We are glad to learn that the Central Asian Society,
at 74 Grosvenor Street, has doubled its membership since the Armis- tice, as Asiatic questions have assumed greater importance for us than ever before. The latest part of the Society's Journal contains a most instructive paper on " The Highways of Central Arabia," by Mr. H. St, John B. Philby, who has gone with Sir Percy Cox to Baghdad as political adviser. Mr. Philby insists in his paper that the desert Arab cherishes liberty above all other things, and that the Arabs of Syria and Mesopotamia who migrated thither from the desert are just as desirous of inde- pendence as the Bedouin. He thinks that the Arab population would increase rapidly if tribal wars ceased and if child mortality —three out of every four infanta die—were checked by sanitary measures.
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