APPEAL TO COMMON SENSE By Gabriel Wells
Tom Paine set the American colonies afire in 1776 with his appeal to common sense to declare their independence. Mr. Wells as a good American chooses a similar title for a collection (Methuen, 7s. .6d.) of his letters to the Press and short addresses and articles which. show his own independence of patti ties and national prejudices. As readers of The Spectator know, Mr. Wells is always a friendly critic of England as well as of his own country, and he preaches international goodwill in season and out of season. - This ..collection is arranged under the three heads of economics and finance, politics, and philosophy and general topics—such as Mr. Shaw's women, divorce, Poe as a mystic—and thus reminds us of the breadth and variety of the writer's interests. Sometimes Mr. Wells's " common sense " seems violently hetero- dox or fantastic, but he speaks his mind urbanely and lucidly. Almost the only unkind epithet that he uses is " childish," for a client who said that he preferred the money to the book that Mr. Wells wanted to sell to him.
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