our dramas, and our films, and even our law-courts! The novel and the cinematograph industry batten upon our love of romance and adventure.

Surely the lesson to be learnt from all this is that however much we may cultivate common-sense, sheer intellect, satire, and a cynical outlook, we cannot crush out of existence the romantic, sentimental elements of human nature. These so-called ultra-modern, calculating, coldly indifferent, unromantic young things of the 20th century are in most cases innocent baby-humbugs-full of as much romanticism as their grannies and grandpas were, but merely unwilling to confess it! Those of them who are really what they profess to be are so few in number as to be hardly worth counting.

Cutting across the contrast of classical' and 'romantic,' is the distinction between 'absolute' and 'programme' music, as applied more particularly to instrumental art. Programme music follows a literary or pictorial scheme which exists apart from the music itself and can be described in words. Absolute music is supposed to be that which is self-contained. The distinction is a very rough one and somewhat superficial: it is fairly satisfactory as an account of the two borders of instrumental music, but is inadequate for the interior of the country. Works like the 'Symphonie Fantastique' of Berlioz or Strauss' Don Quixote' are, no doubt, programme music-which simply means that they follow, and are appropriate to, the extra musical ideas which they are supposed to represent. At the other end of the scale, the harpsichord pieces of Domenico Scarlatti and some of the fugues of Bach and sonatas of Haydn, are perhaps as 'absolute' as any music that can be found. But when we think of Beethoven's C minor symphony, Franck's quartet for strings, Chopin's pianoforte compositions-and indeed all the instrumental music which portrays moods and feelings-we realise that to place them in the same class as the unemotional concord of sweet sounds' which often charmed the ears of music-lovers before Beethoven's day, or the naked sound sensations which some 20th-century writers have produced, is as inapposite as to treat them as programme music. For the latter portrays external scenes and events or the

character of particular personages, rather than generalised emotions. It looks as though three categories are required-with absolute and programme music representing the two extremes, and, between them, the music which simply expresses moods and feelings or the drama of life itself.

Now romantic music could obviously never be 'absolute' with the meaning with which I have just used the term: it may very well belong to my middle category-as we have seen in the case of Franck's symphony and Beethoven's seventh, and certain instances from Mozart-in the sense that music which conveys emotions may in some cases be romantic, though it is not always so; while programme music is frequently, but not invariably, imbued with romanticism.

It is not my desire to condemn all these labels which theorists and historians have attached to music: they have their uses, and are in some cases convenient when appropriately employed. Too often, however, they are affixed blindly or thoughtlessly. Romanticism is a real quality in music, upon the nature and history of which a whole book might be written. But I believe that we should do well if we were to abolish the word 'classical' from the musical vocabulary altogether, nor am I sure that it is very helpful in the case of literature or the other arts. Ultimately, as Rossini said, music is only of two kinds-good and bad. To discuss and describe the qualities of a composition is one of the main functions of criticism. But classical' is not a quality. It is a nondescript portmanteau into which, according to our tastes and temperaments, we throw that which bores us or that which we dutifully admire. But music-the only music that matters for each of us-is never 'classical': it is a joy, a thrill, a romance, and a blessing. The message which it bears is there for us to read-80 long as we ourselves do not obscure it by tying on false labels.

Art. 11.-THE SLUM PROBLEM.

HOUSING in this country is a problem which has so fortunately disturbed the public conscience that it has become of general interest. The daily press finds it remunerative to devote thereto much valuable space, and naturally periodicals which take a longer view of publicity recognise it as of vital importance. Yet a housing problem as important, and differing only in one respect from that which now troubles us, has for long existed, and even more flagrantly in the past, disregarded by most of us, engaging the anxious attention of a few. A description of existing slum dwellings to-day wakes pity and protest, though for many generations large sections of the poorer classes have lived, with little notice taken, in surroundings as deplorable, in circumstances almost as harmful to the adolescent as they have undoubtedly been disastrous to the lives and health of children.

Two causes account for the general change of view indicated the accidental shortage of houses, compelling attention, caused by the War, and the rapid development in widening circles of a philanthropic instinct. Although this last may have been quickened by the change of power between classes, it is obvious that it springs in the main from a more worthy impulse, from the growth of a sense of collective responsibility.

The shortage of houses caused by the War was inevitable. As early as 1916 there were Ministers who, powerless at the time to prevent the catastrophe, saw that it must occur. If 100,000 new houses per year are required to keep the population under roof, and the provision is not only stopped but almost no repairs are done to existing buildings for nearly five years, it is obvious that when vast numbers of citizens return suddenly from overseas they must find themselves either more shelterless than in the fields of war or be intolerably overcrowded, and many in barely habitable quarters. When the time came, with its inevitable consequence, the absence of housing provision for those who had deserved best of their country became a matter of general concern, and indirectly it has roused the public to interest in the larger and ultimately more serious

housing problem which preceded and will survive this shortage.

But the actual shortage of houses was the first need to be met. How many new houses were required? It was as easy to produce varying statistics of the requirement as it was difficult to supply figures on which reliance could be placed. One reason that made the estimate difficult was this: for every hundred houses wanted to make up the actual deficiency there was a far larger but indefinite number of dwellings, apart from derelicts, which had become uninhabitable or nearly so from want of repair. Any one who has had experience of the houses in which the majority of the poor live, and their continual need of repair, will realise how devastating is a period when even the best landlords can through shortage of available labour do very little. If at the end of 1918 all the houses of the poor could have been restored magically to their condition of 1914, the difficulty of the housing situation would have been radically diminished. But the cry at first was only for new houses, and more new houses, until there should be sufficient as if that, a hard enough task, impossible except by slow process, were the whole problem. The kind of house most urgently required was to begin with not greatly considered; it was numbers of houses of any sort that counted most and would show best in parliamentary papers. Dr Addison, by his Acts of 1919, poured subsidy money into the purse of any person or body of persons who would put up within moderate limits of size four walls and a roof. His system was gigantically expensive to the Exchequer, and in many other ways unsatisfactory; but, in spite of a continuous rise in costs, seriously accelerated by the selfish policy of the building trades-unions, houses began to be erected in considerable quantity. Many of these were built for a comparatively well-to-do black-coated class, this kind of work, and only this kind, being by aid of the subsidy definitely profitable. Nevertheless a start had been made, and it would be unfair to condemn statesmanship which could have no ground of experience for basis. The ruins of that wellintentioned experiment have proved the foundation of more effective measures.

The slum problem is definitely not the housing problem