4 OCTOBER 1930, Page 3

Mr. Harkness's Great Gift If we may read between the

lines of American comment on the reception here of Mr. Harkness's munificent gift, there is some surprise that this remarkable event should have had less publicity than in the donor's own country. The reverse might naturally have been expected. Nothing could be more unhappy—or more untrue, for the matter of that—than a belief in the United States that the British people have not been startled into deep gratitude not merely by the magnitude but by the whole character of Mr. Harkness's gift. It is worth while, therefore, to say something about the quiet and apparently casual ways of this country. Here publicity is seldom organized, and this defect—if such it is—is no doubt very misleading to Americans. They recognize that the gift of £2,000,000 by a citizen of one country to the people of another country, virtually without conditions, is unprecedented. Why, they ask, is there not more to-do about it ?