MISCELLANY

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26605, 15 December 1951, Page 3

MISCELLANY

Travellers in Eighteenth -Century England. By Rosamond Bayne-Powell. John Murray. 204 pp. European travellers in the eighteenth century England was a laud, free, rich and happy—that land whose very name is music ~ erm3 u ears,” as one enthusiast P ut whether the visitors or _. a PP rec iative, they undoubtedly travelled to England in they left many their journeys in letters, 1 fnemoirs, from which Mrs fn^h^owe 1 ! has drawn the material ’ informative and new entertaina c ° m P anion to her earlier nth-century studies (“English £°^’> ry ‘•V I «v, + ln Eighteenth &enEl ghteenth-Century London e th 7? 1 ® Child in the EightCentu ry,” etc.). Among her s ar ® Be ujamin Franklin, de ia Rochefoucauld. Casanova. Alfieri the censorious von Uffenbach. and’ the gushing and delightful Sophie de l.i Roche. The author shows these visi..arrlvaLat th « ports and Customs-houses, then proceeds to their t°h .roads and transport, a™! tedStnS-houses. entertainmar? and s gorts, religion and morals, manners and social gatherings. The whole is skilfully arranged, neglecting b° H sl de of English life® of thf ttaef, h™^ he tenting is remarkable for its humour and sense of balance. How Strong is Russia? By T. Zavalani. Hollis and Carter. 238 pp. a . capable and well documented analysis of Soviet economic development up to the end of 1950 written by an Albanian who was himself trained from 1925-30 in a Marxist-w->nm2st School in Leningrad. Since 1930, he says. I have followed the economic activities of the Soviet regime first with sympathy, then with misgiving then with distrust and finally With ■horrified disgust.” The present book is his attempt to substantiate his change of attitude towards economic planning and the construction of socialism in Bolshevik Russia, by the use of tacts and figures taken from Soviet sources. He demonstrates that the successive Russian five-year plans have on!y achieved results at very high costs. Wastage of material wealth on an enormous scale and vast inefficiency the result m part of the unwieldy e SHSS atlc apparatus, have held back of t-bes 6 over-ambitious W ?? ch n h ?. ve only come nea r fulfilment at all because of the willingness of the Soviet Government to sacrlhiH lz f ns unmercifully and forInteiSSiil?® 1 exp ression of discontent, interesting comparative figures are standard Vl ls r b ° ok ° f the worker’s btandard of living in the USSR Britain and the U S.A. As nearly - as P^ 16 -, the author also deduct ductinn °/nd On r Para j ve “dustrial prono™!i Ol b and production per head of v?K?bl t i O rtetJn IS a book ■? fiUed with etailed exammations of parwh’?t a ,h^ ?U + slan . industries, showing } argets were in each of the definX^? r - plans > and what the actual Propaganda notwithstanding. Designed for the general reader (who does not need to be an mg)* O HR=n th . e autbOT ° mean" sbhomlit nr ?J ceUent and informative o^mSternßussla 600110 " 110 weatoea aes

rU Ursula Barnett Fotter. Allen and Unwin. 213 pp. exc iting and unusual story of adventure describes the author’s experiences as navigator for her husband enJLl rnal -k priVa . te aeroplane with one from dn.,?? 1 !? tim ? s v hey have Africa to Europe, once acS?^ P Si ed » b i r - tw ?u of their children. ce takmg the route from the rSSt* ! .u oaat across the Congo to the and milo? es , ove r more than a thousand miles of unbroken forest. With#Mrs Po l ter gives a vivid idea of the fears and dangers of such a„^ ourne \i' to mention the annoyances and inconveniences often imposed by bureaucratic officialdom. Her account is mainly in diary form, lively hu T°* rous; ? nd 13 supplemented with photographs of the fliers and aerial views of some of the remarkable' saw—a herd of elephants Q^ rbc ?l by tof 5 air "aft in Southern Sudan, the great peaks of the Ruwenzon range on the Congo-Uganda border, or a vast uninhabited area of the Congo river and forest.

Business in Great Waters. By George F. Kerr. Faber and Fabtr. 196 PP9» reat Waters,” the war history of the Peninsular and Orient (P. and O.) Line, tells the story of the worlds greatest merchant fleet caught in the swirl of war, of its troopships steaming 4,500,000 miles with a million fighting men; of the armed cruisers always outgunned, fighting, as did the Rawalpmdi, a losing battle; and of the cargo ships ploughing their tonely.furrow, many going down at last with their sides torn open by an enemy torpedo. From the reports brought back by British merchant seamen who survived 8? e Lu a A a^ dS A Of patrolling the bitter Aorth Atlantic, the withdrawing from France, Narvik, and Singapore, the landings on the beaches of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy, days in an open boat, shipwreck and fire, the author has knitted together a story of endurance, tension, and humour. For the general reader the book makes interesting reading; it will bring back memories, some pleasant, some unpleasant, to the many service men and women who packed the troopers from 1939 to 1945; primarily, it is a record of and tribute to the sailors and ships of the P. and O. fleet engaged in their country’s service.

The Shetland Bus. By David Howarth. Thomas Nelson and Sons. 220 pp. This is the story of heroism, and of adventure at sea. The heroes and adventurers are Norwegian sailors, fishermen, and merchant seamen, who had escaped to Shetland after the invasion of Norway by Germany in 1940. Their work was to land men and cargo for the Norwegian underground movement, and to rescue refugees and carry them to England. Some journeys were 2000 miles long and lasted three weeks, and all of them were made in the depth of the sub-Arctic winter in fishing boats from 50 to 70 feet long, sailing alone between Norway and Shetland in some of the stormiest seas of the world. David Howarth, who was second-in-command at the small base in Shetland has a real gift for telling an unusual, gripping, realistic story. Rivers of America. By Carl Carmer. Illustrated by Stow Wengenroth. Hodge. 434 pp. Rising in the Adirondack Mountains and flowing almost due south until it reaches New York City, the Hudson river is rich in human associations, and it is on these that Carl Carmer has concentrated most of his attention in this latest addition to the Rivers of America series. From the days when the Algonkin Indian peoples lived beside the river which they called the Mannahatta or the Shatemuc, to the modem days of ocean liners and skyscrapers, he follows the historic events that have been played out in the Hudson valley. His angle of approach is declared in the preface: “there is more in this volume about large groups and the leaders that represent them than there is about individuals who became uniquely distinguished—more about tenants than landlords, more about privates than generals, more about workers than employers.”