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of a shooting expedition last summer, in the course of which Mr. Millais came into contact with Sir Lee Stack, and with many other officials in different grades, and formed the opinion that the condition of the natives in the Sudan was peculiarly happy. Mr. Millais is an experienced traveller and naturalist, and his book contains much interesting information on the animal and bird-life of the Upper Nile. It is illustrated with drawings by himself and by his son-the latter clearly showing inherited facility. In the introductory part of the book, Mr. Millais is moved to express his views on art and women, but here his touch is less sure.

THE WINES OF FRANCE. By H. Warner Allen.

8s. 6d. net.

Fisher Unwin.

Mr. Warner Allen is one of those delicate connoisseurs of wine who seem in these post-war days to be relics of another age. If few of his readers can hope for any direct enjoyment of the wonderful vintage wines discussed in these pages, they can enjoy the imagination of a writer who finds poetry in a wine-glass, and suggests that the perfect cellarer "should be required to study everything in world literature that has been written concerning wine," and that the perfect waiter should bring to the table with a chosen bottle of Mouton-Rothschild an appropriate quotation from La Fontaine.

THE PEAL OF BELLS. By Robert Lynd (" Y.Y.") Methuen. 6s. net.

There must be many readers of a certain weekly review who find their chief enjoyment in the essays signed "Y.Y." Mr. Robert Lynd has now collected another series of these essays in a book, which the discerning reader may keep by him for comfort on winter evenings. Few readers will fail to enjoy the writer's humour and admirable prose. Perhaps the qualities for which Mr. Lynd's essays are most remarkable are the ingenuity with which he pokes fun through his own foibles at those of all mankind, and his profound knowledge of the ways and thoughts of children. The temptation to quote must be resisted, for the essays are far too soundly constructed to be cut into snippets.

JOSEPH CONRAD: A Personal Remembrance. By Ford Madox Ford (Ford Madox Hueffer). Duckworth & Co.

net.

7s. 6d. In this volume, Mr. Hueffer-to use the name by which Joseph Conrad knew him best-has drawn a portrait of his great collaborator. It is a vigorous portrait, though opinions may differ as to its entire accuracy. The writer certainly has no false modesty about his own share in the partnership. But perhaps that is only human, and Mr. Hueffer truly says of Conrad "something human was to him dearer than the wealth of the Indies."

ESSAYS BY DIVERS HANDS; Being the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom. New Series. Vol. IV. Edited by EDMUND GOSSE. Oxford University Press. 78. net.

This is another welcome addition to the volumes which have been published from time to time containing a selection of the papers read before the Royal Society of Literature.

Sir Edmund Gosse contributes an introduction, chiding in gentle fashion some contemporary critics for their violence of expression, and repeating the somewhat worn theory that "many a preposterous opinion is expressed because the author of it fears to be overlooked." ̄ Selfadvertisement is to be found to-day in criticism as in every other profession; but some modern critics honestly hold violent views and do well to express them, as their contribution to thought.

A man of letters, who was also a violent and often unwise critic in his day, William Cory, is the subject of a paper by Mr. John Drinkwater. In "Chivalry and the Sea," Dr. Holland Rose traces the growth of chivalry amongst sailors, and finds that it is scarcely to be met with earlier than the English sea-captains of the days of Elizabeth. Sir Henry Newbolt, in a paper on " Peacock, Scott and Robin Hood," deals with the origins of the Robin Hood legend, and compares in detail the curiously-like passages in Scott's" Ivanhoe " and Peacock's "Maid Marian." He suggests that Peacock, who disclaimed any debt to Scott, may have revised " Maid Marian " after reading "Ivanhoe," and that, unknown to his conscious mind, some memories of Scott may have crept into his own story.

Other papers are contributed by Professor Warwick Bond on " The Art of Narrative Poetry" (he also attacks the poor critics); by Mr. Robert Ramsey on Dante and St. Louis "; and by Professor A. T. Baker on Saints' Lives Written in Anglo-French."

The wide diversity of the contributions may be taken as reflecting the catholic quality of the Royal Society of Literature: a quality of the utmost value to all lovers of English literature.

SECRET SOCIETIES AND SUBVERSIVE MOVEMENTS. By NESTA H. WEBSTER. Boswell Printing & Publishing Co., Ltd.

208. net.

In this volume Mrs. Webster has collected information about Secret Societies and Subversive Movements-historical and contemporary. With a wealth of evidence, drawn frequently from the obscure writings of obscure authors, she sets out her main finding, which is that Jews have been at the bottom of every "subversive movement" in history, including the French Revolution; and that, at the present time, they are the prime movers in such apparently different organizations as Continental Free-Masonry, Pan-Germanism, Theosophy and Bolshevism. All these movements, she believes to be subversive," in the sense that they are directed against the Christian Church.

The temptation to blame the Jews when things go wrong with Christian peoples is an old one, and the Dreyfus case little affected the type of mind that yields to this temptation; but most normal people will prefer to find other explanations of revolutionary movements, and will dismiss Mrs. Webster's conclusions with regret that a writer of some gifts has so little power of weighing the value of the evidence she brings forward. No doubt the American Ku Klux Klan would welcome her assistance; but citizens of the British Empire do not forget the distinguished services of the Jewish sons of that Empire in critical days.

EQUALITY AND FRATERNITY.

By DOUGLAS MACLEANE, 78.6d. net.

Canon of Salisbury. George Allen & Unwin, Ltd.

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It is refreshing in these days to find an author standing so staunchly for "orthodox Christianity as does Canon Macleane in this consideration of the doctrines of equality and fraternity; but the interest of Canon Macleane's own views is lessened by the too copious quotations from other authors. These are interspersed throughout his own text in a way that is often tiring to the eye of the reader and confusing to his mind, until at the end of a chapter he does not remember how much of it was contained between quotation marks, and how much was Canon Macleane's.

In spite of this difficulty, numerous debatable points do emerge from Canon Macleane's own writing. He throws out challenges with a lavish hand to Socialists, Feminists, "Coloured Races," plutocrats, modern artists, and modern authors, with a particularly ringing one for the Mr. John Masefield of "Lollingdon Downs." But with all his attacks on modernism" in Church, politics, and art, he fails to provide any very clear idea of the application of his own kind of Christianity to the world of democracy. He begins one chapter with the statement, "Empire is the aristocracy of worth on a large and racial scale. Every empire was founded in subjugation of a lower civilisation by a higher "; but, having added "worth" as an additional explanation of his use of " aristocracy," he leaves it open to the reader to feel that he is contradicted by his own pen, when at a later stage he reviews some of the actions of the "higher civilisations" in achieving their conquests.

Again, after he has pleaded for "Equality of Consideration" as a Christian ideal in place of “ Equality of Opportunity," he may surprise the reader by his views on "Coloured Races" in another chapter. St. Paul is hurled at the heads of the daring " Feminist," and the claims of women to equality are dismissed by Canon Macleane with the remark "Nor is woman constitutionally, but only muscularly and mentally, weaker than man." (The italics are the reviewer's.)

In general, Canon Macleane's advice to " modernists" is that they should not be unduly worried about inequalities in racial, political or social opportunities, for a man is put into the world "to do his job conscientiously," as a preparation for the After-Life, in whatever

surroundings he may find himself. This kind of advice is, perhaps, easier to apply to oneself in the Close at Salisbury than in the courts of Bethnal Green; but it contains, of course, the germ of a truth, even if that truth be rather obscured by the Canon's sweeping generalisations.

THE OCEAN OF STORY; Being C. H. Tawney's Translation of Somadeva's Katha Sarit Sagara (or Ocean of Streams of Story). Now edited with Introduction, Fresh Explanatory Notes and Terminal Essay by N. M. PENZER. In 10 vols. Vol. I, with a foreword by Sir Richard Carnac Temple, Bart.; Vol. II, with a foreword by Sir George A. Grierson, K.C.I.E., etc. London. Privately printed for Subscribers only by Charles J. Sawyer, Ltd.

For students of the Hindu religion and of Indian folk-lore, this new and beautiful edition of C. H. Tawney's translation of Somadeva's verses (originally written somewhere about A.D. 1070, according to Mr. Penzer), should prove real treasure-trove; for Mr. Penzer has evidently devoted himself to much research before venturing to write the admirable notes and appendices which illuminate the narratives. As Sir Richard Temple says in his introduction to the first volume, there is still an immense field for further enquiry into such matters as the relations of the peoples of Aryan, Semitic, Dravidian, and nonAryan Indian races; but Mr. Penzer adds very considerably to previous knowledge in his appendices on "Mythical Beings," "The Use of Collyrium and Kohl," "The Cravings of Pregnant Women motif," and Sacred Prostitution." In the second volume Mr. Penzer includes a particularly interesting appendix on the subject of "Poison Damsels"; legendary girls whose touch, or glance (according to some versions) was fatal to their admirers because of the poison on which the girls were nourished. Some versions of the legend would provide excellent plots for the "shock" school of novelists.

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WILLIAM ROWNTREE

No. 492 will be published in April, 1925.

Printed in Great Britain by ROFFEY & CLARK, Croydon

The

Edinburgh Review

APRIL, 1925

No. 492

THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC SITUATION IN CANADA

THE years roll on but the political situation in Canada is no

nearer to liquidation than at the time of the last general election in 1921, and economic difficulties, which had not then begun to rear their heads, accentuate the strain to which the Dominion is at present being subjected. Hopes that the economic prosperity of the pre-war years, which was an effective insurance against internal discords, would again return have begun to fall away, and intermittent moods of restless pessimism, which had been unknown for thirty years, have overclouded the natural optimism of a North American community. Canada is simultaneously fortunate and unfortunate in her juxtaposition to the United States her easy access to the richest market and largest store of capital in the world is an advantage which most countries would envy, but as a drawback she is provided with very exacting and disturbing standards of material comparison. Tested by European standards Canada is a very prosperous corner of the universe; but in comparison with the United States her condition presents many disappointing features and is to-day inducing among Canadians a continual search for the reasons why they cannot emulate the overflowing affluence and progressive expansion of their nearest neighbours.

Concerning the natural resources of Canada and the possibilities which they offer, there has been a prolonged epidemic of very exaggerated estimates, productive of mischievous results.

VOL. 241. NO. 492.

All rights reserved.

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