Under the English Crown. Ily Firmin Roz. (Hodder and Stoughton.
6s.)—This volume is described as "A Frenchman's Impressions of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales." These impressions are well worth studying. M. Roz came to his task of observation, a task performed with no little thoroughness, with a sufficient preparation. It is inevitable that an Englishman—and the writer of this notice is such in the strict sense of the word-- should sometimes find himself taking a different view. We think that in the case of Ireland—and this is the only one of the three that touches on practical politics—sufficient justice has not been done to the energetic efforts of England to act rightly to the country. M. Roz does not fail to recognise these efforts, but he sometimes uses language which contradicts their recognition. He accounts for Irish indolence by saying (p. 56) that the Irish cultivator "lacks the stamina to struggle against the doable tyranny that overwhelms him—Nature's inclemency and the despotism of conquest." Surely there is not mach of the "despotism of conquest" left. The Irish cultivator has had ten times more done for him out of the public purse than the English. When he can sell the tenant-right of his holding for a larger sum than the fee-simple of the same area of land would fetch in England, he has not much to complain of. Apart from this con- sideration, it must be said that our author rightly describes the attitude of the three peoples about which he writes.
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