Lord Plender, perhaps in his later days the most eminent
accoun- tant living, died with one desire unfulfilled. He had an intense admiration for the late J. A. Spender, editor of the Westminster Gazette, and was eagerly looking for a biography of Spender which he knew was in preparation. But printers and binders are beyond suasion, and as weeks and months passed the book still hung fire. The author, I believe, hearing of his desire, undertook to send him a proof copy ; but it was just too late. Apropos of printing and bind- ing, by the way, I am urged to lodge the strongest plea for more paper for books like Trevelyan's English Social History (already, I understand, out of print again) and Lord Elton's Imperial Common- wealth. The demand has all my sympathy—except when I remember how much better publishers of books are treated in the matter of paper than publishers of weekly reviews—but it is not really prac- ticable to single out individual books for favourable treatment, even though in one or two cases it has been done. The hard fact is that we lack dollars to buy paper with. If the United States Congress ratifies the loan agreement the whole situation may improve substantially and rapidly.
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