CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15930, 29 May 1915, Page 4 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

NOTES ON. NEW BOOKS.

BY CRITIC. Is the days to come, the pioneer settlement of New Zealand will be ancient history. Indeed much of it has already gone into partial oblivion, and though we still hold reunions of old colonists which remind us of our youth in the story of nations, great cataclysms come from the outside world to shake our thoughts from our own conditions, and to k>>ep us from storing in our minds memories of cur happenings. Yet New Zealand has had' a. history just as much as, say America; and with the increasing speed of events, she is forgetting it, ever as it is making, in a way that America, with the old lack of communication, never could. The occasional sailing ship of the seventeenth 'and. eighteenth century did not disturb the concentration on national life: hut .Yew Zealand, as a British discovery and later possession was added to the roll of countries in an age when invention was replacing the old time with facilities that grew with every year. Steam followed wind-power, the cable superseded the long-travelling letter: and before anyone here or in Britain had time to realise it, a new Britain was in being in the 'Southern hemisphere.

"BirtOrical Records oi New Zealand" -by Robert McNab, MA., LL.B., LiU.D., (X.Z. Government— Minister for Interna] Affairs, Wellington).—lt is indeed a fortunate happening that Dr. McXab has devoted himself to a branch of literature which has usually been left to students living centuries after the events which they chronicle. Most fortunate is it for New Zealand that a scholar and a . statesman should ii the prime of life and -in the full flowering of poltticfd career " comider it his pleasure to collect documents still retained in the archives of old •colonial offices, the early evidence of all ■ that happened in these islands since Abel Tasman first found and sailed away from them.

It .it no easy task to undertake—that of 7 searching the world for odd letters, straying diaries, vagra'at ships' logs. : -Never think that all tin author had to vddr.'.waa .to t go to Wellington and pore through records already compiled for reference. It is probable that the very least' parti of Dr. McNab's monumental work was done from our capital city. He , has ibid l to wade through old prison .■.ntcords over Sydney, old colonisation "-: details,the basket-fuls i and sack mis of ■ • ;;■{ official correspondence with winch the 'lumber -rooms of courts of justice and of 'land sea departments have been stocked. ' •Whenever he ..has heard of old was'te v; piper concerning usages disputes and sea- >- v faring quarrels, ha has searched patiently ' " and persistently find some link that " />^ould"juet ! connect certain events. Some?j; "times he has fitted preces or evidence : o ? f together. in what seemed a convincing and /' > accurate result—only to find a discrepancy *<rf * dat«j or another entry in a newly- " (inearthed letter. This has meant the un- . • doing of the r whole careful structure and '.J the, beginning . over again. '":~ >' ,) j j &l '''Search in Many Lands.' ':; •"'"- Oncer-it was* the matter of i tombstone r, mid the'; conclusion worked up to by dili- : v gent fitting of diary entries that'a wrong A'■ data had been carved. \ Then there ' turned -•';. up an unlooked-for reference to this in an old Sydney court case. Back 'went the :.- . author to the tombstone for the connect':t'J_ Jng link in the chain—only to find that some enterprising tourist or investigator ■•■"'"-, had , earned off x the whole slab! ; Another time, a chance remark in an old manu:script would suggest that the writer had ;■'-•;'"•: stayed ?at Boston or if even at a remote • village. Dr. McNab has never hesitated. '< He i hits simply sailed away to the place ;iV;.f-to'?,obtain what ' verification he might. % Sailormen, mentioned, perhaps by Captain

■ Cook, ;hs.vo sailed from; a British seaport.; Perchance there tis ; confusion as to the .exactness of the sailor's name. Th« historian has never "juiit chanced it." He has owed, up the clue with diligence

and with patient enthusiasm until, as far as 'was humanly possible, the pieces of humani mosaic were fitted. Holland,

France—-uo country 'has been neglected _ ( which -might'add a detail to the records of those old seafaring days when, to come .t0,.. New Zealand, was to come to a. land ' '.where cannibalism walked hand-in-hand with treachery and each man was practi:cally a law unto'aimielf. •':.; r K An Honorary Task. ' '".Some misapprehension has existed as to the relationship between our New Zealand . Governmu.it and the compiler of these invaluable records. It is to be finally understood that the work was undertaken, -as a personal matter, by Dr. McNab, that bar Government did not assist him either with a. Department of Archives (of which °we possess practically none), that no '■ officers were put at hie disposal to assist in arranging records. But, knowing the nature of his honorary labours, and appreciating the inestimable gain to the Dominion of his researches, the Ministry in office when he was first pursuing his investigations, asked the historian to place at the disposal of the Dominion for publication ,aif such .documents as were worthy of their keeping as early lustory of New Zealand- They further asked him to edit the same for them. And this New Zealand increased Dr. McNab's labours in what he had undertaken as a pleasurable enterprise. For naturally all the manuscripts lie found were not always useful to him in the writing of his own books: Hut our Goovernmeuts have recoognised that every scrap of paper relating to our early days is of great value to us. So Dr. McNab has kept everything bearing on our early history and has included it in the first and second volumes of Historiciu ■■". words which he thus edited for New Zci".and while working at his own more romantically written histories. His books are unique: and every good New Zealander should tell every other one of this splendid perpetuation of our history by this great student and excelling writer.

'•Personality Plus"—by Edna Ferber 'Stokes. New York).—is a highly-written, fast-moving story of a "commercial." who sets out with the idea that his appearance and.his cleverness could tale him through. He found that other things were needed.

• "Big Tremiine"— by Marie van -„. Yorst; (Mills and Boon. London: Robert- :■- son, Melbourne).— does the American ; •writ* bo often of the "big" noble man. . \ 'who takes his brother's intamy m his .'shoulders, ' lives ,- down . the disgrace through pain', -and sufferings. and finally .. confesses •: his innocence ? We have had many -« ,thw, asually'vfell •written, »t- j >■■ "-' \'''" '• ' '..'■ " -.'■'■ .'' ' mt /•■.: ; :

tractive books, with a fine vein of pathos. This under notice is no exception. It is pathetic to a tear-stirring degree: the man's character is "big" and fine. He has feelings and in his case the justification for his shouldering the disgrace is his mother's fondness for the culprit. The latter, of course— expect this now—hecomes a judge of successful honour and probity, 'the hero makes money in a foreign land and has to rebuild "the fortunes of the family when he returns to eat the husks. Xo one loves him, except an old nigger nurse: no one believes in him except the girl who finally loves him. But he sticks at it wearily and long; and is just about to give up the struggle against old prejudice when the girl gives her opinion and with it her kiss.es. So it ends happily. The capibility of the author was worthy a. less acknowledged subject: but it must be admitted that she lias treated it most capably and most feelingly.

" Brunei's Tower "-by Eden Phillpots (Heineman, London; Roberslon, Melbourne).— F.den Phillpots had such good material. He chose pottery manufacture. It opens up vistas of romance— the life that centres round Devonshire pottery. But his best friend must admit that he has failed to do it justice in the story he has woven. The pottery is there and the various craftsmen, who talk as they ought to. But the pitiful creation of the youth who gets employment and then dismissal and is so lacking in interest anyway! , The disconnected pieces of pottery information'. The whole clay requires kneading to get the air , bubbles out, requires move shaping on the wheel. It does not approach the same author s well-known ' and well-appreciated Dartmoor novels. " New Zealand "—compiled by Somerset Playne, F.R.G.S., assisted by J. W. Bond and H. H. F, Stockley, F.R.G.S., and edited by F. Holderness Gale.— This is an elaborate work dealing with the history, commerce and industrial resources of the Dominion. Very fine illustrations are included, and articles are contributed by well-known writers. Among the special sections are,-"Early History," by F. Holderness Gale, "The Maori Race" by James Cowan, Flora by R. M. Laing, M.A., B.Sc, "Climate and Rainfall" by D. C. Bates, "Defence" by Lieutenant J. M. Richmond, R.N.Z.A.., "Geology" by R. Speight, SLSc.F.G.S., "Fauna" by Edgar R. Waite, F.L.S., and "Freshwater Fisheries by L. F. Ayson.