THE UNCHANGING EAST

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21110, 10 March 1934, Page 15

THE UNCHANGING EAST

East Alalia: England's Eastern Province. Tsy K. 11. Mottram. Chapman and Hall. 358 pp. (8/6 net.) East Anglia. as !\lr Mottram points out, "belongs to the industrial era before last." Until the bc;ginning of the nineteenth century i Norwich was England's leading lexj tile centre, the now obscure streams [of the fen country were crowded I waterways, and - forgotten towns | like Aldeburgh and Lavcnham had | their guildhalls. In the Victorian era lack of coal and iron relegated the eastern province to a decent yet prosperous obscurity; and now that Victorian industrialism is •omewhat blown upon it is beginning to lift its head. "We shall do well," savs Mr Mottram, "to steady ! ourselves", amid the frantic gamble for remote markets and our apparent helplessness to control credit too easilv acquired, by the example of the 'continuity which this district I exemplifies at nearly every street corner, mill, or tide-way." But Mr Mottram is not solely or even primarily an economic historian. He is more concerned to expound the subtle attraction of the fen country, to draw attention to East Anglia's superb domestic architecture, to discover the footprints of prehistoric man in the Breckland, to paint in words what is the most uplifting sight in all the world—the towers of Ely rising above the morning mists. To say that this book is as good as anything Mr Mottram lias written is to say much and yet not too much.