"BATHROOM UTOPIA."

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18380, 21 April 1923, Page 9

"BATHROOM UTOPIA."

» ——-■ MR. WELLS' NEW BOOK. AUTHOR AND HIS CRITIC LONDON. April 9. '£. fierce controversy is raging between H. G. Wells, the author, and the Daily Herald, the Labour ;■ paper arising oat of the paper's review of the Utopian novel by Mr. Wells, "Men Like Gods." , / : The book was ridiculed by the Daily Herald's reviewer, who declared the Utopia drawn by Mr. Wells : was like an immense white-tiled bathroom. Mr. Wills claims his book deals with broad ideas underlying the Socialist movement, and resents the reviewer playing the fool with it. The reviewer replied there was no place in Mr. Wells' Utopia for the author's bad temper, h Returning to the charge. Mr. Wells says every fool can say every Utopia is too perfect, in which he might feel boorish discomfort. Alleged coldness and inhumanity are the stock argument of reactionaries against every scheme for betterment. It is clear, therefore, that the glorious fun of people falling in cesspools, ; enriching the Elizabethan-Stuart literature, j fades from life, and there isn't nearly so much joy and laughter about pimples, the deaf and lame, and village idiots. If the reviewer is still deliriously thrilled at thinking that a panther gets three or four children weekly in India, that, too, may be taken from him. Referring to the accusation of bad temper, Mr. Wells says he is in the best possible temper. He declares the review is hasty, slovenly, and trivial. There is no criticism, only pert remarks. He attacks the paper's; want of literary criticism, a '. It is revealed the publishers refused to supply a copy of the book to the paper, owing to reviews of such books not appearing in the Daily Herald. The copy was sent only after 2S. Wells' intervention. The author adds: " The whole matter raises , the question whether the paper is even trying to be the medium of intellectual co-operation with the active minds of the Labour movement." ■ •