Shorter Notices
THESE two well-known annuals, both edited by Dr:Mortimer Epstein, are indispensable volumes of reference for anyone concerned in any way with public life. This year both arrive a little late. That is intelligible enough ; the wonder is that at such times they can arrive within the year at all. The Statesman's Year-Book, apart from its invaluable chapters on individual countries, devotes some five-and- a-half pages to the League of Nations, presumably for the last time, and deals briefly but usefully with the British Council and the Middle East Supply Centre. The Annual Register takes a wider range, in that it covers home politics extensively, as well as foreign affairs more concisely. But it falls short of the companion volume in objectivity, and objectivity is a very necessary quality in a reference- book. The article on Spain, for example, shows very clearly where its anonymous writer's sympathies lie politically. In a non-political work that would be better otherwise.
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