28 JANUARY 1905, Page 13

China's Business Methods and Policy. By T. R. Jerningham. (T.

Fisher Unwin. 12s.)—There is a want of cohesion about this work ; it seems more a collection of papers than a treatise. The work will be found useful when any important event takes place in China in connection either with its foreign or with its internal policy, as a sort of reference-book. The author, who has been American Consul-General at Shanghai, will always be found ready with intelligent and cautious remarks which contain a consider- able amount of information in short compass. Here, from a paper on missionaries, is a specimen of Mr. Jerningham's style and temper:—" There are many truths in the philosophy of Confucius which do not differ from the truths of Christianity, and there need not be any wholesale attempt to drive the Chinese from every previously conceived conviction. What is true in the writings of Confucius should be admitted and presented as true thus finding an easier way to the Chinese mind by causing it to reflect that truth has been truth throughout all time, and that Christianity is but the truth." Of Mr. Jerningham's chapters, which are too numerous for us even to give their names, those on "Family Law," "Land Tenure," "Consuls and a Consular System," "Western Nations in China," and " Shang- hai " may be singled out as especially worth reading for the reasons we have given.

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.