NATIONAL PROVINCIAL

What Gladys Taber has attempted with the American scene, Lettice Cooper attempts with the English scene, -- not in a parallel story, but in a parallel endeavor to reconcile social conscience and imagination in a story of modern conditions, modern conflicts. National Provincial is a story of Yorkshire, and the canvas compasses county and town families, mill owners and workers, some typical of old England, others of the newer radical element. There are breaks in families -- there is a bit of romance, with the problem of class to the fore, there is a climax in a strike at the mills and a fight over political representation, as the old Laborite and the young Radical and the standpat Conservative join in battle. Miss Cooper maintains a certain objectivity, but manages to reveal her own sympathy with the moderns. She over crowds her story with extraneous material, but, in spite of its length, it is interesting and puts common experiences of today into palatable form for popular taste.