2 AUGUST 1930, Page 19

Some Books of the Week

As headmaster of Winchester (1901--11) and as Bishop suc- cessively of Southwark and Oxford, Dr. H. M. Burge was well known and greatly respected, so that there will be many readers for the volume of his Discourses and Letters with a kindly memoir by Lord Charnwood (Chatto and Windus, 14s. Gd.). His charge at Southwark and his paper on the much vexed problem of religious instruction arc specially notable among the scattered items here brought together. His correspondence with his old friend, the late A. K. Cook of Winchester, reveals the late Bishop's strong sympathy with working men and his dislike for arbitrary employers of the old- fashioned type. Lord Haldane consulted him in the winter of 1923-24 as to the advisability of entering the Labour Cabinet. The Bishop " urged H. strongly to go in and help," and, a month later, reported that Lord Haldane " is very glad to have joined the Government." At the end of 1924 the Bishop learned from Lord Haldane that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald " had become quite overwrought and decided upon a dissolution finally quite ' on his own' and never even consulted Mr. Henderson."

* * * *