BOOK NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 245, 13 September 1935, Page 12

BOOK NOTES

AN ENGLISH PORTRAIT. - “George Washington: An English Judgment,” by Michael De La Bedoyere.—Mr He La Bedoyere justifies this able and readable book by pointing out how vague and slight is English knowledge of George Washington. Washington was not a great general, some have thought not even a good one; he left political theory to others (though he could put the contemporary point of view with brevity and force) ; but as the long war dragged on, America and France saw in this iron figure the one support of a desperate cause. Few men have more honestly earned triumph, and Mr He La Bedoyere is an admirable expositor of tlie reasons for that triumph. As a soldier and as a planter Washington was admirably fitted for his job. He was less well fitted for his role as first President of the United States, hut he was better fitted than Mr He La Bedoyere will make some readers imagine. He was no mere Mikado with Hamilton as Shogun, but master of his Cabinet and of his joh. It is, perhaps, natural in an “English judgment” that such peculiarly American phenomena as the Presidency, sectional parties, and Thomas Jefferson should be imperfectly understood, but it is regrettable all the same. However, the main aspects of Washington, the man and the hero, arc admirably depicted here.—London Times.

NORTH SEA TRAWL. Mr L. Luard has tapped a vein of real romance, and one that is not often exploited, in his tale of the trawler fleet that battles with the northern seas between Iceland and Murmansk, and returns after weeks of danger, acute discomfort, and desperately hard work, laden with what Tennyson once euphemistically alluded to as “ocean spoil in ocean-smelling osier.” There is, indeed, a good deal more than romance attaching to the trawlers. They cost, we are told, between £16,000 and £IB,OOO apiece to build. Between them, they consume at least a million tons of coal a year —no unsatisfactory item for the coal industry to reckon on, especially in these days; they supply the British trade annually with rather more than 200,000 tons of fish, and directly provide regular employment for nearly 50,000 workers, ashore or afloat. Something of the spirit of the Vikings lingers in the men who man or command them, as was demonstrated clearly enough in the war, when many a trawler found German submaries a more exciting quarry than cod or halibut.

That Dir Luard is intimately acquainted with his subject, his hook, “Conquering Seas,” leaves no room to doubt. In point of fact he is himself the descendant of generations of seafarers, and his knowledge of North Sen winter conditions, such as he describes with such vivid intensity, was gained as a naval lieutenant during the war. He writes with a humour that never tends to degenerate into mere burlesque, and has a keen eye for type if not for character. Figures such ns his Captain Knox or Skipper Fairfax achieve conviction, largely because they so unmistakably belong each to a more or less familiar type; but his more individual creations, such as Alf , or John Laidlaw, ring true too. The author succeeds in bringing the whole business of trawling clearly and closely before us, its hardships and humours, its rivalries and sacrifices; skilfully woven into a racy and exciting story with a finely dramatic finish.

“ENGLAND.” It commands courage to write a new history ot England at this date, skill to condense it into a couple of hundred of pages, and real originality to make it interesting and fresn. Yet Mr Douglas Jerroid lias done it all brilliantly. In his “England” he has made England anew, and some of us might almost tail to recognise her, so much are some of the lineaments changed. His gilt of condensation is remarkable, and lie combines the general principle witb the concrete fact very deftly indeed. And he writes with a vigorous pen. Mr Jerroid startles us witn heterodox views, but often at the expense of reasonable accuracy. Too often he is not the historian, but the editor of “The English Review,” making polemics or even journalism out of history. He generalises facilely and broadly. Yet his dogmatic judgments are stimulating, his arguments full of meat, and his style witty and trenchant. On modern topics he is excellent. For instance: “Mr Baldwin, who appears before the British public as a pipe-smoking rustic anxious only to preserve the essential England of the shires and alehouses, is enabled under cover of this astonishing alibi to lay the founadtions of an urbanised bureaucracy which his enemies profess to be unable to distinguish from Socialism. Mr TVinston Churchill, genuinely anxious to preserve all the things in which -Mr Baldwin displays so pleasing an interest, is powerless to defend one of them because of his reputation as a swashbuckling militarist with designs on a dictatorship.” We may often disagree with Mr Douglas Jerroid, but his “England” is full of delights as fell as surprises.

“THE PH ICE OF PLEASURE.” ‘I am certain that, after the crudities of murder and sex, the most interesting subject in life is other people’s money. Deuce this book.” So writes Air Charles Graves, described as “the most brilliant freelance in Great Britain,” in the preface to “The Price of Pleasure.” He has made it nis business to find out, down to the last detail, what it costs to provide tins or that form of amusement; but it is usually the expensive undertakings that interest him. He tells us, for example, what is involved in running tiie casino at Monte Carlo, how much may be sunk in producing a film or a play (“The Private Life of Henry V 111.” is selected as an illustration of the former); how and at what expenditure a collection of frocks is got together by Schiaparelli in Paris tor display; ail about breweries, departmental stores, the Stock Exchange. Brooklands, “the dogs,” golf, ice-skating, bull-fighting, and so on, skipping round the world and back in perfect familiarity with all the places and diversions mentioned. Of course, millionaires come in for discussion, insurance, bridge as a business, and burglars (unwanted luxuries). Often, as in the chapter on the wages paid to women, Mr Graves strays off Ins subject altogether yet he always contrives to entertain, “and to state some impressive facts which nobody else seems to know. Bertram Mills’s circus on tour means an outlay of £IOO,OOO for the season of 30 weeks, and at least £ooo a day must bo made. Cleaning materials cost £lO a week, sawdust £4. Again, a press-cutting agency once addressed itself to Sir Thomas Browne, as a famous author who might require its services. Unfortunately, he had been dead for neavly 300 years. At the leading agenev for film extras, there are on the waiting list: Indians, both sexes, babies, girls with long hair, dudes, a whistler and paper-tearcr, conjurers, aristocratic leading elderly men, and a “very, very ugly” lady.