Historical Research is very much in the air just now. Public opinion is at last awake to the fact, which is elementary to us, that only by knowledge of the way in which national problems have been solved in the past can the problems of the present and the future be successfully dealt with. Historical Research opens the gateways to the longforgotten centuries. In regard to the more modern times embraced by the last few centuries, its special object is to ascertain with precision the details of those problems, political and international, the reasons which led to their solution, satisfactory or otherwise. I propose to glance at this aspect of it only. When one realises what those national problems are, that they have varied little since we began to understand what the sea means to us, it stands to reason that research should be treated as a national business; but, after our traditional manner, the period about which we ought to know so much, but know so little, is left to the individual. And war impressions speedily fade: witness the interest which Parliament takes in this matter, and the knowledge it displays of the work involved, as shown by the opposition to the grant of a modest salary to the Historian attached for purposes of research to the Foreign Office. The general criticism was that no such officer was required, that everybody knew where the facts of any event in history were to be found, and that when wanted any Foreign Office clerk could be turned on to the job of finding them!