when evidences of an extensive activity are everywhere apparent. They wonder at the spate of propagandist literature for which, until the end of 1916, Sir Gilbert Parker's committee was mainly responsible. They suspect the existence of British (that is Northcliffian) control of certain American newspapers. They criticise, often sharply, a certain kind of pro-Allies speaker or journalist. A University lecturer like Professor Gilbert Murray; an unaffected soldier-talker like Ian Hay; even a detached representative of the minority like Mr. Lowes Dickinson-these can count upon the most cordial and appreciative welcome, from very varied groups. But it is undeniable that much of the writing and speaking on behalf of England in the war has been of a kind which would be condemned by anyone possessing a fair knowledge of the American mind and temperament. Mr. Page is clearly conscious of this, for he made a good-tempered reference to the assumptions of some English speakers in the United States. The Ambassador, however, took pains to give a wide scope and a rather exact outline to his scheme of mutual education between England and America. A good part of this, obviously, will have to wait for fulfilment until the coming of peace. We cannot, for example, begin immediately the organization of political, academic, and journalistic pilgrimages; still less can we, under war conditions, enlarge the enterprise of English and American tourist agencies. At the end of the war, we may be quite sure, Americans will not be in need of any stimulus to visit and study Great Britain, and, doubtless, English people will be much more inclined to undertake journeys to the United States and the British Dominions; which journeys, as Mr. Page put it, may be looked upon as excursions into the future of human

society. Meanwhile, however, some of the things indicated by the Ambassador are very easily within reach of both countries. We can, for instance, improve our newspaper correspondence-from both ends. We can amplify and correct our historical memories -and not the least by encouraging the revision of school textbooks. We can exploit the cinema film for popular instruction. We might even (who knows?) accept Mr. Page's characteristically American suggestion and begin a movement for the "adoption" of its American counterpart by every town in Great Britain having a namesake in the United States.

Even so, however, we should merely be touching the fringe of a problem which can never be seriously worked out so long as certain greater obstacles to Anglo-American friendship remain. The greatest of the permanent obstacles, of course, is an unsettled Ireland. And the most vexatious of the temporary obstacles created during the war is the censorship, alike of the Press and the mail. Nothing is more certain than that the British Government and War Office must make up their minds to a drastic revision of the censorship system if, now that the United States is with the Allies, we are to have the full benefit of American support and friendship. The still rigid cable censorship works our cause continuous harm; and as regards news and comment dispatched by the mail, our authorities surely ought to be able to realize that the rule of the Censor is an incessant irritation to every pro-Allies editor in the country. The day will come, no doubt, when our authorities will understand the extent of the injury wrought by the ban upon the Nation, and when they will realize something of what it has cost us to maintain the embargo upon German newspapers, which have been

systematically kept out of America since the early months of the war. Let us hope that the Ambassador's plea for full co-operation may have its effect without further loss of time. "I believe in the suggestion also that has been made," said Mr. Page, "of regular personal correspondence between persons in each country." Quite so; it should be, and might be, of inestimable advantage to both nations in these times. English newspapers, even the weeklies, reach only a small fraction of the American public; and, with the best will in the world, the American Press cannot give any reflection of English opinion and feeling. The unrestricted exchange The New Statesman.

of personal views was never more needed than it is today, and yet in practice the mail censor forbids it. People will not and cannot express themselves in private correspondence when they write with the consciousness of the Censor's myriad young ladies keeping guard over the educated public of two hemispheres. Mr. Page's advice, in a word, is admirable, is right, and quite opportune. But it must remain infructuous unless he can succeed in convincing the British Government that the first essential of increased knowledge and understanding between Britain and America is the reopening of the channels of communication.

The new German Chancellor, Herr Michaelis, waves aside the military effort of the United States on the plea that she cannot find the ships to transport and maintain her growing armies. We must leave it to time to disprove, as it certainly will, the fallacy of that pious hope. But in the financial sphere of action the United States has already yielded, and is preparing to yield still more, yeoman service to the Allied cause, which not even a German Chancellor can disregard. Details of America's financial effort are apt to dribble across the Atlantic cables in the shape of disconnected items, and this makes it difficult for people in this country to realize the magnitude of her efforts as a whole. It is desirable, therefore, for the benefit of those who "cannot see the wood for the trees," to set out in clear figures what America has done and is preparing to do. In the period before President Wilson declared war the Allied Powers had raised loans in America, computed at over £470,000,

In this period another $100,000,000 is estimated to have been advanced to various Allied Powers in the form of bankers' credits.

As soon as America declared war it was obvious that she was to throw all her strength into the balance. It was to be, in the words of a famous American, "a 100 per cent war." By the end of the third week in April Congress had authorized the issue by instalments of a seven billion dollar loan. Early in May the first issue was made of the United States Liberty Loan. It was for $2,000,000,000, at 31⁄2 per cent.

and was greatly over-subscribed, the total applied for being $3,035,226,850. A feature of the subscription list was that 64 per cent of the total was applied for by subscribers for less than £2,000. That not only shows a widespread support for the war policy, but also that the big corporations and the very rich are holding a generous portion of their resources in reserve for future issues. The object of the issue was to make advances to the Allies, and so far, since America's declaration of war, the Allies have received from her $1,523,000,000. According to announcements made in the Press from time to time the details are as follows: To

quoted by The Times Washington correspondent, the present $3,000,000,000 authorized for loans to Allies will be exhausted in three or four months, and a second authorization, possibly for as much as $5,000,000,000, will be asked from Congress before its adjournment. In addition to these huge loans, America has, of course, bought back her own securities, held in Europe, to a very high value.

The figures which we have quoted are enormous. But, of course, America entered the war in a peculiarly powerful financial position. In the first two years of war America's foreign trade showed an export balance of nearly 32 billion dollars. Her legislators are now engaged on a comprehensive scheme of taxation. A Revenue Bill containing new taxes estimated to produce $1,800,000,000 has passed Congress, and is still before the Senate. Whatever they may choose to persuade themselves about America's future military effort, surely these definite facts of America's prodigious financial support to the Allied cause may at this juncture cause thinking Germans some misgivings as to the promised collapse of their enemies.

Seldom does one find a more brilliant and varied collection of short stories than Phyllis Bottome's "The Derelict." The title-story is a caustic study of the influence on a light-hearted young Englishman of the Bohemian type of his fiancée, who is a pharisaical philanthropist, and the sick and miserable fille de joie of whom she makes a protegée and in whom she urges her lover to interest himself; "Mlle. l'Anglaise" describes an English art-student in Paris at the outbreak of the war; the plot of "The Liqueur

Glass" turns on the resolve of a mother to free her children from the tyranny of a perfectly respectable father; "The Syren's Isle" portrays, with many subtle touches, the effect on an English tourist, madly in love with a Capri girl, of the sight of his inamorata's mother; "An Awkward Turn" brings to a conclusion in which comedy and tragedy blend, the love affair of a sentimental woman whose husband fails to "understand" her and a poet whose wife has never been "sympathetic"; "Ironstone" is a grim

Cornish tale of love, coquetry and jealousy; "The Pace" introduces the London smart set, and "Brother Leo" is an exquisite sketch of a Franciscan monk. The Century Co.

So candidly does Mr. H. G. Wells, in his preface to "God, the Invisible King," set forth the scope of the slender volume, that those who go on with it after his warning "read at their own risk." His purpose is not primarily to shock and insult, but he is "zealous to liberate, and impatient with a reverence that stands between man and God." His position is, firstly, complete agnosticism in the matter of God the Creator, whom he prefers to call "the Veiled Being," and, secondly, entire faith in the matter of God the Redeemer. He cannot bring the two ideas under the same word God. He uses the word God, therefore, for the God in our hearts only, and holds Him the God of the renascent religion with which he believes the whole world may, ere long, be alive. He asserts positively that this religion is not a kind of Christianity, but he is perhaps right in saying that liberal Christians of an Arian or Arminian tendency may find the larger part of his book acceptable to them if they will read "the Christ God" where he has written God. He drops into smartness now and then, as was to have been expected, and gives needless offense, but his tone is for the most part serious and earnest and the force with which he urges the possibility of a personal and vivifying consciousness of God must be admitted even by those who would dispute his ecclesiastical history, and his philosophy: "The real coming of God is a change, an irradiation of the mind. Everything is there as it was before,

only now it is aflame. Suddenly the light fills one's eyes, and one knows that God has risen and that doubt has fled forever." Upon the establishment of the world-kingdom of the Invisible King Mr. Wells dwells with ardent emphasis, defining it as "a peaceful and co-ordinated activity of all mankind upon certain divine ends." "The religion that will presently sway mankind," he predicts, "can be reached more easily from the starting-point of Islam than from the confused mysteries of Trinitarian theology." The Macmillan Co.

"By an Ex-Mill-Girl" on the titlepage suggests that "Helen of Four Gates" is a story of factory life, but the reader who takes it up with that expectation will be disappointed, and perhaps annoyed. It is a study of individual rather than social problems, and its scene is a farming district in the north of England. Helen, who supposes herself to be the daughter but is, in fact, the step-daughter of the villain of the story-a man of shrewd intelligence, but incredibly vindictive and brutal temper-is the victim of his untiring revenge on the man who robbed him of her mother, now many years dead. He persuades the man who loves her-employed on his farm and a member of his household-that Helen inherits the madness which is known to be in his family, and the plot follows the desperate struggle of Helen to hold her lover in spite of the terrors with which his hesitating mind has been deliberately filled. The unknown author has unusual talent, and the story makes a strong impression. But it is needlessly repulsive, and only those who enjoy supping on horrors will recommend it to their friends. E. P. Dutton & Co.

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