BOOK NOTES

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 47, 24 January 1936, Page 7

BOOK NOTES

BONES AND STONES. The camp of an ardent archaeologist in Arabia ha,s been chosen by Helen Ashton as the background for her new novel, “Dust Over the Ruins.” Sir William Crane, a wealthy and eccentric old man, has financed the expedition, engaged Evan Meredith as his second in command, and young Cary, son of an old friend, as his junior. There are also two women in the party, Valentine Meredith, a young and beautiful woman, and Olwen Hughes, Sir William’s competent secertary. The party is isolated for the whole of the Arabian winter. Many miles from civilisation, they are entirely dependent upon each other for human contacts. Sir William is a fussy old bore, and Meredith, a violent Welshman, finds liis fussiness intolerable. Valentine is a complex personality, bound to make trouble wherever she goes. She completely subjugates both Crane and Cary, and frequently arouses her husband s jealousy to a dangerous pitch. Kyenlually, after months of tension, Meredith and Cary come to blows, anu both are nearly drowned in a night or storm and flood. Tim crisis brings to tile surface much that had been hidden under a thin veil of pretence and the book ends with the bieakm up of the camp and the separation of its antagonistic elements. 111 story is interesting, but there is great deal of padding, and insufficient action and incident. The charactels are life-like enough, but their acti uid reactions are not sufficiently varied to make them memorable. i>ut Ashton writes fluently and competently. / “ENGLAND SPEAKS.” In “European Journey” Sir Philip Gibbs gave a record of the lc l ea ?> hopes, and fears moving in the minds of common folk,” as discovered in odd conversations with all sorts of pe°P • “England Speaks” is another such popular travelogue, except, Uiatheie the range is wider. Sir 1 hihp has 1 tened-in not only to the London loadsweeper and village cobbler, to Duihani miners and Norfolk fanneis, but also to Mr Ramsay MacDonald, then Prime Minister, to Sir George Paisli, the economist, Forbes Robertson, and Cosmo Hamilton, to the man m the club, and the Master of Charterhouse. And so we get a kaleidoscope u Inc nrobably suggests more of the real England than a dozen volumes moie pretentious than this simple record. The author finds that “England, as a whole—beyond the cities and the neu estates and the new by-passes which cut great gashes through the countryside for the sake of racing motorists and baby-killers—is amazingly odfashioned. . . . The English counties have retained much of their ancient character, the villages their old remoteness from modernity. i hus ne have glimpses of the beauty of the countryside, as well as the ugliness of the cities. But it is the human element which always interests Sir 1 hihp most deeply, and he finds a varied gallery of people, a rich assortment which shows that English individuality is still alive and cherished. From tlieu lips we learn especially the distress and misery of a country with millions of unemployed. In the dark crypt of at. Martin-in-the-Fields lie finds all sorts of refugees sleeping there for shelter. Jn Iloxton an umbrella-mender tells of sweated conditions in factories, and in a Surrey village a bell-ringer philosophises cynically whilst explaining that many bells aren’t pure: Now Big Ben, for instance, is all wrong: its vibrations are jangled.” England, too, Ims many social vibrations "which jaiigle. Yet Sir Philip finds everywhere a strong desire to help, and encouraging movements such as that ot Sir John Jarvis, who gave hope and wqrk to the men of Jarrow on the Tyneside where 40 men were working at Palmer’s great yards, which once gave 10,000 employment. Sir Philip Gibbs finds hope, too, in the simple virtues of the English people, “a decent, hon■esfc and orderly folk, with a real tradition of liberty and an instinct for law self-made and self-obeyed.”

THE BRITISH EMPIRE. Professor Arthur Berriedale Keith has now followed up his books on the constitutional law and sovereignty of the British Dominions with a comprehensive description of “The Governments of the British Empire.’ The first part, on the framework of the Imperial constitution, deals with the constitutional law and structure of the Empire, foreign relations, Imperial co-operation in foreign and domestic affairs, native races, rights of the subject, and Church and State. Part II sets forth in detail the workings of all the Governments of the Empire, including protectorates and mandates. The changes in the structure of the Empire during the last decade,- and especially since the Statute of Westminster, have been so great that Professor Keith’s book will he a valuable source of reference. He views the latest Indian experiment with some misgivings, commenting that “The working of so complex and artificial a scheme must he awaited with interest.” He points out the new “unfettered character of the executive” as shown by the naval agreement with Germany and the offer of territory to Italy in North Africa, when neither the King nor Parliament were consulted previously. He concludes that, “The events of the last 10 years have seen a determined and successful attempt to destroy the existing fabric of the Empire in order to assert the autonomy of the Dominions,” especially by the three Dominions which are least British (i.e., English and Scottish) in population—Canada, South Africa, and the Irish Free State. He then points out the danger to unity with this assertion of Dominion freedom without a corresponding “desire to create real bonds of union.”

“THE DREYFUS CASE.” “The Dreyfus Case,” by Armand Charpentier, an enthusiastic “Dreyfusard,” gives the complete story of this famous case which stirred the attention of the world as well as arousing such bitter and prolonged controversy in France. The writer brings out well the dramatic value of the affaire, without becoming too sensational. “I SAW FOR MYSELF.” Mr. John Brown after the success of his autobiography, “I Was a Tramp,” has followed it up with “I Saw for Myself,” an account of a trip to Germany and Russia last year, with ail interlude in the Saar just before the plebiscite. In each country he mingled among the common people to get at the truth, whilst keenly critical of both Fascism and Communism. He decided, that the Nazi “atrocity” stories contained much truth, arid saw something of German rearmament. He found Russia behind England in many respects, was unimpressed by Soviet propaganda, but concluded that Russia might teach the ; West in regard to unemployment and Manning.