POLITICS OF OIL.

Southland Times, Issue 22074, 22 July 1933, Page 11

POLITICS OF OIL.

A Cynical Novel. Those people who are thoroughly convinced that all financiers are rogues and international financiers are superrogues will enjoy the partial adventure into oil and money told in Robert Neumann’s “Mammon.” Neumann is not an impersonal novelist. He invariably sides with and agaiiist his characters, and, however thrilling, however brilliant his novels may be they are robbed of their chance of greatness in their sphere by the author’s inability to keep his hand out of it. This was noticeable in the earlier novels that made an impression, and it is potent, too, in “Mammon,” which treats of the efforts of Prince Karachan, a Georgian, to gain and hold control of Georgia and its oil wells. Some of the events in connection with the oil industry of that peculiar country sound more like a comic opera with a macabre slant than cold facts of the twentieth century, and Robert Neumann has used something of this in the early part of “Mammon,” when thirty-two Caucasian princes in 1929 revolt and occupy Tiflis, long enough for the issue of a proclamation launching the slogan “Georgia for the Georgians.” Unhappily Bolshevist troops with machine guns and flame-throwers quickly end the trouble and the Caucasian princes are dispersed before they have time to fight among themselves. Whether such a revolt ever took place one is not in a position to say, but Neumann uses it as an introduction and to send Karachan to Geneva to treat with the international financiers. Prince George, who escaped from a prison in Batum, went there to plead Georgia’s cause before the League of Nations. Delays and ponderous discussions while the financiers are working behind the scenes give Neumann a chance to allow his cynical pen to run energetically, and then Karachan meets with Albert Rosen, the Jewish lawyer, who represents Dr Lasalle, a philosophical banker, and who is the legal agent of Lord Lombard of the International Oil Company. Though it is by no means easy to follow the ramifications of the intrigues which bewilder the Georgian prince, there is not a little entertainment provided by the author’s cynicism in presenting the spectacle of a patriot in the hands of the clever, unscrupulous men, especially as one cannot fail to see in the patriot more than a little purely personal ambition. The German Nationalists come into the story, but the real business begins when a vast quantity of Tchemovetz notes are printed from the plates which Karachan, with a shrewd regard for future possibilities, had brought, with him when he fled from Batum. These notes are' exchanged for foreign currencies; and the- money amassed is ostensibly for the purpose of financing the new revolt which is to put Prince Karachan back on the throne and secure the oil wells for Lombard’s company. The prince is a romantic figure, no match for the financiers, and his passion for Miriam, who in previous years had been Rosen’s mistress, is in keeping with his character and attitude to the affairs of life. One thing that does come out of the manipulations is another attempt by some ardent spirits to overthrow the Soviet regime in Georgia, an attempt, one is convinced, that is doomed to failure, though the

book ends with their hopes high and their strength untested. In the meantime the financiers have made quite a lot of money out of the scheme, and seem to regard the revolt with kindly amusement, as something which will give some suggestion of patriotism to their decidedly unpatriotic doings. Neumann’s novel is written with fervour, and it is undoubtedly entertaining, despite the intricacies of the financial intrigues in the middle section. Neumann’s cynical treatment of the exciting events is one of the most ingratiating of the novel’s features. The translation is by Dorothy M. Richardson. “Mammon,” by Robert Neumann (Peter Davies Ltd., London).