THE MAGAZINES
THE July Contemporary is full of interest if somewhat pro- vocative in its Radicalism. Mr. Noel Buxton discusses " Undercultivation and the Remedy," bringing evidence to prove that our farmers are not bringing the best out of the soil and are falling behind continental standards. The chief cause of their failure is, he thinks, " the increasing deterioration of equipment." He sees no hope of either farmer or landlord being able to rectify this deficiency and suggests that' the State should step in, all agricultural land being controlled by a public authority as Crown lands are already controlled. Captain Wedgwood Benn analyses " The Budget Insurance Scheme " in detail. He believes Mr. Churchill's aim to be the slow shifting of the cost of insurance wholly on to the shoulders of the producers. " The Decline of the Authority of the House of Commons " is sym- pathetically dealt with by Mr. Hilton Young. Pressure of work, he says, has forced it to delegate its powers and it is no longer " omnicompetent." Can its old position be restored or must we hope that " some other organ of govern- ment " will be developed ? he asks, but he does not answer the question. With clarity and moderation and sympathy Mr. W. A. J. Archbold sets before his readers " Some Indian Problems." No one will read his article without an over- whelming sense of the difficulties of the situation. As a " career " India no longer makes appeal to the English upper middle class. They will not under present conditions serve under natives. Mr. Archbold thinks they would so do " if their responsibility were exactly defined and their future assured." In a paper entitled " The Hyphenates and American Foreign Policy," Mr. Clarence Walworth Alvord endeavours to explain the present aims of America in regard to her relation with the rest of the world, and S. K. H., writing of " Russia and Japan," warns his readers that " though the men and the methods connected with their Far Eastern- policies have changed during the last few years,_ the column aini -IS Still what it was in 1895, the economic control of North-east Asia. The Chinese have a saying, ' Shoes for the same foot must be worn- by different people.'" In 'the new Blackwood nothing is dull.- We would call attention to a light article on Rugby School in the 'eighties,.
by the Rev. C. E. Green, and a serious one on Wallenstein, by Capt. B. H. Liddell Hart.
The most readable of the political articles in this month's Fortnightly are " British Policy and the Future of Palestine," by Mr. Chisholm Dunbar Brunton, and " A Visit to Sheffield,7 by Mr. Hugh Spender. Mr. Brunton describes very sym- pathetically the fear and distrust with which the Arabs regard Zionism, and points out that " under British rule the Arabs have lost the representative institutions and a considerable share of self-government accorded to them
by the. Turks. These two grievances together have upset
86 per cent. of the inhabitants of Palestine who must be by some means placated." In Sheffield, Mr. Spender has gleaned and arranged a large sheaf of facts about the steel trade.
The ordinary reader anxious to know something about the present state of English commerce will find much to interest and not a little to depress him. The present cut-throat
methods- of competition between the countries are appa- rently engaging the anxious thought not only of Sheffield
steel merchants, but of those of both France and Germany. Sheffield, however, seems to have little hope in any inter- national scheme.
A remarkably good number of The Empire Review contains two very interesting papers, one entitled " Mussolini the Man," by Onlooker, and the other " Literary Causerie Arthur Benson," by Desmond MacCarthy. Onlooker driws Mussolini as a man of action whose theories are never more than temporary means to a practical end, to be changed as the situation requires, yet withal he makes him a man of moral principle and emotional fire, whose thoughts are always in flux but whose rule of action is steadfast. Mr. MacCarthy apologizes at some length for his admiration for Benson.. All Mr. Benson's unashamed admirers will, however, delight in his shrewd and sympathetic appreciation illustrated as it is by well-chosen quotations. The praise strikes one as far more sincere than the apology.
An -article on " The Report of the Royal Commission on Food Prices " appears in the July Nineteenth Century. In it Dr. Christopher Addison picks out and arranges for the ordinary reader much information. The people have now.
to spend twenty shillings for food obtainable in 1914 for eleven shillings. The Commission thinks -that to thousands of housekeepers the rise in prices has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the family income. Mr. Arthur Greenwood writes on " Waste," meaning waste of life. Would anyone grudge, he asks, a penny on the Income Tax for one year for the subsidizing of Cancer Research; might not the nation spend profitably a couple of millions on skilled attention for children's teeth ; and shou:f_ Eat the question of smoke abolition be more seriously considered ?
In " Shall there be a Book of Common Prayer ? " Bishop VVelldon objects to the new schemes of Prayer Book reform on the grounds that if such wide discretion is given to the individual parson there will finally be no Book of Common Prayer at all.
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