A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE National Book Association (President: Earl Baldwin of Bewdley) was founded in 1937 to give its mem- bers important new books that have a sound, moderate and non-revolutionary aspect of the day affecting their daily life and welfare . . . N.B. The next choice is Hitler's Mein Kampf." National Book Association advertisement.
This is both interesting and important ; interesting because, while it is perfectly open to those who will to regard Mein Kampf as (to follow the rather odd phrasing of the advertise- ment) " having a sound, moderate and non-revolutionary aspect," it seems rather a strain on language to describe the volume (which first appeared in German in 1925) as new; important because it raises the question whether we are to be given for the first time an English translation of Mein Kampf in full, or simply a reprint of the selectively abbreviated ver- sion (28o pages in the English edition, 780 in the German) which was allowed—as a complete version is not—to be published in this country some years ago. If the former it will be an event of capital importance; if the latter it will be a misfortune of almost equal magnitude; there could be no greater disservice at this critical moment than to give fresh publicity to an expurgated version of Mein Kampf dealing only with those aspects of Herr Hitter's policy which he desires to put before Englishmen and omit- ting everything that would repel and alarm them, e.g., the declaration that the " deadly enemy " is France.
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