PREFACE iii 



formal conclusion a unique combination of the world's ripest judgment on every sort 

 of subject, in the shape of a vast body of individual contributors and advisers, linked 

 up and concentrated as they had been, for several years, for the purpose of co-operating 

 with one another and with the editorial staff in recording the sum of human knowledge 

 and activity according to the latest sources and materials. But the relations created 

 by long and close association still subsisted. The great "engine of co-operative effort, 

 dedicated to the service of the public," was finished; the engineers remained, no longer 

 in that workshop, but forming still an aggregate of " consulting opinion " such as had 

 never before been ranged under one organisation. Although no question of a later 

 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was likely to arise for a considerable period, the 

 opportunity for utilising again so widespread an alliance of expert knowledge, and 

 maintaining it for public use, was the direct outcome of a new feature in the nth edition 

 itself, by which it differs radically both from previous editions and also from other works 

 of similar magnitude. .; . ; . . 



The simultaneous publication of all its volumes in 1910-11 had made it possible 

 from the first to plan it in all its parts as a single organism, so that the whole work 

 embodies an ordered system, representing uniformly a survey taken at the same date; 

 its separate articles, though distributed for convenience of reference under alphabetic- 

 ally-arranged headings throughout the volumes, are closely interrelated by a consistent 

 scheme, with a common point of view and a common terminus; they are thus peculiarly 

 adapted for systematic study or reference as compared with any number of disconnected 

 books or treatises produced independently by individual authors at varying dates. 

 Its last complete predecessor, the gth edition, had been brought out in successive volumes 

 at intervals during fifteen years, a method of publication and therefore of preparation 

 which made it impossible in that case and similarly makes it impossible in so many 

 other contemporary works of correspondingly ambitious aims to obtain any homogene- 

 ity or consistency of treatment or to secure the advantage of real co-operation as distinct 

 from a mere collection of individual contributions. The result is that, for the first time 

 in the history of publications of this calibre, the nth edition of the Encyclopaedia 

 Britannica stands comprehensively, within the lines reasonably possible for a general 

 encyclopaedia at all, for a complete survey taken at a single date, namely 1910, accord- 

 ing to the materials then available for judgment. 



This fact by itself, taken in connection with the inevitable fate attending all publi- 

 cations, in the continuous progress of events and accumulation of new materials after 

 they once appear, brought to light a further desideratum in regard to the later progress. 

 What the organisation which had been brought into being for surveying the sum of 

 knowledge up to 1910 had done, it might also do, with peculiar advantage to the public, 

 for surveying and recording what was new and of special interest for strictly contempo- 

 rary purposes. The present volume is the result. For the period since the date of the 

 survey in the nth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, short indeed in time, but 

 exceptionally fertile in the emergence of new issues and in the record both of interna- 

 tional and of national progress, especially as regards the sort of information which is 

 of interest and importance for immediate current use as distinct from the place it may 

 eventually take in the perspective of history, the BRITANNICA YEAR-BOOK, so to 

 speak, takes up the running where the Encyclopaedia Britannica stopped. 



For the selection of the subjects dealt with, particularly those in the various sections 

 of Part I, the Editor has not only utilised the willing and valuable services of some of 

 the most eminent of his former contributors, and others of equivalent distinction who 

 are recognised authorities on the new questions here treated, but has had the advantage 

 of suggestions and advice from many others among what may well be considered the most 

 representative body of " consulting opinion " in the world. In numerous cases, it 

 need hardly be said, the contributors of important articles in the Encyclopaedia Britan- 

 nica have advised that, in so short a time, nothing of sufficient moment had occurred 

 to make any addition to the account given there desirable. Naturally this applies 

 especially to technical subjects of a general kind, the accounts of which in the 



