LITERARY.

Auckland Star, Volume LII, Issue 25, 29 January 1921, Page 14

LITERARY.

In n recent address in T.-ondLin (Mr. | Kd.nuud tlo?.se prefidinpt before -.he llmppriiil I'nion of Teachers, Mr. John j! jjovnt, M.A.. representing New Zealand, I ! ehiimed that sin.-c :.n anthology of New j Zealand poetry was publiehed in 1.))(! j ( ItlitTi , must be a New Zealand literature, I j i but it w:\s not comparable to (hat of Australia, was provincial, and Had little outside circulation. With New Zealand, la< with Australia, is was neceasarv to .lisUncui.ell between the settlers who ! brought with them their old-worid inllu- , ' end* and those who were nat've to tho j i country. All the mystery, free loin, and j! -pai iou-ness which belonged to Austra- j J I liiin life was found under another form, ; ,iii N.-w Zealand. It had the ?r.ind>:st j I I scenery in the world, but grout poetry ', j was tint primarily produced by great | nntuml features, as Ssliakespearo could I ! festifi-. Xor was great literature depender.i upon glorious horizons, but upon great moral, spiritual, and human in- < ! '.cir-ts. New Zealand had one p:reat jndMintit£P, that of lirst contact with a. native race endowed with two great drifts. The Maori possessed a tempera- ! incut saturated with poetry, and also ; vast stores of legend and myth of a most j absorbing mystery and marvellous • j quality. • 11 Now t.ha.T piots covering a ionjr lapse '. of time have become popular with playwrights, it 13 not surprising that the 'famous legend of the Wandering .Tew I should be dramatised. Mr. K. Temple , : Thurston. the popular novelist, has writi t.-iT :i piny round it that at latest adf vices was winning a success in London. The fir-t act, or "pha^e.' , is laid in .Terusnlem on the day of Christ's cruci- ' j iixi'in. Matathias, a .Tew, spite on, , Christ as he goes to Calvary, and Christ , says tn him: "Thou ?hnlc "wait for Mβ j until 1 come to thee. again." The rest ' of Cue play describes incidents in the i life that Matathias is condemned to live j' I through the centuries. One is at I Ant inch in the time o-f the Crusades. I j Matathias a.ppears at n. tournament as lan unknown Knijjnt, vnncjujsnes every- I and wins the love of the wife of a Frewh nobleman, only to ■be repealled when she leJirn.s his secret. Then we see him a Sicilian merchant, and nsa I doctor in the daye of the Inquisition, j whose methods of dealing with heresy are the means by which Matathias wins redemption. The scenes arc dramatic, and the dialogue reads well. "The Wandering Jew -, is pirblUhed 'by 0. P. Putnam's Sons. All editors —and triose in New Zealand are no exception—have from tinr , to time to face the responsibility of ndrifting aspirants to literature. An irticlc or a poem of some merit is submitted (sometimes there is no merit) and an opinion is asked for. Encouragement may plant hopes of a literary career that may not only end in profound disappointment, but may cause the author to neglect opportunities in other directions. At the same time one does not like to pour water on the fire. Commenting on nineteen publie-scnool poet* represented in a recent anthology, the "Athenaeum" says: "We say most seriously that the profession of literature is the very last they should be encouraged to taJce to. Nothing will stop the boy who has a spark of tho authentic fire within him. No matter what the obstacles, what the dissuasions, he will break through them somehow. He may have to live a vcrv hard life, but he will have the continual compensation of his own conviction. But the boy who has merely a tasto for writing verses, and the feeling that thliterary life is an easy one, had far better become not only a doctor, a lawyer, or a parson—time-honoured trinity —but an electrician or a carpenter . . Poetry may be popular nowadays, but it is not a thing to live by. And precisely because the life of "the man of letters is more precarious now than it has boon for a century, we think that the editors of this anthology should ; have been trebly careful to omit any- ■ thing which might, to the easily-kindled , brain of youth, be an incitement to 'take to literature.' " "Bolshevik .Russia,' 1 by C. .>. Raine and ■Leonard L.ul>ofT, is a. clearly written I and reasonable attempt to make plain' to the average readej- the rea.l meaning of Bolshevism, and more especially the; reasons for its inevitable ultimate failure. In the in-troduction the writers point out that Bolshevism is only a Russian vej-sion of Marxianism, " nnd! that if the experiment moMe by Len'n' and Trotsky fails in Russia then; Marxiaiiism would fail anywhere, and itj . is high time for the world to recognise i the truth. As to the possib'lity of die-; covering the truth about Russia, the writers poih-t out that Lenin and his, colleagues have suppressed all news-j papers and other s-orin-es of information unfavourable to themselves, and that they are careful to let visitors to ißussia I see only wlat the P.olshe-viks want th<?m i (to knew. Another important po r nt j made in the preface is that as Germany fomented an<i encouraged Bolhf=hevism so as to d'eoTjfamise Russia, those who support or tolerate Bolshevism are playing Crermany'.s game by exposing other countries to the risk of cihaos and dis-j order. The authors make a very F.ucees-'----ful attempt to give an idea of tihe condi-j ' I tion of the vast majority of the Russian J people—the extreme ignorance, rrf tire 1 peasants, their love of the land, and ' their refusal to surrender their claim to I the land a , private property or excAangei • i for DolshevMc ■ConrmnimsTO. A sh.irt ! 1 j sketch of the birth and growth of 801-i ' rhevi*m—w-h : eh shows incidentally that! 1 th-e Russian Revolution was not brovs-ht. ' about, but m-er<4y exploited by the 801-i ' sheviks—is followed by a" careful I • analysis -of the '•-.licta.t-<*rhip of the l : ■proletariat"—in other words, the n.bso- - lute despotism set -up by Lenin ami iiis l friends: and no impartial person reading' : this little book would deny that "wage j • slavery , ' to-day is more intolerable in i Russia than anywhere el-se in the world.' l The enforcement of. compulsory labour. • and the "militarisation" of the whole j ? economic system, are clearly and ably! ; described: and those wTio still bel'cve or r wish to belreve that Bolshevism is an ecorrojnic and commercial success should • read the sections of this work dealing . with the absolute collapse of Russia's f industries during the pnst three years. 3 The final chapters on "The Armed Prolef tariat" and "The Bolshevik Threat" 3 effectually dispose of .the delusion that - Lenin is a Pacifist, or that the BoJ- - sheviks only want to be left alone in r peace. In very small compass, the s authors of this little work 'have suos cecded in Teveal'ng 'Bolshevism for what i. it ts^ —a purely destructive power for r evil, menacing the whole worid; and the - facts here recorded should 'have the widest possible crrcutation.