My Europe. By Sir Robert Bruce Lock- hart. (Putnam. 16s.)
DISREGARDING a friend's advice that where you have been happy never return, Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart recently revisited seven of the free countries of Europe. He found sufficient of the old era, that he knew so well, to assess surely and even effortlessly with the benefit of his long experiences of them the present-day national spirit of each. He describes changes with lively personal feeling, though now recognising fully the sturdiness of historical, even if he cannot of personal, continuity. But first he analyses the condition of Czechoslovakia and her statesmen shortly before the coup d' itat, and although unable to revisit Russia draws some conclusions from his early experiences of the revolution there, contrasting them with general knowledge of that country today. The author distinguishes the differ- ing aspects that Europe and the Powers overshadowing her take when viewed from each of the Scandinavian and Low countries, and implies that they are the real guardians of a corporate European spirit. In Germany the author felt most strongly the presence of an awareness of the new disposition of world-power, a feeling that Europe is a temporary no-man's-land, and of the eclipse of Britain. He stresses the signi- ficance of the impact of this on visiting American troops and officials. However, he reserves his most valuable consideration for France. He claims that, despite the con- fusions of Paris and the Government, the provinces are vital, self-interested and, given peace, rightly confident of their own future prosperity. The reader of this book, reminded of the old Contidental landmarks, cannot help feeling that recently we seem unaccountably to have forgotten the com- plexity and resilience of Europe.
A. E. T.
Previous page
