19 JANUARY 1929, Page 26

The aborigines of North America, before and „since . the

discovery and settlement of the continent, form the subject of Professor W. C. Macleod's learned volume on The American Indian Frontier, which has just been added to Messrs. Routledge's imposing " History of Civilization " (25s.). Professor Macleod is not the most lucid or coherent of writers, but he has collected a mass of information not- easily to be found elsewhere, and deals very fully with the Indian wars that troubled the early colonists. The New Englanders, as he reminds us, were all too ready to treat the natives as " children of Ham " who ought to be wiped out like Amalek. He reviews the changing policies of the United States towards the Indians, and states that there are now only a quarter of a million Indians who can be connected with tribes, and only half of these remain in a tribal condition. Professor Mackenzie commends British Columbia for its sane and consistent treat- ment of the Indians, who were given titles to the land that they actually occupied and had the same freedom as other British subjects. *. * * *