never succeed unless landowning is encouraged and made a paying

concern.

So much for the Radical-Socialist platform. The Unionist Party has the finest policy of conservation and construction that it ever enjoyed, or is ever likely to enjoy again. We have Tariff Reform and Colonial Preference which, thanks to the splendid work of the Tariff Reform League and the Tariff Commission, commands by far the strongest and in very truth the sole homogeneous party in the House of Commons, and is gaining ground in the constituencies every minute. The inherent force of this policy is strong enough of itself to carry constitutional government and much else besides. We also have on our side the unity of Great Britain and Ireland, while we are free to develop National Defence, Poor Law Reform, and Land Purchase without being answerable to either Little Englander or Socialist.

But there must be no mistake about the Unionist programme of National Defence. The six months' training after war breaks out that Mr. Haldane postulates for the Territorials nullifies our value as a land force to any ally in the event of a European conflict. Even when we have compulsory military training, our naval supremacy cannot admit of any nice calculation. There can be no niggling with "Dreadnoughts." Let us announce our intention of signalising our return to office by negotiating a Naval Loan big enough to secure for all time the vital two to one standard. Let the country be then asked to choose between the Imperial Party and the Party of Destruction. But the Imperial Party must speak out with no uncertain sound, and with full confidence in the best instincts of the British people. Socrates likened the Athenians to a courageous horse. It is not a bad simile for our own countrymen. They detect, despise, and punish indecision and timidity in the statesman no less surely or quickly than a courageous horse detects, despises, and punishes indecision and timidity in his rider. Like this noble animal, they will also respond generously to firmness and courage. We have only to place our ideals before the electors without an iota of compromise or the shadow of a surrender, and we shall be going the right way to oust the Party of Destruction, and to secure the respect of foreign nations, and the safety of our own.

THE LIBRARIES AND THEIR CRITICS

THE management of the circulating libraries has always been the subject of criticism on the part of their subscribers, but latterly, and more especially since the attempt made last year by the principal London libraries to restrict the circulation of vicious books, a number of writers of different calibre have raised their voices in rebuke and have swelled the chorus of complaint.

But, loud as this outcry has been, there is little reality in it, as is shown by the fact that it left, and still leaves, the ordinary reader cold and unmoved. To him, the whole thing seems simply a storm in a tea-cup. He never wanted to waste his time in reading the books aimed at, and if, from motives of curiosity, he was ever tempted to look into one of them, he quickly recognised its utter worthlessness. For, by a merciful dispensation, such works have usually, apart from their suggestiveness and more or less veiled indecency, no attractiveness at all-at least to the ordinary reader.

Judging from the character of the books attacked, he quickly saw that the suggestion that the action of the libraries would suppress works of genius and crush "the Darwin of to-morrow," belonged to the region of pure farce, and so turned his back on the controversy.

This he did the more readily, seeing that the criticism aimed at the libraries was in most cases purely destructive and contained no suggestions for their improvement. An article, however, in the July issue of the Fortnightly Review arrests attention as offering for the first time an attempt at constructive criticism, as really suggesting something, and is therefore, from the point of view of a reader, of more interest.

In many ways it deserves consideration, more especially as it is written by an "Ex-Librarian," who, presumably, possesses

some knowledge of the subject. Put shortly, the aim of the writer appears to be to show the need for a better method of distributing books, and of ensuring that the right books shall come into the hands of readers, than that of passing them through the bookseller and librarian. The bookseller is brushed aside as a mere obstructive, who neither reads himself nor wants the public to read, but who only wants them to buy the books he chooses to stock:

Go into any ordinary bookshop, and ask for something out of the common. Ten to one you will be told it is not yet out, and if, fortified by some real acquaintance with the world of books, you venture to persist, you may be told, as Mr. Bernard Shaw says he was told, that if you call in a week's time they will endeavour to have it ready for you.

The "week's time" is surely some exaggeration if intended to be read as applying to a London bookseller-possibly Mr. Bernard Shaw had in mind a small shop on the west coast of Ireland when making this statement!

The libraries (says the writer of the article) are no less to blame in that they discourage the free circulation of good books by keeping down their stock of these to the minimum number that will pacify their subscribers, and by flooding their shelves with thousands of worthless books that nobody wants.

We all recognise, sadly, that a considerable number of the books published every year are of little or no value-worthless novels by the hundred, machine-made biographies, scissors and paste history, travels, &c.

By

But what is "Ex-Librarian's" remedy for this deluge of worthless rubbish ? How are we, as readers, to be saved from it? the simple plan of instituting a "literary censorship," compared with which the censorship of immoral books sinks into nothing

ness.

This is what the writer says:

If the libraries would make an art instead of a haphazard business of their buying, if they expended a little more money in securing the services of expert readers who judged books from the inside as well as from the cover, if they had any other criterion than the number of copies of the author's last book, to which they contrived to limit the demand, then we might look to see something at last done in the interests both of literature and of the reading public. It is such a docile public, if you take it the right way, and so singularly willing to accept

guidance. . . Why let it take rubbish when it would be so ready to take something better? Why have the rubbish there for it to take? Why not give it Mr. H. G. Wells or Mr. Anthony Hope . . . instead of well, certain authors whom, perhaps, it would be invidious to mention? . . . During 1909 the output of fiction (including children's books) was 2881, of travel, 533, and of history and biography, 913, a total of 4327. An enormous proportion of these books nobody ever really wanted. They merely took them in despair when none of their favourite authors were available. But if the books of these favourite authors had been stocked in adequate number, a very large proportion of the other books need never have been stocked at all. Not only, therefore, were the libraries short-sighted as regards their own commercial interests, but they were damaging good authors by helping bad ones to compete. . . . Nobody wants a lot of the ridiculous fiction which appears. The public only takes Yet the libraries insist

it faute de mieux and under coercion of the libraries. on keeping it in existence when, if they ceased to buy it, it would at once cease to be.

Now, although most readers will be willing to agree with this condemnation of worthless books, I think that very few will look with approval on the institution of a literary censorship, such as is here proposed; a censorship that is to sit in judgment on the literary merits of new publications, and to reject all those that do not come up to a certain standard fixed by the libraries. And what will the authors and publishers have to say to this? If the censorship of immoral books chastises them with whips, this new censorship would assuredly chastise them with scorpions !

The proposal, too, leaves strangely out of account the principal motive, with many readers, for joining a circulating library, viz., that they can ask for any new book to which their attention has been drawn, and have an opportunity of judging its contents for themselves. A serious reader regards this as his most valuable privilege, while a devourer of fiction joins a circulating library almost for the sole purpose of getting every new novel— good, bad, or indifferent.

Although every intelligent reader would welcome heartily any advice as to the best new books that a library might be disposed to give him, he would resent strongly all attempts to control his choice or to limit him to the particular works approved by it. Nothing annoys a serious reader more than an attempt to foist upon him books that he does not want, or a refusal to let him have those that he wishes to see and examine for himself-even if upon examination they prove to be worthless. He is not likely to

accept the librarian's assurance to that effect, without insisting upon looking through them for himself. Besides, opinions differ so greatly on literary topics, that what the librarian condemns may on examination meet with his approval; while what is approved and strongly recommended may appear to him altogether uninteresting and valueless.

It is quite clear that, so far as the serious reader is concerned, any guidance which is to influence him must come from the critics and reviewers. In his eyes the bookseller and librarian have merely these special functions to fulfil, viz., to sell or to lend to him any books that he may require-the choice resting with him in every case and not with them. Only for this purpose were they evolved. When publisher, bookseller and librarian were one and the same person, the choice and range of books to be seen at any one establishment was found too limited-being always practically confined to the works issued by that particular house. If a reader wished to see and examine a book issued by some other publisher, then a visit must be paid to his shop. To do away with this restriction, this bias, the common or general bookseller came into existence, ready to supply any work wanted-irrespective of its origin—and in the same way the librarian stood ready to lend books issued by any and every publisher. If the librarian is prepared to play the part of "guide, philosopher and friend" to his clients, and will maintain a staff of expert readers for that purpose, I, as a humble subscriber, shall, of course, welcome gratefully his advice and his efforts in our behalf, but shall at the same time resent strongly all ex cathedra pronouncements that will prevent my seeing and judging for myself the contents of any particular work I want to look at. In order to reach those of us who live in the country, he will, moreover, have to go to considerable expense in printing his reports and recommendations, for we, alas, are not open to that personal influence, the exercise of which, makes "Ex-Librarian " "It is such a docile public, if you say: take it the right way, and so singularly willing to accept guidance." We, who are not susceptible to this personal influence, must be reached through the medium of print which, administered at intervals, and rapidly forgotten, will not be so effective (either in tying us down to a perusal of the works recommended or in making us satisfied to do without those not recommended)