SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Notice in this column does not necessarily preclude subsequent review.) The Statesman's Year-book, 1922, edited by Sir John Scott Keltie and M. Epstein. (Macmillan. 20s. net).—This famous book of reference is now in its fifty-ninth year and seems to improve with age. For the stable nations, it is all that could be desired. With Eastern Europe in an unsettled condition, the accounts of Russia and her neighbours must necessarily be imperfect. The section devoted to Russia shows how violently feet may conflict with theory. We are told, for example, that " freedom of conscience, of opinion, of the press and of meeting are guaranteed, by the Constitution." No such freedom is, of course, permitted ; the moderate Socialist leaders are at this moment being tried for claiming these elementary civic rights. In the introductory pages we find the text of the " treaty " which the Sinn Feiners have nominally accepted, together with short accounts of the " Irish Free State " and Northern Ireland, and a chapter on the League of Nations. Two coloured maps show the territorial settlement in Upper Silesia and the Burgenland.
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