THE - ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
[COPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE NEW York Times.] The Encyclopaedia Britannica. The Three New Supplemen- tary Volumes. (London and New York : The Encyclopae- dia Britannica Co., Ltd. £6 3s. Od. net.) Jr is difficult not to speak of the three new supplementary volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica with an enthusiasm which to those who have not yet read them will seem out of proportion. Hundreds of new and fascinating subjects are dealt with. New light is poured from innumerable windows, and the collectors and transmitters of this new light often double the value and interest of their contributions through their personalities. For example, Commissary Trotsky writes of Lenin, Mr. Bernard Shaw writes of Socialism, Mr. Henry Ford of Mass Production, and Mr. Garvin, the Editor-in-Chief, of Capitalism. President Masaryk, of Czechoslovakia, makes an authoritative contribution, as does Sir James Craig, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, while Mr. Mellon, the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and four of his colleagues deal with various matters affecting America. Lord Cecil and the Duchess of Atholl touch appropriate themes, as again do Marshal Foch, Admiral von Scheer and Sir Josiah Stamp. Mr. Ramsay MacDonald, Sir Robert Borden, and M. Herriot are among the ex-Prime Ministers commandeered by Mr. Garvin, while Mr. Elihu Root, Colonel House, and M. Joseph Caillaux are in the first rank of his contributors. But the number of distinguished writers is too great to be dealt with in this way. To name them all would be impossible, while to be selective on a large scale would be to give a false impression. The only adequate thing that can be said about the contributors is that in almost every case, from Einstein to Lord Haldane, the round man has been asked to occupy the round hole. Here is a great achievement for the Editor- in-Chief, and for his experienced collaborator, Mr. Hooper, the American editor, whose support is generously acknow- ledged in the prefatory note.
But, when all is said and done, and all the crowns and laurels have been distributed, a very special meed of praise must be reserved for Mr. Garvin. It is not merely for his writings, though they are excellent, that he deserves our thanks, but for his wonderful handling of a team recruited from every part of the world. It was a great performance to get such a band of workers together, but what is even more memorable is the fact that he has inspired them, not merely with a common purpose, but with a common spirit. They write to enlighten us, but they also write with the true encyclopaedia touch.
Mr. Garvin made his colleagues feel that their business was not to use their articles for personal or party propaganda, but to give the general reader a fair view of the facts. You cannot expect men still in the heat of battle, or only just emerged therefrom, to write like professors in a laboratory ; but, taking these three closely packed volumes as a whole, there will, I believe, be found very few complaints of undue partisanship. Even if there were, it is better to have a live partisan than a more balanced judgment handed down from a somnolent or moribund tribunal. The three volumes are vitalized through- out, and largely through the spirit of the man who rides the Whirlwind of new knowledge and directs the storm of facts. Mr. Garvin, like the rest of us, has, no doubt, plenty of faults, but no one Ndvffi dare to assert that he is not "a live wire."
There is one more generalization which must be made in regard to the Encyclopaedia. Besides its informative merits it performs a most important piece of work in one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest, of all the movements that, though planted before the War, have only flowered during the Peace--the movement for the union and better under- standing of all those who speak the English tongue. The Encyclopaedia Britannica is an outward and visible sign of that union, and, what is more, it is destined to be a cause as well as in effect. Full of internationalism as it is, and rightly so, the essential thing about it as a book is that it forms a link between all who speak and write the language of Shakespeare and the English Bible. No one could possibly turn the pages of these new volumes and note the writers and the topics, and then declare that the English-speaking peoples have "rifted so far apart that, as the lawyers would say, there is lb ° longer any privity between them. The Editor-in-Chief and his American colleague, though they took up their work on other grounds, evidently felt this as they completed it, for the new edition is "dedicated byi permission to the two Heads of the English-speaking Peoples, His Majesty George the Fifth, King of Great Britain and. Ireland and of the British Dominions Beyond the Seas;
Emperor of India, and Calvin Coolidge, President of the ' United States of America."
At a moment like the present, that is, at .a moment of
industrial strife and distress involving great and basic prin- ciples, it is only natural to look to the Encyclopaedia for economic and social light. Such light will be found in Mr. Garvin's inspiring, bold, and comprehensive essay on Capital- ism. You cannot make a precis of a precis, but there are one or two observations on his treatment of the matter which I feel called upon to make. Mr. Garvin, after an interesting account of the origin of the word "Capitalist," bases his definition upon what Capitalism means in general parlance, and not what it ought to mean. I agree that this was the necessary course ; but, though it is convenient to accept the popular and general view, some caveats are required. It is dangerous to accept that rigid distinction between Capital and Income; which most people—lawyers, auditors and economists alike-L. are too apt to make. -Capital and Income are both forms Of Wealth, and the only essential difference between them is that Income is a liquid and Capital a static asset. But this is not all ; for the question of degree comes in. Capital varies immensely in its potentiality to be converted into a liquid asset.
On freedom of individual enterprise there are some very poignant things said by Mr. Garvin. For example :— " Governments may facilitate and assist—as they may hamper and impede—the exertions of free enterprise ; but Governments derive their own funds from taxes levied directly or indirectly ow individual effort ; nowhere has the State itself become a separate wealth-making power ; nowhere has Socialism been able to make itself in the least degree a working substitute for modern Capitalism. The Bolshevik experiment, rejected in agriculture by that 93 per cent, of the Russian people whose preference for private ownership, is invincible, is especially inferior in industrial efficiency. This is why the Russian Communists by paradox feel the need of foreign capital for loans to postpone the collapse of anti-capitalism or disguise the reversion to its opposite."
But I must not leave Mr. Garvin's article with the impression that it is a mere laudation of the Capitalist System. On the contrary, it is critical, and rightly critical, of many aspects of Capitalism. Capitalism needs reform and constant watching to prevent abuse, like every other human institu- tion. Here is a notable passage :— " As Socialism inspires vivid dreams, Capitalism for its moral vindication must have ideals as definite and more practicable. There is a rising supremacy of liberalising public influence. Advanced social thinkers who are yet strongly opposed to Socialism believe that private enterprise which they hold to be the best wealth-creating force is in gradual process of becoming also the best wealth-distributing system in a way that will raise the 'average, of human prosperity to the highest attainable level. They antici- . pate, therefore, that the interest on money itself will be limited by maximum rates never so low as to discourage saving and invest- ment ; that the directing ability of active capital must remain entitled as now to large rewards in proportion to success in enter- prise ; but that as the education of democracy progresses labour will:: not only receive wages steadily increasing relatively to profits, but will everywhere share in the division of profits ; while becoming.. more and more associated in consultative councils with the manage- - ment of industry, and enjoying every possible opportunity to rise from the ranks.'
I cannot leave the subject of Capitalism and Socialism without drawing attention to Mr. Bernard Shaw's article. It will not be liked by certain sections of his Socialist; colleagues because he refuses to be cocksure in the fearless old fashion of Karl Marx. At the same time there are many things said in the course of the argument which will irritate the advocates of Individualism and Capitalism.
I had marked a dozen more articles for notice, but they must remain untouched. I can only end, as I began, by expressing gratitude for the sense of animation which the mere turning of the leaves of these three volumes has
given me.
J. Si. Lon STRACHEY.
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