The Bookman

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 130, 4 June 1938, Page 26

The Bookman

GOLIATH

BOOK THAT CAN BE HEARD

WOMAN'S PROGRESS

Italy and fascism

A BRILLIANT HISTORY

7* (By "Qnlvis.") a; The title of the book under review has been retained in the headings above, but it does not do justice, in . its rather cheap crudity, to one of the finest (works on t contemporary history published in the last decade. The author is Professor G; A. Borgese, now of the University of Chicago, formerly of' the University of Milan. The publishers are Messrs. Victor Gollancz, Ltd., who in a long series of works by various -authors, more or less distinguished, have done so much in recent years for the elucidation of the difficult world problems of the day. The point of view has generally been to the Left, but Professor Borgese is not a Communist or a Socialist, but a Liberal in the direct line of the founders of modern Italy such as it was before Mussolini and Fascism hove above the horiion. His heroes are. what he calls the "eight-star constellation" of the Italian Risorgimento—the ports, Alfleri, Parini, Foscolo, Manzoni, and Leopardi, and the -men of action and affairs, Mazzini, "Garibaldii Cavour. The villain is Mussolini. The long story of nearly, -five .hundred pages reads like ♦a tremendous drama in an impassioned uprose that rises again and again to the heights of poetry. Fascism to him is not the creation of economic determinism as interpreted by writers of the Marxian school. Its origins lie not in material things, but in, the mass mind of the Italian people, the result of their chequered history, exploited by one man, Mussolini. The author sets forth his thesis in the first paragfeph of a prologue: . ''. v

This book Is not based on the conviction th»t we 'already know everything,, and that any human (rent, past and future, can and must be explained as the predestined result of economic determinism. It does not. agree with the human nature Is stabilised an'd that humai beings behave like robots whose reactlons can be traced to laws as Infallible as mechanical law* are supposed to be. The opinion underlying this book was expressed long ago by Leibnitz when, he said that men are ruled by passions more than by Interests.: Its purpose is to outline. the characters! of some, of the personalities and the conree of some of the passions wblch /have carried uswherewe' are. ... No man Is sirong enough to shake the earth. Mussolini acted on the Italian mind and conquered it; ttten, made strong by his conquest, he tried to win. tlie world. An ontltne of the development of ,the. Italian mind before yaeclsm' is necessary to' the-.understanding of the birth and frgrthofrasclsm. , &" INFLUENCE OF DANTE.

- the author' begins with . Dante. "Italy," he says, "was not the creation

ofkings and warriors; she was the creature of a poet, Dante..... He gave her a poetic monument, a religious mythology, a political prophecy, and a common language." The basic Ideas

of "The Divine Comedy" were a uni•versal Church and, State and the restoration of the Roman Empire. "From a certain moment on," says the author,

"the Roman universal idea, and the

complaint about the vanished glory of the past, became the positive impulses' of the leading classes." Dante drove these into the Italian mind. For all his greatness and with all his greatness, lie : distorted the soul of his people,

urging it to dislike whatever it had or might have had, and to love a goal which Nature and history reproved. Whatever happened to, him happened in the unrestrained sublimity and freedom of his mind. There the Italian nation- was born: a phantom. Incapable of rising to a real life for itself, this phantom, however,, was mighty enough to bloek henceforth the to a living Italy of modem times. It had what phantoms may have and poets may give: a speech and a inyth. The substance was a craving for the absolute in a political and social emptiness, an unavoidable, tragic destiny." One other great influence in the making of the Italian mind was Machiavelli, in his classic work, "The Prince." Of him the, author says: His discovery—a devastating one, If It were true—la--that political activity Is independent of morals and religion. The Dantean unity Is shattered.' force, and - cunning,' which °is one j aspect of force, rule, the world. Satan's Is .the earth. .- ' ■ j p The dictum, of Machiavelli that the Prince njust be a'lion and at the same time a fox is applied by the author to explain Mussolini's career, for the Duce has ' bein a close stadent of Machiavelli and the German and other philosophers, Nietzsche, especially, whom the Florentine philosopher influenced. AFTER MACHIAVELLI. After Machiavelli came what the author calls the "Intermiasion," the long period inwhich yip under foreign rulers and from which she only recovered in the Risorgimento, the resuiTection of the last century. Says the author: The Italians who, nostalgic over their un-' forgettable primacy over the barbarians, bad cursed and despised the Republic of the Middle Ages, too small for their ambitions, now were thralls of the barbarians. It had been a delirium of Inferiority; It was now really an Inferiority, an actual one.

From this .lamentable condition Italy was raised in the middle of the last centufy to nationhood and unity by the efforts of men of pure, unselfish patriotism. The new Italy had sober possibilities of unique service in intellectual and artistic leadership, derived from the brilliant remote past and the monuments left i>y it over a lovely 'countryside, the Mecca of the artist and scholar. But in the minds of the Italians there was still the dream of Dante of political greatness arid Imperial Rome. < This and the glory of war for war's sake was voiced by D'Annunzio, who in turn influenced Mussolini, personally as a Whole people by his writing. The career of Mussolini is treated by the author very fully, with special emphasis on the crises in his career, the niarch on Rome in 1922, when Mussolini travelled not on the march, but by sleeping car from Milan; the Matteotti murder .in 1925, which led to the suppression, of all liberty in Italy; the Ethiopian war of 1935-36, and now the Italian intervention in Spain.

It is impossible in a short space to do. justice to a great, book, great in thought as in expression. The style is full of life and colour, and shot through with shafts of illuminating light on the dark origins and development of Fascism. Savage indignation is lightened by flashes of irony, sarcasm, wit, and humour. Through all the long story there is a unity of thought that holds it all together far more convincingly than mere denunciation. After this work it will be difficult, to. put forward again the theory of economic determinism to explain the sinister phenomenon of Fascism. It comes out simply as the abuse of human nature for the purposes of war and war primarily for the aggrandisement of one man. As with Fascism, so with Nazism. They go together, and Professor Borgese links Nazism with the German nostalgic mania for a revival of the Holy Roman Empire, as Fascism similarly with Imperial Rome. The book Will confirm the belief pt all who

immmiin

LINDSAY BUICK

LORD BLEDISLOE'S

TRIBUTE

A LETTER TO "QUIVIS"

Lord Bledisloe, who, while GovernorGeneral of New Zealand, took a personal interest in every phase of the life of the community and not least in the history of this country, was a warm admirer of the late T. Lindsay Buick, appreciating greatly his work on ihe Treaty of Waitangi. It ; was no doubt to this in large measure that Lord Bledisloe's action in for all time the scene of the signing of the Treaty was due. Writing from Lydney'Park; Gloucestershire, prior to his departure for South - Africa as chairman of the Rhodesian Royal Commission, Lord Bledisloe, in a letter to "Quivis," pays a notable tribute to the late Mr. Buick. The letter is as follows: —

Dear Quivis,— I have read with much sympathy and entire endorsement your charming tribute to. my friend Lindsay Buick in the "Evening Post" of March 5. I have known many authors, but none who with such scant opportunity has produced such a rich literary harvest of his fertile brain. Comprehensive research is combined with a remarkable command of eloquent and pregnant phraseology. It has always been a marvel to me how he achieved such an immense "output" without the smallest suggestion of staleness, ana but'little, if any, iteration. Unfortunately, I have never read "An .Old New Zealander ":. I must try to get it on rny return from Africa. Yours sincerely, and gratefully, BLEDISLOE.

CHINA'S HERO

SOLDIER AND STATESMAN

It is one of the tragedies of the Chiiiese that, after a year's struggle for freedom comparable with that of the, Swiss for heroismfihost people still cannot be persuaded to take them seriously, remarks the writer of the review in the London "Sunday Times of "Chiang Kai-shek, Soldier and Statesman," byHollington K. Tong, who is a Chinese journalist. The leaders' names, the reviewer continues, are too exotic to be remembered, the issues are too complex, the whole scene has too many comic connotations. Even now, when properly armed Chinese troops have proved a match for the Japanese, the man in the street calls to mind legends of troops going into battle with fearsome devices emblazoned "'on their chests, settling strategy after astrological study of chickens' entrails, and hoisting umbrellas and going home when it rains. The one war lord familiar to the Western public is Feng Yu-Hsiang, and he is remembered only for his label, "the Christian General,'* and his habit of sending troops into action singing "Onward Christian Soldiefs" in Chinese.

It is a pity,- for at " least one of China's leaders, Chiang Kai-shek, is a figure of world importance. hone of the romantic glamour that surrounded Sun Yat-sen; the conspirator going always in fear of his life, or of Chang Tso-lin, the 'little mask-faced man. with the sloping shoulders and drooping moustaches, who made himself Dictator of Manchuria by his cunning and ice-cold nerve. Chang Tso-lin was a survival from the old China; Chiang Kai-shek stands for the new. The old ' generation Of rulers rose through; their, mastery of the classics and their skill in political manoeuvres as complicated ais Mah-jongg, and as devoid "of any principle; that the a vejage Westerner could understand; or they carved their Careers with their swords. Chiang Kai-shek is, m our sense, a professional soldier. He was trained at a Japanese military academy; he hias studied the science of war and all its practical details as carefully as Napoleon did, and he is a strict disciplinarian.

This "last is the key to his success. He found not one country, but half a dozen countries, speaking different dialects, devoid'of any common ideals, unconscious, for the most part, that they belonged to one race. He began by settingan example.' He worked and fought tirelessly for the common good. He refrained from plundering the provinces, in accordance with timehonoured precedent. He voluntarily submitted to the authority of the Central Cabinet, when he might easily have dominated it, as so many other war lords have done. And he has had his reward. Thanks to his magnificent leadership and Japanese aggression, the Chinese have realised for the first time that they are one people under one leader.

In the end that must spell victory. Japanese armies, with superior equipment, may, and will, win temporary successes; but, once united, 400,000,000 people cannot be kept down. That new sense of unity is Chiang Kai-shek's great gift to his country. If his military leadership proves equal to his moral qualities—and experts think highly of his work in the field—lie May yet go down to history as the Chinese Cromwell, plus a touch of Carnot, the Organiser of Victory.

"The Book of the Symphony," by B. H. Haggin, is a book which can be heard as well as read. It carries with if a device ■ which enables the reader to play on a gramophone any phrase from a symphony under discussion in the text. Thus, if there were an analysis of a particular passage from a Brahms symphony, the exact passage could be played over on a recording of the symphony, so that it is immediately clear as to what the author is trying to explain. This device can be used for His Master's Voice and for Columbia records. There are detailed analyses and illustrations of thirty-four symphonies.by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Tschaikovsky, and Franck, In addition to historical and biographical material, the book includes, a section on the instruments of the orchestra. There is also a special appendix on the gramophone.

STATE AND BUSINESS

AUSTRALIAN TRENDS

For the moment, and probably for at least a year to come, "Australia's National Interests and National Policy," by H. L. Harris (Melbourne University Press), will be an excellent handbook for the student of trends in Australian policy. The "trade diversion" policy—what is it? For a sufficient answer in short space, consult Mr. Harris's book, which gives you not only precis but atmosphere. Sir Harry Gullett and the "trade diversion" policy may have come and gone—Sir Harry resigned last year, and the cabled obituary of "trade diversion" was published on May 6 last—but the episode must be remembered in connection with the Cordell Hull world-trade gospel, and its memory is embalmed in chapter VIII. I Many other phases of Australian development, by no means transitory, are presented briefly—but yet with colour —in this little book of 145 pages, and its value is not altogether ephemeral. Admittedly,"depreciation of such a contemporary summary of trends begins with the day of publication, because trends are altering rapidly, but the summary is remarkably up to the moment, and is so compiled as to reflect things to come. Here is a sample: "Australian relations with the United States have been disturbed not only by the trade diversion policy, but by the Pacific Shipping question. An American steamship line carries passengers between Australia and New Zealand while non-American vessels are not allowed to trade between Hawaii and the mainland of the United States. The New Zealand Parliament passed an Act to exclude the American ships from their ports, and a parallel measure was introduced into the Federal Parliament. The New Zealand Act has not been applied, and the Australian Act was eventually dropped, but the harm was done. America is not sufficiently known in Australia for Australian policy to be wisely directed. America helps Australia by buying fine textiles from Britain, and at times, foodstuffs from Canada. In the one case we supply the raw material, in the other we fill the vacancy. We may yet be able td improve our sales of wool and meat, and find a market for fresh fruit (in small quantities), and wines in America. But apart from trade it is undoubtedly in the best interests of Australia to have a powerful and sympathetic friend in the great democracy on the other side of the Pacific." The author is not lecturing us, but both Australians and New Zealanders will gather an impression of their own short-sightedness.

In the United States the idea of tribunal-controlled wages is being fought as something new, but it is not so in sophisticated Australia, for during the Australian Federal elections "the control of wages was scarcely mentioned by any responsible candidate, and the authority of the Arbitration Court was nowhere seriously challenged." Australia is by no means of the laissez faire school. "The notion that the Government can, by wise saving ..and wise spending, by redistributing available income'through taxation and the social services, by adding to it at the right time and in the right place through public borrowing, and by effective use of the monetary mechanism, further the national development, is very generally accepted."

Valuable to journalists and to various classes of students, and useful as a book of reference (though but lightly indexed), "Australia's National Interests and National Policy" will be frequently taken down from the bookshelf during the next twelve months, and less frequently thereafter, but it will not be useless even ten' years hence.

RUSSIA AND BYRON

"THE REBELLIOUS POET"

Soviet Russia has now adopted Lord Byron, and during the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of his birth there were great celebrations all over the Union (writes the Moscow correspondent of the London "Observer").

Organised with the finesse and thoroughness typical of Soviet economic or political propaganda campaigns, the celebrations were carried into remote villages and hamlets, where, only two decades ago, most of the illiterate peasants, ana even their "kulak" masters, had never even seen a printed book.

Thousands of paid lecturers and unpaid "social workers" were sent out from the towns to workers' and peasants' clubhouses in outlying regions where "literary jevenings" were arranged to spread the fame of England's "rebel poet."

In Leningrad the Institute of Literature of the Academy of Sciences held a special session to commemorate Byron's memory. Papers on his life and work were read before large audiences of Russia's literary elite. Professor Zhirmundsky spoke on "Byron and Our Times"; Professor Piksanov on "Byron and Russian Literature." Special sessions were held by leading universities of tlie country and by the powerful Union of Soviet Writers, which maintains a vigilant watch to prevent "hostile theories" from finding their way into Soviet literature.

Soviet literary critics have made it eminently clear that the official "approval" of Byron is based chiefly on his rebellious life and his great influence upon Russia's poets, Pushkin and Lermontov. Particular stress is being laid on Byron's fiery maiden speech in the House of Lords in defence of the weavers of Nottingham, his participation in the conspiracies of the Italian Carbonari, and his death in Greece while aiding that country in its struggle for independence from Turkey.

There is quite a boom in Byron's works. In all, some 300,000 volumes of Byron's poetry have been published during the two decades of the Soviet regime as compared with only 3000 during thp twenty years before 1917.

Editions have been brought out in Ukrainian, Georgian, Armenian, Jewish, and other languages.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The Chief Librarian of the Wellington Public Libraries has chosen "Mr. Arkwright's Marriage," by J. L. Hodson, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:

Mr. Arkwright is a wealthy man who is approaching sixty. He is well endowed with this world's goods, having sold his mill shares when prices were high. His life has proceeded along well-ordered channels, and he is a widower with one daughter who is satisfactorily engaged. He has a friend who is a bachelor, with whom he plays duets, and a dog called Judy; he is interested in music and birds, and his tastes are simple. However, he goes on a cruise and meets a vapid widow, whose only interests are horses and young men. A shipboard romance develops as quickly as such things do, and finally Mr. Arkwright marries the widow. Joe Bates, the friend, who is with them, has to accept the situation. It is not long before it becomes- apparent that the marriage is not going to be a success. Mrs. Arkwright had married her husband because she had discovered that he seemed to be genuinely fond of her and would give her a settled position. She had no intention whatever of giving up anything to the marriage, so that after a time her husband was thrown back entirely on his duets with Joe Bates, his dog Judy, and the other things which went to make up his earlier life. He was, of course, too old to make a success of a second marriage of this nature, particularly with a pleasureloving woman whose weather eye was perpetually lifting for a young man. His own tastes were of a simple and domestic kind which were as far as possible removed from hers, and the difference in age proved) to be as serious a bar as the difference in temperament. Mr. Hodson has given us a simple and probable story of real people. The book is so good in its presentation of trivialities, in the Tightness and proportions of its values, and in the simplicity of its writing, that it is easy to overlook how very good it is. With no trappings and no fireworks of any kind, but with a simple and steady progression of real life narrative, Mr. Hodson has presented us with a book which is not only readable but excellent in texture. One of the principal parte of the novelist's craft consists in the presentation of the realities of life's situations in a manner likely to hold the attention and arouse the interest of the reader so that he will contemplate the fictional mirror of life. # It- is a canon which is frequently insisted upon but seldom lived up to even by the competent school of better-class modern novelists in Great Britain. However, Mr. Hodson has the gentle and leisurely touch of the essayist. He is neither glib nor hurried, but reaches his conclusions quickly enough. RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent accession lists are as follows: —General: "Five Minute Biographies," by Dale Carnegie; "Here Are My Lectures," by Stephen Leacock; "Would I Fight?" by K. Briant and J. Wilkes (eds.). Fiction: "The Mother," by S. Asch; "The Dream Prevails," by Maud Diver; "Powder Smoke," by Jackson Gregory.

FORGED RARITIES

A "Leviathan of forgers," whose name and handicraft are known to at least a dozen people in London, whom he has robbed iOf hundreds of pounds and whose work has deceived the British Museum, is still alive. Mr. A. J. A. Symons, the bibliographer, told the Autographs and Graphological Society this in London recently, when speaking on "Forgeries in first editions and autographs." He said he had not heard of any new draught of the man's sinister brew for some years. "Once in every generation," said Mr, Symons, "there emerges a master forger. Such men are the greatest menace the rare book dealer has to face." Mr. Symons explained that this forger would offer, a bookseller a mixed collection of autograph letters of obvious value of which two or three would be genuine. "I have an example of his work —a forged Shelley notebook," he said. "It was passed as genuine by the British Museum, then accepted by the greatest authority of all Shelley experts, and yet it is a fake. "Its detection was due to. the forger, over-confident, flooding the market too quickly with Shelleyana. One buyer, becoming suspicious, took his newly-acquired Shelley letters to the Bodleian for comparison with some written from the same place on the same day. The fraudulent post mark was, by a tiny fraction, the wrong size." "This forger has cost the rare book trade thousands of pounds, and it is to the credit of our dealers that they have borne the loss themselves," said Mr. Symons.

It is quite cheering to read "My Part in a Changing World," a semiautobiographal volume by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence, which has been published by Gollancz. Those who deny the fact of humap progress have only to dwell for a few moments on conditions as the author saw them when she first worked in the West London Mission. As she points out, the working classes were then "the Poor"; they were never seen in shoes or clothea that fitted them; they tagged about in bedraggled, miscellaneous garments that were almost a uniform; illness or unemployment meant the break-up of the family, and the lives, of many women, from childhood to the grave, were miserable indeed. A stu&y of the violent suffrage days, too, is encouraging, showing as it does an almost incredible change in the at-

titude of men towards women, and the author ends on a note of hope. Once it seemed impossible to provide financial security for working people; once it was a wild dream to think of women enfranchised. Today the cause of international peace seems as visionary. Perhaps the vision will once again become reality.