Few politicians would be g rateful to their secretaries for reprintin g
their speeches after an interval of many years. Few lawyers of note would care to read (much less let others read) their bygone addresses to law associations. Sir John Simon is among the few in each category. His Comments and Criticisms (Hodder and Stoughton, 10s. gd.), for which he disavows responsibility in a frosty foreword, are all readable and many of then, contribute clear-headed conunon sense to the discussion of problems still with us. There is nothing specially distinguished about Sir John's comments nor much pungency in his criticisms (except when lie said of Mr. Garvin, at the time when the Pall Mall Gazelle, as well as the Observer, was edited by him that " not content with giving us doses of hysterics every Sunday, he has gone further and now gives us an epileptic fit every twenty-four hours"). But there is calm wisdom in the best of the utter- ances and nothing in the least of them that could make anyone think the worse of their author. And, at all events, he wrote them all himself, which is more than can be said of books published by another distinguished man of the law.
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