The Dominion THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1908. IMMORAL FICTION.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 316, 1 October 1908, Page 6

The Dominion THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1908. IMMORAL FICTION.

Soub difficult questions relating -to the law and to literature are raised by the charges of selling immoral literature which have been brought against a number of Christchurch booksellers. It -is an unfortunato fact that there has of late years been an enormous increase in this number of new novels dealing with sex-problems. In October last, The Bookman printed an article which attracted wide attention, in tho course of which the writer said that he had twelve new 5 novels before him, all of which had a family resemblance in that all belonged " to the tribe, now increasing at a rate without example, of shameless and shameful fiction." English fiction has now reached this stage, that the novelist turns almost naturally to tho pathology of sex for the central theme of that which he—or more frequently she—will write. Hardly any "popular" novel is free from some morbidity of this kind, although the attitudes of the- writers are as various as 'their methods of treatment. The result is that a very largo part of the novels imported into this country aro " unpleasant" in a greater or less degree, ranging from what is a virtual harmlessness to undisguised and noxious lubricity. It is this gradual shadingoff from the excusable through the questionable to tho patently vile that makes it so. difficult to devise any satisfactory method of suppressing really noxious works without at the same time suppressing good fiction. Of the evil effect of such books as those involved in tho Christchuch cases thero is probably no doubt in any unprejudiced person's mind. They arc immoral, they have an immoral tendency, and they are vitiating tho reading public's palate. But at what point is the lino to be drawn? There appeared recently a novel by Mrs. Mabel Dearmer, which is distinctly a " problem " novel, but which a cultiratoU reader would pronounco to „bo a good week upon u> implcaiaiit

theme by a woman sincerely anxious to preach the creed which Mary Ciiolmondeley preached in her painful and well-named Red Pottage. Of Mns. Dearjier's novel The Times said that it " stands out from the common run of contemporary fiction, not only by the fine and thorough workmanship, its dramatic power, and tho distinctness of its characterisation, but by its ethical value." But to an uncultivated reader —to the reading public, that is to say — this book, would bo read in tho same spirit, and would bp liked for the samo reasons, as are found in the public patronage of Victoria Cross and Elinor Glyn. A caro for public morals, therefore, would find it difficult to exclude Mrs, Dearjier's book from any ban that it might place upon " immoral " fiction. And wherever tho line of exclusion and suppression is drawn, injustice must result. Yet to bring novels within the operation of the criminal law some line, some test of immorality, is required. It must be a test, too, of a kind easy to apply—a clear and rigid test, one which, applied to a given work by a score of different magistrates, will lead to the same judgment by each of them. Such a test, to our mind, cannot possibly be devised. There is left tho appointment of a censor. But tho disadvantages of entrusting the life of literature to tho whims of one critic are too obvious to require demonstration. There is, then, no satisfactory means available for the automatic suppression of noxious fiction. To leave the matter wholly in the hands of tho police appears to bo the only way of preventing the circulation of pernicious novels. But hero, again, now difficulties arise. There aro many people who • will hold, and rightly, that Anna Lombard and The 7 uhc, aro only a .degree mere pernicious and immoral than other modern novels we could name. To btj logical tho law must attack every degree of viciousness. Que, thing is contain,, that any policy of suppression must be coherent and thorough, and th/irc is no coherence and no thoroughness and no usefulness in a merely occasional volley fired by the police at booksellers. The booksellers, to the impossibility of securing ihat their buyers shall send no boots lvfcely to strike the police as imare placed in a very difficult and oppressive situation. Probably the best solution of the difficulty, tho best way of stemming the flood of undesirable fiction, would be the adoption of a system under which' the policc, keeping abreast' of contemporary fiction, would warn the booksellers that a prosecution would follow the sale of such-and-such a book. Such prosecutions as those under notico do littlo beyond harassing the booksellers and widening the circle of readers of the works which it is intended to suppress.