ht call for special consideration--_The Republic of Liberia_, by
R.C.F. Maugham; _The Rising Tide of Color_, by Lothrop Stoddard;
_Darkwater_, by W.E. Burghardt DuBois, and _Empire and Commerce in
Africa: A Study in Economic Imperialism_, by Leonard Woolf. The position
of each of these books is clear and all bear directly upon the central
theme.

The _Republic of Liberia_ was written by one who some years ago was the
English consul at Monrovia and who afterwards was appointed to Dakar.
The supplementary preface also gives the information that the book was
really written two years before it appeared, publication being delayed
on account of the difficulties of printing at the time. Even up to 1918,
however, the account is incomplete, and the failure to touch upon recent
developments becomes serious; but it is of course impossible to record
the history of Liberia from 1847 to the present and reflect credit upon
England. There are some pages of value in the book, especially those in
which the author speaks of the labor situation in the little African
republic; but these are obviously intended primarily for consumption by
business men in London. "Liberians," we are informed, "tell you that,
whatever may be said to the contrary, the republic's most uncomfortable
neighbor has always been France." This is hardly true. France has
indeed on more than one occasion tried to equal her great rival in
aggrandizement, but she has never quite succeeded in so doing. As we
have already shown in connection with Liberia in the present work, from
the very first the shadow of Great Britain fell across the country. In
more recent years, by loans that were no more than clever plans for
thievery, by the forceful occupation of large tracts of land, and by
interference in the internal affairs of the country, England has again
and again proved herself the arch-enemy of the republic. The book so
recently written in the last analysis appears to be little more than the
basis of effort toward still further exploitation.

The very merit of _The Rising Tide of Color_ depends on its bias, and it
is significant that the book closes with a quotation from Kipling's "The
Heritage." To Dr. Stoddard the most disquieting feature of the recent
situation was not the war but the peace. Says he, "The white world's
inability to frame a constructive settlement, the perpetuation of
intestine hatreds and the menace of fresh civil wars complicated by the
specter of soci