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In its passage through the Grand Committee the Food Bill is being amended in a number of important particulars, and it is in the highest degree satisfactory that so much interest has been taken in the measure by members on both sides of the House as to lead to full and free discussion. Sir Charles Cameron, Mr. Kearley, Mr. Strachey, and other members have rendered excellent service by the introduction of various amendments; and Sir Charles Cameron is especially to be congratulated upon the success which has attended his efforts to induce the Committee to accept a number of alterations the wisdom of which cannot be doubted. The provision whereby local authorities will be compelled to appoint Public Analysts, and compelled to put the Acts in force in a proper manner, and the requirement that analysts shall furnish proofs of competence of a satisfactory character to the Local Government Board, will, it cannot be doubted, be productive of good results. The fact that the Local Government Board is to be given joint authority with the Board of Agriculture in insuring that the Acts are enforced is also an amendment of considerable importance, while other amendments upon what may perhaps be regarded as secondary points unquestionably trend in the right direction. It is, however, a matter for regret that the Government have not seen their way to introduce a decisive provision with regard to the use of preservatives, or to accept an effective amendment on this point. Under existing circumstances it should be plain that the right course to follow in regard to preservatives is to insist on full and adequate disclosure of their presence and of the amounts in which they are present. It is also a matter for regret that the Government have declined to give effect to the recommendation of the Food Products Committee as to the formation of an independent and representative Court of Reference. It is true that the Board of Agriculture are to make regulations in reference to standards, after consultation with experts or such inquiry as they think fit, and that such inquiries as the Board may make will be in the nature of consultations of some kind with a committee to be appointed by the Board. There is little doubt, however, that such a committee would probably be controlled by the Somerset House Department; and as we have already pointed out, however conscientious the personnel of this Department may be—and its conscientiousness cannot be doubted—it is not desirable in the public interest that any single purely analytical institution should exercise a controlling influence in the administration of the Acts. What is required is a Court of Reference which shall be so constituted as to command the confidence of the traders who are affected by the law as well as of all those who are concerned in its application. Further comment upon the proposed legislation must be reserved until the amended Bill is laid before the House.

MY MAIDEN NAME was Lamb and this, I think, was the tenuous thread that first drew me towards Charles Lamb when I was in my teens. His letters and essays were compulsory reading at school as a background study to the Romantic poets. My heart warmed to Lamb because of the revelation of his personality in his writings and for the glimpses he gave of his contemporaries, seeming to welcome the reader into the charmed circle of his friends. If I had been restricted to a classroom study of the Tales from Shakespeare, with which his name is first associated in the minds of many readers, I might never have gone on to discover the warmth of his humanity and the sparkle of his humour that glow from his letters and essays. In this year of the 200th anniversary of his birth I hope that many readers will turn back to these writings to renew acquaintance with Charles Lamb as I have done and find the same endearing qualities that won my affection in adolescence.

RECENTLY Thomas Waide & Sons Ltd, a Leeds firm of colour printers, Rcelebrated their centenary and published a book recording their 100 years of existence.

AT the Exeter Conference, Dr. Kenyon, in his presidential address, touched upon an aspect of library work in such a manner as found a ready agreement in my mind as to its importance and far‐reaching effects. His address was based upon the solid ground of the public utility of libraries, and he proved, right to the hilt, the necessity of the advancement of the library movement on wide lines.

IN 1946 there was in the British Isles a clear image of librarianship in most librarians' minds. The image depended on a librarian's professional environment which was of the widest possible range, not less in variation than the organisations, institutes or types of community which required library services. Generalisations are like cocoanuts but they provide for the quickest precipitation of variant definitions, after the stones have been thrown at them. A generalisation might claim that, in 1946, public librarians had in mind an image of a librarian as organiser plus technical specialist or literary critic or book selector; that university and institute librarians projected themselves as scholars of any subject with a special environmental responsibility; that librarians in industry regarded themselves as something less than but as supplementing the capacity of a subject specialist (normally a scientist). Other minor separable categories existed with as many shades of meaning between the three generalised definitions, while librarians of national libraries were too few to be subject to easy generalisation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the status and functional responsibilities of female human resource (HR) directors vary cross‐nationally and how gender egalitarian cultural values affect role differences between female and male HR directors.

A cross‐country comparison of HR directors involving 22 countries based on the 2004 Cranet survey.

Consistent with the hypotheses, gender egalitarian values reduce sex‐role differences for strategic integration and for traditionally female‐stereotyped HR functions. However, there is no support for the notion that egalitarian values influence sex differences for male‐stereotyped HR functions. Since, the data indicate higher levels of involvement of female HR directors in male‐stereotyped HR functions in 12 out of 22 countries, unequal distribution of functional responsibility is interpreted as an indicator for sex differences in administrative workload.

Macro cultural factors matter for sex‐role differences in strategic integration and functional responsibilities of HR directors. The effects of gender egalitarian values have greater impact on reducing vertical differences than horizontal differences.

A review of the dielectric measurement techniques that are currently available for the characterization of thick film and LTCC materials at microwave and millimeter wave frequencies is presented. The intention is to show the relative advantages and limitations of the various methods, and to provide some practical guide to the particular technique that is most suitable for a given type of material, for use in a particular application. In addition, a novel slit cavity resonator method is proposed to enable substrate parameters to be more easily measured, whilst retaining high measurement accuracy. Measured data on materials from a variety of manufacturers are presented to show the validity and usefulness of this method.