The export drive is necessary, and nothing must be done
to impede it. All the same, there are some exports one would gladly recall. One is the Encyclopadia Britannica, which, as most people know, crossed the Atlantic many years ago and is now the property of the University of Chicago. That, as I say, is generally known. What I, at any rate, did not know till I happened to be given the facts this week, was the immense activity the present proprietors and directors of the enterprise have generated. The Encyclopaedia itself is being kept up to date by the issue of annual Britannica year-books, and complete sets of the new edition are or will be on sale at £58, At the same time, a Junior Encyclopedia for children is in preparation (and almost complete). So is a series of the Great Books of the World (unabridged), round which will be built throughout the United States reading societies, which before long are likely to amber ten million or more members. Then there is to be a Britannica Bible or an Encyclopmdia Bible (I am not sure which, consisting of the Authorised Version, accompanied by a commentary embodying the latest accepted (or generally accepted) findings of modern scholarship. Finally, over 8o per cent. of the educational films in the United States are, I find, made under the auspices of the Britannica.
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