Womis OF REFERENCE.—Whitaker's Almanack, 1920 (6a net), appears for the
fifty-second year with much new matter, in a very commendable effort to summarize the political results of the war. Under "Foreign Countries" are now included articles on Arabia, Czecho-Slovakia, and other new States. The Peace Treaties are summarized. A new section on "Questions of the Day," dealing with such topics as the Channel Tunnel, the London University degrees in Commerce; " key " industries, and Labour questions, is useful and promising. Altogether, Whitaker is better than ever.—Haza a Annual for 1920 (Frowde, and Hodder and Stoughton, 6s. net), edited by Dr. T. A. Ingram, has attained its thirty-fifth year. While it does not, perhaps, cover so wide a field as Whitaker, it deals more fully with certain subjects, and is extremely useful for reference in regard to Labour problems, pensions, and similar matters. The Peace Treaties are carefully summarized.—The Year 1919 Illustrated (Swarthmore Press, Os. net) is an unpretentious record of the more notable events of the past year, with some political articles and numerous illustrations and maps. The articles show a strong bias against the Government and in favour of the Labour Party, so that the book must be used with caution for purposes of ref erence.—The People's Year Book, 1920 (Co-operative Press Agency, 2s. net), contains a great deal of information, well arranged, about Co-operation, Labour questions, and economies generally, but this book also suffers from being edited by zealous politicians. The summary of the Coal Commission's second Report is misleading. No one who had not seen the Report would guess from this summary that Mr. Justice Sankey made it an essential condition of his nationalization scheme that the miner's right to strike should be limited, like the right of a member of the League of Nations to make war, and that the miners' delegates on the Commission repudiated this condition. It is a pity that the Labour Party does not recognize the value of accuracy in its statements and publications. As a new party Labour ought to set an example to its-rivals by adhering strictly to the truth.
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