between Great Britain and Czecho-Slovakia. Now what I advise
is, that if the relations are strained, keep them so. England has lost
nearly all the strained relations she ever had; let her cherish the few
that she still has. I know that there are other opinions. The suggestion
has been at once made for a "round table conference," at which the whole
thing can be freely discussed without formal protocols and something
like a "gentleman's agreement" reached. I say, don't do it. England is
being ruined by these round table conferences. They are sitting round in
Cairo and Calcutta and Capetown, filling all the best hotels and eating
out the substance of the taxpayer.

I am told that Lloyd George has offered to go to Czecho-Slovakia. He
should be stopped. It is said that Professor Keynes has proved that
the best way to deal with the debt of Czecho-Slovakia is to send them
whatever cash we have left, thereby turning the exchange upside down
on them, and forcing them to buy all their Christmas presents in
Manchester.

It is wiser not to do anything of the sort. England should send them
a good old-fashioned ultimatum, mobilise all the naval officers at the
Embankment hotels, raise the income tax another sixpence, and defy them.

If that were done it might prove a successful first step in bringing
English politics back to the high plane of conversational interest from
which they are threatening to fall.

V. Oxford as I See It

MY private station being that of a university professor, I was naturally
deeply interested in the system of education in England. I was therefore
led to make a special visit to Oxford and to submit the place to a
searching scrutiny. Arriving one afternoon at four o'clock, I stayed at
the Mitre Hotel and did not leave until eleven o'clock next morning.
The whole of this time, except for one hour spent in addressing the
undergraduates, was devoted to a close and eager study of the great
university. When I add to this that I had already visited Oxford in 1907
and spent a Sunday at All Souls with Colonel L. S. Amery, it will
be seen at once that my views on Oxford are based upon observations
extending over fourteen years.

At any rate I can at least claim that my acquaintance with the British
university is just as good a basis for reflection and judgment as that
of the numerous English critics who come to our side of the water. I
have known a famous English author to arrive at Harvard University in