BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16498, 2 August 1924, Page 10

BOOKS AND BOOKMEN.

‘ ‘ AMERICA REVISITED. ’ ’

LORD BIRKENHEAD’S BOOK,

Few public men have the capacity of stating a case quite so succinctly or so engagingly as the Ear' of Birenhead. He leaves the ordinary mind with little excuse for confusing any issue which he muy present to it, or for missing the implications that have forced themselves upon his uncommonly acute perception. “America Revisited” will not lessen the reputation for direct expression which the ex-Ohanccllor has won for himself. It is written with evident sincerity and in a tone of eager appreciation of and friendliness for a great people. Lord Birkenhead acknowledges handsomely the personal debt with which he left America, as he does the immense obligation which the civilised world incurred for that whole-hearted .and sacrificial zeal which made the American war effort so overwhelming in its effect. There could scaroly be a fairer or more tolerant summing lip 01 Hie American attitude, for erca.r.pie, than that contained in the following lines of the preface' of America Revisited. Lord Birkenhead, after a reference to llie memorable conditions of his war visit to the United States, writes: “Tt would have been unreasonable, on a visit paid at a moment, of unavoidable war reaction and disillusionment, to hope that one might recapture all the spirit of (lie old. days. There exists in America to-day a great and general apprehension that the country may still be entangled in European politics. And this apprehension is strengthened by the unfavorable view most Americans have adopted of the present tendency of those politics. In the first place, they are not naturally well informed a? to the nuances of the latest European developments. They see around, them little evidence of European resettlement ; everywhere they hear of wars and rumors of wars; they see no promise of a fresh dawn; and in the gloom which perhaps precedes the dawn they congratulate themselves once more that they rejected the rosy and glowing visions of President Wilson.” THE BLOOD TIE. Thi's attitude, the Earl of Birkenhead makes haste to point out, is consistent with a very sincere spirit of friendship to Britain. The extent of that friendship must not, however, be exaggerated. To many millions in the United States it is still hardly a recommendation to a visitor that he should be an Englishman. The talk, so popular a few years back, of blood being thicker than, water, is more plainly than ever obsolete after an added mass of immigration from Germany, Italy, Scandinavia and Ireland. The conditions of our friendship with the United States the author summarises in the following way: Many of their citizens have inherited our' blood and share the traditions of the England of Shakespeare and Milton. Many others arc in broad agreement with our outlook upon world affairs. Almost all educated Americans, whether our friends or not, have a generous admiration for the history, achievement, and traditions of a country so small; of which the population during, that achievement has been relatively so inconsiderable. Bui these, and these alone, are the considerations, which we must treat as actual, and, as ever in human affairs, that which is actual is, on the whole, more important than that which is sentimental. Lord Birkenhead’s asides on American- life and manners are interesting, On his authority we may at last give all credence to- the astonishing revolution which has been going on in the United States in the last decade or so. Relaxations are at last permitted in the dreadful round of money-making which we had come to.regard as the inevitable lot of the American business man. A sane and equable philosophy of life has come with the phenomenal rise in popularity of golf. Gone .ire the thousands of febrile dyspeptics who accumulated vast fortunes before the age of 50, and too often left them for the enjoyment of their wives and beautiful daughters. They have vanished, in this bloodless revolution, victims in the swathe, not of grape-shqt, but of the mashic-niblick. PROHIBIT! OX.

Prohibition donmnds, and is conceded, a chapter of its own. Lord Birkenhead can he assumed to have heard all shades of American opinion on the subject, for he records that hardly a meal passed in the course of his three 'months’ visit when the subject could he successfully avoided. The prohibition campaign, he says, might not have .succeeded but for a curious combination of conditions. First, it presented itself to a big section of reasonable opinion as a convenient but risky method of dynamiting the disreputable saloons of the great cities. Secondly, it gained the support of the -employers of labor. As to its effects, he admits that, the working classes probably do better work than before, but he points out the notorious fact that alcohol has not been expelled from the country, and that access to it is largely a matter of money and wits. , Most damaging evidence against the efficacy of prohibition is to bo found in the contempt which it/ has inspired for the law. Bo far, the results of the experiment justify .the conclusion that “a law which intolerantly imposes upon adult citizens an abstinence they dislike by prescriptions which they consider tyrannous, can never effect a permanent improvomen in human morals.” Lord Birkenhead is America’s very candid friend in pointing out to her her responsibility in Europe, but he admits that any proposals comparable with President Wilson’s have been rejected for all time by the American people. He is certain, however, of the existence of a great and growing body of opinion in the country which will insist on that responsibility being recognised by any method which does not conflict with a principle of foreign .policy that they regard as axiomatic. CANADA’S FUTURE. Of Canada the Earl of Birkenhead treats in a glowing chapter. He has no doubt of her superb future —“ultimately as stupendous as that of the United .States.” A more rapid development in population would bring to the Dominion a swift and very great accession of wealth. It is a great

problem, and the solution of it ought not to be beyond the contrivance of statesmen. One thing is essential. “A strong committee of British and Canadian experts, with branches both at Home and in the Dominion, must make it their business to see that the right kind of emigrant is sent to the right kind of place.” One of the most sprightly and characteristic chapters' is {hat iu which Lord Birkenhead laments the disappearance, as a step to inter-imperial trade, of the general tariffs—hissed off the stage not because the play was bad. he says, but because some of the performers did not know their parts, and because the audience, too suddenly convened, did not know what it was about. But the Socialist party, be declares. is on this subject not only open to conviction, but bound to be convinced.

ZOLA MEMORIAL,

INAUGURATION IN PARIS,

PARIS, Juno 17.—The inauguration of the monument to Emile Zola was to-day made tho occasion of something like a political demonstration. M. Harriot, and all the members of his Cabinet were there, and police measures had been taken in ease of an antij demonstration organised by those who ! wore opponents of “J’accuse.” Thousands assembled round the monument, and a number of speeches were delivered. M. Paul Boncour, one of the Socialist leaders, recalled how Zola demanded an amnesty for all political prisoners, and the liberation of prisoners confined in the penal settlements of Africa. M. Brunot, President of the Oonseil-General of the Seine, held that the work of Zola was a triumph for justice. Tho crowd demanded a speech from M. Herriot. The new Premier, who had previously laid a wreath on the toiqb of the Unknown Poliu, declared that, convinced of the necessity of joining the laws of politics to the laws of morality, they would remain faithful the doctrines which they had defended in order to merit the places they were now in. Zola, he said, had been fought in tho name of pretended patriotism, but it was not in this way that Franco ought to be considered. For them France was the highest moral person in the world. It was thus that they represented her, and it was thus that they would dofciul hor. Zola was called a realist, but they regarded him as an idealist, one of those men who put humanity above ordinary mediocrity. In tho afternoon there was a big demonstration at the Pantheon, where Zola is buried. It was attended by members of the League of the Rights of Man, trade unions of the Heine, Masonic lodges, etc. A bust of Zola was placed in the nave, and the groups laid palms and flowers upon it. There was an imposing commemorative ceremony at tlie Troeadero tonight. Several of the principal artists of the leading theatres contributed to the programme, arid speeches were delivered on Zola, the citizen and tbc writer. An act of the Zola play, “ L ’Assommoir, ’ ’ was performed. A SEA STORY. » “Olclcal,” by Dale Collins. —The name of the author is familiar as-an ' Australian journalist and the writer of the Sen Tracks of the Spec jacks, the j little American '< craft on which Mr. ! Collins wont for a voyage. In Ordeal ! he lias written a grim sea story, brutal I in strength, arid- reeking of tlie foul , and loose language of the forecastle. The scene of this thrilling narrative is tile schooner Spray; Professor Thorpe, lured by the romance of a voyage from Honolulu to New York by way of the Panama Canal, purchased the rickettv Spray, and goes 1o sea witli Viola, his wife, Dorothy Daley; her aunt, Lady Daley, and Ynzoy Howard, a gilded youth. The 'little crew includes two men of shadowed lives, a cocaine-chained mate, with a broken, career, and a steward who -is one of live most appalling villains of sea fiction, arid they are many. The Spray becomes becalmed, and in the enforced inaction the characters of the little company Vapidly disintegrate. With the ex,’eoption off Lady Dgley, and in a lesser degree Dorothy Daley, the whole company arc people with characters bordering on weakness. Ted, the oiie,eared- steward, is seized with the idea of dominating everybody, and he does ■it with devilish skill,-and some ter;riblo consequences. From every personage in tlie company the habilaments of conventionality are stripped, particularly the professor’s beautiful 'wife, who descends to tho primitive. The whole of tho characters are vividly drawn—too vividly to be decent, we think —and their subjection- to the savage, ironical steward is sensation<allv dramatic. At times the fear and ■misery off the bedevilled pleasureseekers recall that “party in. parflour, all silent, and all damned, ”, under the influence of the fell steward, whose shadow darkens the stricken ship and the souls of all oil board. Imagination, tonsc narrative skill, deiscrijjtivo power, and'dranmtic force mark a story of sensational incident, which is still more striking for its ruthless surgery of character. Mr. 'Dale Collins deliberately set out to. serve, up strong meat, and does so. Our copy is from Angus and Roffert;son;