PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24254, 23 March 1940, Page 4

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

Poems in Adversity Dorothy Donaldson was one of. those rare beings with an unconquerable soul; to whom adversity, which would be all but unbearable to most of us, presented merely the incentive to appreciate what is good in life, and to seek to pass on the discovery to others. While still young she became, both deaf and blind, but her quick interest in the world about her remained. In My Silent World (A. H. and A. W. Reed) tributes to the memory of this brave Oamaru girl, and to her gift of friendship, are paid by two men who knew her well, the Rev. W. Lawson Marsh, of Oamaru, and-Mr J. W. Shaw, of Auckland, who introduce the thirty poems in the little volume. The blind girl's love of life and nature, and unfailingly cheerful disposition, shine through the simple, lyrical verses in the book, and their spirit may well prove an inspiration to others afflicted, when the world weighs heaviest on their shoulders. A Link With London The history of New Zealand in the hundred years of her modern development could hardly be written without constant reference to the line of ships which fly The Flag of the Southern Cross. Under this title Frank C. Bowen has written a history of the Shaw Savill and Albion Company, which contains a full record of the company's growth—" a remarkable combination it provides of romance and practical prosperity," Lord Runciman declares in a preface—and its connection with that of the Dominion. This handsome publication is very fully illustrated, the pictures including Mason's study of Dunedin leaving Port Chalmers Heads on February 15, 1882, with the first frozen meat to leave these shores. This important occasion receives full treatment in the volume, and it is mentioned that owing to a breakdown in the refrigerating plant the first consignment of meat had to be unloaded and sold at the port. Thus the first consumers of New Zealand frozen meat were the New Zealanders themselves.

A Standard Work As a comprehensive account of the Dominion's plant life which is at once scientifically accurate and of direct interest and use to the layman. Laing and Blackwell's Plants of New Zealand (Whitcombe and Tombs, £1 Is) has no serious rival. A fourth edition of this standard work is now published, which has been thoroughly revised, taking account, among other things, of interchanges in the names of some well-known plants under the "inflexible laws of priority." A few additional species are introduced, notably Xeronema Callistemon, a beautiful lilaceous plant which is found only on a few almost inaccessible islands off the east coast of Auckland. It is among those depicted in colour, among the number of fine illustrations in the new edition.

Workers and Industry In the New Zealand Economist and Taxpayer there appeared recently a series of articles in which a precis was made of a book by a French workman, Hyacinthe Dubreuil, on the creation of a new structure in industrial relations. The Employee-Partnership Institute has now issued this " digest" in booklet form under the original title, A Chance for Everybody (H. Valder, Hamilton. Is). M. Dubreuil, after examining defects in the present structure, and rejecting with vigour state control ("etatisme") as an alternative, finds in the " self-governing (or autonomous) group" a method of recovering the craft-spirit in industry, re-enlisting the whole being of the worker in his job, and replacing the "soul-destroying wage system by a vitalising system of payment by ' result' in the broadest of senses."

The Fowlers The recent death of A. J. Fowler closes the literary history of a family which has laboured for the Oxford Press since the early years of this century It is now nearly 40 years since the nost, one morning in Walton street, revealed to the inspection of the Delegates' secretary (the late Charles Cannan) and his young assistant (now Sir Humphrey Milford) a translation of Lucian's " Dialogues " by two unknown authors, so brilliant in execution that no question of cost or of saleability was allowed to interfere with its publication. The translators were found to be Oxford men. retired schoolmasters living in the Channel Islands. They soon followed up their first.effort by another in a different field, and "The King's English" by H. W. and F. G. Fowler became almost at once the classical work of reference that it still is. The brothers were soon engaged to abridge the Oxford Dictionary, and the result was. and is. the " Concise Oxford Dictionary." The war stopped their labours and was the death of the vounger. But H. W F. lived to be. though never to seem, an old man. and to produce first the "Pocket Oxford Dictionary " and next the " Dictionary of Modern English Usage." Finally he conceived and in part executed an " unconcise " dictionary. In this undertaking he sought the help of another brother. A. J. Fowler, and of his friend Lieutenant-colonel H. G. le Mesurier. of the Royal Engineers. The work is now far advanced, and every effort will be made so to coniDlete it that it may be a worthy memorial of three unselfish scholars