1921 SHORT NOTICES 627 his subject with the plebiscita of Koman history, and also carries it over the period of the Treaty of Versailles so as to deal with its provisions for holding plebiscites, with the German contentions as to such provisions, and with the actual results of votes taken thereunder. Miss Wambaugh's work does not go beyond 1914, but it is prepared under the supervision of Dr. Scott, director of the division of international law of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has the great advantages of an admirable ' format ' and of including a most complete and valuable collection of official documents. In fact, every application of the principle of the plebiscite from the French Revolution to the outbreak of the great war is here fully described and illustrated with documents. Both authors discuss whether the doctrine of self-determination, which serves as the philosophic sanction of this practice, has any place in international law, and Mr. Matterns quotes passages from the speeches of four leading English politicians who in the heat of the war went a long way to recognize a doctrine which normally sorts ill with our imperial needs. Miss Wam- baugh argues that ' only by basing title on the principle of national self- determination can there be a presumption of stability for the state or for the world-wide society of states', and quotes felicitously from Erasmus. Mankind, however, are not yet governed on first principles, and Mr. Mat- terns frankly says that ' no state can recognize the right of secession founded upon the principle of self-determination '. It is in fact but a political maxim, and the plebiscite is simply a piece of constitutional machinery devised from time to time ad hoc. Great Britain accepted it , in the case of the Ionian Islands in 1863, and refused it to Heligoland in 1890. Between 1914 and 1919 she acclaimed self-determination because it was a solvent for the central powers. To-day she is impressed in India and Ireland with the difficulty of reconciling the phrases of war-time, rhetoric with the exercise of empire. G. B. H. The maps included in the Statesman's Year-Booh, 1921 (London : Macmillan), show the Baltic and the states adjacent to it and the new frontier of Germany and Denmark. The excellent statistical tables include new census returns from a number of important countries. K. In spite of the cost of printing, the Chetham Society has produced in Chetham Miscellanies, New Series, vol. iv, 1921, a collection of records comparable in bulk, if not in value, to its predecessors. The greater part of the volume is taken up with the Dunkenhalgh Deeds, c. 1200-1600, dealing with property of the Rishtons and Walmesleys in Rishton and the neighbourhood. The editors, Mr. Stocks and Professor Tait, have done good servide to local historians in giving carefully annotated abstracts of over two hundred deeds, correcting many errors in the Victoria County History. Mr. Ernest Broxap prints some extracts from the Manchester Churchwardens' Accounts, 1664-1710. The income and expenditure for the years 1666 and 1682 are printed in full, but from the accounts of the other years extracts only are given. The former is excellent, but costly ; the latter is almost useless, except for journalists, unless the extracts consistently relate to one topic. But the study of churchwardens' SS2
