The Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs, 1922 by J. Castell Hopkins (review)

REVIEWS OF BOOKS 365 in immigration and railway folder literature. In fact, the wholevolume could have easily been "boiled down" into twenty-five pages,and lost nothing by the process. L. HAMI•.TON The CanadianAnnual Reviewof Public Affairs, 1922. By J. HOPKINS. Toronto: The Canadian Review Company. 1923. Pp. 1046; illustrations. THE appearanceof .this, the twenty-second volume of the Canadian Annual Review,hasalmost synchronizedwith the lamented death of its author. For twenty-two years Mr. Castell Hopkins wrote, almost wholly with hisownhand, a seriesof annualvolumesthe value of which it would be difficult to over-estimate,and the like of which is not to be foundevenin countriesmuchlargerand wealthier than Canada. Their encyclopaedicrange, their scrupulousaccuracy, their impartial tone, place them in a classby themselves. The reader may perhaps have reasonto complainoccasionallyof diffuseness, but never of scantiness of information,inaccuracy,or bias. Indeed,onemay readvolumeafter volume of the serieswithout discoveringwhether Mr. Castell Hopkins wasa Liberal or a Conservative,an Orangemanor a Roman Catholic, a Communistor a Capitalist. To saythis is to pay a very great tribute to a writer who, outsidethe pagesof his Annual Review,could express the most decidedopinions. As was natural, the CanadianAnnual Reviewhasgrownfrom small things to great. Year after year Mr. Castell Hopkins'sindustry and zeal added one new feature after another, until we find the latest issue coveringalmostevery conceivable phaseof currenthistoryin Canada. It surveysnot only politicalaffairs,imperial,dominion,and provincial, but it deals alsowith Canadian literature, art and music, education, scienceand journalism, the work of the churches,and the work of organizationsfor socialbetterment, as well as a great variety of other national bodies. A usefulfeature of the presentvolume is an historical supplement Which Mr. Castell Hopkins hereintroduced for the first time. For many yearshe had publishedin a financialand industrial supplementsuchdocumentsas the annual addresses of bank presidents and otherleadingfinanciers. In the presentvolumehebrought together in a secondsupplementa number of addresses and documents relating to current political history--an addressby Sir Clifford Sifton on "The ConstitutionalStatus of Canada"; one by Sir GeorgePerley on "The Canadian High Commissioner in London"; one by Mr. Otto H. Kahn on "The United States and the British Empire", as well as an account of the history and work o[ the Department of Mines by Mr. William 366 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW McInnis, and a surveyof the work of the Queen'sOwn Riflesof Canada in the years 1922-23. It will bedifficultto replaceMr. CastellHopkinsasauthorandeditor of the Canadian Annual Review: but it is unthinkable that the work whichhefoundedand carriedon soadmirably shouldnowbe suspended. The Canadian Annual Review made itself, in Mr. Castell Hopkins's hands, an indispensable instrument of referencework in Canadian libraries and offices; it has laid the future historiansof Canada under a profounddebt to the memoryof its author; and it would be a grave misfortune if it were now to ceasepublication. W. S. WALLAC• ...