The Statesman's Year-Book, 1921. Edited by Sir John Scott Keltie
and M. Epstein. (Macmillan. 20s. net.)—The fifty-eighth issue of this excellent and invaluable book of reference is somewhat late this year, but it is astonishingly complete and accurate, in view of the confusion that still prevails in many countries after the war. It has been corrected up to May. The information with regard to Russia has, it is said, been furnished from " official Soviet sources " ; the population is given as 136,000,000, of whom 114,000,000, or 84 per cent., are peasants. We have tested the book by referring to the section on the Bahamas for confirmation of the American reports about their sudden prosperity, arising from the liquor- smuggling trade with America. It is duly recorded (p. 338) that, while the Bahamas in 1917 and 1918 showed a deficit of about £20,000 a year, in 1919-20 their revenue was almost double their expenditure, with a surplus of £95,000, the customs revenue alone being double the total revenue of former years. A book that deals accurately with a small colony may be trusted in larger matters. It is odd that in the pages on the League of Nations the United States should be placed at the head of " Members of the League," when this is notoriously not the case ; some explanation should have been given in a footnote. Maps of the Baltic States and of the new Danish- German frontier are given, with the usual introductory tables, which are most useful.
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