Tins is no admission of failure. Anything there has been
to say in favour of opening the British Foreign Office to women should be much strengthened by the experience of Mrs. Harriman, American Minister to Norway, 1936-194o: women might even bring to our diplomacy a habit of liking the country to which they were accredited and a tradition of themselves being intelli- gent, sympathetic and unprejudiced. To quote gossip-column details of What She Wore and the minor adjustments of etiquette that had to be made is.to give a false emphasis to them, for in Mrs. Harriman's story they fall into place as naturally as do the names of well-known people she knew in the States or friends she made in Norway. There is no patronage here and no snobbery. Perhaps the book does not show any great political perspicacity ; but, after all, commentaries on the European Situation are two-a- penny, and the Minister is proud of her scoop over The City of Flint. The book is to be highly, recommended, both as the testament of a woman in diplomacy and as a guide to Norway which would awaken a desire to visit the country in the least Norsophile. Her straightforward descriptions, particularly of her Lofoten expedition, are made vivid by her love for the scenery and the climate and her admiration for the people. " There are only three million people in Norway." she writes, " but each one of them counts. If, before the invasion, they were ahead of us all in the democratic way of life, in a measure we owe it to them to carry on their experiments here. . . ."
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