D(411.13 in /refund. By Marie Harrison. (Andrew Melrose. 3s. net.)—The
author of this book describes the increased material prosperity of Ireland in recent years and analyses it into its com- ponent factors individual private enterprise, the growth of the Co-operative movement in agriculture, State assistance of in. dustries, and the rise in prices due to the war. She expends much amiable rhetoric on the spirit of nationality- common to North and South, Protestant and Roman Catholic alike, and thinks that the evil influences of defective education, clericalism, and =intelligent bureaucracy, which, in her view, militate strongly at present against it, would be modified or destroyed by a full measure of self-govern- ment. In the admirable conduct of Irish soldiers in the British Army she finds grounds for optimism as regards the future relations of the two countries ; and her solution of the Irish question is to put the Home Rule Act in force, excluding North-East Ulster. The book is pleasantly and sympathetically written, but on far too shallow a basis and with far too little consideration of hostile arguments and points of view to throw light on the difficulties involved in the various problems it discusses.
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