THE PRE-WAR WORLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22398, 20 October 1934, Page 4

THE PRE-WAR WORLD

A PUBLISHER’S TRAVEL BOOK ” Two Toung Men See the World.” By Stanley Unwin and Severn Storr. Illustrated. London; Allen and Unwin. (£1 4s net.) Before the war Mr Stanley Unwin, of the well-known publishing house, and Mr Severn Storr, who later became his brother-in-law, made an extensive lour, primarily for the purpose of studying book-selling conditions. But they were young men, as the title states, and consequently curious, energetic, freshly observant and appreciative of all they saw, anxious to do everything there was to be done. Thus, in a day when the Milford track was less developed than now, and Mount Cook seemed more remote than it does with an airfield a-building by the Hermitage, Mr Unwin and Mr Storr visited both these places, made the acquaintance ■of floods, mosquitoes, and glaciers, and even enjoyed a _ few days in Paradise (Lake Wakatipu). All through their tour, which included visits to South Africa, Australia, Japan, and the South Sea Islands, as well as this Dominion, both young men kept their families and friends extremely well posted with its progress, and it is on their letters and journals of the adventure that this book, which now appears somewhat tardily, but in handsome format, is based. And if the volume is a little late in making its appearance the authors have been at pains to record changed conditions as far as possible, while they do not expect that the spirit of the peoples they encountered has altered greatly:— Our colonial communities are too nearly democratic to be threatened by the sudden changes which menace our older civilisations, and although roads, railways, and aeroplanes ; have done much to open up what was practically undeveloped country 20 years ago . . . yet the “ atmosphere,” we feel sure, is still the same. And it is with the colonial “atmosphere” that we are most concerned. . . We hope our book may encourage emigration when the good times return, as they surely will, and that it will give our readers some idea of what the countries described herein are really like; of their general atmosphere and individuality: of their everyday life, and what work is done and under what conditions. Not the least interesting—and. no doubt, illuminating—experience, of the young men was their fairly lengthy stay with relations in a bachelor establishment in South Canterbury, when they gained knowledge at first hand of the work of rouseabouts on a sheep run. The list of dairy house and field activities on a farm gives one an impression that these visitors learned in a few weeks much more about “colonial” life than many an eminent tourist might discover in a prolonger round of New Zealand show places. Sometimes the observations made during this narrative are superficial, as was. perhaps, inevitable from the circumstances- in which it was compiled, but the young men seem to have enjoyed their tour so thoroughly that, even when one would protest that they have missed out the most important point here, or been extremely cursory in fheir investigations there, the book has a quality which comes through to the reader—the mood of ingenuous and wideeyed discovery in which Mr Unwin and Mr Storr made their journey. They must have found the task of editing this work 20 years later extraordinarily revealing and refreshing. “ Two Young Men Sec the World ” is

very fully illustrated by photographs taken by the authors and from later sources. . J* M. A Dickens Dilemma The American News Trade Journal reports the dilemma of a Montreal bookseller who received a request from a woman customer for a signed copy of Dickens’s "The Life of Our Lord.” Shaw on Slum Life The author of “ Children of the Poor ” (a circular from his publishers states) sent a copy of his autobiographical, novel to Bernard Shaw, with the comment that he might as well know.the gutters in addition to the beauties of New Zealand. He received a commendatory letter, written from the Rangitahe, in reply, in ’ which Mr Shaw states, in part: " Your book has a peculiar poignancy as a record -of a life of poverty in the world of the poor, where normal poverty is not disgraceful. The effect is curiously like that of poverty in the world of the well-to-do and the rich. The autobiography of Anthony Trollope, whose father insisted on keeping a butler and sending his unfortunate son to an aristocratic public school when such luxuries were ridiculously beyond his means, is almost as painful as yours. Bunyan in his ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ tells us that Shame was the hardest nuisance to pet rid of among all the pests of the road to the Celestial City; but Bunyans shame was not the shame of poverty (he was quite respectable in his class), but of illicit religion in a world of ‘ shouting roysterers, scoffers, and Church of England conformists. Then there was Dickens, declassed in the blacking factory. Shame again. My only criticism is that you accept the brand too cravenlj-. In vour circumstances and your sisters (it Rose was real) the heroic roles were those of the thief and the whore; and it is one of the merits of the book that it makes them appear so in spite of your conventional shame. Many thanks for letting me read it."