* * * * * For many reasons I could wish that England were China. It would be nice, for instance, to address the HOME SECRETARY as "Redoubtable Hunter of Criminals" and to call the Board of Exterior Affairs (if we had one) "Wai-wo-poo." I should like my house also to be named "The Palace of the Hundred Flowers." I think there are about a hundred, though I have not counted them. But in China it is above all things necessary to be an ancestor, and this may lead to complications if Mr. G. S. DE MORANT, who appears to be much more at home with the French and the Oriental idiom than the English, is to be trusted. _In the Claws of the Dragon_ (ALLEN AND UNWIN) describes the experiences of a young lady named _Monique_, who married the Secretary to the Chinese Embassy in Paris and was obliged, after visiting her relations-in-law, to reconcile herself to the introduction of a second wife into the family, in order that their notions of propriety might be respected and an heir born to the line. When she had consented she returned to Paris and wrote the following cablegram from her own mother's house: "You have acted as a good son and a faithful husband. Bring back with you the mother of our (_sic_) child." And so, the author evidently feels, it all ended happily. His book is an interesting and amusing presentment of an older civilisation, but if it won't strain the _Entente_ I am bound to say that I disagree with his conclusions. * * * * *