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VARIED HARVARD BOOKS

PRINTS AND BOOKS

By William M. Ivins, Jr.

Although - or perhaps because Mr. Ivins insists upon calling his essays "informal papers," they will be found to possess an unusual charm and stimulation for the general reader not interested in the technicalities of either literature or art. It is a book of incomparable conversation, a farrago of information about prints, engravers, illustrated books, ornament, bookplates, and museum work. There are many illustrations in line and in halftone from rare originals in the Metropolitan Museum and other collections. $5.00

THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY HYMN BOOK

Edited by E. C. Moore and A. T. Davison

Based upon the University Hymn Book in use at Harvard since 1894, this new collection is a thorough revision undertaken with the help of many advisers. The editors have included hymns that represent varieties of Christian thought and feeling in different ages and races and that should have a place in the religious consciousness of an educated man. The music is easy to learn and is placed in a comfortable vocal range so that it is adapted to congregations and schools of every sort. The Responsive Readings include selections from the Scriptures and the Apocrypha. $3.50

THE AMERICAN WOOL MANUFACTURE

By Arthur Harrison Cole

Practically every significant feature in the development of American wool manufacture, from the early household operations of the Pilgrims down to the present time, is treated in this work. It delineates the character and methods of wool-cloth manufacture in Colonial days, the spread of the household system, the introduction of new technique, and the rise of factory production. Due attention is paid to the influence of variations in wool supplies, improvements in technical equipment, changes in the tariff, and new marketing methods. The work is issued in two volumes, with forty-nine illustrations, at $7.50 a set.

HERETICS, SAINTS AND MARTYRS

By Frederic Palmer

"An absorbingly interesting and a very valuable book. . . In its entirety it is a beautiful example of trained scholarship and subtle critical ability, although the essay on Isaac Watts is as a lamp set on high, shining aloft." - Hartford Courant. “A valuable study in spiritual psychology, theology, and church history, produced in such readable form that not only clergymen but laymen will approach it with the zest usually accorded to works of fiction. It goes without saying that the book is scholarly, and that it is written in a charming literary style." Zion's Herald. "To be heartily commended." - · Christian Register. $2.50

PIOZZI MARGINALIA

44

By Percival Merritt

'Of course the life of Mrs. Thrale has been explored by various students of the eighteenth century, but we do not believe the job has been done as expeditiously and comprehensively and delightfully as Mr. Merritt has done it. In this delicate volume Mrs. Thrale-Piozzi steps out from Dr. Johnson's circle, where she presided so gracefully over dinner-table and library, and becomes a person in her own right." - Hartford Times. "It should find a place on the shelves of all lovers of Dr. Johnson and that fascinating group centered about him." Springfield Republican. 12 illustrations. $3.00

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

31 RANDALL HALL

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

THE LIVING AGE. Published weekly. Publication office, RUMFORD BUILDING, CONCORD, N. H. Editorial and General Offices, 8 Arlington Street, Boston 17, Mass. 15c a copy, $5.00 a year; foreign postage $1.50. Entered as second-clans matter at the Post Office at Concord, N. H., under the Act of Congress, March 3, 1879.

Copyright 1926. by The Living Age Company. Boston, Mass.

THE LIVING ACE

VOL. 329-APRIL 10, 1926-NO. 4266

THE LIVING AGE

BRINGS THE WORLD TO AMERICA

A WEEK OF THE WORLD

PRO-FASCIST AMERICA?

A CONTRIBUTOR to Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, who has evidently followed the discussion of the Italian debt settlement in this country with keen interest, thinks that the extraordinary liberality our negotiators showed Count Volpi's commission was due to our secret sympathy with Fascism. "The Babbitt masses on the one hand, and the equally conservative professional politicians on the other, admire Mussolini because they make a fetish of law and order. America's innumerable patriotic societies and welfare organizations, her American Legion and her Ku Klux Klan, are at heart purely Fascist bodies. American conditions are different from those in Italy, and consequently her methods are different. But the fundamental idea is the same.'

This writer professes to discover evidence that the present Washington Administration stands in hand and glove with Mussolini, and discovers a certain resemblance between Mr. Coolidge, 'the crusher of the Boston police strike,' and the Black Shirt leader. He cites as one of the fruits of

this secret sympathy the imprisonment of Signor Tresca and the suspension of his paper in New York City, nominally for a technical violation of the press law, but really because that editor is an enemy of Fascism.

From all this the writer concludes: 'America sees in the large only the brighter side of Mussolini's régime, and in view of her own political prejudices is perhaps able to see only that side. She has a right to her own opinion. But she also has a responsibility. When her Government supports Fascism it must be with its eyes open to what Fascism is doing in Europe, and particularly to our German brethren in Tyrol. Had it not been for the United States, South Tyrol would never have passed into Italy's hands.'

THE POSTPONED LEAGUE CONTROVERSY

MR. CHAMBERLAIN has survived the storm of criticism that greeted his gauche manœuvres at Geneva, though his Locarno laurels have sadly withered. His lack of explicitness at home and of firmness abroad has lessened the pres

Copyright 1926, by the Living Age Co.

tige of Great Britain in the League, and British sentiment is peculiarly sensitive to an impairment of foreign standing. Despite his endorsement by Parliament, therefore, which was a foregone conclusion in view of the huge Baldwin majority in that body, Mr. Chamberlain's political reputation has been dimmed decidedly.

Several incidents occurred during the Geneva session which do little credit to certain countries represented there. We are told that Sweden was threatened by one Power eager to get a Council seat with the abrogation of a commercial treaty, on account of her inflexible opposition to its claims, and that an interested foreign Government threatened for the same reason to cancel an important contract for telephones given to a Swedish firm.

Sir Frederick Pollock, commenting in the Morning Post upon the proposal to enlarge the Council, characterized that body as 'a committee and not a senate,' and believed that it should not have more than twelve members at the utmost, and that nine members would be better. 'Any further increase brings two dangers. Bacon pointed out one as concerning a council sitting at a long table: "A few at the upper end in effect sway all the business." We know those few at home as the Inner Cabinet. The other and worse danger is that a body too large for frank and confidential discussion among the whole will split into factions.'

Belgium, which has taken as active a part as any of the smaller nations in the labors of the League, also looks askance at the proposal to enlarge the Council. M. Vandervelde, its Minister of Foreign Affairs, pointed out in the Chamber that if this body were made too large its deliberations would be hampered to such an extent that its business would inevitably fall into the hands of a small committee of the

Great Powers, and the minor members would have less say in practical matters than they have to-day. Possibly M. Vandervelde had the Paris Peace Conference in mind, to which the whole world was invited, but where decisions were ultimately made by a little council of three.

BRITAIN'S COAL PROBLEM

COMMENT upon the British Coal Commission's Report is still premature. That document is a bulky volume of nearly three hundred pages; and it is not the first exhaustive official study of the industry made since the war. It recommends a discontinuance of the existing subsidy, the amalgamation of mines, and a greater degree of public control over their organization and operation, along lines similar to those proposed by Mr. Baldwin for the electrical industry. Nationalization is rejected, but the report recommends that the Government acquire ownership of mining royalties. The Commission opposes longer working-hours or a permanent reduction of wages, though temporary decreases may be necessary in certain instances.

Mr. A. J. Cook, National Secretary of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, writing in the last issue of the Labour Monthly, states that the average earnings of a coal-miner per day worked vary from the equivalent of two dollars to two dollars and fifty cents in American currency; and that wages have increased less than sixty per cent since July 1914, while the official index of the cost of living has risen seventyfive per cent. Allowing for lost time, the actual average weekly earnings of British miners are less than twelve dollars a week. Last year, which was admittedly a year of crisis, the industry paid aggregate profits to the operators of between thirty and forty million

dollars, while individual landowners received in some instances over half a million dollars in royalties. The total of the latter item exceeds thirty million dollars per annum, although the industry is 'on the dole.'

AMERICANS IN SHANGHAI

We are told that the American population of Shanghai and the immediately adjacent district now exceeds four thousand, or more than double the number before the war. Moreover these statistics, according to the China Weekly Review, tell only a part of the story of the growth of our interests in China's chief port. Since 1914 Americans have built a school for their children at a cost of about a million dollars, a downtown business club which cost practically as much, a country club which cost half a million dollars, and a church which, when completed, will probably run to a quarter of a million.' We infer from this that religious fellowship runs a bad second to club fellowship in the treaty ports. Our trade with China has increased fourfold during the past ten years.

But more important than these material things is the growth of a 'community consciousness.' No longer is the Yankee an unshaven, dusty-shoed, socially impossible adventurer in the East. 'Americans on the China coast have become accustomed to dressing for dinner. It has n't been so many years since the Astor House bar was popularly known as the "American Club," the reason being that it was about the only local club that was open to all Americans. But now the Americans have their own club, and it's more palatial and just as high class as any other nationality affords. So that's that! We do not wish to imply that all Americans in the old days before

1914

were lowbrow people. There were a few aristocrats who associated with the British, and a half-dozen or so were admitted to the British clubs, and at least one wore a monocle and spats. But generally the Americans were not considered a "high-class" crowd and fit candidates for clubs. But they managed to worry along and make the best of the situation as they found it, and laid the foundations for an American community which probably is the largest outside of the United States, Manila not excepted. And as stated previously, they are engaged in all manner of respectable callings which go to make up a city and help it to grow. We have doctors, teachers, brokers, bankers, realtors, newspaper men, one journalist, plumbers, engineers, electricians, jobbers, stenographers, retailers, motor-car dealers, manufacturers, authors, musicians, movie proprietors and producers, radio broadcasters, and so on; and they have organized a Rotary Club, a university club, a D. A. R., a Mothers' and Teachers' Association, a Women's Club, two volunteer companies, a branch of the Legion, an "Ad" Club, Spanish War Veterans, and a Y. M. C. A.- the latter also to cost a million.'

CURRENT HISTORY WRIT COMMUNIST

COMMUNIST interpretations of international development have their place in every well-rounded survey of opinion, if only for the reason that they strike an arresting note of discord when the melody of the chorus runs too smoothly and soothingly. For example, this is the way the London Labour Monthly sees the sequence of events in 1925: January, Russo-Japanese Treaty; April, Anglo-Russian Trade-Union Alliance; May, Morocco war of independence; June, Chinese national uprising;

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