On March 1st Mr. Hilary St. George Saunders, well-known for
authorship not only under his own name but also as one component in the David Pilgrim and Francis Beeding partnerships, to say nothing of the brilliant war-booklets which he wrote anonymously, takes up the highly important post of Librarian of the House of Commons, where he has been Assistant Librarian for several years. I predict that the post will be considerably more important before Mr. Saunders vacates it, for he has far-reaching ideas about the develop- ment and expansion of the Library on lines designed to make it capable of rendering the service it ought to render to Members of the House—notably to Members of this particular House, who appear to be manifesting a laudable demand for information unknown in the same degree heretofore. There is no doubt that the Library does need modernising, and that process is now in prospect. One volume which it will no doubt acquire in time has yet to be written—a descriptive account of British oil-fields in the Middle East from the pen of Mr. Saunders himself, who spent the recent Parliamentary recess in Persia collecting the necessary material.
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