ning fire of lively comment, not always spicy but generally stimulating and often provocative.

It is only fair to include in this list a book by a distinguished preacher, the latest volume in the Humanism of the Bible series: Altars of Earth, by H. L. Simpson of Glasgow, author of The Intention of His Soul. 'An altar of earth, they tell us, we worship at; a Bible with obvious traces of human frailty in it; a Church which has been very far from infallible. You have discovered nothing new, is our reply. It is enough for us to know that in these places and through these means God has caused His name to be remembered, and has come unto us and blessed us. The altar of earth has smoked with the glory of God and danced with the flame of eternal truth.' Thus does the author justify his title and rejoice in the truth that 'we have this treasure in earthen vessels.' Mr. Simpson has the gift of exposition and shows that scholarly study can be applied to practical purposes. Such titles as The Song of the Sword, The Tragic Tree, Flood and Folly, The Sanctified Shipbuilder make a popular appeal and the subjects treated lead the preacher to find the life of to-day reflected in the ancient stories. A quotation from the Introduction will bring us back to the point from which we started. 'One of the hopeful signs of the times is our rediscovery of our need of the Bible. The Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the President of the Board of Education to deal with The Teaching of English, emphasizes in its closing recommendation the need of giving Bible reading a larger place in the education of the young because "we are continually less and less familiar with the one great piece of literature which for centuries gave something of a common form, a common dignity, to the thought and speech of the people." The value of the Bible as literature has never been more fully recognized and appreciated than it is to-day.' In closing we may mention that Sir Henry Newbolt, in his address at Queen's University, paid the same tribute to the influence of the Bible in a reverent spirit and in dignified impressive style.

W. G. JORDAN.

CAUSERIE ON BOOKS.

James Bryce, if any man, deserved the title of the happy scholar. While still an undergraduate, he wrote the classic Holy Roman Empire; and at an age when most men fold the hands and are content to remember, he published two stout volumes on Modern Democracies. Authors with a tale of books such as his usually must lead a secluded life. But Bryce exemplified the happier English tradition that men of letters may also be men of affairs. Nor did he, we imagine, ever feel acutely, like Macaulay and Morley, the conflict between politics and dearer interests. His studies in history and jurisprudence sharpened his insight into public business, and the conduct of great affairs qualified him to comment on them. From interpreting America to England he naturally passed to represent the British people in America; and his last considerable work was the fruit of profound and repeated observation of democracies in action. Contact with men mellowed him, it is said, and from his immense and accurate memory he could draw the illuminating parallel with the political fact under scrutiny. His zest for experience was not limited to men and books. When he resigned the embassy at Washington, already an old man, he chose to return home by Siberia, and his one regret was that he had not brought mountaineering equipment to attack the virgin peaks of the Altai mountains before him. Still later, in France, it is recorded that he sat in a shell-hole with German shells bursting uncomfortably near, serenely oblivious of the risk.

Modern Democracies1 is founded upon direct study of six democratic countries. Great Britain is omitted lest he should appear to depart from an attitude of strict impartiality. His purpose is to give neither theory nor history, but a description of the way in which democracy actually works. 'It is of the Form of Government as a Form of Government-that is to say, of the features which democracies have in common-that

1Modern Democracies. by James Bryce (Viscount Bryce) in two volumes; pp. xiv +508 and vi+676; The Macmillan Company of Canada, Toronto; 1921; $10.00.

this book treats, describing the phenomena as they appear in their daily working to an observer who is living in the midst of them and watching them, as one who stands in a great factory sees the play and hears the clang of the machinery all around him. The actual facts are what I wish to describe But the facts are obscured to most people by the halfassimilated ideas and sonorous or seductive phrases that fill the air; and few realize what are the realities beneath the phrases.'

This is a hazardous task for even the sympathetic foreign observer. The last and greatest obstacle to peace lies less in conflicting interests than in the-incapacity, one had almost said, of one people to comprehend another. Most men create for themselves an imaginary Englishman or German or American whose motives are absurdly simplified and caricatured. Who could read Mr. Walter Page's letters without marvelling at the crass suspicion of Washington, where an ambassador who liked and respected the people to whom he was accredited was deemed to be denationalized? And the English-born reader must note in the comments of the distinguished ambassador a certain occasional innocence. How could Mr. Page understand so much, yet somehow get the proportions wrong? But how could it be otherwise? Knowing but one country, he came in middle life to observe another country from the worst of all stations-from the top. Was he not a little misled by the contrast between two 'seductive phrases,' liberty and order? It is possible that Lord Bryce did not altogether escape these snares. Some say, with what justice the writer cannot tell, that his account of South American republics, critical as it is, paints too favourable a picture. A distinguished visitor,

passed from host to host, often enjoys a gilded captivity. But Bryce was a wary, much-experienced Ulysses, who had travelled too often and read too deeply to mistake the show for the substance. This book is at poles from those brilliant studies in which some sociologist plumbs the mystery of China or India in a few months. It is a record of facts, slowly accumulated; but every page shows that he sought, and was capable of divining, that impalpable atmosphere of public life that gives colour and meaning to institutions and forms. Above all, the book is experimental. The writer has no thesis to prove; he

merely professes to sift the data on a large scale, and cheerfully looks forward to other books that will supersede this, the first attempt of its kind. But an observer with so complete an equipment may be long in coming, and this treatise may be ranked with Dicey's Law and Public Opinion as indispensable to students of politics.

Switzerland, the oldest democracy, perhaps wins the author's most unqualified approval. The absence of partisanship-almost of party, the high character of the members of Assembly, the level-headedness of the people, the ability and moderation of the press," the general business-like attitude to politics-all of these are a model to communities of greater pretensions. Lord Bryce makes the interesting remark that the Swiss preference for Boards is due, not simply to the national love of equality, but possibly also to the fact that mediaeval Switzerland had no monarch nearer than the Emperor, 'so that no monarchical tradition was formed which in other countries made a single Head of the State, however limited his powers, seem a natural apex of the government.'

'Being in Bern in 1905,' writes Lord Bryce, ‘after expressing my surprise at the excellence of the Government of the Confederation, I asked a well-informed and judicious Swiss friend to tell me frankly what he thought were its faults. "You must have some faults," I said, "and you can afford to let me know of them." After a little reflection he replied: "We have a practice of referring a difficult question on which legislation is desired to a Committee-like one of your Royal Commissions or Parliamentary Committees in England-which is charged to enquire into and report on the subject. Such a Committee frequently chooses to conduct its investigations at some agreeable mountain hotel during the summer months, and lives there at the public expense longer than is at all necessary. This may not often happen, but we consider it a scandal." "If you are not jesting," I replied, "and this is the blackest sin you can confess, then think of Paris and Montreal, Pittsburg and Cincinnati, and, in the words of our children's

2During the war readers of the Journal de Génève would probably agree that it provided the best informed and most intelligent commentary on strategy and politics.

hymn, bless the goodness and the grace that have made you a happy Swiss boy."'

Though less elaborate and perhaps of less striking interest than other portions of the survey, the section on Canada may serve to illustrate Lord Bryce's method. Granted the modifications due to the necessity of a federal constitution, he regards the Canadian form of government as fundamentally British. Unlike the States, Canada possesses a high court of Parliament, does not separate the executive from the legislative function, makes the 'lower house' the predominant legislative body, has a cabinet formed from the legislature and dependent upon its will, and gives the Dominion government power to disallow Provincial legislation. The sketch of Canadian usage is divided into chapters on "The Country and the Form of Government', 'The People and the Parties', 'Working of the Government', "The Action of Public Opinion', and a 'General Review of Canadian Politics'. There is of necessity some repetition in these chapters, and the criticisms are such as any well-informed Canadian might pass upon the institutions of his country.

The author considers the people of Canada-with some reservations for Quebec-to be 'as intelligent, educated, interested in self-government and qualified for self-government as a traveller finds in any part of the English-speaking world.' The foundation is firm: what can be said of the institutions that express the will of such a people?

In the writer's view the main preoccupation of Canadian governments has necessarily been the economic development of the country. Racial and religious questions-just because they are so thorny-have usually and wisely been dealt with by compromise. This has had the effect of basing party lines to some extent upon expediency rather than upon political principles. Not that party lines (at least until the appearance of the United Farmers) have not been rigid enough. But there has been no party machine comparable to those across the border, or even in England, nor is there fortunately a 'spoils' system. Parties have held together by loyalty to trusted leaders, by tradition, by a certain sporting instinct.