be hesitating on the edge of the "slippery slope." There must be many men and women who have neither time, inclination, nor opportunity for studying the difficult problems of Social Science; but who listen readily to those who recommend the downhill path, partly because it appears to be the easier and follows the line of least resistance, but partly also because they do not want to be thought retrograde or out-of-date: they do not care to be treated with the pitying contempt of which the reformer who professes to disbelieve in the Laws of Political Economy has so large a stock-in-trade. To these such a paper as the one entitled "Social Study on Large Maps" would show clearly that the problems of to-day were those of hundreds and even thousands of years ago; that the remedies applied to social ills in ancient Greece and Rome failed, as they will do to-day, if the weakness and strength of human nature are alike disregarded by those who desire them.
Another characteristic of the author is his extreme fairness to his opponents. He invariably states the communistic view in the strongest possible way and presents the arguments against his own position with scrupulous care. He seems at times indeed to be forgetful or unconscious of the fact that he has already demolished them by invincible commonsense and the pitiless logic of facts.
The conclusions at which Mr Bailward arrives are based on a profound study of human nature, and a firm belief in the teaching of history and especially in the History of the Poor Law. It is a fashion of the present day to relegate the teaching and experience of the past, when they happen to be inconvenient, to a kind of "dump," regardless of the fact that the lessons were learnt at painful cost by our forefathers and that they burnt
