THE BOOKSHELF.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BOOKSHELF.

NEWS AND REVIEWS. "LIFE" OF CECIL RHODES. VARIOUS NOVELS. On page one "Cyrano" review* "England, Their England," a Scottish view of England and the English. Nothing is more indicative of the greater proliflcness of Australia in novels, compared with New Zealand, than the fact that the Melbourne "Age" recently invited lists of the fifty best Australian novels written since 1900. It might be difficult to name fifty New Zealand novels of any kind in the same period. In her biography of Cecil Rhodes, reviewed to-day, Mrs. Millin part of the poem in which Alfred Austen, then Poet Laureate, glorified the Jameson Raid. This curiosity is occasionally referred to in histories and memories, but it is not easy to get a copy. " I suppose we were wrong, were madmen, Still, I think at the Judgment Day, When God sifts the good from the bad men, There'll tie something more to say. We were wrong, but we aren't half sorry. And, as one of the baffled band, 1 would rather have had that foray Than the crushings of all the Band." Mrs. Millin says that the crushings of the Rand amounted to £3,000,000,000. We looked to see whether this had been included in that 1 diverting collection of bad poetry *The Stuffed Owl," but no, which seenJS an oversight. For Australia to put a ban of exclusion on Mr. Aldons Huxley's-"Brave New World" is like slapping "one of its own children, or great-grandchildren, for Aldous Huxley's grandmother, the wife of the famous professor, was Henrietta Ann Heathorn, of . Sydney, writes "Peterborough," in the frfmdon "Daily Telegraph." She met Huxley while he was serving in southern waters as a surgeon in the navy. Mrs. Huxley had literary gifts, which found expression in a volume of poems, and from one of them Professor Huxley chose the three lines which were inscribed on his tombstone:

Be not afraid, ye waiting, hearts that •weep ; For still He gfveth His beloved sleep. And if an endless sleep He wills, so best.

CECIL. RHODES. A SOUTH AFRICAN STUDY. ' _ It is more than 30 years since Cecil Rhodes died, the clouds of passion and prejudice are not so thick, and his figure can be seen in clearer outline. Few Englishmen of his time have been so strongly condemned. To English Radicals and Liberals he was a "prancing proconsul," the embodiment of evil Imperialism, an oppressor of natives and an enemy of peaceful progress in a la.nd fissured by racial differences. To the Imperialist he was an Empire-builder, strong and idealistic, a dreamer of dreams and at the same time a man of action. Many books have been written about him. The latest is particularly interesting, because it is by a gifted South African novelist. Sarah Gertrude Millin knows the country to which Rhodes dedicated his life, and she views this Colossus with the sympathetic imagination of a creative artist. "Rhodes" (Chatto and Windus) —note the bareness of the title —is therefore a remarkable book. It suffers a little from Mrs. Millin's preference for the modern method of biography which, determined to avoid dullness, is apt to be over-coloured. Her arrangement is not good at times; she is over-given to interpretation; and her style now and then is such that sentences have to be read again for one to be sure of their meaning. These, however, are not serious blemishes, and the new method has its good points. The result is a" striking portrait of a great man against the vast South African background of Nature and warring human interests.

For Rhodes was a Colossus. Mark Twain said of him that he stood at Capetown and cast his shadow on the Zambesi. He had vision and the brain and driving power to make his dreams como true. His vast ambition, however, was shackled by his bodily weakness. He went to South Africa for his lungs, but it was his heart that killed him. He must be judged with this knowledge, that he himself knew that his days were numbered. Into a few years—he died at under 50, physically an old man—he'had to pack a lifetime of endeavour. His ambitions were to extend the Empire and unify South Africa. In the first respect he succeeded; in the latter he was thwarted by the Jameson Raid. The settlement of Rhodesia under his direction is not a pretty story, but the natives came to regard him as their father. In policy he preferred peace to the very last minute, and • nothing in his career is finer than his action in stopping war in the Matabele rebellion by going unarmed among the enemy and parleying for peace. Kruger was his greatest enemy. The two men stood for different kinds of society, and that difference affects South African politics to-day. But Rhodes wished to work with the Dutch, and that was why Jameson's extraordinary blunder was such a blow to him. It postponed union indefinitely. Nothing perhaps in Mrs. Millin's study is so interesting as her account of the effect of the raid on Rhodes. It broke his heart. For nights he could not sleep, but walked up and down or talked for hours about Jameson his friend. Yet he forgave Jameson. Mrs. Millin is very fair to Rhodes. She. admits the dubiousness of much of his native policy, but she realises that the clash between native and European was inevitable. It was the old problem of the right of savage peoples to monopolise territory. Rhodes was generous and large minded. He valued money not for itself but for the power it gave, and he spent it lavishly on public objects. It is an irony, observes Mrs. Millin, that neither Rhodes nor any of his close friends, would have qualified for a Rhodes scholarship. There is nothing more amazing in the book than the statement that when Rhodes drew tip the conditions for the scholarship he believed that the number of States in the United States was still 13 —the number of the i original revolting colonies! Nor did the lawyer who made the will correct j him. Yet Rhodes' vision embraced i world government. |

DENMARK AND NEW ZEALAND. A LESSON IN EDUCATION. There is a whole library on the subject of Danish progress in agriculture and the value placed by the Danes on education of all kinds, but much of the information is not easily come by. Some of the facts have been collected and commented on by Mr. Denham von Stunner, of Auckland, in a little book that he has issued called "New Zealand —Down; Denmark—Up! or a Modern 1 Market Place." Mr. Von Sturmer opens with a very interesting reference to the famous folk schools of Denmark, which are typical of the Danes' real love of culture. He brings out the important fact that while Denmark has applied science to farming, to an extent perhaps not equalled anywhere else, the education system is not entirely or dominatingly' utilitarian, but is a wise blend of vocational and liberal courses. The headmaster of one of these folk schools is quoted as saying that he was a teacher-farmer, or a farmer-teacher, but his school did not teach farming at nil, or not directly or formally. It aimed at "waking up the souls of these young Dance to the opportunities and possibilities of noblo living and noble citizenship as farmers in a co-operative Commonwealth." This should be pondered deeply in New Zealand. We need more scientific education, and the application of more science in industry, but we also need farmers educated in a broad sense. Mr. Von Sturmer has much to say that is interesting on the development of farming in Denmark, our neglect of science in New Zealand until recent years, marketing in England, and . the exchange question. There are fewer cows in Denmark than in New Zealand, but she produces about 50,000 tons of butter more per year, and the Danes, it is said, "love freedom and they hate official interference. The co-operative business organisations receive nothing from the State but sanction and proThis is a valuable little book on pressing questions of the hour. «ACORJCED HOG."

A UNIVERSITY SATIRE. Criticism is a faculty that seems to come more easily to the young than to the old, who are apt to acquire a serene and aggravating tolerance. It is nothing new then to find a clever young undergraduate breaking out in .satire, and "Acorned Hog*,' {Chapman and Hall), while definitely the work of a. very young man can certainly be classed as satire and is quite clever enough to be entertaining. Sham us . Frazer, the author, is an undergraduate of New College, Oxford, and he visualises the great University in the hands of a socialist Government, which grades all the students by means of a ruthless intelligence test and sends all but class A out to work. A counter revolution is then staged to restore the last of the 1 Stuarte (who by the way, is a film star) to the throne of England, and the book ends with the whole of England being turned over to the cultivation of oak forests to provide' food for innumerable pigs. It is lightly and wittily written and fails in construction if at all. It is full of references. to present day personalities and few people who follow current events can fail to be both interested and amused by it. OTHER NOVELS. Cohstnncc Rutherford has sent us "The Lily Field" (Hoddcr and Stoughton), an historical novel with a "strong love interest" in the days when English Henry was fighting Charles of France and nil his loyal knights, and there wero battles at Soissons, Harfleur, Eouen and Paris and sieges of months duration and half the population was dragged into the riot and miseries of war. There were thousands of soiled lilies, and of these the authoress selects three as especially influencing men and what these men did. "No better than they should be," these girls were little worse than many in the degenerate courts both in France and England. It was a merry murderous time. Henry Plantagenet-stands out as a strong, good man going to war for his "rights" as a way to peace. Certainly there is peace when fighting nations are exhausted to settle down to count the cost. The battles are well described, for hand to hand there was such fighting as has not since been seen.

To those who know nothing of life on a passenger ship, and would learn something of Singapore and the society of idle persons and well-paid officials, Eric Hazelton's "Cocktail Alley" (Cassell) will prove of interest, but otherwise it is no more than 300 pages of trivial conversation, and the boring love of a woman of 40 for a boy young enough to be her son.

1 Mr. Paul Martens has given us a literary olla podrida in "Death Rocks the Cradle" (Collins), for it opens with a chapter of satire of the medical profession, and goes on to a series, of short stories told by one or another of the chief characters. A patent medicine proprietor has as a friend a self-confessed liar and blackguard, at whose suggestion he leaves behind him a fortune of a hundred thousand pounds for treasure hunting in Mexico." A jrirl who arrives in an earthquake and disappears in a storm is the cause ot the patent medicine man travelling to another planet where there are conditions less attractive than tho<=e of earth, and where he is received with remarkable hostility. This place is a mixture of "Looking Backward," "Erewhon" and Swift's "Floating Island," with other crude imaginings of unearthly, Tinheavenly circumstances. The villain is an explorer" with money, no morals and no conscience, who takes the ex-planet girl as a mistress and passes her on to the patent medicine man. Mr. Martens is truly versatile and manages to connect earthquake, storm, dinners in London, a haunted house, flying and a planet in space With "smart" criticisms of everything and everybody from a sour, dis-. ordered point of view. If you like a packet of "all sorts" for reading here is your novel.

BOOKS RECEIVED. The New Soul, by Madeleine H. Murat (Putnam). Gold Dust and Ashes; the Romantic Story of the New Guinea Goldflelds, by lon L. Tdrless; Jacka's Mob, by E; J. Rule, M.C., M.M., with a foreword by John Masefloid: The Man from Oodnadatta, by R. B. Plowman (Angus and Robertson). The Chazzey Tragedy, by Frank Prewett: Rhodes, by Sarah Gertrude Mlllln; All Men are Enemies, a Romance, by Richard Aldington (Chatto and Wlndus). Connor's Wood, by Katherine Tynan; Death Rocks the Cradle, by Paul Martens (Collins). . . Limey; an Englishman Joins the Gangs, by James Spenser (Longmans).China -To-day—Economic, by J. B. Condliffe (World Peace Foundation). . | Arctic Paradise, by Frank Stafford; Terror Tower, by Charles Rushton; That Subtle Knot, by S. L. Bet Hell ui<jrT>p*£ i&cklasj.i