26 MARCH 1932, Page 28

To have compressed into little more than a hundred pages

problem-sketch of Europe which omits none of the issues raised day by day in the world's Press is a notable achieve- ment. The practised hand whose contribution to the new series, " World Problems of Tin-day," coming from Messrs. Sidgwick and Jackson, takes this form is that of Mr. H. Wilson Harris. The name itself is a guarantee of accuracy, and appositeness. The pages on economic relationships, for instance, based on Francis Delaisi's Les Deux Europe*, throw a flood of light on the Danubian problem now occupying the centre of the political stage. Our only criticism of • The Future of Europe (8s. 6d.) is that it is too much like a labora- tory study of secondhand material. Like so much of similar work to-day, it reveals a mind occasionallyout of touch with the living dynamics of Europe. Disclaiming the mantle of prophet, the author is constrained, nevertheless, to present a picture of what Europe might be in 1940. He foresees a change the status of the Polish Corridor and adjustments affecting the South Tyrol, Lithuania and Hungary's neighbours, as a corollary to at least a partial success of the League of Nations' efforts towards military and economic disarmament. The underlying assumption, however, is that " Europe is in- habited by rational nations acting rationally." It is a large assumption, common among the lineal descendants of the eighteenth-century philosophes.