'funeral,' 'nine,' 'right,' 'nine,' 'left'; and a simple test is to ask oneself which set of accented words tells the story best.

Singers protest, then, but no one seems to take the matter in hand. Choral societies should first create a public opinion within their own circle and outside it, and then persuade two or three of their members with a turn for literature to form a small working committee. Good translation results more than anything from friendly criticism, since there are many points of view from which it will be judged, and one man cannot be equally alive to them all. And the translation of a choral work-Brahms' Requiem or several of Bach's cantatas-is a long task for any one man; he will get stale, and then his work will be less than the best he can do. Such a committee would have their heart in the work because they themselves and their friends were going to sing it, and they would be making something that was worth having and that few others could make.

As soon as a few of such committees were in being those who are responsible for a competition festival would probably be glad to commission and pay for any translation work they wanted, and by the time the committees had thus enlarged their scope other demands would come in for particular songs, or song cycles, or even opera; who knows? Like all work that is worth anything, translation cannot be done in cold blood. It is best done for somebody in particular, not for anybody in general. Hitherto it has been commissioned chiefly by publishers, and in batches of good poems and bad together, and under those conditions it would be difficult for anyone to do good work; one might as well commission a composer to set the Silex Scintillans or the Hesperides bodily! If we write prose our best writing will probably be in a letter to a friend, and if verse our best will be for a friend's eye, if not for his heart. Until this personal, human feeling comes into the work of translation it will never be worth much. But then it will; and we shall awake one day to feel as our Tudor ancestors felt who, after making fair trial of Italian, convinced themselves that great things could not for Englishmen be so finely or so truly said in any language as they can in English.

A. H. Fox STRANGWAYS.

A WRITER in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society recently observed that 'It has long been a matter for comment for the judicious that the British taxpayer is wholly unaware how vast a literature, interesting as well as instructive, is published by H.M. Stationery Office.' It is the object of this article to trace the causes of that ignorance.

The output of Government publications arose in a small way out of the need which the two Houses of Parliament felt to print their daily agenda and a daily record of their proceedings. The printing was for their own use and not for the public, but as long ago as 1690 there was some sale of these papers to the general public. Up to 1835, however, the sale was of an irregular character. Members of Parliament were allowed a gratuitous supply both for themselves and their constituents. Those who were not able to enlist the help of an M.P. bought copies from VOL. XCVIII-No. 583 321

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the officials of the two Houses, and the profit derived from the sale was a recognised perquisite. Throughout the eighteenth century, however, the output of Parliamentary Papers was comparatively small, and involved a cost of only about 8000l. a year. There was an immense increase after the Union with Ireland, and in 1834 the cost had risen to 78,0811.

The publication of these papers was the subject of an intricate series of patents, whereby private individuals were granted a monopoly of printing and selling for a period generally of forty years, which was renewed from time to time. A similar system applied to the provision of stationery and other supplies to Government Departments.

His Majesty's Stationery Office was established in 1786 with the object of putting an end to these arrangements which had become costly, intricate, and often corrupt. Originally the office was concerned mainly with the placing of contracts for the supply of stationery to Government Departments, and it was able to enlarge its activities as the existing patents fell in. In 1786 it served eleven offices at a cost of 17,000l. In 1797 patents for four more offices expired, and the expenditure of the Stationery Office rose to 24,000l. In 1800 a patent originally granted to Jacob Tonson for five offices fell in, and by 1812 the Stationery Office was expending 160,00ol. a year. Early in the nineteenth century the office assumed the task of putting out contracts for Government printing, and the success of John Church, the Controller, in this direction received the warm praise of a Parliamentary Committee. The process, however, was very gradual, and it is only in comparatively recent times that the Stationery Office has acquired a practical monopoly of orders for Government printing. Even then it was neither a printer nor a bookseller. It printed through private contractors and sold through accredited agents. It did not assume these two duties itself till the twentieth century. About 1913 it opened its own shops for the sale of Government publications, and as a direct result of the war it opened its own printing works. The need of printing documents arising out of Food Control involved the purchase of a vast printing establishment at Harrow, and when that need terminated the place was converted into a Government printing establishment which tenders for Government printing in competition with private printers. It does perhaps a third of the total Government printing, and its activities, and even its continued existence, are at present the subject of inquiry by a Departmental Committee which has been sitting for many months.

The foundation of the Stationery Office has been ascribed to the activities of Edmund Burke. Burke was the Geddes of 1780, and in that year, in a speech of great eloquence, he introduced his

plan for economical reform, which he embodied in Parliamentary Bills. He was then in opposition, and his bills were defeated in 1780 and again in 1781. In a striking passage he explained how the path of economy had been stopped by the fact that the King's turnspit was a member of Parliament. In 1782 he came into office, and the mangled remains of his great scheme were embodied in two Acts of Parliament (22 Geo. 3, cap. 82 and 23 Geo. 3, cap. 82). Vested interests had, however, defeated the abolition of the majority of the abuses against which he inveighed.

There are, however, some painful indications that Burke in suppressing one sinecure had managed to create another, and in the nineteenth century it became the practice to confer the office of Controller of the Stationery Office on persons distinguished rather for their literary abilities than for their technical knowledge. J. R. McCulloch, who was appointed in 1838, was a voluminous writer on social and economic subjects, and we are informed that his appointment to the Stationery Office 'hardly abated the energy with which he pursued his favourite studies.' His successor, William Rathbone Greg, was an equally well-known literary man, and held office from 1864 to 1877. He suffered much as a witness before a Select Committee of 1874. They commenced their inquiry by impertinent questions as to the time devoted to the duties of his office. He replied sometimes one hour a day and sometimes seven, and contrived to leave the impression that the former period was the more normal. He was generally wise enough not to answer questions, but he was compelled to make a conjecture as to the value of the stock in his department, and the Committee were aghast to find that he could not get within about 50,000l. of the correct total. Greg took his heckling with the composure of a philosopher, and did not interrupt the composition of his celebrated treatise, entitled Rocks Ahead, or the Warnings of Cassandra. The Committee not unexpectedly recommended that on a vacancy a person with technical qualifications for the post should be appointed, and thereby brought Lord Beaconsfield into serious trouble. He appointed T. Digby Pigott, who held the appointment almost till the end of the nineteenth century. He was a clerk in the War Office and a recognised expert on ornithology. His technical qualifications were not apparent, and the malicious asserted that he was appointed because he was the son of a rector of Hughenden, who had greatly contributed to Disraeli's success at certain parliamentary elections. Lord Beaconsfield's defence of the appointment in the House of Lords on July 19, 1877, was one of his happiest efforts. It was true that Mr. Pigott was the son of a rector of Hughenden, but he left the parish soon after Disraeli arrived. His only contribution to Disraeli's election consisted of a vote against him. As for the

demand that a person of technical experience should be appointed, he had found that the emoluments of the office were such that his choice was confined to those who had retired from business or those from whom business had retired. The Opposition realised that they had discovered a mare's nest and hastily retreated.

The vast increase in the output of parliamentary literature at the beginning of the nineteenth century was productive of an equivalent crop of abuses. Apparently any member of either House could get almost anything printed for the asking, and controversial pamphlets received gratuitous circulation by assuming the garb of parliamentary petitions. No less than 15,258 separate Parliamentary Papers were issued between 1801 and 1834. A return occupying 1331 pages and containing nothing but the names of school teachers was published at a cost of 40161. Another return of 938 pages costing 1591l. was filled with the names and characters of West Indian slaves. Every member was entitled on election to receive as of right 120 volumes of the Journals of both Houses of Parliament, a system from which the waste-paper merchants reaped a large harvest. Though Parliamentary Papers were confined to M.P.'s and constituents who obtained them through M.P.'s, the number of papers distributed at the public expense numbered 973,053. In spite of this lavish distribution, the cellars of Parliament were groaning under a vast stock of unwanted literature amounting to 2,200,000 printed papers.

These facts aroused the attention of Parliament, and a series of Committees was appointed to deal with different aspects of the question. The most valuable was the Select Committee of 1835, over which that ex-Indian nabob and sturdy Radical Joseph Hume presided. It was said of him that he spoke longer and oftener and probably worse than any other private member. Most Parliaments have had a member of whom this can be said, and a monograph on parliamentary bores would afford a most interesting political study. On the whole it may be said that more is effected in Parliament by persistent boring than by sustained eloquence, and the parliamentary bore is generally one of the most valuable though the least honoured of members. Joseph Hume was no exception. His energy was inexhaustible, his pertinacity unequalled. He served on nearly all the Committees, and insisted on getting to the bottom of every question. His three reports on parliamentary publications are most valuable State papers, and laid down the lines which were followed for very many years. The conclusions of the reports were formulated in sixteen resolutions which were passed by the House of Commons on August 13, 1835, by forty votes to twenty-two, in spite of an attempt by the Government of the day to postpone them. The