The White Man's Burden.

Such a conjunction of dramatic events—in party politics, in national and world finance, and again in the clash of colours, creeds, castes, and civilisations—will surely be seized on by the historian of the future when he endeavours to focus the post-war cross-currents and their confusing effects. But to-day we live too close to the trees to see the wood. We are only dimly conscious that many things are in the melting pot. We know that men like Mr. Ramsay MacDonald and Mr. Philip Snowden do not break party ties and imperil their political and personal careers without compelling cause. The mere “disagreeable task” of putting extra taxation on incomes, beer, and tobacco, of reducing unemployment pay, salaries, and services, would not be shouldered by a Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer unless he felt that the whole standard of living was imperilled. “The white man's burden” has become a burden indeed.