The introduction to the collection of studies is written by R. H. Tawney, Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics, whose book "Land and Labour in China" is a classic in this field. Professor Tawney has an acknowledged place as a student of capital and the relations of economic institutional life to human values and welfare. His conclusions are well worth quoting:
In the Europe of the nineteenth century, the reconstruction of the legal fabric of the land-system preceded the modernization both of productive technique and of the business side of farming; nor, in the absence of the first, would the last two have been possible. China, it may be prophesied, wil find it necessary to follow the same sequence of stages. Land-tenure will require to be reformed, and the stranglehold of the usurer and middlemen to be broken, before much can be expected in the way of technical progress. If the energies of the rural districts are to be released, and the peasants enabled both to protect themselves and to make their own contribution to the China of the future. a realistic system of education which gives less space to books than to practical activities, together with some simple form of School Medical Service. must be made accessible to country children.
In a Book of such valuable source materials it is doubly unfortunate that an index of topics and names is not given, Also it is amazing to find that the references in the footnotes of the introduction are in an unknown system which has no relation either with the pagination or the table of contents.—r.M.s.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.