Welsh Journals

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As it is, we must be thankful as well for occasional glimpses of Lloyd George at work, and for gentle, yet authentic, portraits of some of his colleagues. There is little on the slights and insults, the embarrassing, sometimes humiliating, incidents that understandably occurred on the path which Frances Stevenson, at Lloyd George's request, chose to take. Instead she remembers the small kindnesses of Winston Churchill, Lord Curzon, and Lord Riddell, and the occasional gaffes that were attributable to nothing but her own inexperience. Dame Margaret Lloyd George and her children are treated with sympathy, though in their eyes, nothing, as is sadly recorded in the closing pages, ever eradicated 'my original offence against the family'. It is unfortunate that Lady Lloyd-George's publishers did not prompt her memory where trivial, but obvious, inaccuracies crept into the narrative. Neither Philip Snowden, nor anyone else, went to prison in 1914 as a conscientious objector (p. 242). Lloyd George's speech in the foreign affairs debate of June 1936, great as it was, had nothing to do with sanctions against Germany (p. 255). Benes was not prime minister of Austria (p. 152). Lloyd George's proposal of a coalition was made in 1910 not 1911 (p. 94). There was no such body as the National Unionist Association of Conservative Organizations (p. 61). Sir John Reith and the B.B.C. did not commence broadcasting in 1918 (p. 143). Still more disap- pointing is the omission of any mention of certain people whose relations with Lloyd George remain unexplored by historians: Sir Henry Dalziel, Sir William Sutherland, and Sir Frederick Cawley and his colleagues in the Liberal War Committee, for example. Stimulated by enquiring students of her husband's career, Lady Lloyd-George might well have been able to throw shafts of light into a number of neglected corners. Her book is a fitting testament to a life of dignity and self-sacrifice. But it is also a sad though unintended reflection on the lack of initiative of British historians who have failed to reap the harvest of her memories. G. C. L. HAZLEHURST Nuffield College, Oxford SHORT NOTICE Peter Cattermole, The Amateur Geologist (Lutterworth Press, 1968. Pp. 255. 35s.) is an admirable survey for the general reader, which describes the scope and practical pursuit of the study of geology. It is pleasantly written and the illustrations are excellent. As might be expected, the work contains a good deal of material on Welsh geology in the Cambrian, Ordovician and Devonian periods. The appendices include a detailed list of fossil localities and of areas of general geological interest in different parts of Wales.