DAYS OF ADVENTURE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 11, 13 January 1940, Page 3 (Supplement)

DAYS OF ADVENTURE

Books In Review

LIFE is not just one damn thing after another for George Digby. Every day is a fresh adventure, every new contact with man or Nature is an experience offering something to make life more worth the living, a new call to that ecstasy which is the gift and tlio glory of one in a.million. He lives in deeds, not years, and lie can put it all down on paj>er to the great contentment of we leaser folk who have to bo told of the beauty that had the gods been kinder we might see all around us; Adventure is not only to the adventurous; we come upon it in everyday life— but most of us let it pass, unseeing. Xot so George Digby; he sees it all through eyes that glow and sparkle, and he tells of it in word and phrase that spring at the reader from the printed page and imprison him in a net whose knots aro laughter, whose cords are human, sympathy and understanding. Ho has made two good books in "Goose Feathers" and "Down Wind," and now he has made a trilogy of it with "Red Horizons" (Collins). The best of the three, it is a book to read and read again, • chuckling and bubbling along as lightly as a pebbled creek in the sunshine, but with its humour always underlain, as it should be, by a shrewd seriousness which makes the reader think while he smiles. And that, is not too easy, but he docs it, and in so even a way that there is no irritating suggestion of cleverness about the changing How. Mr. Digby shows America from a new angle, the angle *of the everyday folk he met out on the prairies and further west amid the big timber. His commentaries on the frank and open criticism of business leaders, politicians, the President, even judges of the Supremo Court, are very terse and bright, and they have a message \\iiich should not bo overlooked even hero in Now Zealand* "The press of the United States," he says, "is downright and flatfooted. Nobody in the United States

from the President downwards, with tlie possible exception of Shirley Temple, is immune from frank Press criticism. TOQicn President Roosevelt in the opinion of many made a mistaken 1 appointment to the Supreme Court bench a largo section of the Press did not hesitate to criticise tlie appointment, giving chapter and verse of* their reasons. When the said justice appeared not to bo functioning too-well in his now oilico plenty was said about it in print. In Great Britain I sluuddcr U> think what would happen to an editor who had too much to say regarding the private life and public jierfomnance of duties of one of tlie Lords.of Appeal. "In Great Britain when, somebody in an exalted position bungles, peculates or in some other way embarrasses the Government of tho (lay the matter is immediately made the subject of a judicial inquiry, which places the matter sub judice and out of the roaoli of Press criticism. The American method of turning the spotlight upon the

biingici* is healthier and, I would, imagine, more effective, in the 1936 Presidential olection some of the com- . ments on Atr. Roosevelt were consistently vitriolic." It was significant, Lowever, tlmt as soon as he was re-elected tho abuse died away; criticism could be tinged with respect. "Going to tho other extreme one can only guess at the excess committed by those 'on tho inside' in the dictatorridden countries.-. Secure in the knowledge that they are immune from Press criticism, these dictators and those around them are completely out of toucli witfli tho truo inward thoughts of the people." One thing is certain and that is "the boys' in Germany and Italy arc getting what they want while they control the spotlight of the Press. I noticed in Germany that tho • only fast, expensive cars seen on the roads were those of the Swastika 'boys/ theoretically upon State business. Ordinary civilians without a uniform in which to strut Oiad to be content with the back rows of the theatres, old cars, shabby clothing and poor food. All the best hotels and restaurants were filled with louts who would never have been admitted but for the swastikas they flaunted. It is small wonder that the German, seeing how clearly it pays to be one of 'the boys/ hastens to jump upon the band wagon. None of this would be possible with a free Press, for it is the kind of graft which stagnates a nation. A free Press would make it all appear to the German people in all its absurdity. These funny little men who have made themselves into dictators would last about ten minutes if they had to carve a career for themselves in the frank and- unrestrained limelight of the American Press." This is one of the byways along which the author stjplls during his adventures of everyday. Thpre arc lively and amusing stories of adventures with a gang of nvoonshiners, with a civet-cat, with timber workers, with aJI sorts and conditions of men, and always Mr. Digby the reader strongly interested and entertained.