jS 
LAND & WATER 
August 23, 1917 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
AHOUSAND ; voices are endeavouring to explain 
at the same moment. Each voice has a message, 
eacli is worthy of a hearing, but among ' the 
tumult and the shouting,' all are ineffective." 
Anyone who has endeavoured to keep pace with the books 
on " after the war " problems, will sympathise with this plain- 
tive remark of Mr. E. J. P. Benn's in The Trade of To-morrow 
(Jarrolds, 2s. 6d. net). I have just been reading three or 
lour such books (Mr. Benn's among them), and find it ex- 
tremely difficult to make up my mind whether to throw them 
all into the lire and express sympathy with the Minister of 
Reconstruction, or read them again^ for " each is worthy of a 
hearing," and he in a position to criticise them. The latter is 
the duty of tiie good citizen, andjone's duty is the least one 
can do in war time. With which highly proper sentiment, 
let me call attention to the scope and character of some of 
the books before me. 
' * lie * it * 
Mr. Benn endeavours to be heard above " the tumult and 
tne shouting," by putting the conclusions of his book in the 
first chapter. He has a scheme of reconstruction based on a 
Ministry of Commerce and Industry, advised by Trade 
Councils for every trade, these Councils to be representative 
of Trade Unions of the men and Trade Associations of the 
emploj'ers. Readers, however, will be ill-advised if they 
leave his book after thus becoming acquainted with the 
mere skeleton of his proposals. He supports them in the 
remaining chapters witii much shrewd and practical reasoning, 
and he has many interesting things to say on points of detail. 
Let me give one example. He is talking about " key " in- 
dustries, and says that the Government is blamed for allowing 
certain industries to drift into the hands of the Germans, 
whereas the Government has had very little to do with it. 
" Individual manufacturers . . . have discovered that 
certain articles could be bought advantageously in Germany. 
They had all hoped that their competitors were ignorant 
of this advantage, and Gennany has been allowed to secure 
the business because different British manufacturers were 
not on speaking terms with one another. " 
***** 
It is pleasant, for one interested in letters, to read an 
economic treatise so delightfully written and so full of literary 
allusions as Professor W. R. Scott's Jevons lectures of this 
year, Economic Problems of Peace After War (Cambridge 
University Press, 4s. 6d. net). This is a book both profound 
and urbane, which it will repay the economist wh6 seeks to 
relate general principles to present conditions to read carefully 
and to read more than once. Particularly valuable, I think, 
will be found the two lectures entitled respectively, ' ' For the 
Duration of the War " and " Communications of a Maritime 
State." In the former Professor Scott points out, among 
other things, that " the Government has become a dei^ositary 
of the liberties of the greater part of the nation," and that we 
should refrain " from pledging the future of commercial and 
industrial freedom to a greater extent than is absolutely un- 
avoidable." He also points out that there is the danger 
that after the war a strong counter-tendency may be 
carried to extremes. In the latter, he gives us a very interest- 
ing comparison between shipping losses and reconstruction 
dunngthe Napoleonic and during the present war, and also 
efiectively counters the enemy's " freedom of the seas " talk 
by pointing out what Great Britain has done for the freedom, 
and how Germany is destroying the humane custom of the 
sea that we have so largely helped to build up. Most inter- 
estmg of all, however, is the concluding lecture on " Organisa- 
tion Re-orientated," in which he pleads for a wiser use of man- 
power. '■ Man," he says, " is on the way to master inanimate 
things, but hitherto the failure has been in treating human 
beings too much like things." Let us, at any rate, recognise 
there is such a problem for wlrich a solution is required. 
'When the time comes, and that solution has been discovered, 
the next generation may recognise it as a new industrial 
revolution, greater than that of the eighteenth century " 
* * * * ° * ^ 
Professor Scott is a somewhat idealistic economist but 
his idealism appears almost as materialistic as Mr. Benn 
apologises for being when compared with the idealism of Mr. 
C. Delisle Burns's study of political science, The World of 
States (Headley Bros., 2s. net). It is a well-constructed book 
written with great earnestness and some power of exposition, 
to suggest the possibility of a world organisation in which 
neither nationality nor economic interests will create hostility 
between man and man. Yet 1 musj; confess that I find it a 
dull book, partly on account of a pedestrian style scarcely 
relieved at time*; by the use of a rather arch sarcasm, but 
chiefly becauBe some element of human nature seemed to be 
left out of account by the author, with the result that his 
whole thesis gives the impression of a bridge of which the 
central arch has not yet been completed. There are, indeed, 
in the book, though too occasionally, illuminating observa- 
tions, like those on the practical man. " The practical man 
is indeed an authority on the course he has pursued ; but for 
that very reason he is a bad judge of any alternative. He 
cannot see anything but difficulties if he is presented with a 
new plan of action ; and he cannot see anything but un- 
fortunate accident in the natural consequences of his own 
ineptitude. He thus misleads the common man by the over- 
rating of practical e.xpeiience of past mistakes." There is a 
great deal of truth in this, and 1 v'ould fain believe that I am 
a practical man who can only see the difficulties in Mr. Burns's 
ideahstic conception of the world of states, while in reality it 
is a possible " new plan of action." 
***** 
Here is a definite step that might be taken towards reaching 
the ideal of Mr. Delisle Burns. In The Future of .Con- 
stantinople (Allen and Unwin, 2s. 6d. net), Mr. Leonard S. 
Woolf rejects previous proposals for the settlement of Con- 
stantinople " on the lines of a narrow nationalism and a 
rigid imperialism," and advocates an international .settle- 
ment. He would like to see something like the European 
Commission of the Danube set up in the present capital of 
the Ottoman Empire, and he gives a very interesting account 
of the working of that Commission. The problem is a diffi- 
cult one, but Mr. Woolf offers a plausible and well-reasoned 
solution of it. • \ 
***** 
Now we come to a book that deals with hard facts. This 
is The Parliamentary History of Conscription in Great Britain 
(Allen and Unwin, 5s. net). This book is a compilation from 
Hansard, with a preface by Mr. R. C. Lambert, M.P., who 
opposed conscription in the House. It gives fairly fully the 
debates and contains the texts of tjie Military Service Acts. 
Where there is a certain amount of compression, it seems 
on the whole to represent fairiy the view of both sides, 
and it is likely to prove a useful book of reference. 
***** 
Ths Ideal Nurse (The Mental Culture Enterprise, 2S. and 
2s. gd. net) should prove a helpful little book to the many 
now engaged in nursing. It consists of an address gi^cn in 
1909 by Dr. Charles A. Mercier to nurses engaged in looking 
after the insane but, as the author says, " by far the greater 
part of it is applicable to nurses engaged in medical, surcical, 
and other branches of the nurses' calling," and it was" well 
worth reprinting. Dr. Mercier says that a nurse chiefly 
requires two things, sympathy and capability. In a very 
lucid manner he distinguishes capability from cleverness, 
and with great eloquence and insight he makes sympathy 
something more than a vague generalisation by analysing 
it according to St. Paul's famous description' of Charity.' 
****** 
In P« Public School System (Longman, Green and Co., 
IS.), Mr. V. Seymour Bryant adds a seasonable book to the 
great educational controversy. After examining carefully 
the time-table of our preparatory and public schools, he 
urges various reforms, chiefly in the direction of teaching more 
English in the preparatory schools and in bringing science 
into any scheme of General Education. The course of opinion 
IS tending in the direction of such changes, and it is therefore 
well to understand cleariy wh^t the performers propose. 
Mr. Bryant knows what he is talking about, and goes thor- 
oughly into the whole question. 
I COCCLES 
I WIND- SCREENS 
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