Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/932

 92 2 Reviews of Books of evidence appears to verify Harrison's statement that the borrowing was mutual. The Rise and Decline of the Netherlands. A Political and Economic History and a Study in Practical Statesmanship. By J. Elhs Barker. (New York, E. P. Button and Company; London, Smith Elder and Company, 1906, pp. xiv, 478.) This volume is a political pamphlet on a large scale rather than a serious exposition of political events. The purpose which induced Mr. Ellis Barker to consult over 2,000 works in Dutch, German, French, English, Italian, and Spanish, was to draw a lesson for Great Britain to profit by. As a preliminary step he sketches the story of the rise of the Netherland countships and duchies in the northern portion of the Austrian-Spanish realm, their revolt, the union 'of the seven confederated states, and their entrance into European politics as an important factor. In spite of his wealth of authorities, the conception of the actual train of events is not sound. It is hardly worth while to point out the many minor errors because, perhaps, they do not affect the truth of the general conclusion to which all the argument tends, nameh', that the United Netherlands suffered material injury from the prevalence of sectional jealousy in her na- tional councils. Mr. Barker considers that Great Britain and her colonies to-day are in a similar position to that occupied by the United Netherlands and her distant possessions in the eighteenth century. From her own past, England has nothing to learn, but the history of her neighbor is full of information. Her danger signals may avert disaster if they be heeded in time. The author advocates a strong central government, a powerful military organization, and above, all a subordination of com- mercial to state interests. " The Dutch Oligarchs had allowed the huge economic fabric of the Netherlands to rest precariously upon a single pillar — foreign trade. That pillar rested on foreign soil. Foreign nations naturally took ad- vantage of that position. They sawed through the pillar, brought down the economic edifice and divided among themselves the fragments of Dutch prosperity." This is the condition that Great Britain is urged to avoid. Her strength is not commensurate with her possessions as all national strength should be. Her strength has been dissipated in the pursuit of a policy profitable to the few only. The volume closes with a fervent appeal to Great Britain to wrest herself from her state of chronic mis-government and to save her people from the sufferings that the shrinkage of a nation entails. The over-abundance of quotations, apt and inapt alike, are wearisome and weaken the argument which contains some wheat to a large proportion of chaff. A reprint of Peacham's Complcat Gentleman, with an introduction by C. S. Gordon, has been issued in the " Tudor and Stuart Library " (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1906, pp. xl, 261.) Henry Peachman, the