CURRENT LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17597, 9 October 1920, Page 1 (Supplement)

CURRENT LITERATURE.

NOTES ON NEW BOOKS. BY CRITIC. "To see ourselves as others see us is at the present time a good motto to commend to certain sections of our communities ; and it is particularly applicable to that portion of the Empire at which all other British Dominions and peoples now gaze in frank disquietude, disappointment, and some recalcitrant Ireland. Apropos, therefore, is the studied survey of this turbulent corner by ■ a French writer who can write calmly in dispassionate judgment of this disturbed people.

IRELAND. "Ireland"—by R. C. Exarfiaire (Murray; London). —The sub-title of M. Exarflaire's book is the query, " An Enemy of the Allies?"— a perusal of it will convince any unbiased reader that there was in the •writer's conclusion, no necessity for him to use the mark .of interrogation. His summary of the various steps by which the rebellious portion of Ireland has trod from discontent to disloyalty, and Empire-menace is given coldly and therefore all the more convincingly. There is submitted, with word and tale, each detail and each name in'this progression of decadence—an alarming category of misdeed, helped by mismanagement, which one can only give assent, so telling is his unprejudiced recital. The whole chain of (rouble he traces to that Dermot McMurrough, banished and deposed from Leinster, who went to Aquitanie to ask help from Henry 11., first of the Plantagenets. He was told to make arrangements with Strongbow. He did. Dermot gave to the latter his daughter and part of his patrimony ; and Henry, his venture, confirmed by the Pope, had eventually to follow to clip Strongbow's wings. Chronicles describe the fealty ceremony by which the clergy and the Kings of Ireland received the English King as Lord and King of Ireland. Then came the years in which disorder and division between Celt and Saxon grew apace. Henry VIII. had to contend with the result of it; Elizabeth had to send troops to prevent Spain from landing there. James I. thought to solve it by planting in Ulster some tiresome subjects —the Scots of the —"unwilling colonists, deported men rather than immigrants," a race most faithful to the Empire, industrious and prosperous in one of the poorest and most arid corners of the island, in spite of adversity and. obstacles without number. In 1641 the wild men of Ulster came down from their fortresses, and massacred about 154.000 in six months. Cromwell came to avenge this crime, and compared, with Irish methods, his disciplinary ones did not earn what they got—a perennial grudge. William 111. had to cross again to restore order— and the tale of intermittent and recurrent rebellion has continued till to-day. Faraell, Birrell and Others.

From 1850, the writer traces a chronological list of rebellious murders—crimes of every description— by great generosities from England to Ireland--£10.000,000, an immense sum for the time, employment for 200,000 men, 3,000,000 rations every day from public kitchens. Among it alii one notes familiar names. There is Parnell,. with.his. .*' Boycott" system;"' Gladstone," with" too great indulgence— great agrarian charter, an Act of arrears, giving a year's free rent; the Ashbourne Acts of 1885, by which small holdings, were acquired and State moneys advanced for their purchase. Arthur Balfour, " one of the finest figures among modern statesmen," to whom "Ireland owes the foundations of her present prosperity." He obtained credit of £30,000,000 for Ireland; 1903 saw the Wyndham Land Purchase Act—" any other country but Ireland would have been profuse in its thanks"—until at last we come to Mr. Birrell, whose " projects failed lamentably." The writer does not spare Mr. Birrell—who " thought all was quite peaceful," when one magistrate spoke of a " Saturnalia" of crime. Then we get names like Redmond, .whose relatives fought in the Great War; Dillon, who advised Irishmen to carry arms; and Sir Edward Carson, whose Ulster propaganda was dropped to help the Empire. Then all the sorry story of Sinn Fein and Republican Army, with names like Casement, Markiewitz, Devoy, De Valera, the German, Kuno Meyer, a sinister combination. Indeed such a book is sad reading for the ordinary Britisher abroad, be he of English, Scotch, or even Irish extraction. The Frenchman has arrayed his facts well.

FICTION. " The Bride of Shiva"— Henry Bruce iXong, London). —This author knows his India. The ins and outs of Hindu prejudice and religion as opposed to, and one. .would judge, as unknown by the ordinary white man. Everything that comes from the pen of " Henry Bruce" has a stamp of its own, differing subconsciously and most distinctly from the work of every other novelist. He is not a cultured writer just misses —but one is inclined to accept his version of Hindu life, where' it meets the European, as authoritative. The 'present book exposes the folly of British missionaries interfering with native customs. A baby girl is destined for the God of —that is, to a life of what we call immorality. A missionary's wife abducts her. Consequence — one advises her husband against crossing a flooded river— is drowned. She is arrested for abduction— own child dies and no one sympathises. A medical student attempts to rescue a girl, whose mother, once herself a Murali, is now the widow of an English officer. The Eurasian girl is unwilling to become a Murali—appeals to —result: he is mobbed; the hotel in which he takes refuge is burnt to the ground, the proprietor and his wife are murdered, and the girl is taken to her destiny. It is not cheerful reading, but bears the stamp of reality.

" Cleomenos"—by Marris Warrington (Stanley Pan], London). This is a powerful novel of Roman life in the days of Nero. Through his love for a beautiful slave, whom he has used for a model, a rich and favourite sculptor incurs the displeasure of Nero. To save herself from the insane monarch, Dons, having won the life, of the sculptor, stabs herself in the presence of the Emperor. The book is filled with good local colour— wealth of the patricians, the sumptuousness of the Royal palaces, being vividly painted. Cleomenes is a. fine figure, and the book closes with the statement that this same statue, broken into fragments, was repaired, and is now known from the circumstances of a later ownership, as-the Venus de Medici.

" Raindrops"—by John Trevena (Holden and Hardingham. Ltd.). is of interest in its description of an agricultural college, conducted by fictitious clerical patrons in Canada— story of mismanagement, incapacity, and on the part of some members of the community, idleness. There is an element of amusement in this ; the remainder of the book is melodramatic and not too convincing.

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