THE APRIL PERIODICALS
Sir Archibald Sinclair discusses " Rearmament " dispassionately in the Contemporary. It is for us, he says, "an evil and dangerous but inescapable necessity," primarily "to buttress the rule of law against force." But Sir Archibald would have the Government take control of the munitions industry to prevent undue profit making, and he doubts whether Sir Thomas Inskip is actually co-ordinating defence. Dr. James Truslow Adams thinks that we misunderstand "The American Consti- tutional Crisis " ; he suggests that Mr. Roosevelt is trying to change the form of Government by an Act of Congress when he might ask the prople" to vote on an amendment to the Constitution. Dr. F. S. Marvin, under the head of "Common Sense in Central Europe," finds comfort in a recent article by D. Benes on the situation. Dr. William Miller writes on "The Centenary of Athens University," and regrets that British scholars have hitherto shown little interest in its work. " Spectator's " account of " National Socialism and the German Universities "is painful reading.
In the National Mr. Justice Ostler of New Zealand criticises our "Colonial Rule in Africa " ; the courts, he thinks, are too pedantic and the indirect rule of the chiefs is harsher than that of our officials would be. " Taffrail "describes what he regards as "The Ills of the Merchant Navy." The supply of seamen is diminiching and the conditions of employment are far from satisfactory. Mr. V. W. Germains, in a thoughtful article on "The General Staff and the Army," doubts whether aircraft alone will decide the next war ; the defence, he thinks, will be stronger than the attack.
In the Cornhill Mr. E. Thornton Cook recalls in an amusing article some of the details of bygone Coronations, including the elaborate banquet prepared for Charles the Second. Mr. Derek Hudson finds an unfamiliar subject in "William IV: The Forgotton King," a man of simple tastes and no little humour ; at his coronation he "caused a little more trouble when he refused to be kissed by the bishops."
Blackwood's, among its readable arti- cles on travel and sport, has a lively account of "A Day" in the life of an Air Force officer stationed in Northern Iraq. " Calafate " describes "The Vanished Ona of Tierra del Fuego," a very wild tribe of aborigines who used bows and arrows and are now extinct. Mr. H. Carew recalls in scrupulous detail a tea-party in a Japanese country house, where the polite ritual familiar to readers of The Tale of Genji is still observed.
In Chambers's Journal Professor Ernest Gardner writes on "Salonika and the Great Fire" of 1917, which destroyed most of the city and was only checked by the efforts of the British sailors and soldiers then on service in Macedonia. Mr. C. F. Meade has a curious article on "The Great Meteorite Catastrophe in Siberia " on June 3oth, is•o8. Twenty years later explorers found that the falling meteorite had laid waste a thousand square miles of forest, but no trace of
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