ii PREFACE 



these, after all, are but the passing scene; the great drama is of the ages, and can only 

 be appreciated with all its acts on record. 



A " Year-Book " must, of course, include many details which are beyond the scope 

 of an encyclopaedia, and vice versa. A general encyclopaedia cannot reasonably be 

 expected to deal with certain aspects of practical life determined by purely contemporary 

 conditions, the facts in regard to which are bound to alter as each new year comes round. 

 It is the function of shorter lived periodical publications, arranged on different lines, 

 to provide the public with the material necessary for acquaintance with what is strictly 

 contemporary; they are not wanted for the purpose of covering the whole history of 

 any subject, or the whole accumulation of knowledge about it, in so far as time has 

 sifted its value, this is the function of the encyclopaedia, but only to record the 

 additions and alterations that have been made within a limited period, or the status quo 

 for a new start in regard to matters which, by their nature, are periodically changing. 

 Thus, by contrast with the Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is the object of the BRITANNICA 

 YEAR-BOOK, while serving substantially to bring up-to-date the information there 

 given, and to guide the reader where desirable to such information in it as is specially 

 valuable concerning matters in which lapse of time has made no difference, to provide, 

 in its turn, adequate material for reading or reference on such contemporary questions 

 as can be dealt with from an annual standpoint more practically and in relatively 

 greater detail than is possible or suitable in an encyclopaedia. It is planned accord- 

 ingly on lines which are primarily appropriate to an annual survey. The treatment 

 of different sorts of information is grouped, according to subject-matter, in Parts and 

 Sections, and not under a succession of dictionary headings in alphabetical order; but 

 it is indexed so as to provide not only for convenient internal reference but also for the 

 use of those who wish to supplement the information given in the Encyclopaedia Britan- 

 nica by the later information given in the YEAR-BOOK. 



The fundamental idea which dominates the plan of the volume is that the world's 

 progress may be regarded from two points of view, as concerned either (i) with matters 

 of general i.e. non-national and non-localinterest, or (2) with directly national 

 and local developments. The progress of Science, for instance, is really an international 

 question; from a scientific point of view it does not essentially matter in what country 

 a new discovery may be made. Science has its own world, and so have Philosophy, 

 Religion, Education, Law, Literature, Art, Industry and Sport. For this reason the 

 YEAR-BOOK is divided into two main parts, Part I dealing in a series of sections, sub- 

 divided where necessary, with general subjects which have an independent interest 

 irrespective of nationality, and with political and economic questions which are pri- 

 marily of common international concern, while Part II deals with political, social, and 

 economic progress in each of the different countries of the world, taken as sovereign 

 national units playing a distinctive part in the organisation of human effort and achieve- 

 ment. It is only natural that a work which, being in the English language, will circulate 

 mainly among English-speaking readers, should deal more fully in this latter respect 

 with conditions in the British Empire and the United States than with those of foreign 

 countries; but the increasing importance of international relations is so widely felt 

 among the English-speaking people in all its branches that the attempt of the BRITAN- 

 NICA YEAR-BOOK to provide a more complete annual register of progress in all parts of 

 the world, inspired by the desire to eliminate national prejudice and to enable its readers 

 to know what is going on in the other countries besides their own, is calculated to pro- 

 mote both national and international interests. 



The character and scope of the BRITANNICA YEAR-BOOK may be best understood 

 from its list of Contents; but both are the direct result of its origin, which may be given 

 a few words of explanation. 



The name itself indicates that the YEAR-BOOK issues from the same mint as the 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica. When the i ith edition of that work by common consent 

 in a class by itself among encyclopaedias for scholarly international authority and 

 comprehensiveness of treatment was completed in 1910, its publication brought to a 



