiral Togo took his fleet out of the rendezvous to do battle with his country's enemy. This was a soul-stirring spectacle. MR CHAMBERLAIN'S AGRICULTURAL PROGRAMME. ON the 4th of August Mr Chamberlain opened the second stage of his fiscal campaign at Welbeck Abbey. To an a8sembly of land-owners, farmers, and labourers gathered from half a dozen counties, he unfolded his agricultural programme. By this vast assembly, historic both in composition and magnitude, he was welcomed and adopted as the future champion of the agricultural cause. The Duke of Rutland and Mr Chaplin, chief survivors of the Old Guard, passed on to him the standard which they had bravely borne through long years of defeat and discouragement. And alongside of Mr Chamberlain appeared a new leader -the Duke of Portland-from whom not only agriculture but every other national and patriotic cause will have much to expect hereafter. In organising this demonstration, his Grace gave fresh proof of the public spirit, open-mindedness, and force of character that have marked him out for a life of varied usefulness to the State. In his case the reddest Radical may admit that even dukes sometimes exist for the public good. That his heart is in the cause of agricultural reform he has left no one in doubt from the outset of the present movement. That he is concerned not for his own order merely, or for land-owners as such, or for agriculture as a class interest, he has also made abundantly clear. What he has most at heart is to free the nation from the reproach and scandal of millions of acres untilled which ought to be growing food for the people who live on them. In introducing Mr Chamberlain, the Duke of Portland spoke modestly of his "very intimate connection with agriculture, and the great interest he takes in any subject which is likely to benefit those who gain their livelihood by its pursuit be they labourers, farmers, or land-owners." This is the sort of colleague Mr Chamberlain needs at the present juncture one who is as thoroughly in earnest as he is himself, and as ready to make personal sacrifices for the cause. Here, if anywhere, is a man who, to use his own words, has joined the fiscal reform movement, "not with biassed mind, but in the larger and nobler spirit of patriotism which cannot but be engendered by the thought that may be the future of our empire is involved in the ultimate decision of this question." The fiscal question may indeed be made very large or very small, according to the standpoint of the observer. It may be to one man a mere matter of shibboleths and statistics, while for another it may be the master - key to national progress and prosperity. Mr Chamberlain's audience at Welbeck Abbey was of the latter |