BOOKS of the WEEK

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 35, 4 November 1933, Page 19

BOOKS of the WEEK

Reviews and Passing Notes

DRAMA ON THE HOME FRONT

A Paris Diary Written During the War Years “The Paris Front,” by Michael Corday (London: Gollancz). This unjisual and most graphic book is a diary of the war years from 1914 to 1918. It is not written from the point of view of the man at the front. M. Corday saw nothing of the actual fighting and if he had been a soldier, the great value of this record would have been lost. As it is, it provides something that has rarely been set down in print in anything like its present detailed form —a full and clearly detached account of how the war affected the general body of civilians. M. Corday is the right man for such a book. When war broke out he was already a well-known author and he counted among his personal acquaintances most of the Frenchmen of his time whose names are famous in politics and art. While the war lasted he was attached to a government department. He came In daily contact with the leaders of policy and thought in Faris and he seems to have been remarkably well informed of everything that was happening. He bad been a broadminded pacifist for long before the war. and when August, 1914 came and swept the people of all militant nations into patriotic hysteria, he preserved his balanced view. In September. 1914, he writes: “There seems to b-» a general blunting of sensibility; carnage, destruction, and slaughter have become mere words, which do not touch the heart at all.. . Kindness, humanity—all that has been swept away. . . • Oh 1 boundless tyranny of public opinion, in the midst of this appalling crisis—the anxiety about what one’s neighbours will think. . . Everything is turned into heroics. . . . One dare not speak evil of the war. It has become a god.” These detached sentiments he retained throughout the struggle, and at the end the popular view still left him clear-minded. When he records Austria’s acceptance of the armistice conditions. he says also: “The newspapers are still making enormous efforts to construe this breakdown in a purely military sense. The military correspondent of the ‘Oeuvre’ displays subtle ingenuity in proving that Turkey was defeated by force of arms. It was .just the same, he declares, with Bulgaria. They are writing history in advance. So much the worst for the truth. An ! also for posterity. For. this glorification of slaughter is the beginning of

future armaments. To declare that all these nations now appealing for mercy we-" dying of hunger and hardship would be to rob the war of its crimson halo.” . Names such as Foincaire, Clemeucau, Painleve, Caillaux, Briand, among the politicians, Joffire, Mangin. Forch among the military leaders, Rolland, France, Barres, in the world of art, crop up repeatedly and M. Corday has not hesitated to record their conversations and their real views on the situation. He says in his foreword: “Some will perhaps reproach me for having included the remarks of politicians who talked freely in my presence, over the table or at private parties. But in my view, every public man belongs to history. ■ His* intimate conversation is essential to complete his portrait. Besides, in the circles wherein I moved at this period everybody knew that I was keeping a diary. Hundreds—nay, thousands of times, when they drew my attention to an interesting detail or anecdote, I heard the remark: ‘Corday, put that in your notes.’ ” As it stands this diary is a running commentary on the hopes and fears of the populace as they were expressed from day to day on receipt of good or bad news from the front. By publishing it in its original form, M. Corday has realised his wish, “to drag forth a little further out of the shadows ‘the Immense drama of the home front,’ ” and to promote Its wider realisation.

NEW ZEALAND TRAVEL “New Zealand Holiday,” by Rosemary Rees (London: Chapman and Hail). Apart from the somewhat stereotyped information of official guide-books, very little has been written to make New Zealand, known to the ordinary traveller, tne person who, with no specially defined plans or ambitions, would like to gain some idea of the country and people before coming here. Some might perhaps wish to wander a little off the beaten track laid down in tourist guide-books, others might possibly have ideas of settling or retiring in New Zealand. Miss Rees is in an admirable position to write such a book, and she has given a happy and wonderfully comprehensive survey in “New Zealand Holiday.” Her travels take her as far south us Dunedin and as far north of Cape Reinga, and as she visits many notable people and personal friends between these points, something is expressed of the hospitality and helpfulness of New Zealanders and of the interest taken in one who is “writing a book.” Her book is written in -easy conversational style, with much amusing and interesting sidetracking, and, being a New Zealander herself. Miss Rees is privileged to comment quite freely on the manners and customs of the people here as they strike her after several years’ absence. Everyone here knows of the grandeur and beauty of bur famous lake ami mountain resorts, but it is safe to prophesy that the average New Zealander will learn something of his own country from this book—the details of Sir Apirana’s Native Development Scheme, for instance, or the methods used by the unemployed in their search for gold. Interesting little bits of Maori history are interspersed with information concerning the early colonists and the wonderfully rapid growth of the community. The numerous illustrations from photographs are particularly good and calculated to give prospective visitors a better all-round idea of the country than tiie usual collection of purely scenic photographs. Naturally, these magnificent views take first place, but there are also included pictures of the cities, the small towns and the quieter and more personal aspects of New Zealand life. Miss Rees is to be congratulated on having produced a book that, apart from its literary interest, should prove of much practical value to intending visitors. CURRENT ECONOMICS (By Professor B. E. Murphy). “Product Money,” by Sir L. Chiozza Money. (London: Methuen). In this book the author, who acquired some recognition many years ago for his handling of poverty statistics in "Riches and Poverty,” has come forward with what purports to be a sequel to that work, though the link of connection in purpose and argument is not very clear. The present is a plea for the abolition of the present monetary system, and the substitution for money of orders on production, apparently to be paid as reward in lieu of storeable money, and to be cancelled upon presentation. Just bow this would fit in with our present system of finance, or what methods of transition would be adopted to lend from t.be present system to that so vaguely adumbrated, are points upon which the writer sheds no conclusive light. The book is suggestive in places, but it is not constructive, and depends on assertion rather than argument. While traces of this conception of money are discernible in Other writers as well, it is not probable that such a scheme will form a serious basis for discussion as an alternative to the existing credit and financial system. “The Peopling of Australia" (Further Studies). (Melbourne: The University Press). This work, as the title indicates, is a series of papers on population and allied problems iu Australia, supplementary to a volume already published. Taken collectively they throw considerable light on various important problems, dealing with such topics as the standard of life, the food supply, the secondary industries as absorbers of population, and the relevant financial problems. The authors are a group of Australian scholars, mainly economists, and in this, as in previous volumes, they are building up important contributions to the understanding of the economic history and present position of the Commonwealth. "While no individual contribution is perhaps of outstanding importance, collectively they form a useful and interesting volume, and in the case of Australian studies the analogies and contrasts with our own country are sufficiently well known to make such a work of interest and value to students of Dominion conditions. “The Narrative of Exchange.” by I’. J. Rickards. (Editorial Londinense, Santiago de Chile). This is a rambling and discursive discussion of various economic topics, without much apparent cohesion or unity of purpose. It purports to be "a brief analysis of the cause, the uature and the solution of the economic crisis. ’ but ui this ambitious objective it is not particularly successful. It is not worth serious attention.

SEEKING A FAITH Mr. Fausset’s Spiritual Autobiography “A Modern Prelude” by Hugh I’Anson Fausset (London: Cape). In an earlier work. “The Proving ot Psyche,” Mr. Fausset set out “to formulate a faith which would equally satisfy the demands of the' modern mind and the deepest instincts of the self.” Now he has gone over the same ground again, but this time he writes entirely about himself, disregarding others except when they impinge on the story of his own spiritual development. Mr. Fausset has divided his book into two parts, his outer history and the history of his thought. The first part is particularly good. There is an admirably detached, yet sympathetic, character study of his father, the vicar of a North Couuty parish on the borders of Yorkshire and Westmorland, who exercised a repressing spiritual tyranny over his children. He shows him as a strong man whose natural qualities, both good and bad, were overruled by an almost fanatic religious conviction, very much removed from true faith. At school Mr. Fausset was successful in an artificial way, which seems to have thwarted his natural development. Under the goad of fear of criticism, he achieved a good record both in work and games. In the year when war broke out he went up to Cambridge as a choral scholar. Serious illness kept him in England during the period-of the war. But lie felt something of its horrors while prostrated both spiritually and physically, and he is able to give a splen-didly-wrought account of youthful feelings at that time. As he grew older, his story becomes a history of constant self-discipline in an effort to attain a convincing faith. He sought his ultimate philosophy through the writings of others and through religion. He became convinced that there could be no compromise between his innate idealism and man’s self-protectiveness abnormally fostered by circumstances. And now, he states, he has been able to rise above his ego, or rather to cause its death and consequent rebirth, so that he has found serenity and unity. Actua'lly the last part of this book is rather vague and there will bo many readers who will find Mr. Fausset’s solution to bis difficulties unacceptable to their own. But there are other good tilings in it, in particular some excellent literary criticism. His discussion of modern and traditional creeds and of the work of such writers as Middleton Murry, D. 11. Lawrence. Bertrand Russell and J. C. Powys is penetrating and of sufficient interest in Itself to give value to his book, even for those readers who decline to follow him along his self-hewn path to peace.

ESSAYS ON PEACE AND WAR "Peace and War.” by Guglielmo Ferraro. Translated by Bertha Pritchard. Loudon: Macmillan.) “Provocative” is a word that is applied by a person to another's views which, while challenging and possibly winning the respect, rightly or wrongly do not coincide with preconceived opinion. Ihm is a definition which probably will be implied by many when they have read I rofessor Ferraro’s book and. as is almost certain to happen, have tried to still the resulting disquiet of mind by pronouncing it provocative. Such a result, at any rate, would be to the satisfaction of the author, because at least the object of turning the reader’s mind, however unwillingly, to an inquiry into a new and broad channel of reasoning on a very vital subject would have been attained. The volume contains a collection of essays and discourses by a highly distinguished historian on the supreme importance of peace to the world; ami. astonishingly enough for these war-abhorring davs he does not stop there as one would at'first expect, but also piles up an impressive argument on the value of wellconducted war. He writes : — When an old civilisation is smitten with sclerosis, when a system incrusted witli conventions stifles and fetters the new forces that might regenerate it, war is a vital operation. It shatters these incrustations and liberates creative energies The French Revolution and the wars which it let loose arc an example.

INCONSEQUENT ADVENTURE “Freeman of Stamboul,” the memoirs of Professor Freeman (London: Gollancz). To attempt even to bint at all of the material in this astonishing book would be no doubt very desirable in its review, but such a course is quite impracticable. The memoirs are lengthy, yet most definitely not too long for any reader; they are contained in something over 400 pages, in almost every one of which some strange vicissitude in the author's youth, prime or old age is described. Action piles upon action. One feels—and in this.is the book’s greatest charm —that the life described has no particular pattern to it, such is the variety and disorderliness of its greater and lessor episodes. Perhaps the author is not an inconsequent man: he certainly is no fool: but each of the swift series of adventures that has constituted his career is most delightfully inconsequent. Scenes change so suddenly, just as suddenly as worldly fortune and mental interests make an about-face—and the whole fabric of the story becomes entirely transfigured in the course of a few pages, to give way to yet some other unexpected turn in the course of a few more. At this point the writer's Envoi is worth quotation. And now. in conclusion, after eighty-one years ot peril, hardship, sudden ruin, and success, here I am unscathed, my zest for life undiminished. about to start Ou a quite new adventure, of which perhaps I may say more anon! I shall lie on the high sens again, Australia-bound, before those pages can sec the light ... At eighty, one I shall wake every morning wondering. “What good things has Dame Fortune up her sleeve for mo to-day!" The author was born in Constantinople, which he knew at Ihe time of the Crimean War. Following on family troubles he ran away from home and for some years lived the life of an uneducated, irrepressible little gamin in various parts of Asia Minor. This is one of the richest parts of the whole book. He was continually getting into very well-deserved trouble; a few years at an English mission school, which ho liked, had a restraining influence while it lasted, but more trouble arrived and he stowed away from Port Said to London. Only a selection of his adventures front then on can be mentioned. He was shanghaied on a sailing ship, was involved in a serious deep-sea mutiny, was very nearly part of a stirring massacre by North Indians, was almost converted into a Mormon in Salt Lake City, made a fortune by “booming” the original city of Portland. Oregon, and was pa ly instrumental in the annexation of Honolulu to the United States. Among other wellknown people, he met General Gordon (whose factotum and interpreter he was in Palestine for four months). Sarah Bernhardt. Dick Seddott. Sir Joseph Ward. Melba. Caruso, and. most interesting of al), de Rougemont, whom he “discovered” in Australia before anyone else had beard of him. The "Professor's" effective opening sentences in this book are too good to pass by: "‘There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we. will.” Was Slinkespetire right?” UNUSUAL FRIENDSHIP "God and Lady Margaret,” by John Oxenham (Loudon: Longmans). This is a story of a very unusual and delightful lady and her friendship with John Oxcnham, who has written it with all his great power of making his readers feel and see the things of which he writes. Lady Margaret Drummond was not as other people are, for she could not walk. But she could drive a car and one day ran into J.O. as she learned to call him. in a remote corner of Haute Savoie, and they became fast friends. Together they explored the beautiful country. and nt the same time discovered a mutual interest in problems which puzzle, now as always, many thoughtful minds. It is definitely a book to read.

Ou the other hand Professor Ferraro takes pains to point out_ that if the people’s imprisoned energies that are to be released are non-existent war is.tlien nothing but the suicide of States. His remark that “war can be the child of God and the bastard offspring of hell” is about the basis on which be places all of his reasoning. His argument is interesting, and may he considered one of the most important contributions of this era to a scientific and historical study of the subjects of peace and war. His upholding of the value of war under certain conditions is at its core a negative assertion, for he admits that the necessary conditions do not now and probably never will exist in the world. The alternative is even very much less satisfying: that war. if it is fought again, will be another impassioned, propagandafed, “right-is-on-our-side,” calamitous affair. According to him the “height of perfection” bad been reached in the warfare of the eighteenth century. Its complicated and cunning rules, he says, “form one of those peaks of evolution which war painfully attains from time to time, and on which he stays but for a moment, to slide back once more into imperfection.” This was the elaborate corrective discovered after three centuries of toil to the great but dangerous invention of firearms: which invention, by the way. is described as “the beginning of chemical warfare,” Restricted warfare is Professor Ferraro’s only ideal of forceful and yet more or less humane correction of nations, to be resorted to only ns a last resort, of course. Certainly, he affirms, no other kind of war should ever be entered into. He would like the “game of war,” as he calls it. to be played calmly and correctly or not at nil. on a modern adjustment of the system laid down by the kings and princes of the eighteenth century, which was one of that era's "loftiest achievements.” But. we are no longer capable of it, he considers. In losing it wo have won many other kinds of progress. but the present conception of wnr might in the end wipe out all that we have achieved. Considering the question of the imperatives of war if it is to be of the kind that reason and morality can sanction, he writes: — Necessity alone is not. sufficient to justify It: there must, he a certain proportion between the necessity and the sacrifices exacted by war. and within the limits of this proportion the destruction done must be kept down ns far ns is compatible with the purpose in view. That Europe is in a state of chaos because she waged war regardless of these two imperatives—proportion between aim and sacrifice, and a minimum of bloodshed and destruction —Is Professor Ferraro’s view. It is a reasonable view. He lias stated his case fairly, and with n knowledge and penetration of mind that undoubtedly few other living persons possess with regard to the subject. Whether he is right in the whole earcfullyconsfrooted fabric of his argument is n matter for all thinking persons to consider.

NEW FICTION Wilderness Wails,” by Jane Rolyat. (Loudon : D-nt). A well-written novel of considerable charm. The author, a Canadian, takes as her scene a trading station of the Hudson Bay Company ami tells vividly of the effect of isolation upon its inhabitants. “Ths Dripping Tamarinds,” by Ccc.il Champaiu Lowis. (Loudon: Werner Laurie). A good story whose scene is laid first in Upper Burma and later in the war zone in France. It contains a love interest: quite unusually handled. “The Way Beyond,” by Jeffery Farnol. (London: Sampson Low). Mr. Farnol’s gallant gentlemen, fine ladies and hard-hearted villains play their parts with all their accustomed dash. The author of "The Broad Highway" is in splendid form here. “Rrtsabellc,” by Lynn Doyle. (London: Duckworth). Mr. Lynn's Irish humour gushes forth once more from tiie mouth of Patrick Murphy in another collection of the famous “Ballygullioii” stories. There is a (ouch of real pathos in tiie last tale, “Death and a Ploughman.” “Whatever Love Is>” by Robert W. Chambers. (London: Appleton). A soviet,v novel by a very popular writer who can always toll a story well. Ilis well-constructed plot concerning a clash of two personalities has some good drama iu it. "My Purdah Lady,” by Alice Eustace. (London: Mills and Boon). A love storv set among glamorous Indian scenes. "The Man at I-®ne Tree.” by Alan Sullivan. (Loudon' Ward. Lock). An adventurous story of a search for disputed gold with plenty of speed in its action. "The Way of Compassion.' by Anne Mavburv. (London: Mills and Boon). A romantic tale by a popular writer of love stories. FAMOUS JEWELS “Jewels of Romance and Renown.” by Mary Abott (London: Werner Laurie). There is always appearing in the news some reference to famous jewels whether it be concerning further facts raked up about Hie Diamond Necklace scandal of a bygone era or the comparison of a newlyfound gem with those of old. Moreover, Crown Jewels these days are hawked about tiie world so frequently that even those with little interest in "little bits of stone" worth fabulous sums mainly owing to the whims of women, cannot but take an interest in jewels of romance and renown. Now a book with just that name has appeared with the express purpose of telling the average individual all about famous gems, jewellery, keepsakes, girdles, necklaces, ami diamonds of destiny. In this book will be found the reason why the famous koh-i-noor adorns the crown of the queens of England. One can find out all about the famous rubies and learn the hidden stories that lie behind tiie pearls of great price tiiat have jeaused so much trouble in this world. There is even a chapter devoted to famous jewels which are not by any means precious, but have become famous and valuable owing to their associations. This book hits the further merit of boasting a very complete index. For that reason it will be for ever popular with all those, mainly journalists, whose work il is to extract facts about the hundred and one events of the world in as short a time as possible. Eight hundred and seventy-three books were published in Great Britain in August, of which 246 were fiction (excluding "children's books and minor lietion"i : 76 educational. 55 on religion ami theology, and -16 on politics and questions of the day.