For Efficiency. By Arnold White. (E. Hutton and Co., Manchester.
6d.)—Mr. Arnold White has collected here a series of letters written by him to the Daily Dispatch, and described as "reflecting on the incapacity of the ruling classes and appealing to the men of business to take part in the affairs of State." The Spectator never hesitates to expose incapacity wherever it may be found. At the same time, we ought to be quite sure that if we make a change we make it for the better. We turn to pages which record the affairs of "men of business," and find them full of complaints. Our trading classes and manufacturers are accused of inability to accommodate themselves to changing conditions of commerce. We see that of limited companies nine-tenths end, owing to feebleness or fraud, in speedy collapse. We see public money wasted by municipalities; the "Works Department" of the richest and most powerful municipality in the world convicted of incompetence. We do not accept all these indictments as proved; we mention them to show that a series of letters might be written to prove the incapacity of " men of business." But though we cannot agree to all Mr. Arnold White's indictment, we most willingly admit his patriotic intention.
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