4 JUNE 1932, Page 27

- THE JUNE REVIEWS

The least sign of constructive effort in China deserves attention, therefore Mr. G. E. Hubbard's " A Chinese Experi- ment " in the Contemporary should be read. He describes the work of Mr. Yen at Tinghsien, a hundred miles south of Peking, where a group of volunteers are educating the villagers and their older children, teaching the elements of sanitation and running an experimental farm. Such an effort calls for the utmost encouragement. Dame Edith Lyttelton reviews hopefully the fifty years' proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, while Mr. F. W. IIirst castigates -"Me First Protectionist Budget." " Will Prosperity Come Again ? " asks Mr. George Glasgow in the Fortnightly, and answers it with an assured affirmative

because slumps have always been followed by booms and business is a matter of confidence. But Mr. Glasgow will not commit himself to a date. An anonymous writer purporting to predict the attitude of " South Africa at the Conference ' at Ottawa warns us that South Africa's preferences to Great Britain must be limited by her trade treaty with Germany, and her determination to cling to the gold standard.

Sir Edward Grigg in the National pleads for " Leadership and Action at Ottawa," and particularly for a measure of inflation coupled with reductions of the debts owed by the Dominions and Colonies to Great Britain. Mr. E. H. Anstice, who hds been teaching in Japan, presents an analysis of student views in an interesting article on The Mind of Young Japan." The students, he thinks, are liberal and pacific in tendency, not unfriendly to England, full of admiration for German science, and proud of their own country. Sir Louis Jackson adduces further evidence, confirming Dr. Allen's recent book, to show that " Gordon was not a drunkard " as the late Mr. Lytton Strachey suggested.

Ottawa and British Foreign Trade " is discussed very sensibly in the Nineteenth Century by Major Polson-Newman, who stresses the oft forgotten truism that we cannot afford to ignore or despise our foreign trade, whatever arrangements we may make with the Dominions. He points out, for in- stance, that our trade with Scandinavia alone " is little short of that with the United States and surpasses that with British India." Mr. Rollo Appleyard records and discusses the grim figures for road accidents in " Our Crimson Highways," and urges the motorist to show greater restraint.

Blaclovood's, entertaining as ever, prints a remarkable narrative, written in 1863 by F. J. Stevenson, of a visit to the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky. An amusing and practical article on apple-growing for the market, under the title of " The Garden of the Hesperides," deserves to be widely read.

The Round Table for June should be read as a whole. In a series of lucid and weighty articles it comments on the main problems that face us in a troubled world. " Ireland and the Treaty," " The United States : a Year of Despair," " The Far East," " Ottawa," are discussed very temperately. In " Reflections on the Crisis " it is pointed out that monetary changes alone, such as inflation to raise prices, will not suffice when the universal lack of confidence is due mainly to political causes, of which Franco-German antagonism is the chief. The fall of Dr. Briining, since the article was written, unhap- pily strengthens its conclusions.