NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20425, 29 November 1929, Page 12

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

WHY BOOKS ARE PRINTED. "A popular best-seller is a book written by a sincore author whose talent is greater than the common talent, but whoso tastes are similar to the popular tastes," says Mr. Frank Swinnerton, in the Fortnightly Review. "Tho best seller occurs only when author, publisher and public aro in accord. Just as you cannot make silk purses out of sows' ears, so you cannot mako bestsellers out of an act of condescension.

. . . The reason why the majority of books seo tho light is that tho publisher of each book believes, or has been led to hope, that this particular book is a good book. He may or may not oxpect to mako money upon it, but if he hopes to make money tho hopo is not discreditable to him, since the publisher is in business for business purposes. And tho publisher frequently publishes a book upon which ho knows ho will loso money. He publishes that book because ho wants to publish it. Ho thinks it is a good book and he believes that what ho thinks is good will appoal to other readers. In this he is generally right. . . Fourteen thousand books are published each year. Wo know that very few of them are good books. But we do not know the littlo human story behind each title. If we did wo might blame the publishers for some failures in guardianship or in taste, in commercial sense or a perception of tho popular need, but we could scarcely hold the view that publishers were heartless persons. For it is out of the fulness of their hearts that publishers flood our tables with fourteen thousand new books per annum. In many cases they do this without prospect of gain."

THE AUSTRALIAN SENATE. Discussing the work of the Senate in the Commonwealth Parliament, the Sydney Morning Herald says that notoriously it has not fulfilled the role assigned to it by the Constitution. This was to represent the States as such and protect their interests. The Senate was created primarily to allay the fears of the States that they would be absorbed or overridden by the national Government. That this Chamber is the House of the States is the reason of the equality of representation and is its only justification. But if the Senate does not discharge the function designed for it, the justification of the equality of representation disappears. It becomes 1 quite anomalous that Tasmania and Western Australia, with populations of 216,500 and 405,800 respectively, should elect as many senators as Victoria and New South Wales, with 1,760,900 and 2,445,200. Theoretically party issues should not influence members of the Senate. They should vote as South Australians or Queenslanders and so forth, not as Nationalists or Labour supporters. The consideration which should guide them is whether a measure will be detrimental to the States. But, except on the rare occasions when a party hostile to the Government has a majority in the Senate, the latter has been, in the main, a replica of the other Chamber. Bills sent to it receive its endorsement almost automatically. Anyone could have foreseen that the Navigation Act was bound to prejudice Tasmania, Western Australia, and, though to a lesser extent, Queensland. Whatever their political complexion might be, senators from those States should have fought the bill tooth and nail. Senators from other States, out of " esprit de corps " and loyalty to principle, should have helped them to resist it. When the bill came before the Scnato it should have been defeated unanimously. It was carried. It is probably impossible for the Senato now to retrace its steps and turn into the path which the Constitution meant it to follow. The party habit is now so ingrained that it is hardly likely to bo abandoned.

THE I FRENCH NAVY. According to a recent cablegram tho Italian Government has proposed absoluio naval parity with Franco, but tho French Minister of the Navy has stated that

" France will never accept naval parity with Italy." This development was predicted in last month's issue of tho Review of Reviews, which pointed out that Franco can advanco arguments analogous to those by which Britain claims a relative preponderance of smaller cruisers over tho United States. "By tho main Locarno Treaty, Great Britain undertook to help Germany against Franco in caso of French aggression, and to help 1* ranee against Germany in caso of German aggression. A British Government is, therefore, debarred, morally and practically, from entering into special naval arrangements in favour of France. Consequently, in theory at any rate, and on tho hypothesis that war is conceivable, Franco has to provide for the defenco of her coasts in tho north and on tho west, and also in tho Mediterranean, without losing sight of her maritime communications with Tunis, Algiers, Morocco, West Africa, and her possessions in tho Jar East. In the Mediterranean she is confronted with Italian naval forces equal, if not superior, to her own. These Italian forces can bo constantly kept on the French sido of the Italian Peninsula, since no danger threatens Italy in tho Adriatic fiom Greek, Albanian or Yugoslav fleets. Wore France to accept rigid naval parity with Italy, her naval authorities might claim that sho was being placed in a position of manifest inferiority, since the wholo Iberian Peninsula lies botween her squadrons in tho North Sea or on tho Atlantic coasts and those required to protect her southern shores and Mediterranean communications. In this contention there would bo a force which Great Britain and tho United States c<pild hardly ignore. Common sense may, therefore, require that somo means should be devised to give France effective parity with Italy in the Mediterranean, while taking account of Jier legitimate requirements in other seas."