PLAYERS ON THE GENEVA STAGE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 154, 26 March 1938, Page 6 (Supplement)

PLAYERS ON THE GENEVA STAGE

Mr. Slocombe’s Vivid PenPortraits

“A Mirror To Geneva,” by George Slocombe (Loudon: Cape). A great English statesman once said that we should read not history, hut biography. “A Mirror to Geneva’ explains the reason for that advice, I s there be any doubt of its validity. It is a book full of remarkable insight into the characters and characteristics of the principals who have for twenty years played the leading roles m the drama of the League. The different outlooks, as expressed by the principals, help one to understand the enormous task the League undertook when it tried to create a real collective security. The greatest value of the book is the presentation of vivid pen-portraits. One sees General Smuts, an idealist who regarded Bolshevism and Nazism as political faiths of a very transitory nature which must, sooner or later, and probably sooner, bring the countries so controlled to destruction. The various French representatives, who seemed to have been changed too often, seemed to have owed no duty to continue the policy of their predecessor?. There is a vivid sketch of Dr. Benes, the Czechoslovakian President. His strong personality and persistence gave his country an individuality in the League which only a strong man could have given. He was sus.pect by most of the greater nations, and he fought down that distrust. He was a brilliant diplomat. There is a revealing note on the Frenchman, M. Herriot, who, though possessing the characteristic French logic, quailed in the face of a direct attack. The picture of Ramsay Macdonald is true. He suffered from an inferiority complex; he could not retain the confidence of his fellow-workers, as did the more robust Thomas or Clynes. He lacked resolution, constructive ideas, forethought, and even imagination. Sir Austin Chamberlain, the urbane, difficult of approach, but always courteous, is described in an inimitable manner. One feels that the representation was in .very safe, if unimaginative hands, when he held the British reins. Perhaps the most Interesting sketch of them is of Briand, the orator. He was a master of diplomacy. His connection with Stresemann, and the gradual friendship which parted slowly through mutual distrust, is fine reading. One learns much from the sketch of the Stresemann.

The story of the creation, the rising, and the falling of the League, is brilliantly told through the lives, and doings of these principals. One can understand that it might well be impossible, while men are what they are, an* nations still ambitious and mutually distrustful, for anything so idealistic as collective security ever to become an actuality. In the light of the appalling European situation one is almost driven to the. belief that the League had better put up its shutters and the members go home to their respective nations, and train, and train hard, for Armageddon. It is a gijeat story of an international dream which simply could not come* true.

. Perhaps the fact that an attempt was made.to create such a League, will implant in the. souls of the world the seed from which later, when it is a better and saner world, will grow an effective organisation’which will judge the disputes between nations, and effectively punish the guilty. It is certain from the.reading of this book that the greatest of men have tried, and tried hard, to hfing about such a state of affairs, but it is as yet premature. The probabilities are that it will be premature for centuries to come. If it comes sooner it may arise out of the utter exhaustion of all the nations, an exhaustion reached by a still greater world war. The reading of this book is essential for all who would try to understand the difficulties that beset the League. MEN AND STONE “Saul’s Sons” by Eric Benfield (London: Chatto and Windus). We have had stories, many stories of miners and. their lives and habits, but seldom like this. For this is an unusual book about men from the stone quarries of Dorsetshire. e An unusual story about a strange people—about men whose whole lives are so wrapped up with work in the quarries that they even think in stone, and, as the author remarks, assume the characteristics of stone; hard, uncompromising men these, .courageous, simple and tenacious. This is the story of Saul, his sons, and their women. The community in which they live is a self-contained one, with a proud tradition of life given in the service of the great stone-inines of the cliffs. Saul’s quarry has been in the family for many years and he is proud of it; he works from dawn to dark, and after dark, hewing huge stone slabs from the earth. Saul expects that his sons will follow in his footsteps, and two of them do. The others follow other things, one because he must, one because he will, and for many years Saul is a disappointed man. A flue character is drawn in little Hiram, Saul’s firstborn, who cannot enter the quarries, because he is illegitemate, and old tradition among the miners will not give him entrance. So he goes on a farm and is unhappy for many years, until his troubles are suddenly' gone. And in gentle Annie, Saul’s wife, the author has given the book increased vividness by an excellent picture of a plain but courageous woman. Altogether, it is refreshing to find a book which is wisely, carefully written, and yet has a vital spark that lightens its scenes and animates its people. . BOOKS IN DEMAND The chief librarian of the .Wellington Public Libraries has furnished the following list of books in demand : — GENERAL. ‘‘The Greenwood Hat,” by Sir James Barrie. “Phillip of Australia,” by M. B. Eldershaw. “Caesar of the Skies,” by B. Sheii and C. Simpson. > FICTION. “No News,” by P. Frankau. “Ballade in G Minor,” by E. Boileau. ........... “It Happened in Essex,”- by y_, Bridges,,