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hygiene, for the purpose of drawing up Draft Conventions and Recommendations to be submitted to future sittings of the General Conference. The Scientific Division, which is responsible for most of the publications of the Office, has already issued a number of studies and reports in English and French which will cover ultimately the following subjects: (a) Industrial relations (the activities of trade unions and employers' associations) and political activity in its relation to questions of labour. (b) Economic relations. (c) Employment and Unemployment. (d) Conditions of Labour. (e) Social Insurance. Disablement caused by the war. (ƒ) Safety in industrial methods. (g) Industrial Hygiene. (h) Conditions of life of the workers. (i) Co-operation. () Protection of women and children. (k) Education. (1) Agriculture. (m) Questions affecting seamen. In addition the Division is responsible for the Legislative Series which contains reprints of the texts of laws, decrees, orders, and regulations affecting labour, issued in the different countries of the world. The series, which is published in English, French, and German, constitutes a continuation in a new form of the series published by the old International Labour Office at Basel. This Division is also conducting a special inquiry (requested by an association of steel manufacturers of America) into the three-shift system in the blast furnace industry. A monthly Scientific Review will appear shortly, which will survey the world of industry from an international standpoint. An important investigation is being made into the pressing question of the causes of decline in production and the speediest and most effective methods of removing them. The conditions of labour in 'Bolshevik Russia claim the attention of another section, and a report on the subject has been issued, to be followed by others, based on authentic material obtained from that country. A Commission of Inquiry was appointed to proceed to Russia; but the Soviet Government refused to allow it to enter. On the other hand, a similar Commission has visited Hungary, and a report on the industrial situation there has been prepared.

This is but a condensed and, in some respects, an incomplete statement of the work of the Permanent Vol. 235.-No. 466.

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Labour Organisation during the first year of its existence It is a record which, one may venture to say, needs no apologia. There are critics, by no means unfriendly, whe assert that the Office is attempting too much, that it i forcing the pace too quickly. The answer to this is tha the Peace Treaty has laid upon the Office imperativ duties, and that if it does not attempt to perform it tasks with the utmost speed compatible with thorough ness and soundness, it will not be serving the purpose fo which it was instituted, namely, the removal, as rapidl as possible, of the causes of the industrial unrest which is disturbing and disrupting the world. On the othe hand, there are critics, often openly hostile, who conten that the methods by which the Organisation is bound t work are too slow, and that nations should be compelle at once to adopt in detail the principles relating to th treatment of labour set out in the Treaty. These critic forget that the means they favour are at variance with democratic ideas. If some nations are tardy in ratifyin Conventions, it is in the power of the public opinion o those nations to bring pressure upon their Governments The energy, good will, and zeal displayed at the meet ings of the General Conference, prove that there ar great possibilities for the peaceful and orderly settlemen of industrial problems by the meeting together of Government, Employers' and Workers' representatives as permitted by the composite and elastic character of the constitution of the Conference. But correspond ing qualities are needed in each nation in order to bring the work of the Conference and the International Labou: Office to full fruition.

In conclusion, it should be remembered that Par XIII of the Treaty is mainly British in origin. Fo this reason the belief is justified that the Governmen and the Employers' and Workers' organisations of Grea Britain will render powerful assistance to the Inter national Labour Organisation in its efforts to ensur that the Peace is 'based upon social justice.'

ALBERT THOMAS.

Art. 12.-ENGLISH TRADITIONS IN ART.

The Walpole Society's Publications. Volumes I-VII. Printed for the Walpole Society: Oxford University Press, 1912-1919.

'THE English,' says Coleridge, 'have a morbid habit of petting and praising foreigners of any sort, to the unjust disparagement of their own worthies.' It is a trait which has been noticed by other writers. When Coleridge said 'worthies,' he was using too general a term; he was probably thinking of artists. It cannot truly be said that in the domain of literature we have been in the habit of preferring foreign talent to English; possibly because we are not adepts in foreign languages. But of native music, as of native painting and sculpture, there has certainly been a kind of distrust, not easily overcome. A continental reputation, even the mere bearing of a foreign name, has often brought easy success in England, while native artists, of equal or superior gift, have languished in the cold. Some may maintain that the disparagement has been just, or that there has been due appreciation when our artists had proved their merit. Yet, to recall a signal instance of quite modern times, we had in Alfred Stevens a great sculptor, a great draughtsman, an artist of a completeness of mastery rarely matched since the Italian Renaissance; and how comparatively small a number of Englishmen, even now, know his work or attach a significance to his name! Slowly, very slowly, he is coming into his due of fame; and the recognition of his genius owes much to the enthusiastic admiration of a Frenchman, Alphonse Legros. The belief that we have no sculpture in England is still deeply rooted. Would any other country, we may well ask, so long neglect its greatest sculptor?

Why do we show so much quicker an appreciation of our men of letters? In literature we can boast of a long and magnificent tradition, starred with renowned names; and we take a just pride in it. That, beyond doubt, is the art in which this country has shown by far the greatest genius and the richest powers. It still remains natter for speculation how far the plastic and pictorial

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arts have been depressed by neglect and indifferen For these arts demand the whole time and energy those who practise them; they cannot be pursued in t leisure of a career devoted to more lucrative activiti Most of our poets would have starved, had th attempted to subsist on poetry alone. Is there an und current of Puritanism, with its suspicion of the sensuo and plastic expression of the desire for beauty, th persists in our race, even though it no longer bur forth in open hatred? Our streets, our buildings, & witnesses to the public indifference to dignity and com liness in national self-expression. And then, we cling our habit of leaving everything to private enterpris there is no central public authority in matters pertainin to the arts; there is next to no encouragement support by the State; no effort to express or to gui such public opinion as exists. All is left to accident.

It is not only to living artists that indifference ha been shown. We have been very little concerned to honour to English artists of the past. The great portra painters of the 18th century, with Turner and a fe other masters, have been enthroned, indeed. Auctio records have given them just that prestige which in presses the average man. But how large an element fashion and caprice enters into this! Minute study ha been given to the sifting of Italian and Flemish Prim tives. But the study of our own masters has remaine in the uncritical stage, where every work of merit tend to gravitate to one of a few conspicuous names, an artists of great gift are forgotten. Here surely we ma with justice be reproached for a lack of piety whic perhaps no other country of Europe has betrayed to suc a degree. It was to remedy this lack and to encourag interest in our native art of the past that the Walpol Society came into existence. It was founded in 191 and has been the means of bringing together the fe serious students of the subject. Seven annual volume have been published. A review of the work which the Society has accomplished during the nine years of it existence will show how extensive and how littl laboured the field still is, and how much remains to b done.

The Society names itself, of course, after Horace

Walpole, whose 'Anecdotes of Painting in England' remains the classic work on our subject for the period it covers. As is well known, Walpole's work was founded on the notes and documents collected by George Vertue, the antiquary and engraver. What is less well known is the fact that Vertue's notes, still existing in the British Museum, have never yet been published; and the notes contain a great deal of information, sometimes of much interest, which Walpole neglected to use. It would naturally occur to the members of the Walpole Society that here was a task which it was most fitting that they should undertake. But examination of the note-books proved that to publish them in full would be a costly undertaking, beyond the Society's resources. In the third annual volume Mr A. M. Hind gives a list of the note-books in the British Museum, forty-four in number. A few volumes of the

original series are not in the Museum, and can no longer be traced. But it will be readily understood that to publish the Museum collection in extenso would absorb an indefinite number of the annual volumes of the Society; and, desirable as the publication is, subscribers would find it indigestible matter for so prolonged a repast.

To Mr Hind's list, Mr Lionel Cust adds some 'proposals' for the publication. He contends that to print a careful transcript would not suffice; it would be difficult to make clear what were Vertue's own actual corrections and additions to the original notes; and he suggests that the best solution would be to publish the notes in photolithography and that a special fund should be raised in the name of the Walpole Society for this purpose. The war has prevented, but we hope only postponed, any such further steps being taken. If this project be realised, it will at last be possible for us to estimate at their due value both the prodigious labour and insatiable research of Vertue and the lucid art of Walpole. The pith of Walpole's book consists of Vertue's collected material. But the writing of the Anecdotes, the translation of this mass of scattered notes into that easy, graceful narrative, is a feat that excites the greater wonder the more one reflects on the difficulties of the task and the rapidity with which it was done. an instance of Walpole's omissions we may take the

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