Professor L. B. Namier, best known for his historical studies
of eighteenth-century politics, is also a man of affairs who has travelled widely and written for various English journals, including the Spectator. In a slim volume entitled Skyways (Macmillan, 6s.) he reprints a score of his articles, mainly on current political questions, such as Zionism, the agrarian revolution in Eastern Europe, the German attitude towards Russia, and the difficulty of finding out what public opinion really is. Mr. Lloyd George and others of his way of thinking are reminded that, " however fine a machine pro- portional representation, referendums, popular initiative, &c., may be, they cannot supply a valid verdict where there is no articulate thought, and they moreover rest on, and in turn foster the dangerous delusion that public opinion is a matter of numbers." The author holds that " the rulers, if properly chosen, should be able to find the direction of public opinion in their own consciousness and feelings." He prints an article written for an American journal in mid-June, 1914, on " The European Situation," -in which, as the outcome of a European tour, he declared that " Europe is proceeding with its pre- parations for the storm of our age." But his assertion that
Germany is now far too much occupied with affairs in Eastern Europe to contemplate any move against England " was a less fortunate essay in prophecy, since the German General Staff overbore the presumably pacific. Foreign Office.
* * * *
Previous page
