39= 



The Review of Reviews. 



Aprit m, 1906. 



JOHN BURNS IN HIS LIBRARY. 



Mr. Robert Donald contributes to the March 

 issue of the Fall .Vail .Magazine a sketch of the new 

 President of the Local Government Board, in which 

 he gives us a picture of John Burns's library. Xo 

 Member of Parliament has a better working library, 

 and no one has ever sacrificed more for the sake of 

 books: — 



The books are in tliree small rooms on the first floor. 

 Tlie first room is whei>3 he works. The walls are com- 

 pletely lined with books, all neatly arranged. They are 

 devoted to the subjects in which he takes an interest— 

 -economics, sociolog.v. politics, industry, and labour. . . . 

 The shelves also contain a number of reference-books, a 

 complete series of reports issued by the Parliamentary 

 Committee of the Trades Union Congress— all neatly bounu. 

 There is a complete set of the minutes of Battersea 

 Borough Council, and other local report* indicating the 

 owner's interest in local affairs. 



SYSTEMATIC .^ERA^JGEMEXT. 



Passing to the next room, its contents reveal more 

 strikingly the character of Mr. Burns. One side is 

 partly occupied with a geologist's case, not contain- 

 ing geological specimens, but the letters, documents, 

 .'Mid cuttings relating to Mr. Burns's work, every 

 -helf being used to represent a year of his public 

 life. Mr. Donald continues: — 



Mr. Burns has Mr. Gladstone's passion tor keeping 

 things. He has also that statesman's system and method. 

 Letters are most carefully folded and laljelled. Less im- 

 portant letters are used to serve as folders for cuttings 

 and other letters. Pamphlets, when not bound, are placed 

 inside tlie covers of discarded municipal reports. 



Mr. Burns has been impartial; in addition to keeping 

 an account of his own public career, he has a record of 

 the work and speeches of other labour leaders. He has 

 collected and bound files of all the labour and socialist 

 papers which have been issued in England since he took 

 up public work. The.v are stowed away in a corner called 

 " the cemetery." 



Blue-books and official returns are all properly indexed 

 and systematically arranged. Mr. Burns can find anything 

 he requires in a few seconds. His lack of means has led 

 to wonderful resourcefulness in the way in which docu- 

 ments, which would be more readily placed in pigeon- 

 holes and drawers, are kept. 



The whole library of municipal literature and reports 

 issued by the County Council has been kept tor reference, 

 even down to the weekly committee lists for members. 

 Mr Burns has the lists for eighteen years tied together 

 according to date. Xo one else has taken the trouble to 

 collect a complete set of all the pamphlets issued on the 

 South African War— in English and Dut^h— and few have 

 a better set of books on alcoholism and drink. 



The third room, a very small one, is reserved for 

 the classics — history, poetry, etc. 



MB. BCRNS'S TREASURES. 



One of Mr. Burns's treasures in the first room is a 

 copy of Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations." -which 

 he found buried under the foundations of an old 

 engine-room at Akassa in West Africa. This book 

 was a turning-point in his career. .Another treasure 

 is a small volume published in 1653 on the problem 

 of the unemployed. In the third room two volumes 

 are specially valued — one a beautifully bound volume 

 of " Paradise Lost." presented by a well-known ar- 

 tist to Mr. Burns when he was in prison in 1887, and 

 the other a companion volume, " Paradise Regained," 

 presented by the same artist when Mr. Burns became 

 President of the Local Government Board, 



THE "DREADNOUGHT." 



Mr. Fred. T. Jane writes on the new battleship 

 in the World's Work and Flay, and claims to be a 

 sort of godfather to the new ship, as a ship of this 

 sort first saw the light in his book on fighting-ships. 

 He acknowledges his indebtedness to Colonel Cuni- 

 Lerti, chief constructor of the Italian Xavy, and 



Overtake any of the enemy's battleships and oblige them 

 to fight— this is the keynote of the "Dreadnought." There 

 is no battleship in existence that can run away from her, 

 the speed of the average battleship being about eighteen 

 linots. except in cases of " battleship cruisers," like tiie 

 " Duncans," which run up to nearly twenty knots. But 

 even these were only designed for nineteen knots. The 

 highest designed battleship" speed is the twenty knots of 

 the ex-Chilian " Swiftsure ' and " Triumph " — a rate only 

 attained for short spurts in smooth water— .and the really 

 swiftest battleships are the Duncans. Of battleships 

 now building, only the Italian " Vittorio Emanuele " class 

 have a higher speed than the " Dreadnought " will be 

 given, and Italy is not ranked as a probable opponent. 



Armoured cruisers can. of course, get away from the 

 "Dreadnought." but for these cruisers "Dreadnoughts" of 

 the " Invincible " type are being built. As things are and 

 will be for many years, the " Dreadnought " will be 

 supreme upon the seas in the way of being able to over- 

 take any probable opponent of the battleship class. 



The gnn. Mark XI.. which the "Dreadnought" will carry, 

 should be effective up to lO.O'JO yards or more. In other 

 words, it ought to hit what it is aimed at at five miles 

 off. 



Hence the panic in Germany over the "Dreadnought." 

 Of the German fleet ten ships carry medium guns of 9.4-in. 

 calibre, effective up to 4000 yards perhaps. The ten later 

 ships, built and building, have 11-in. guns, but they are 

 short pieces and probably erratic after 6000 yards or so. 

 In any case, they conld not hurt the "Dreadnought" at 

 8000 .yards, while she with her powerful guns and superior 

 speed could disable the Germans one after the other as 

 long as lier ammunition lasted. Little wonder that the 

 "Dreadnought" marks a new era! 



The "Dreadnought" is to be completed within a year 

 from now. She will be xmique for a couple of years and 

 ensure peace for that time. Even then only the Japanese 

 " Aki " will be able to fight her. and as a Japanese ship 

 and a British ship are, so far as future naval war is 

 concerned, about one and the same thing, the " Aki " 

 will be yet another peace-maker. 



But, as the writer observes, this will not last. 

 Germany is settling down to build " Dreadnoughts," 

 likewise France. The high speed of the "Dread- 

 nought " is to be provided by her turbine machinery. 



THE INGRAM HOUSES FOR YOUNG MEN. 



Reference is made in the Quiver to the Ingram 

 Houses, named, of course, after the Bishop of Lon- 

 don, and intended as residential clubs for bank or in- 

 surance clerks, and young men in similar positions, 

 between seventeen and thirty-four. Medical students 

 from Guy's have found them excellent quarters also. 

 Xo religious test is imposed, but references as t' ■ 

 character axe required. The first Ingram House is 

 now open in Stockwell Road. It is five stories 

 high, and contains 208 furnished bedrooms, with 

 bathrooms over four floors. All are wired for electric 

 heating stoves, which can be hired inexpensively. 

 Rents vary from 8/'- to 16/- a week, and include 

 leasonable service, the use of two dining-rooms, two 

 billiard rooms, library, etc., even to a dark-room. 

 There is no doubt that here promises to be the be- 

 ginning of a solution of a problem which has long 

 needed solving — how to house young men in Lon- 

 don comfortably and at reasonable cost. 



