“FAT-HEADED ENGLISH”

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 May 1931, Page 8

“FAT-HEADED ENGLISH”

FRANCE’S SUPERIOR MIND. Considerable diversity of opinion has been expressed in the London “Daily Telegraph” concerning the relative numerical strengths of the intellectual ' reading publics of Great Britain and France. In the “Daily Telegraph,” Mr Victor Gollanez, fee publisher, had suggested that Britain’s was only half that of ’France, which had been estimated by a French writer, M. Louis Latzarus, at 40,000. ’ “What on earth is the use of saying either 2,000,b00 or two?” said Mr Bernard Shaw. “Both are equally probable, and neither can h/e verified. Apple Cart’ sold 45,000 copies on the first day o£ publication—but what is that a proof of? “There is one thing: in France, all over the country in the little provincial towns you will find bookshops in which you see books for sale implying a high degree of ’ intellectual culture on the part of the readers, whereas in England bookshops ' outside the big cities are rare. “But, anyway, England is an intellectually lazy nation. Scotland is not, and Ireland is not in certain classes. The English are a fat-headed lot, and ought to, be ashamed of themselves.” Professor Denis Saurat, professor of French Literature at King’s College, Lqndon, “The pre-war figure for the sales of' an Anatole France novel—and the figure would be about the same for to-day—was 300,000, and he was not a ‘popular’ writer. Paul Bourget was a little higher. “The books of Henri Poincare, the mathematician, sold about 15,000 copies each, but they were very abstruse, and this figure represents the extreme and narrowest limit of the very intellectual public. “I agree with Mr Gollancz’s estimate of Britain’s truly intellectual readers as numbering about half those of France.”

“To say that our intellectual public is half that of France is laughable,” declared a member of the staff of Chapman and Hall, Ltd. “I would put 100,000 as a Very .low estimate for England.” ' “The French,” said Mr Michael Sadleir, of Constable and Co., “are more of a book-reading nation because they don’t spend nearly as much time reading magazines and newspapers as we do. “In proportion to the population, there is no doubt that the number in England is much lower than in France, but I would not agree with the assertion that it is half. The level' of popular reading matter in-France is much higher than here, but Germany’s is the highest of all.” A representative of Librairie Hachette said that though half was too low a comparative estimate, the average Frenchman had a much better knowledge of the classics than an Engiisman, while there was more outi ight buying of books in France. dhere has been in France ah excellent form of secondary education for a larger part of the people and for a longer time than we have had,” said Sir Michael Sadler, Master of University College, Oxford, ‘and this educational stimulus is bound to have had an effect in the choice of reading matter.

rhe French, too, have a national and traditional love of fine style, but over here we are getting daily stronger a class °f new adult readers outr XX? mse of the ° ,der “The low price of books in France wX!T tant factor ’ but in England e ha\e one very big advantage in the inL g i e iinG? ber °. f big and good circulatUy pntS ( L* WayB heav-