BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

Evening Star, Issue 22975, 4 June 1938, Page 23

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN

VERSES WHEN SHE SPEAKS Lovelier are her words Than the exquisite notes That speak the souls of flutes. The songs of birds At dusk, when the first-born star Swims in the willow tree, Are. not more dear to me Than her words are. V When she speaks, all sound begins To tremble and melt In music rarer than the .lilt Of violins.. Her voice is more delicate Than the croon of wind in the coppice; All the world’s songs are poppies Under her feet. A. R. D. Fairborn. MSTAL6IA The Cbtswold hills are softly blue Against the evening sun. _ The Sussex downs are nazed with gold, And down round IDevon run Grave, murmurous seas. In Somerset The apple orchards blow, And hawthorns lines the green Bucks lanes, And Suffolk’s all aglouf" With yellow gorse, ana purple heath, And in the Chiltern hil}s, The foxgloves lift their freckled heads To rifted light that spills . Through; straight, slim beeches, silver brown— Green trees against blue sky— _ Yea, these be mine, the Hills of Home, And when the winds go by, _ ■ I dream of them with slow, hard tears, , As others dream of Heaven —■ White Dover • cliffs and ■ misted moors, And the old gray tors of Devon. —E. Mary Gurney.

WHEN JOYCE INSULTED YEATS Irish .writers, differ, from Scottish not only in bent and ability, but in their habit of refusing to praise, each other “on principle ” (writes Mr John Brophy, in ‘ John o’. London ’). Doubtless it is an error of strategy and a lapse in good manners, but it certainly adds liveliness to the world of letters. “ I could not use the words Mr Joyce Uses,” said Mr Bernard Shaw, and threw his copy of ‘ Ulysses ’ into the fire. Mr James Joyce came back on another occasion by declaring that Mr. Shaw’s works made him admire the magnificent tolerance and broadmindedness of the English.” And when Mr Joyce met Mr W. B. Yeats he tuned up his . manner to an Oscar Wildean insolence, and said: “We have met too late, Mr Yeats. You are too old to be influenced by me.” To which Mr Yeats retorted pontifically: “Never have I encountered so much pretension with so little show for it.” And George Moore, apparently unaware that he himself might bo arraigned on a similar charge, denounced both Wilde and Mr Joyce as “Irish plagiarists.” WON FAME OUTSIDE IRELAND. These are typical of the swiftly-told, neatly-shaped anecdotes which abound in ‘ The Wild Gebse ’ (Jarrolds, publishers) i The title is taken from the old name given to Irishmen driven into exile after the treacherous capture of Limerick in 1*391. They formed a corps of much-feared soldiers in the French service. Mr Gerald Griffin applies the name to a number of Irishmen, most of them writers and most of them living, who have - been compelled by circumstance to earn their livelihood and their fame outside . Ireland. The list? is impressive. No other country with a comparable population could equal it, and,' obliquely, it is revelation of the value of the Irish contribution to modern English literature. The incidental literary criticism varies very much in qualty : Mr Griffin is sometimes penetrating, sometimes trite; and when he has to deal with minor personaiges he lapses heavily into that charitable, soft-mannered indiscrimination which is the curse of a country ’ where detachment is too^often despised and there, is no middle way between the. fulsome and the vituperative. But Mr .Griffin is chiefly concerned to recreate personality by anecdote and deft description, and as be has the advantage of intimacy with many of his subjects, his book should be a rare find for readers with literary interests. THE REAL JAMES JOYCE. He shows ns Mr James Joyce as a “ mellow, genial, quiet, well-dressed ■ man of poise and distinction,” very different from the “truculent, almost swashbuckling, hard-swearing, seedylookiug young Dubliner ” of the * Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man ’ and Ulysses.’ Mr Bernard Shaw appears discussing his own ideas with an appreciative rensh. Mr Griffin believes that here Is “ a truly Christian philosopher, although he has repudiated Christianity ” : he maintains also that M* Shaw is a ‘‘great Irishman ” —i.e., a patriot, despite many hard Shavian words on Ireland, and supports his argument with references to Mr Shaw’s eilcrU to save Hog** Casement from the g4*° W9 1,11 d hi» denunciations of the terror which followed the Easter Week rebellion in_ 19,16. Mjr Shaw would probably object that his Christianity is ethics, and his Irish patriotism a sense of justice brought into p!uy by ; local associations. THE FINEST DUBLIN NOVEL. There is a shanelv outline biography of Mr Cnnal O'lliordan. who started as m Mtw, made himself a far-sighted

A LITERARY CORNER

expert in military matters, took over the, Abbey Theatre from Synge, and after the war suffered a rebirth under his own name (previously he had been “ Norreys Connell ” to the general public) as the author of the finest of all Dublin novels, ‘ Adam of Dublin.’ But excellent as this outline biography is, bo far as it goes, it does not go far enough. It tells us nothing of that series of post-war novels about Adam Macfadden and his connection with the Quinn family, which, after reaching the nineteen-twenties with ‘ Married Life,’ casts back to the eighteenth century with Soldier Born.’ The series is now in sight of completion, and with its sustained, delightfully surprising story,. its wit, its historical precision, its powerful emotional climaxes, it stands alone. I have read dozens of contemporary “ sagas,” from Galsworthy’s to M, Jules Romains’s, and I have no hesitation in saying that not one of them is the equal of Mr O’Riordan’s. Soldiers - have a prominent place in Mr Griffin’s portrait gallery. There is Kitchener, described by Augustine Birrell as sabotaging Irish recruiting during the war with his distrust. Mr Griffin has a new and interesting version of the way the “ strong, silent ” Field-Marshal met his end. Sir Henry .WB son i “the Playboy of the Western Front,” is etched with no economy of acid. Lord Carson’s private army of Orangemen earns him the title of “ The Father of Fascism.” A PROPHETIC SONNET. Then there is Major Willie Redmond, brother of the Nationalist Party leader, who was mortally wounded in France in 1917 and earned out of the line by Ulstermen. And Tom Kettle, poet and wit, killed a year earlier in France, who just before his death wrote a prophetic sonnet addressed to his small daughter, which concludes:— Know that we dead, now with the foolish dead, Died not for flag, nor king, nor emperor, , But for a dream born in a herdsman’s shed, And for the secret scripture of the poor. The last line, if I remember aright, is quoted on his memorial in Stephen’s Green, within a stone’s throw of the worst of those Dublin slums made memorable to English readers by the work ’ of Mr Sean O’Casey and Mr Conal O’Riordan. Mr O’Casey also figures here. So do Mr Liam O’Flaherty, Dr Oliver Gogarty (identified plainly as the “ stately, plump Buck Mulligan ” of ‘ Ulysses ’), Casement, Croker of Tammany Hall, Mr James Stephens, Mr Padraic Colum, Mr Austin Clarke, and many another.

NEW BOOKS

INDUSTRIAL AMERICA ITS WAY OF WORK AND THOUGHT The individual chapters composing * Industrial America ’ were at one time published as a series in the ‘ Atlantic Monthly ’ (an American magazine) in co-operation with 12 firms. These twelve studies of world-famed corporations, each one predominant in its own sphere, show in no mean manner the contribution each has made towards the return of economic solidity and confidence in the particular basic industry of America, each represents. Employee pension and insurance schemes, and wage control in relation to the'standardisation of prices, are but a few of the features so fully and ably explained by the author. The general public little comprehends the bewildering variety of functions and activities each concern engages in, and the book must be fully read to appreciate these, and know how tremendous is the sway industry holds over the lives and well-being of the people. Of the companies mentioned, one feature predominates, and is common to all—scientific, research on a scale unknown to the general public. All appear to realise the immense importance of this—that they rise or fall, survive or ■ perish, by performing their particular functions in such a way as to deserve public goodwill. The shock troops of industry are the men of science. This feature is driven home to the reader as the importance of research and scientific control is explained, and tho reader is taken through the many and various phases of industrial maintenance and development. One feature of particular interest to the New Zealand reader is the merchandising and laboratory control of America’s milk industry. The scale of the industry is colossal. Actually 25.000.000 milch cows on about 4,600.000 farms produce roughly 100 billion pounds of milk a year. This immense flow supplies the thousands of pasteurising and bottling plants, cheese factories, evaporating, condensing, and powdering plants, ice-cream plants, and butter factories. The reader is taken through the industry from start to finish, and learns much of the operations of the various systems, co-opera-tive and otherwise, in vogue. Incidentally, the cheese trade there markets more than 500.000,0001 b annually.

Of the other vast organisations, the names General Motors, Goodvear Tyre, Standard Oil. and General Electric are familiar to all here. A journey through their immense undertakings and subsidiary interests is almost beyond the mere capacity of pen to describe. To follow their rise, from humble beginings, is, in some instances, to fight with them through adversity; to peep behind the enrtains of high finance, on adventures of grim fact, which will long linger in the mind, when the final pages of this interesting volume are closed. ‘ Tndnstrial Amorimr’ is the work of Mr Arthur Pound, nnd is published l>v Messrs Little, Brown, and Co., of Boston.

' TALES BY NEW ZEALANDERS 1 One wonders if Sir Hugh Walpole was slightly embarrassed at being asked to write an introduction for a book of short stories by New Zealanders. As he recalls, he was born in this country—in 1884—but “ left at an age too young to remember anything but his father’s consternation at the destruction of the Pink Terraces ” [lßß6]. The request must have counted on some degree of good nature to assist it, therefore, if it were made to him as a New Zealander. The first of living British novelists _ has been more than good-natured. His kindness in giving his blessing to the book is accentuated by the fact that the stories are plainly amateurish to his judgment. Amateurish they are, for lack of encouragement in New Zealand to make of short-story writing a severe art. But he finds a virtue in them, which is this, that “ they are stories about New Zealanders by New Zealanders.” The book which contains them “ creates for those who have not seen it a country, and'for those who have known it even for _ a vanishing moment it provokes intense nostalgia.” tt , That is real kindness on Sir Hugh Walpole’s part. The New Zealand reader might hardly suspect the virtue. But the reader in New Zealand will hardly understand nostalgia in this connection. There are perhaps 40 lines which directly describe this country in the first story. Its main scene is in England. Story two tells of nostalgia for England. Number three has its scenes at Cowes and at Helsingfors. Number four begins in New Zealand only to get away from it. After that it may be said perhaps that ‘‘ local colour ” predominates, though it is most complete in the Maori tales which are characteristic only of one phase of New Zealand, and a fair number of these stories are merely what Sir Hugh Walpole terms magazine stories, which might be written of any country. It is praise but not high, praise to say that they are quite up to the average magazine standard. E. Mary Gurney has a strong study of a “ killer ’’ bull, not more repellant than Ralph Hodgson’s poem; Edith Howes weaves a spell which is independent of rock pools and babies; ‘‘G. B. Lancaster, in ‘The Story of Wi,’ grips convincingly : “ Robin Hyde’s ” _ inventiveness is well shown in ‘ The Little Bridge ; Alan Mulgan points a contrast with truth to periods; Dulcie Deamer handles pathos_ effectively, and Gloria Rawlinson . gives it a further poignancy with the assistance of humour. Humour is the least known art, one might gather, to New Zealand writers. Eric Bradwell handles it broadly; J. R. Cameron a shade less so, and John A. Lee boldly, with a grimness of his own which keeps company, however strangely, with an extravagant playfulness. There are 2/ stories by as many writers. Twenty are much better, probably, than the other seven, and seven than the other twenty, but as a collection they are not without impressiveness. The reader who does not judge them by technical standards may be trusted to find them interesting, and he will thank Mr C. R. Allen for collecting them. British Authors’ Press, London, publishers.

AUSTRALIAN ECONOMICS The collaboration of Professor D. B. Copland and Mr C. V. Janes is responsible so far for at least two volumes of real value to students of politics and of economics in these southern dominions. The senior member of this fruitful partnership is Dean of the Melbourne University’s Faculty of Commerce, and Mr Janes is associate economist to the Bank of New South Wales, whose periodical bulletins on a wide range of subjects command a lively interest. ‘ Australian Trade Policy ; ’ issued last year has been followed this year by ‘ Australian Marketing Problems,’ the publishers in each case being Messrs Angus and Robertson, Sydney. Aggregating between them more than a thousand pages, these two volumes cover the period 1932-37 in Australia’s economic history; that is to say, a period of emergence from the deepest depression the Commonwealth has experienced. Editorship rather than authorship has been the task of the collaborators, for the contents of both volumes comprise exclusively extracts from documents from a catholic choice of sources. Collation, selection, condensation, and arrangement must have constituted a formidable task, and it has been carried out conscientiously and apparently without any bias whatever. Perhaps the most interesting documents in ‘ Australian Trade Policy ’ are those outlining the negotiations for trade treaties, notably with Japan, Italy, Germany, and the United States of America. At different times each of these countries has been a heavy purchaser of_ Australian wool. With the first-mentioned three Australia had a heavy “ favourable ” trade balance, with the last-named an overwhelmingly “ unfavourable ” trade balance, but America has steadily declined any overtures towards better equilibrium. Italy’s and Germany’s difficulty was financing wool payments. Italy’s solution was total withdrawal from the Australian wool market, but Germany proposed to barter motor car parts for wool._ Australia considered this impracticable, and now both Italy and Germany are working hard to bring wool substitutes to a really competitive basis on a big scale. At the present moment Japan is buying wool freely in Australia. Evidently her reed is urgent, presumably for clothing her armies in China. Attempts at trade rationalisation with Japan will rot be helped by the recent decision to annul Japan’s lease of iron ore deposits at Yampi, on the North-west Australian coast, or the Sydney waterside workers’ reluctance to load scrap metal cargoes for Japan. Some idea of the difficulties of effecting “ trade diversion ” by means of tariffs and quotas may ho cleaned from the correspondence "with the chambers of commerce which the foreign countries concerned have established in some Australian cities. Whereas one of the volumes under review deals chiefly with tariffs and restrictions of imports, the other deals

with market regulation, export control, pools, and the prices paid by local consumers to enable producers to race highly competitive world markets abroad. For example, under the Paterson scheme for butter, which operated from 1926 to 1934, the wholesale price for local consumption was kept steady at 140 s per cwt, while London prices for Australian butter sagged as low as 70s per cwt, and kept at that low level for a very appreciable time. One of the difficulties about export pools is the interstate trade in primary products. Section 92 of the Commonwealth Constitution stipulates absolutely unrestricted trade between the States. The operation of a Commonwealth pool necessarily imposes restriction on such trade, and the issue of State rights versus Commonwealth inevitably arises. This has been fought in the Australian courts and taken to the Privy Council on appeal (e.g., the James case). In any case, the general life-history of pools appears to be: (1) A temporary rise in price; (2) increased production induced thereby; (3) a surplus, aggravated by accumulations due to an attempt to regulate market supplies; and (4) a disastrous collapse of prices owing to the existence of that surplus. Whatever the item of primary production, it appears that attempts to interfere with the law of supply and demand are doomed to frustration and are liable to produce totally unexpected results even in most unlooked-for and remote quarters. In view of present New Zealand tendencies, particularly if the existing Government should continue for another term in office, a study_ of literature such as that under review would help in the exercise of an intelligent vote. In .neither of these works under review is there any propaganda whatever. A fair presentation of all sides of each case is given. A person with an open mind may find himself “ boxing the compass ” before he arrives at any definite conclusion, if he manages to do so at all. The latest of Australian hand books, entitled ‘ Australia's National Interests and National Policy,’ has very recently been issued by the Melbourne University Press, the author (Mr H. L. Harris) having prepared it in anticipation for the British Commonwealth (Relations Conference to be held in Sydney next September. An atmosphere of mild pessimism concerning some important factors in the development of a continent almost exactly equalling the United States of America in area tinctures Mr Harris’s conclusions. Though slightly over half of Australia’s area is fair to good pastoral country, he maintains that only one-fourth the area is suitable for closer settlement, and that fourth lies exclusively within the temperate zone. Mr Harris concludes that half a century of determined effort has dispelled hopes of developing tropical agriculture (outside Queensland’s Eastern Coastal strip), the only consolation he derives being that, if Australians cannot conquer the northern regions, neither can anyone else Of any other race. Admittedly the view as to Australians’ inability to develop the far north is by no means general there, otherwise the semi-official estimate of Australia’s carrying capacity at a thirty million papulation living at a reasonable standard would need revision. But present tendencies, if continued, would put that figure well beyond attainment unless immigration on an unheard-of scale reinforced Australia’s badly sagging natural increase. Even if the birth rate recovers reasonably from its depression era slump Australia’s population, now about 6 2-3 millions, would not quite reach nine millions by 1891, allowing for “peak” immigration on a preslump basis. In brighter -vein Mr Harris declares that “ much of the old bitterness has gone from our industrial relations,” and that the alleged highly artificial nature of the economic structure—high tariffs, arbitration awards, and marketing schemes, for example—is more apparent than real. But Mr Harris expresses dissent from the common Australian belief that industrial self-suffi-ciency (or “a balanced economy”) Is the hallmark of nationhood and must therefore constitute a prime objective. The concluding; chapter (excluding comprehensive tables of statistics) is headed External Affairs,’ and at the present juncture should command interest, because it discusses the Australian attitude on participation in wars of European origin or of any war in which the Old Countrv might become involved. At present, Mr Harris thinlks, the Australian national mind, pulled different ways by sentiment and self-interest, is unable to steady itself sufficiently to make clear and positive decisions. But he is convinced' that Australians are loyal to the system of which they form a part, and of which Britain is the head and centre.

CHILD POEMS With 11 new poems, Mr Furnley Maurice’s ‘ Bay and Padio Book ’ of child poems presents itself in a third edition. Bay and Padie are small boys, aged four and three ; some of the poems are written in their language and a few in father’s. There is also a kitten —“ little Sufi ” —in this family, but the kitten is silent. The poems are playful and not subtle; they have the charm of naturalness; cheerfulness pervades them. Published by the Melbourne University Press. ‘ RESTLESS HEART '

‘ Restless Heart,’ described, aptly enough on the jacket, as “a frank exposition of the frailty of human nature,” will be 'welcomed by those numerous readers whose tastes favour this type of story. Here the authoress (Denise (Robins) shows us Julia, the beautiful young wife 11 bored to death ” after three years’ married life with a decent, clean-minded, worthy chap who is obviously much too good for her, and to her. So Julia must needs fly to the arms of a deep-eyed, shallow hearted, passion-ridden artist, who is also married,, but who talks like this: “ You look glorious,” he said, “ your lovely hair—your eyes, and, oh God, your mouth. Julia, you’re Helen, Venus, Cleopatra, and all the lovely women in history rolled into one, and far, far lovelier.” To all of which Julia “ tried to find an answer, but could not.” Which was scarcely surprising. The course of illicit love, however, does not run smoothly, and after the inevitable recriminations, threats of divorce, appeals for forgiveness, and other familiar phases have been passed through, woman’s wiles win once more, and the story ends on the note of reconciliation. Admirers of Denise (Robins, who has written quite a lot of books of this type, null, no doubt, be delighted with ‘ Restless Heart.’ Nicholson and Watson are the publishers, and our copy comes from Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd.

Mr J. B. Priestly and his family were expected to arrive in England on the Tuesday after Easter with the manuscripts of a new story of adventure and a new play. After spending a busy winter in his shack in the Arizona desert, about which he wrote in ‘ Midnight on the Desert, he has been visiting the wild country on the Utali-A rizona boundary called Rainbow Bridge,