CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16561, 9 June 1917, Page 3 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

.NOTES ON NEW BOOKsI - ■- i by came I l What was frequently suggested in prewar days, concerning the -gradualsure decline of British commercial supremacy, has received abundant supporting testimony since the fighting. Every month makes it more apparent to the most casual purchaser, that ft great bulk of our imported goods' must have come from abroad. Part of the shortage is due, naturally, to actual war : conditions, which, in Britain are necessarily restrict mg the output of less essential iminufao tares. But the dye problem alone must cause even the indifferent Britisher to reflect as to what has happened during the -century previous to war— gradur absorption by Germany of many indr tries that formed once part and parcel Britain's great overseas trade and o) home consumption.

ECLIPSE OR EMPIRE. / "Eclipse or Empire?" is th* e> title of a book by H. B. Gr Samuel Turner (Nisbet, London: taloup and Edmiston, Auckland) students of the weighty and fa problems of Imperial comnr manufacture, it furnishes a gr of good general information, weight to its statement by 0 I plete and inclusive glossary into details concerning wf • > universally demanded art^ air ' i merce. "Where GreatTT'S failed," suggests the auth leciing to manufacture • B could buy in quantity, ss and 1 to the super-excellent, L n j v u y | no demand. Hence at . * ■ j war the making of optsgained. of our beaten trades, "gygtem eluding ourselves,, dri , ' other countries. As Abe iniwage country, parting health I reason cannot be low all too familiar one, iy follow the up to-date and ft ; of manufacture and dis A feature is made i sive little book of shot ably by experts on ve origin, and present sea. 1 J. B. Riddell, for instax I detailed chapter on 1 chinery." Then I resumes on such subject <«*[# 1 lene welding, on I the automatic sprinkler; ws§&. P. Hollis on electrical ensS|ft such matters as watches, mtU I domestic patents have all 1| tion. "Eclipse or Empin apart from its Imperial mesi compendium of useful knowl ordinary man and woman. THE NEW ARMY ON THE The author of "With the New i the Somme" (John Murray, Loi' Mr. Frederick Palmer, who 11 accredited American correspondent 8 the allied army in the West, ha fine descriptive faculty, a keen eyer correct perspective, and a talent for ft, ing an invigorating narrative and a cle cut image of that great thrust at th. German lines, which commenced with the, Somme offensive on July 1, nearly 12 months ago, and which may be said to have had as its sequel, the present great enemy retreat. American correspondents seem to possess a pull over their confreres in that their comments from tha front appear to escape the censor's pencil, which may be accounted for by the fact* that their illuminating accounts do not ! see the light in book form until any risk, lof " informing " the enemy is past. The volume under review can be read from ! cover to cover without any sense of weariness or surfeit in the reader's mind. Though operations dealt with by Mr. Palmer must now be described as old ones, his impressions will be read with! lively fascination to-day, for the conditions he describes have not materially altered, and by his aid we can visualise the immense and destructive force of the British artillery, the dash and daring of our air pilots, the tanks acting as foresters in High Wood, the storming of Contalmaison—every phase, in fact, of that great advance which signalled tha turn of the tide. Mr. Palmer has soma kindly references to the New Zealand and Australian troops, and expresses great ad* miration for General Sir William Bird« wood.

A PRISONER IN GERMANY. "Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons '.'— Henry Mahoney (Sampson Low, London; Robertson, Melbourne)— is a record which will find many a reader, and will add yet another remembrance of Germany's brutality *hen soldiers shall have laid down their arms, and when the world sets itself to arranging suitable treatment for this " most) cultured of nations." That cruelty and inhuman indifference to the sufferings of other civilised men could never have been believed four years ago. That a German could find pleasure in tying a man, an enemy prisoner, to the stake, as a punishment for a venial prison offence, and could seek to break his spirit by longcontinued torture of this kind, is even now almost incredible. And yet the author suppresses details for decency's sake. No New Zealander, snug in his home, can conceive the intense suffering, physical and mental, inflicted oh our own kinsmen, caught at the outbreak of war, in Germany, or since taken there as war prisoners, infamous cruelty inflicted by a people whom once we thought highly civilised. That a few men, very few, displayed human attributes, only makes one sceptical of their being full-blooded Germans. Such captors as these brutal Prussians have proved themselves, have surely earned the scorn of nations ion centuries, to come.

J THE WEEK'S FICTION. j Stella Benson has an attractive mannet of writing. Her latest adventure into fiction's field is " This is the End " (Macmillan, London). Her touch is imp-like, full of whimsies and evasions, and yefc pursuing gently the theme shaped in her mind, and ultimately giving plot to heir story. A gentle cynicism pervades heir study of Mrs. Gustus, the novelist. "She (Mrs. Gustus) was naturally an unnatural talker, and when she mentioned such natural things as angels, you knew she was resorting deliberately to womanly charm in order to attain her end." Then there is Jay, who as work, has taken to living in the slums and being a 'busconductor. Jay's brother is Kew, on active service. Mrs. Gustus's husband and Mr. Russell complete the characters, who are woven into a thistledown kind of story which yet covers a sincerity of purpose.

"Queens of Kungahalla "—by Selma Lagerlof (Werner Laurie, London).—This collected set of episodes concerning the kingdom of Kungahalla, emanates from a winner, the only woman winner, of the Nobel Prize. The theme of her present work is an ambitious and difficult one— to trace the history of a sea-bound principality through the exploits of its famous women. Her manner of writing is direct and simple, typical indeed of the good Scandinavian writer. The final story brings _ the family up to modern days, with simplicity and candour as the key* notes of character.

"Haidee"—by F. Horace Rose (Hodder, Stoughton, London)—is by the author of "Golden Glory," which was an unusual and powerful African story. "Haidee" is African, too, but deals with white people, with British and Boers, and incidentally, includes the story of the Jameson Raid. It contains too, great a preponderance of melodrama to please all tastes. There is the villain, who persuades a girl to leave her home and then, deserts her. There is the heavy father, who casts her off, and the devout lover, who then turns his attention to speculation. In time Olive returns with her child. The prodigal dies and Geoffrey adopts the baby. Intrigue is introduced among financial men relative'to the' subsequent action of Dr. Jameson. Finally, the villains are foiled, the arch offender U is murdered by a faithful servant* who conveniently loses all memory of yitheevent, Geoffrey loyea again, and all ends >';: happily. . \3-t.^