NEW WAR BOOKS.

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 18, 20 July 1918, Page 11

NEW WAR BOOKS.

"New Zealanders in Samoa." By L. P. Leary, M.C, R.F.A. (late N.Z.R.) William Heinemann, London.

The writer of this chatty contribution to the now vast mass of war literature describes service in Samoa as he saw it from the first-landing of the New Zealand forces of occupation until he left it- for duties elsewhere. The style is reminiscent of the innumerable NewZealand reinforcement journals and camp chronicles already published. In fact, it includes matter taken in generous quantities from the "Pull Thro ," probably one of the very first New Zealand publications of its kind. Life in Samoa was not, at the time Mr. Leary wrote, a term of langorous ease for the New Zealand soldiers of occupation. In fact, for-all his cheerfulness, the writer shows how the British people desire to be so scrupulously fair to the Natives in whose country they happen to be—especially if they are coloured . people—that they are not sufficiently considerate for the rights of their own people; are not, in fact, always fair to them. This zeal for doing strict justice to the "Native," pot to say coddling him, as vis-a-vis one of their own race, has been fruitful of a lot of trouble for administrators of British laws in India and elsewhere. From this little work it is to be gathered that both Natives and Germans were given no occasion whatever to complain of their treatment by the British authorities—in striking contrast to the brutal fashion in which the German himself would have conducted the business', judging from his behaviour in France and Belgium.

The mystery of the Schanihorst and Gneisena-u is recorded, but left unexplained. Both vessels had their guns actually trained on the New Zealanders, who were on the march along the beach, fully exposed to the enemy gunners. And yet they did not fire. The troops marched on, the guns trained on them, and yet none was. fired. The range was but 3000 yards, and our men, according to the writer, could havo easily been blown to smithereens. Then the German warships steamed out to- sea. - The reason why they never fired on the handful of New Zealanders. as they had a rigljt in war to do, 'and could have done, will now never be known, for both ships, with all hands, from Admiral yon Spec downwards, were accounted for by the British fleet and Admiral Sturd.ee in tho fight off the Falkland Islands. ■ There i 3 much interesting writing in .the work under notice on the Samoan himself, and some references to "R.L.S., of Valima." The writer cheerfully accepts tho petty' annoyances and .irritations (many of them easily avoidable) of a soldier's life in Samoa at a time when the New Zealand Defence Departmental knowledge was not so extensive as it now is. "New Zealanders in Samoa" is a valuable contribution to the bibliography relating to this country's part in the great. world war.

"The Pirates' Progress." By William Archer. Chatto and Windus, Lon-' don.

Although this does not pretend, to be ,a complete record of German submarining, it does contain dates and facts of the exploits of the U-boats which will be useful for future reference. The writer shows how memorable shipwrecks from the loss of "The White Ship" to the foundering of the "Titanic," and the cutting down of tho "Empress of Ireland," have all -been eclipsed by the Germans in the few crowded years of the U-boats' activities. "Until . the present war broke out," he remarks, "it had occurred to no one to imagine that disasters due to 'the act pf God' would ever be reduplicated with cold deliberation by the act of man. Who could have conceived, at midsummer, 1914, that more destruction to the world's merchant shipping, and suffering to harmless seamen and passengers, would be caused withifi the next three years by the calculated policy of a so-called civilised Power, than had been attributable in a century to perils naturally incident to the lives of these who go down to the sea in ships? This is the phenomenon with which we are face to face to-day— tho callousness of man far outstripping in its ravages the heedless destructivcness of natural forces. It is an appalling picture, and one well calculated to give the final touch of bitterness to that loathing of the German idol —War —with which Germany has made it her business to inspire all reasonable men." The account of these sea murders 0 y Germans is necessarily incomplete, for they are still being perpetrated. To the next edition Mr. Archer wiU have to add tho Llandovery Castle to his long list of deliberately sunken hospital ships. But this little history is a most forceful indictment of the German's ruthlessness and his self-exclusion from* all civilised peoples.