17 AUGUST 1889, Page 25

Gold in Great Britain and Ireland. By A. T. Vanderbilt.

(Swan Sonnenschein and Co.)—Let us work our gold-fields, says Mr.

Vanderbilt, and we shall have a real golden age. " Pauperism will become a thing of the past," crime will be diminished, and taxation reduced. Gold has not been so great a blessing to the countries where it has been fo Ind ; still, if it exists, it should be worked. But have we really been so blind as to let these vast riches lie unappropriated ? One remembers what Tacitus says of British pearls,—" Ego facilius crediderim naturam margaritis deesse quam nobis avaritiam." But Mr. Vanderbilt (a name, by-the-way, of happy omen in the matter of wealth) has un- doubtedly collected here some interesting facts.