THE WINDOWS OF WESTMINSTER--A Gentleman with a Duster--Putnam ($2.50).

Came, fortnight ago, a book by the gentleman with a duster. It analyzed, portrayed, epitomized British governmental character.

Excerpts:

Baldwin. CHARACTER: "Here is a plain, blunt, simple-hearted countryman. . . . For good or for evil, his personality entirely lacks the flick of a cocktail. He is genuine cider. The small pinched-up eyes, with their uplifted brows, have the shrewdness of the shepherd rather than the sharpness of the merchant; the deep, grave, kindly voice has no note of drawing-room or art coterie, but the tone of a slow, pondering, decisive country mind. He is a man of action, but his activity suggests the fields and not the city. He is quick with humour and not a sluggard in the matter of wit; but both his humour and his wit never suggest the smoking-room and the dinner-party, but rather the open sky and a prospect of shining hills. I think he has something of the peasant's obstinacy and is not altogether free from a certain obtuseness.

. . . "Also it is said of him that while his heart entitles him to the respect and even the affection of mankind, the quality of his intellect is such as constantly to flabbergast his best friends."

BELIEFS: "And he cherishes the hope that it may be in the destinies of Providence that he should win for an enlightened Conservatism this confidence of the self-respecting workers of the country, and that at the head of such a disciplined and self-respecting party he should be able to bring Capital and Labour to a good understanding, and live to see the prosperity of his country established on foundations which nothing can shake--the British Empire the greatest power in the world for peace, justice, and virtue."

Neville Chamberlain: "He holds that the working-classes of the country are responsive to the imperial sentiment. The imperial relationship, he will tell you, is as real to the poor man as to the rich. The poor man may not have the same exalted vision of the imperial destiny as the educated and the traveled man, but he does feel in his blood that the British Empire is something to be proud of. . . . He is a social reformer. He would call himself a Radical, and would not be greatly discomposed if someone called him a Socialist. He believes that every generation is an opportunity for making things better, and that there are conditions in this country crying aloud for reform."

Hogg. CHARACTER: "I think it would be true to say that his intellect has a punch in it, but not his personality. It is the fist of Carpentier, but the soul of Joe Beckett. One feels that if his intellectual equipment had been at the disposal of any ambitious politician it could not have failed to make its mark, and perhaps a permanent mark, on contemporary politics. . . . He suggests in his appearance that he would like fighting and dislike dirt. There is something military in his carriage and something pugilistic in his precise and vigorous face. He is also one of those men on whose clear and fine skin soap and water seem to produce a sheen or a glow, such as the manufacturers of a boot polish assure the world is a pedal consequence of using their particular cream. He stands very upright and square-shouldered, with a rather commanding tilt to his head, and a look in his eyes, when he is opposed, which is quick with challenge."

Lloyd-Greame. CHARACTER: "Philip Lloyd-Greame is unquestionably one of the ablest men now in Parliament, and one of the most eager and energetic. He has the economic facts of the British Empire at his fingers' ends, and his brain is a series of pigeonholes stuffed with the documents of world trade . . . laughing at ant-heaps. . . . I regard him as a man of the very highest promise, and one who may yet do as much for the prosperity of the British Empire as any man now living."

SOCIALISM CRITICAL AND CONSTRUCTIVE--J. Ramsay MacDonald--Bobbs Merrill ($3.00).

A great deal has been heard in the British and U. S. press concerning the analogy of British Socialism to Russian Bolshevism; but hear what the ex-Premier has to say about Karl Marx, whose writings are the Bolshevik Bible: "Today, Marx is known over as wide a world as even Christ or Mohammed. . . . His writings, largely unread, are held as inspired. . . . The validity of his economic theories is more than doubtful; his historical philosophy is in the same position."

The doctrines of Marx are not accepted by the ex-Premier, much less the Bolshevik interpretation of them. Socialism for him is a communal democracy in which universal service is obligatory upon the people--to be performed by the people, for the people.

Here is probably the clearest exposition of practical Socialism that has yet been written, and, if the theory is overcharged with idealism, it is also permeated with lofty and religious concern for the welfare of humanity which claims for it a fair hearing.

THE EVOLUTION OF FRENCH CANADA--Jean Charlemagne Bracq--Macmillan ($2.50).

This, as the title depicts, is a history of the French people in Canada since the days of the Cession. The author discusses with the utmost frankness and fairness almost every phase of life with which the French Canadians have been concerned. The book, taken as a whole, is a great tribute, despite some severe censures, to the British Government and to the Anglo Saxon Canadians.

Among the many points upon which M. Bracq dilates is the difference between French Canadians and the French.

GERMAN WHITE BOOK and PRELIMINARY HISTORY OF THE ARMISTICE-- edited by James Brown Scott--Oxford University Press ($2.00 each).

Two books of extraordinary interest to the public have been edited for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace by James Brown Scott. These books are couched in clear, precise English and present the lowest common denominator of the German contentions regarding responsibility for the outbreak of the War and the conditions under which she signed the Armistice. Considering the enormous flood of propaganda that has been loosed by both sides to cover these two cardinal points in the history of the past decade, this concrete evidence is of more than academic interest.