From the Daily Telegraph, May 9th, 1912.

"The possibilities of fanaticism are unlimited, and we cannot go so far as to assert that there is not a single man of the Prime Minister's following who does not actively detest the Home Rule Bill. Here and there, perhaps, may be found some fervid Ministerialist enthusiast, whose feeling for it stops short of disgust, and is merely one of mild disapproval. But what we can say with certainty is that there is not one of themnot one-who would willingly face his constituents in a byelection in which the issue was restricted to this futile piece of constitutional jerry-building."

To such a pass of ridiculous nonsense has the opposition to Home Rule been brought in this year of grace, 1912. It is the Tories (e.g., Mr. Jodrell, in North-West Norfolk) who side-track Home Rule at by-elections.

From the Pall Mall Gazette, May 7th, 1912.

'The first rule of British public life is that the man who cannot defend himself shall not be attacked. This rule has been forgotten by certain Unionist members, who are using the Taft-Roosevelt correspondence as a weapon for attacking the conduct of Mr. Bryce during the reciprocity negotiations last year. We desire once for all to record our conviction that the British Ambassador to Washington acted throughout in a way worthy of his position. He was known to be a man of strong opinions on Free Trade; he was, indeed, selected for the post on account of those opinions. If there is to be blame for the part he took in the negotiations, the blame must fall on the shoulders of those who sent him to Washington, and who gave him his instructions, not on the loyal servant who carried those instructions into effect."

This is well said, and a very proper and dignified rebuke to the Unionist small fry who have meanly attacked Mr. Bryce.

New Publications.

Insurance versus Poverty. By L. G. Chiozza Money, M.P. (London: Methuen.) Price 5s. net.

Mr. Chiozza Money has long been known as a strong advocate of State Insurance, and has especially proved his powers as defender and exponent of the Insurance Act. In "Insurance versus Poverty," to which Mr. Lloyd George contributes an introduction, he shows himself at his best in both capacities. For not only does he deal with the Act itself, giving a descriptive and critical account, both simple and admirably lucid, of each of its Parts (which, in addition, he prints in full with explanatory notes), but he discusses, with full equipment of knowledge, the social and industrial conditions which render the Act necessary. In a word, he presents the general case

for State Insurance in regard both to health and unemployment. This is not nearly so well known as it ought to be, and excellent though Mr. Chiozza Money's exposition of the Act is, it is his statement of the general case that gives his book its special value. In regard to Health Insurance, he puts, with resistless force, the case for compulsion, dealing in separate chapters with the "blessed word" compulsion, the failure of voluntary social insurances, the conditions of the poor man's doctoring, and the economy of National Health Insurance, and adding one on German Social Insurance. In the same way he treats the case for Unemployment Insurance, demonstrating the inherent irregularity of work, examining the doctrine of regular pay, and showing how little has been done in the way of voluntary unemployment insurance, and how little it has effected. When it is said that Mr. Chiozza Money has done all this with his usual clearness and grasp of facts and figures, nothing need be added to prove how great a service he has rendered. He has given us in one volume, for the first time, not only the Act itself but a full statement of the problems with which the Act is designed to deal, thereby setting the Act in its proper perspective, and enabling us to see if the Act is only the first step towards the solution of these problems, yet how necessary and how great a step it is, and also precisely how much yet remains to be done.

A word must be added as to the structure of the book itself. We have never seen a more usable one. Everything that could be done to make its contents readily and easily accessible has been done.

:-

We have also received:The Education Question To-Day: The Annual Report of the National Education Association for 1911. (Caxton House, Westminster, S.W.) Price 6d.

Gives a most useful review, excellently done, of the various aspects of the Education Question during the past year, containing, as it does, a summary of the various Education Bills presented during the year, and reports and appendixes on Educational Finance, Schemes of Settlement, the Round Table Conference held on November 24th last, the Swansea Judgment, Endowments, Rural Education, and other matters.

The Legal Sufferings of the Jews in Russia: A Survey of their Present
Situation. Edited by
by Lucien Wolf. (London: Fisher
Unwin.) Price 1s. net.

Professor A. V. Dicey contributes an Introduction running to ten pages, and an Appendix gives a chronological summary of the legal restrictions imposed upon the Jews in Russia since 1882. Good for Trade." By Charles H. Jones. (London: E. Rota, 126, Camberwell Road, S.E.) Price 2d.

A lecture delivered to the Cheltenham Women's Liberal Association.

The Annual Report (for 1911-12) of the Proportional Representation Society. (London: 179, St. Stephen's House, Westminster,

S.W.).
Representation: The Journal of
Society. (March number).
House, Westminster, S.W.)
The Seventh Annual Report (for

the Proportional Representation (London: 179, St. Stephen's Price (to non-subscribers) 1d. 1911) of the British Institute of

Social Service. (London: 4, Tavistock Square, W.C.).

The Magazines for June.

TO THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Professor J. H. Morgan contributes Home Rule and Federalism, and there are two articles on Welsh Disestablishment: (1) Some Australian Experiences of the Organisation of a Disestablished Church by the Bishop of North Queensland and (2) The Clergy and Disestablishment: a Reply to the Rev. Francis Powell by the Rev. A. St. Leger Westall. Lord Lincolnshire deals with Rival Land Policies, Mr. W. H. Mallock with Labour Unrest as a Subject of Official Investigation, Mr. Charles Bright with Cables versus Wireless Telegraphy, and Captain A. K. Slessor with Oxford and the Army. Other articles are The Truth about the Franco-German Crisis of 1911 by M. Philippe Millet, The Failure of Post-Bismarckian Germany by Mr. J. Ellis Barker, and The Senussi and the Military Issue in Tripoli by Mr. A. Silva White.

IN THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW Mr. Erskine Childers discusses The Home Rule Bill and the Unionist Alternative: a Contrast, Mr. E. Crawhay-Williams, M.P., The Position of Woman Suffrage, and Sir Edwin Pears The Situation in Turkey. Commander Carlyon Bellairs deals with The Titanic" Disaster, and Dr.

E. J. Dillon with Foreign Affairs. IN THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW there is an anonymous article on Why Ulster distrusts Roman Catholicism, while Mr. Sydney Brooks writes on Sir Horace Plunkett and his Work, Mr. H. W. Nevinson on Qualis Artifex!", "Democritus on Isolation or Entanglement?, "Politicus on Baron Marschall and AngloGerman Differences, and Captain Battine on How to Postpone an Anglo-German War. Other articles are on Shorter Speeches in Parliament by "Auditor Tantum," and Advantages and Defects of the Copyright Act, 1911, by Mr. G. Herbert Thring. THE ENGLISH REVIEW Contains The Conservative Party and Home Rule by Mr. J. MacVeagh, M.P., Liberalism in the Village by Mr. L. M. Phillips, and Syndicalism by Mr. Odon Por and Mr. F. M. Atkinson, while Mr. H. W. Hobart writes on Revelations of Industrial Life.

TO THE NATIONAL REVIEW Mr. L. J. Maxse contributes Ethics of Political Intrigue: a Revelation of Ministerial Policy.

WE would again call special attention to the superb series of photogravure portraits of Liberal leaders published by the Liberal Publication Department. These are five in number-Mr. Gladstone, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, Mr. Asquith, Lord Morley, and Mr. Lloyd George. The published price is 2s. 6d. each, or the set of five for 10s., post free (not more than six portraits) sixpence extra. Full particulars can be obtained on application at 42, Parliament Street, where the portraits may also be inspected.

Full details of the publications of the Liberal Publication Department on the Home Rule Bill will be found on page iii. of the advertisements. To these has been added a new pamphlet on "The Finance of the Home Rule Bill," by Mr. Lees-Smith, M.P. (See page iv.)

We would also call attention to two new pamphlets (see page iv.) on important questions of current interest "Social Reform versus Socialism" by Mr. Russell Rea, M.P., and "The Present Price of Consols" by Mr. Reginald Vaile.

THE DIARY OF THE MONTH.

(1) Mr. Burns on a Milk Bill.

"The President of the Board of Agriculture and himself hoped to pass this year the Milk Bill introduced on a former occasion. It was probable that the measure would be less contentious now because the interval of time since this legislation was first proposed had enabled interests which appeared to be almost irreconcilable to adjust their differences."

(2) Lord Haldane on National Defence.

"Keep up a fleet and secure command of the sea, and then their problem was a simple one. For years ahead we should have to protect our overseas Dominions, but the time would come, and he believed it would come before very long, when these distant Dominions would organise their own military defences and their own naval defences also. That would relieve us at home of a heavy burden and set us free to use our resources more for the defence of these islands and for the Empire at large. At no distant time we ought to be the most powerful military and naval nation combined which the world had ever seen.'

(3) Mr. Montagu on the Government and Lord Curzon's Indian Policy. The fundamental mistake which was made by critics of the Government's policy was the suggestion that there had been a reversal of the partition of Bengal. Lord Curzon was as great an administrator as India had ever had. He had found a great province of 98,000,000 people, and had become acquainted with the scandalous maladministration which was going on in the eastern parts of Bengal. He had found that owing to its vast size it was quite impossible to administer the province according to modern European ideas. So Lord Curzon decided to divide it, but he did not divide it with the idea of making a Mohammedan State. The division was merely an administrative reform to produce efficiency. But experience had shown that even in the cause of efficiency we could not move masses of population about and destroy their national ideals without regard to their opinions. Because the unrest produced militated against the efficiency which Lord Curzon desired, the Government had done over again in the light of experience Lord Curzon's work. There was now a partition of Bengal, not into two pieces, but into three pieces, and all they claimed was that, having regard to the fact that they had kept the national boundaries, their partition was a better one than Lord Curzon's and likely to produce greater efficiency, because it was more acceptable to the population.'

(4) Lord Lansdowne on Lord Loreburn.

66

Our standpoint was often quite another standpoint from his, but I can remember no occasion upon which Lord Loreburn did not meet us courteously and considerately, and upon which he did not show a desire to understand and to give due weight to our arguments, or on which he did not leave an impression of the complete sincerity of his convictions. The noble marquess (Crewe) spoke of Lord Loreburn's occasional fervour. We always felt that it was not a simulated or histrionic fervour, but that it represented genuine and sincere feelings which he felt very deeply indeed."