But when people dipped into the contents and realized that it was being hawked about the world as the work of the wife of the ex-Prime Minister of Great Britain, who professed to be giving an intimate inside impression of thes society in which she moved, the Autobiography was felts to be beyond a joke. The Weekly Dispatch suggests that th it should be suppressed, adducing in support of this plea in a positively disgusting extract with which we refrain from offending our readers. It is sound advice, if practicable If any of the many persons with whom liberties are taken, t or their families, applied for an injunction, they might conceivably succeed. But in that case the book would not be suppressed, but only amended by the omission of the challenged passage, and might profit by the advertisement of a cause célèbre. Everyone is amazed that Mr. Asquith who is lacking neither in sense nor discretion, should ever have allowed such a production to issue from his household A man in his position could not afford to shut his eyes and wash his hands of the whole business. This was neither p fair to himself, to the office he has held, to his family, no to the public which he still presumes to direct in the way it should go. It argues a weakness of character which explains much that was previously mystifying, including his own downfall, from which he is now less likely than ever to rise. Is it extravagant to suggest that the relatives of Mrs. Asquith, who are not deficient of this world's goods should even at this late hour stop the dissemination of these reminiscences, until at least they have been edited by some friend of judgment and good taste?

Misplaced
Munificence

EVERYONE admires the munificence which prompted. Lord and Lady Lee of Fareham to present their beautiful home Chequers, to to the nation as the future country seat of the British Prime Minister Originally the bequest was to have taken effect after the expiry of the owners' life interests, but so anxious are they to see Mr. Lloyd George installed as a County Magnate, that it is now announced that this splendid I gift will materialize forthwith. We cannot help regretting

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nts he decision, while acknowledging the altruism of the latenors. Indeed, we regard their munificence as altogether at Brnisplaced. It is not to the interest of the country that its mpresoliticians should be rendered immune from all the congraph equences of national and individual extravagance which ppress the ordinary citizen and taxpayer. As it is, everydhing is made only too easy for them, with the result that erhey are over-apt to regard themselves as demi-gods and if ecome painfully indifferent to the cares of the rest of a ties ommunity rendered almost bankrupt by spendthrift Coalitions, who regard expenditure as a virtue and economy as ook vice. Most Cabinet Ministers receive £5,000 a year, whilst some are provided with an official residence and adwe know not what perquisites besides in the shape of rates, axes, gas, coal, etc. It is true that their salaries have peen reduced to approximately £3,000 by the Surveyors of Taxes, but that is the sole penalty they have suffered from heir ineptitude and almost our only hold over them. The present Prime Minister is, moreover, understood to enjoy Slegacy of £2,000 a year from the late American Pacifist, Andrew Carnegie. Now Lord and Lady Lee propose to give him a country place (though he already possesses two, if not three, and has never concealed his contempt for Bountry gentlemen) plus an income of £2,200 a year for up-keep." Frankly, we deplore the Chequers episode. If a Prime Minister be a country gentleman, with a country house, well and good-let him live in it. But there is no object in trying to force him to be something which he is not. A Labour Prime Minister would find Chequers an anmitigated nuisance, unless he aped Soviet statesmen and converted it into a public scandal.

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Champions in

THE Lawn Tennis Season, which ended with the Covered Courts Championship at Queen's Club, has been memorable beyond any other. Never has the game been the Making anything like so popular, and, despite professional pessimists, never was the standard of play higher than in 1920, if it has ever been as high. The fact that foreigners secured the chief honours at Wimbledon

and for the first time captured the Blue Riband of the game namely, the Men's Singles Championship, besides carrying off the Doubles Championship, half the Mixed Doubles Championships and both Ladies' Championships, need neither alarm nor depress us. Mr. W. T. Tilden achieved a record because he was worthy of it-no intelligent spectato of his match with the leading British player, Major A. R. F the Kingscote, will ever forget the play of either, which was as perfect lawn tennis as the historic

witnessed. the American quartet were all great players, making individual contributions to the game the youngest of the four, Mr. C. S. Garland being pronounced by experts to be "the best doubles player on the ground." We should naturally have preferred ou own countrymen to win, but no one could grudge such sportsmen and match-winners as this year's American Davis Cup Team their well earned victories. Likewise Mademoiselle Lenglen won all her events on her merits She is supreme in her sex, very few of whom can even give her a game. The reason that the younger generation o foreigners have become so proficient is that they learn the game on hard, fast, true courts, which enable strokes to be developed that are unattainable on grass, which for most of the past summer was little better than bogland When our younger generation have equal facilities for learning, they will recover the Championships and retrieve "the ashes" of the Davis Cup. At the moment there is a dearth of young players of promise in these Islands, bu the dearth is confined to one sex. The past season has seen lady champions in the making, provided the photo graphic press will spare them the perils of the premature boom. British boys, speaking generally, play a tame and feeble game-British girls, in some cases, a brilliant and dashing game. The first phenomenon is probably due to the fact that schoolboys have been encouraged to despise lawn tennis as "pat-ball," a delusion that will be cured under the leadership of Harrow, which has decided to "recognize" it as

The other members of entre Court has eve

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a school game," and which, i

conse

quence, should within five years produce a Renshaw, Doherty or a Tilden.

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be ITALY AND THE NATIONAL IDEA

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pionsh

TATIONALISM in Italy is at once an association and a

ctrine. As an association (the Associazione Nazionalista aliana) it has important organized forces in Rome and Maso in the provinces. In Rome it is represented by a eat daily newspaper, the Idea Nazionale, and in some of Core larger cities it publishes weeklies. It possesses also an portant monthly review, Politica. The headquarters of e association are of course in Rome, but in all the cities Italy, great or small, there are groups," with a number members. By the total on its registers the Nationalist association holds the third place in Italy, being preceded penly by the Socialist and Catholic Popular Parties. It utnumbers Liberals, Radicals and the like, although the abit of mind represented by these latter and by Democracy general-not to mention the old Monarchical and Contitutional colours-is far more widely spread, and possesses n incomparably larger political representation. Italian nationalism finds its recruits first and foremost among the outh of Italy so it was before the war, and now much ore is that the case. Itself very young, it was founded ta first congress in Florence towards the end of 1910. oon after, it took a very active part in urging the Governent upon the expedition to Tripoli, with ardour and uccess. In the summer of 1914, so soon as the great uropean War broke out, the Nationalists, with heart, ind, soul and strength, led on all those who insisted that taly should join the Allies. In Rome, Milan, Genoa, urin, Florence, Naples, there was no meeting, procession, emonstration in which the Nationalists did not hold the hief rank. Their energy was untiring; their numbers rew apace.

In war they did their duty. Some "groups" had over alf their members killed; and the Association can count mong its members thirteen of those who won the highest four decorations given for courage-I mean the Italian Victoria Cross. Two men sank the Austrian battleship Tiribus Unitis; one was a Nationalist, a member of the Central Committee, Raffaele Paolucci. A spirit of heroism omes natural to a society just formed of men for the most part young, although it would be seriously misconstruing ur movement to identify it with an extravagant and anatical militarism. Throughout the Italian Army no

"

"militarist General would be found; such an accusation sometimes brought by certain politicians, is an invention te as unscrupulous as ill-natured. Italy has moved far away from the historic periods, whether of barbarism or decadence, when the militarist spirit flourishes; the classe from which our army is recruited, like the army itself, i which "militarism" might be expected to govern, enjoy a balance of mind and are perfectly loyal towards o national and civil institutions. Moreover, within the Association the military element, though not altogethe absent, is rare. Neither is the Nationalist a Jingo he is just a fervent patriot. Nor is he in any respec whatever a political dilettante, using the words of Imperial ism, while never really Italian or historic. He is not simply of the "Irredentist " group, though he has fought, and will fight, for Fiume and Dalmatia; that, however, is bu an episode in his programme. Remark, also, that English men, on hearing the word "Nationalism," will be apt to think of Ireland; but in Italy it signifies united nations co-operation. The French idea, too, is not exactly the same. Nationalism in Italy has its roots in the basi conditions of Italian life. Therefore it wields over the nation an influence quite out of proportion to its power in Parliament. For it is an attitude of mind. The olde parties, enumerated above, are naturally more widespread because official. Parliament, the various public depart ments and institutions, are crowded with their adherents while Nationalism has nothing official about it. Never theless, though born yesterday, its action has often prove decisive.

Come now to its doctrine. This is in part inspired the special conditions of Italy; in part, and that the mon important, it bears a universal application. It is a attempt to revise the political civilization of the world acting in and among the nations, regulating their hom life and their foreign policy. Hence our Italian ideas may not be without value elsewhere. Consider how, in spite the end put to the World War, a terrible revolution sti goes on in Russia, which, although primarily a Russian affair, has world-wide effects. Socialism and Bolshevism an general phenomena: the first, under various forms, to be found everywhere; the second, not only in its origina home, but threatening all other countries. Talk of Liberal ism and Democracy is universal. Again, there sprang up between the conclusion of war and the Peace Conferenc in all continents, as if from the excited hopes of nations