accept it were it not gravely embarrassed for lack of money. The members of the Royal Commission on the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge who are responsible for the Report are fully alive to the risk that is run. This is what they say in a memorable passage: That the attempt of the State to control opinion in the universities and colleges broke down in 1688, and was never revived, is a great fact that has distinguished our university system from that of France and Germany. It is a precious part of our intellectual and moral heritage. . If

there were any danger that grants of public money would lead to State interference with opinions in the universities, it might be the less of two evils that they should decline in efficiency rather than lose their independence in order to obtain adequate means."

So says the Commission, and it is well to have the truth plainly stated. But it is a pious opinion, and no more. It gives us no security for the future. A clause in the report of a commission binds nobody, and the danger of democratic interference is not lessened because it is openly admitted. Even in this very modest Report there is a long series of suggestions and recommendations, many of which will be thought unacceptable by those who are responsible for the conduct of the universities. Shall their acceptance be a condition of the grant in aid or

what becomes of the precious part of our intellectual and moral heritage? As for the suggestions themselves, they are for the most part small and niggling. The masters and fellows are not fools that they should be given gratuitous and trivial advice. What would the head of any enterprise say if a company of solemn scholars and pompous politicians met together and urged them to reduce their laundry charges or to "develop the system of bed sitting-rooms? It is not by such means as these that the demands of higher education are to be met, and the kindest thing to say of the Report is that for the most part it is wholly superfluous. It certainly was not worth the £10,000, which sum was the cost of its production.

Discussing one fiercely debated problem-the position of women at Cambridge—the commission runs into the very danger which it deplores. If the grant of public money depends upon submission to its demands, then it is openly interfering with the opinion of the University. Cambridge has twice refused by large majorities to admit women to the same privileges as are now enjoyed by men. In doing this the University was well within its rights. It exercised that self-determination which we are told is the birthright of all communities. Yet the commission designs another destiny for Cambridge, in spite of its lofty profession of no inter

THE Olivers were an outstanding couple, even in that outstanding body of men and women who form the thin but efficient bulwark against the lean wolf-men roaming the hills in packs from the Malakand to Dera Ghazi Khan, and looking down with covetous eyes from their barren fastnesses on the plains, shining with water, rich in beeves, yellow with corn, and teeming with loot and women. Over those sleek river-laced lands successive waves of wolf-men have surged out of the ravenous North, century after century, from the passes which gave the Sikhs the cholera in the days of Ranjeet Singh, harrying, ravishing, and leaving their scars to the walls of that Delhi which is a far cry, as all Hind from Cape Comorin to Lundi Kotal can

tell you.

VOL. COXI.—NO. MCCLXXX.

When for the first time in history a counter-wave swept northwards from the capital of the Moguls over the prostrate Punjab to the foot of the astounded hills, that wave was crested by white men, who established themselves forthwith like a wire fence, barbed too, between the tribesmen and their prey. Our side the fence law, order, and security, said the audacious Feringhis; your side, go as you please. And the white race succeeded under conditions which had baffled the Lion of the Punjab himself, and amid men who had scoffed at the Sikh Raj. Of the many great Frontiersmen of that first wave, in the days between the overthrow of the Khalsa Army and the Mutiny, the greatest alike in stature and personality was the black-bearded giant, John Nicholson.

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