Welsh Journals

He goes on to refer to the supposed destruction of the library of Alexandria by the orders of the Caliph Omar. It has by now been fully estab- lished that this is a myth, not found till com- paratively late. Christian fanatics did, I be- lieve, destroy two temples to which libraries were THE ROUND TABLE September, 1930. In the Round Table for September, 1930, India naturally gets first place. The article follows the usual course and pleads for advance by stages. Lord Balfour once said that politics is the art of postponing crises due to insoluble problems, but neither the Round Table nor the great majority of other journals seems to realise sufficiently that we have an insoluble problem in that the British do not want to intermix with Indians, and Indians often object to intermixture with Europeans. That being so, there is bound to be grave diffi- culty so long as British people share in the government of India. The Imperial Conference is the next topic, and it is treated as a preliminary and tentative effort towards a new organisation of the Empire, it being realised that Federation is impossible and that the supremacy of the British Parliament is only a survival and is no longer operative. The power of disallowance of Dominion legislation has not been exercised by Britain since 1873. The present position is work- able provided all parties are wise and moderate; uniformity is specially desirable in maritime law, and in this matter the authority of Westminster is, in practice, still dominant. The Conference on Dominion Legislation and Merchant Shipping (1929) reports in favour of conferring full legis- lative authority over all ships in territorial waters to each Dominion and full authority to each Dominion over its own ships in international waters. It believes that this will clear the way for agreements between members of the British Commonwealth; risks must be taken boldly. The delegates to the Imperial Conferences of the future must come armed with real power to dis- cuss and make compromises, and the article favours the investing of the Dominion High Com- missioners with large powers. The article on U.S.A. narrates details of the ratification of the Naval Treaty, and then reviews President Hoover's first year, allowing him a considerable personal success, and at the same time emphasis- ing the dire results of the fall of world prices. Imperial Economic Unity is discussed in such a way as to bring out its difficulties for Britain, and the impossibility of expecting infant indus- tries in the Dominions to submit to suffocation by British competition, Economic Unity would attached; but what became of the great library itself, who destroyed it and when, or whether it disappeared gradually through neglect and indifference-these are questions which remain to be answered.-I am, yours truly, H. IDRIS BELL. REVIEWS mean a step backward from the position of equality of status of the Mother Country and its Dominions, and to state this is to show the im- practicability of the idea. The writers of the article urge the commercial world to apply science more completely, to adapt refrigeration so that Australian beef need no longer be inferior on its arrival in Britain, to Argentine beef, to stan- dardise objects so that replaceable parts may be more easily available, to put down pests and im- prove agriculture far and wide. THE PROBLEM OF THE CROSS by W. 8. Wilson, B. D. James Clarke and Co. Ltd., p.p. 372, ios. 6d. net. This book deals with the connexion between the death of Christ and the salvation of man. It sets out to prove that there is no textual basis in the New Testament for the doctrine of Atonement, that evidence for the "satisfaction" doctrine of the work of Christ cannot be found there. Nor does it appear for some time. It is absent from Irenaeus' thought and emerges only with Anselm. What view is to be held, then, of the work of Christ? The author believes that Christ died to produce a moral cl ange in mankind. But his death was not essential for that end although it added point to his message. The Atonement theory, which the writer rejects, was based on the fallacious philosophical assumption that sin could be separated from the sinner, whereas, he points out, sin can only be eliminated by a change ot mind in the sinner-a moral reformation. The root of opposition to God, otherwise sin, is fail- ure to recognise his love. "That men might know the love of God a man was needed in whom goodness was the fibre of his being, whose love would be strong enough to meet hatred and would embrace all. Such a one alone could show God to men as He really is. That is what Christ did. And to do it fully Ke had to die on the Cross." Such, Mr. Wilson believes to have been Christ's mission. His book is scholarly and stimulating. Many will be prepared to follow him in his attack on the widespread assumption of a Scriptural basis for the doctrine of the Atonement, but his substitute doctrine of Christ's person and work will fail to satisfy the modern, as it would have failed to satisfy the early Christian. The book is well worth reading E. R.