Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/310

 302 SHORT NOTICES April ' who performed at the concerts given in St. Cecilia's Hall in the Cowgate ' (p. 40 and p. 47). In accordance with ancient custom the Glasgow Guild of Hammermen is condemned for its treatment of James Watt, and no reference is made to the able vindication of that body published in 1912. 1 The greater space devoted to the remainder of the period permits both of a deeper analysis of the subject-matter, and of a fuller treatment of each subsection. The statistics, which are numerous, have mostly been culled from secondary sources, and though informative in them- selves, they are difficult to use to advantage, since no attempt has been made to reduce them to a common measure. Prosperity is reckoned some- times in terms of the ' personnel ' or the machinery of production, and again in the quantity or the cash- value of output or export ; the years between which expansion is measured are hardly ever the same, and the abnormal war-period, omitted in some cases, is in others included. Hence the book lacks unity ; but none the less it contains much that is instructive, and its broad outlines are clear. The steady decline of agriculture and of fishing is not nearly balanced by the development of stock-breeding real though that has been and the social and economic problems of the future will centre round the great towns and the great industries. Dr. Mackinnon's book will certainly present to the young student a fair picture of ' the condition of Scotland ', and if it drives him to examine more fully any of the great questions raised, it will have achieved its end. Not the least of the author's merits is that he has put on record the services of some whose names are famous throughout the world of business, but who are unknown to the general public. At the present moment Scotland is once more beginning to realize her debt to these bold ' captains of industry ', and the story of their achievements will be read with interest. J. D. M. Mr. A. Mervyn Davies's essay, The Influence of George III on the Development of the Constitution (London : Milford, 1921), was awarded the Stanhope Prize last year. It arrives at the conclusion that although George III, by his treatment of the whig party, indirectly contributed to the cause of parliamentary reform, the effects of his influence were more political than constitutional. The conclusion is orthodox, but the accuracy of the author's facts is not always above reproach. Nothing could be further from the truth than the description (p. 15) of LoBd Chatham's ministry as an ' avowed attempt ... to establish. . . govern- ment by divided, incoherent administrations which would place no obstacle between the king and his object ' with ' no common acceptance of the leadership of a " First Minister " '. The erroneous assertion (p. 18) that George Grenville, as first lord of the treasury, ' was not allowed to have any share or voice in the secret bribery ' of members of parliament is presumably to be attributed to a confusion between Grenville's position in Lord Bute's cabinet and his position in his own. The statement (p. 37) that ' the fall of the Pitt-Newcastle Ministry was followed by a general proscription of the whigs ' is a misleading description of three separate events occurring at intervals extending over fourteen months. Mr. Tem- perley did not write Lord Chatham and, the Whig Opposition (p. 43), Pitt 1 Lumsden and Aitken, History of the Hammermen of Glasgow, app. to bk. i, xii.