NEW BOOKS.

Otago Witness, Issue 4069, 8 March 1932, Page 64

NEW BOOKS.

IN THE REIGN OF TERROR. “A Child of the Revolution.” By Baroness Orczy. (Cloth; 65.) London, Melbourne, and Sydney: Cassell and Co., Ltd. This is the story which Sir Percy Blakeney, Bart., told to his Royal Highness that evening in the Assembly Rooms at Bath. The talk was of the recent events in France, the astounding fall of Robespierre; the change in the whole aspect of the unfortunate country; and his Royal Highness expressed his opinion that amongst all those men who had made and fostered the Revolution, there was not one who was anything but a scoundrel, a reprobate, a murderer, and a worker of iniquity. Sir Percy then remarked: “I would not say that, sir. I have known men ” “You, Blakeney?” his Royal Highness broke in, with an incredulous laugh. “ Even I. sir. May I tell you of one, at least, whose career I happened to follow with groat interest? ” And that is how the story came to be told.

In these words we are introduced to “A Child of the Revolution,” a story which never flags, and is always pregnant with pathos, cruelty, and the hopes and tragedy which always accompany revolution. It is chiefly the life story of Andre Vallon, a son of the people, and of Aurore de Marigny, daughter of an aristocrat. Incidentally, it also lays bare some of the leading incidents of the French Revolution. Andre, the enfant terrible of the village, always in scrapes, was loved by all for his handsomeness and dare-devilry; she, living a sheltered life in the old chateau, the idol of her old father the Due. They met once in childhood, and the memory of this meeting, idealised and treasured in his mind, became the salvation of Andre and also of Aurore. Andre becomes a pupil of Danton, and himself an avocat; comes the Revolution, and Andre joins the army, earns renown, loses an arm, and comes home invalided. There are local troubles; the old Due, inspired by his rascally bailiff, makes reprisals on the village, in which Andre’s mother is killed. Then the story moves swiftly. We have scenes between aristos and the canaille, the invasion of the chateau, and Andre and Aurore meet again. The drama of the Revolution becomes secondary to the dramatic story of these two. Baroness Orczy has done nothing better. The romance of Andre Vallon and Aurore de Marigny is poignant in its intensity of human emotion.

Baroness Orczy has never written an uninteresting book. In the one before us she reveals again her mastery of the art of historical presentation of outstanding incidents in a great drama. She shows us Andre, the boy—in this case very literally the father of the man —and his brave old mother. We become familiar with the village in which they live, and share the increasing poverty of the pre-revolution period. On the one hand, the growing taxation which grinds the poor, and, on the other, luxury as personified in that village by the chateau. We become aquainted with the priest, trying to ease the portion of suffering. And then the great overwhelming tide of intolerance and butchery.

It is better not to tell the details of the association of revolutionary Andre and the aristocratic Aurore. This is the centre of the book, and is so well done that we would prefer the reader to approach it without knowledge of either detail or sequel. Both suffer intensely—lie in the dreams of a better world; she for the passing of the old regime and the great change in her life. There are poignant moments. When the revolution, which Andre had helped to make, claimed him for a trial which in the ordinary course of events meant certain condemnation and the guillotine, the story reaches a climax of dramatic force. Especially when the fall of Robespierre is interwoven with this event. Those who like movement and intensity in their fiction will find much to satisfy in “A Child of the Revolution.”

IN THE NAME OF EQUALITY. “ The Conscription of a People.” By the Duchess of Atholl, M.P. (Cloth; illustrated; 7s 6d net.) London: Philip Allan. Since the revolution of October, 1917, Soviet Russia has been the scene of the most tremendous drama the world has known. Such glimpses as have been permitted by strict Government control of speech, press, and intercourse with foreign countries, has shown that Russia has carried through revolution on a scale which knows no parallel, and which, even after 13 years, is as ruthless as in its early days. She has undermined marriage, and is

rapidly breaking up family life. .She wages ceaseless war on religion. She is responsible for the most comprehensive and continuous experiment in the nationalisation of industry, banking, and trade that has ever been seen.

In these unequivocal terms the Duchcsr, of Atholl opens her book of revelation, For each of her definite conclusions she gives an authority, and these can bo checked by all who desire to test the accuracy of her case. While reading this book a well-known citizen of Auckland returned from a world tour. It is interesting to find his conclusions in harmony with those formed by the duchess on wholly dif-. ferent lines of investigation. ‘The Five-Year Plan is not a myth, it is not in itself propaganda, but is an earnest effort to co-ordinate and rationalise a whole nation, as Henry Ford has a single manufacturing plant,’’ said the New Zealander. “ In other words, Stalin proposes to make a capitalist State of which he himself is to be tho ruthless dictator, and the Russian peoplo are to be the forced workers at whatever Communist wage or standard of living he decides they shall have. This wage at present is extremely low, so that his capitalist State may be able to undersell its other capitalist competitors in wheat, oil, and timber.

“ We hear much about the dictatorship of the proletariat, but it is a misnomer, for there is no such thing. In Russia, it is a dictation to the proletariat, A man is told where he shall work, how long he shall work, and what wages he shall receive. The workman is more a slave to a ruthless State under Communism than any man is or ever has been to capitalism, in spite of the fact that the term ‘ wage slave ’ is so often used by agitators in other countries.

“Coming back to our hotel about mid. night, attracted by much hammering. J looked through the windows of the basement we were passing, and saw it was a plumbing workshop, employing about a dozen men in the manufacture of spouting brackets, etc., by hand. All factories in Russia work right through the night, although no extra pay is given for night work. “At one end of• the factory were eight beds, on which men lay asleep in their clothes, so I asked our guide why they were sleeping there. ‘ Oh,’ she said, ‘ they are men drafted in from the country, and so they live and sleep where they work.’ As the beds were in full view of the street, the floor of the basement being about six feet below the pavement, and there were no blinds, they could not possibly undress, so I suppose they simply wore their clothes for the six months until they were allowed to return to their farms again. This would be quite in order, as cleanliness is by no means part of the Communist doctrine in Russia.” The Duchess of Atholl reviews the development of forced labour in its various phases, from partial to complete conscription. To-day the process appears to have reached a point where liberty of choice of occupation or location has completely vanished. Desertion is cruelly punished, and the chains of industrial bondage are firmly riveted. The earlier labour codes which were devised to give the worker certain definite rights have been largely abrogated by the enactment of still more definite penalties. “Piecework has now been made universal even on the railways; night shifts are to be as long as day ones, though paid one-seventh higher; wages are to be paid out of working hours, and activities other than directly productive ones during such hours are sternly forbidden. Workers are to be made financially liable for keeping machinery and factory overalls in good condition, and managers have been empowered to transfer workers for a month from one factory- or task to another. Any worker refusing to comply may be dismissed, a penalty which would prevent engagement in State industry or transport for six months.” In the absence of private employers in some industries, this is equivalent to a sentence of starvation.

The seven-hour day is proving a myth. At the best, it applied only to a minority. Now “ the Communist Party has decided that an hour’s ‘ compulsory practice ’ to improve each worker’s technical qualification is to be added to the seven hours without any extra pay, and the docile Trade Union Council is engaged on popularising the proposal.” Stalin admits that the peasant can no longer be recruited voluntarily for industry. “In future, therefore, collective farms must enter into regular contracts to supply the various trusts with the necessary workers —a system which will make these farms more than ever traps for the ensnaring of men and women for forced labour. Further efforts are to be made to tie down skilled workers in their factories by greater differentiation in pay between skilled and unskilled, and between severe and lighter tasks.” Her Grace points out that “undoubtedly the heaviest link in the chain which enslaves the Russian worker, and which grows steadily heavier, is the scarcity of food.” And in Russia, as elsewhere, scarcity means an almost prohibitive price. Under the Czarist regime Siberia was a place for punishment. To-day it is a place of suffering. The timber workers in Siberia live on rations. These consist, for men workers, of “21b a day of black bread and hot soup twice daily —others had only 12ioz of ‘ soiled bread * per day, seven ‘ small herrings every

ten days, and a few grammes of pearled grain.’ . . . The barracks in which men, women, and children were packed ‘ were small and dirty, lacking all sanitary accommodation.’ The working day was 14 to 15 hours. Almost all the children and old people had died within a month or two of reaching Siberia. “ And in the forests deported children from the age of 12 have been doing compulsory labour as usual, with an allotted task.” It is a tragic narrative, and in its essentials it has been endorsed by other Writers. The promise of emancipation by means of the Five-Year Plan has impressed the world. Something has been achieved in the way of national accomplishment, but the sum of human misery accompanying it is great enough to seriously discount such material advantages as may be measured by human standards. Such things as are practised and tolerated in Russia could only happen in a land where a large proportion are inured to * suffering, and where liberty is not understood. No other people on the face of the earth would endure the cruelties and dictation embodied in th? present dictatorship. “ The Conscription of a People ” is a book which impresses the memory, and records in its pages a record of bondage comparable only to the days when slavery was the settled order.

AN ARTISTIC QUARTERLY. * Art in New Zealand Vol. IV. No. 15. (Paper; Gs.) Wellington: Harry H. Tombs, Ltd.

This March number of a quarterly which, issue by issue, commands the respect anew is a very satisfying publication dealing with several subjects in general, and James Crowe Richmond, M.L.C., in particular. “For the subject of our art feature in this number we have harked back to the days when New’ Zealand history was in its swaddling clothes,” says the editorial. “ That subject, James Crowe Richmond, apart altogether from his work as an artist, had a career in public life which w’as unique in this country even for the times in which he lived.” The article by Esmond Atkinson on “The Art of J. C. Richmond ” includes a biography contributed by Miss D. K. Richmond in which the historical facts of her father’s life are set out, the critical and appreciative analysis of J. C. Richmond’s art which follows bearing much on his life and showing how each reacted on the other. Four illustrations in colour, among them being “ Dunedin ” and “From Accommodation House opposite Bealey,” and eight in black and white offer valuable practical examples of the artist's work. The whole is of extreme interest.

Other sections in the magazine have a like appeal. For instance, the result of the poem competition recently organised by Art in New Zealand and the prize poem itself, “ The Apple Bough,” by J. C. Beaglehole, are given; “Thoughts Prompted by a Trip to Europe ” is a description by Richard O. Gross of modern sculpture as compared with the sculpture of last century; while “ Church and Art ” is a masterly article by Francis Shurrock, originally delivered as an address at St. Michael’s Church, Christchurch, and made all the more interesting by reason of the four reproductions of Francis Shurrock’s sculpture with which it is supplemented. There are also a London letter by Russell Reeve, a review of the Murray Fuller exhibition of pictures, notes on art and repertory movements in New Zealand, and three poems, one by Betty Knell and two by residents of Dunedin, Marna Service and C. R. Allen.