A LITERARY CORNER

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 11786, 24 March 1924, Page 3

A LITERARY CORNER

(R.A.L.) “BRASSEY’S NAVAL ANNUAL.” Various editors and writers. (AV. Clowes and Son, 94, Jermyn street, London, S.W.) The improvements made after the war in this publication, which has now reached its thirty-fourth annual issue, still continue with the best effects. One of the finest of the many chapters of this one is the chapter devoted to the Battle of Jutland. After seven years the controversy raging round that very muoh-disoussed and very little understood battle are as unsettled as ever. Naturally, for the Navy when it takes up anything divides itself al- ? -ay S into two camps, and neither of them gives any quarter or has a good erd to say about any one in the other, and neither ever thinks of retreating from a fiction—(grown out of circumstances, not out of any malevoj c ?L. an y^ ere —when a fact is disclos- . ■ We all know the hopeless confusion •nto which the naval experts have reduced the battle of Jutland’. That this result is due in large measure to the want of the necessary information is well understood. After the war, howover, the censorship was relaxed sufficiently for the disclosure of the facts, and most of these have been given to the public, so that at last it is possible som e definite idea of what did actually happen on that fateful 31st day of May, 1916. The Annual's chapter on Jutland makes a fine effort to retrieve the truth. Neither division JS j » I l aval disputants will be satisu?' 4 n “ tlle general public will feel obliged to reconsider most of the verdicts delivered with such charming but reckless patriotism during the last seven years The new judgment is too long to follow in detail and too complicated. The sum of it is this: —Beatty in hie preliminary action with Hipper had by far the strongest force, and because the force was not keot together tor an effective blow, and because the scouting duties of its squadrons were not proeprly performed Beatty was outfought and beaten badly, losing the r,i re ? great cruisers “Queen Mary,” Jndefahgable” and “Inflexible.” Most or these shortcomings were not the tault of the Admiral; as these final judgment providers are careful to point out. Nevertheless the effect of tho judgment will be to deprive Admiral Beatty of the legendary reputation he has (been carrying since the great battle. that the loss of the three great battle-cruisers was in part due to structural causes. To these the German ships, as well as our own were subject at the start of the war. But the battle in the Heligoland Bight—when the Blucher was sunk by Beattv’s squadron—gave the Germans a knowledge of the effects of high angle fire ivhich enabled them to take measures against the consequences. In this the British were not so well informed, and therefore they suffered as soon as they got into closer range at Jutland. But even with full understanding of this it is clear that had 1 the British tactics concentrated the ships better the result might have been different. n I”!'- r cff cct of the judgment is to rehabilitate Admiral Jelliooe against the mauling administered to him by the naval critics of the opposite camp. Again the judgment is too long to follow in detail. Its effect is (1) that the Grand Fleet when it closed was brought into action by the very best possible mode of development; (2) his turning away from the attack of the destroyers in their torpedoing advance was only what any admiral of ordinary prudence would have done under the ciroumstances. and what every admiral —including Beatty—did often during the war and some of them in this very battle of Jutland: (3) that Admiral Jelliooe was very imperfectly informed of things which ought to have been wirelessed to him at the moment of tneir happening, and that very fully. It was therefore to his credit that he, With so little information at such a late hour and in darkness aggravated by the weather conditions, developed his fleet so well. How well is shown by the fact that in thirty-five minutes he did as much damage to the enemy as Hipper did on his side in the fiftythree minutes of his engagement with Beatty. The other chapters are very useful to the student of naval affairs, more particularlv the chapters on aviation, which are well up to date. The information about foreign navies and merchant services is very complete. “ROBERT OWEN.” F. Pasmore. (Allen and Unwin, London.) This very fine biography was first published in 1906. To-day it is very much in demand by reason of the splendid handling of the details of a life most interesting to the world at large, and the socialists in particular. Bo these latter, or very many of the more modern variety, the hook brings a lesson showing them how far they have wandered from the faith of the original designer of the cult.

"THE SAGA OF SALLY BIRD.” Grot Lane. (Herbert Jenkins, London.) One of the wittiest' and breeziest stories of the year. Felicities of description abound on every page, and epigrams hover near and about the surface. everywhere. The writing leads the reader in a compulsion for which he feels grateful, and the incidents succeed one another in glorious profusion. Not a dull moment between tbo first and the last pages. “THE UNDYING PAST.” Mrs P. Mac Gill. (Herbert Jenkins, London.) It is a story in this lady’s wellknown manner. Direct, abrupt with sketchy hits of character for the most part conventional, and the difficulties over which virtue triumphs, are as ever phenomenal. “TOKOLOGY.” Alice Stockbam, M.D. (Angus and Robertson, Melbourne.) A hook for women for tlieir instruction and guidance in every relation of life. Good, sound advice without any pandering to ideas that are too fashionable to suit tho minds of strict moralists. “HOME NURSING.” J. Harcenape. (The Unity Press, Auckland.) Nurse Haresnape, a member of the New Zealand Trained Nurses’ Association, has put together a book invaluable in every household fortunate enough to get hold of a copy. The reader will know what to <li» m a sick room and how to do it, null learn the right treatment when there is any fear of infectious disease, and how to distinguish between the long list thereof; treatments and dressings, and handlings are dealt with instructively, every practical thing in the nursing art will be learnt easily from these very convenient and much-nes&ad

pages. No household ought to be without it. “GAVIN DOUGLAS.” John Sillars. (Blackwood and Sons,. London and Edinburgh.) How a boy of a Spartan upbringing without the care of women becomes a man and almost superman is here told remarkably well, with knowledge of men and women and a style refreshing and vigorous. Life in dreams on an island in one of the Scottish forths; the awakening when a young lady, charming and virtuous without convention, and as wilful as £he Spartan boy for lack of proper training; life in the desert among Arab tribes somewhere in the land of,'Hur, with a deposed Sultan who joins the forces of Allenby, wins back his cTown and gets a charming wife into the bargain, with the final love scenes of the episode begun so strangely on the Scottish island—all this makes an absorbing story, romantic and readable. “THE LOVING AND THE DARING.” Holman Day. (Robertson and Mullens, Melbourne, for Harper Brothel’S, Now York.) This is a great story of love and daring enacted in the great wilds of northern Canada, the country so much beloved of the recent romancers who have not yet exhausted its possibilities, and have almost persuaded their hundreds of thousands of readers to go awandering under the stam and the forests and into the snows of that beautiful but dreadful wilderness. Of course no one can get at large in that region without being greatly daring. 4nd no Woman could follow in hie footsteps without being greatly loving as well os greatly daring. The adventures <f two people illustrate these principles in a most attractive way.' “THE WAGON WHEEL.”W. Patterson. (Little, Brown, Boston, per Robertsan and Mullens, Melbourne.) Cruelty even to women and murder as a not too fine art with briberies and corruptions involving sheriffs and law officers and agents in charge of Indian reserves, and of course judges and magistrates, make up the staple of this story, together with all and sundry the things in which the typical “cowboy” of America excels. Justice is done at last—which is well indeed, for the rescue of a handsome plucky high-prin-cipled young maid from the hands of a gang of most diabolical scoundrels would have been otherwise impossible. All the local colour and atmosphere expected in stories of this kind by numerous readers who know what these things are on paper, written upon artistically in the western manner, are supplied in the right proportion. “THE FLINT HEART.” • Eden Phillpotts. (Australian Publishing Co., Sydney.) A fairy story—and this is a thing of that delicate kind—defies criticism,satisfying the uncritical—those who have learnt criticisms with its jargons without the aid of definitions and understandable rules. The reader takes what comes with thankfulness, and when the art of presentation is good then he is happy indeed. Besides it always feels good to be put on the level of the little ones with their fresh rounded eyes and their perpetual unexhausted wonder. Between * ‘Jack-and-the-Beanstalk” and the immortal “Alice” there are many varieties of fairies, and there are fairies who even appeal to grown ups. Here the reader must make his own choice of place.