12 NOVEMBER 1904, Page 23

A Sketch of Chinese History. By the Rev. F. L.

Hawke Pott. (T. Fisher Unwin. 6s. net.)—This " Sketch " will be useful. The minds of most people are an absolute blank in the matter of Chinese history before, let us say, the nineteenth century. As to more recent events there is, probably, much misunderstanding. Dr. Pott cannot do much in the two hundred pages to which he is limited, but what he does give us is sufficiently clear and to- the point. It is a new light on the opium trouble when we aro told that it was brought about by an attack of fiscalitis. Chinese sages were terribly alarmed when they saw that imports exceeded exports, and began to stop the former by a heavy duty on opium._