A GREAT LABOUR NOVEL.

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12870, 4 January 1906, Page 3

A GREAT LABOUR NOVEL.

THK WALKING DELEGATE,

Referring to tbe new American novel,

The Walking Delegate." by Loary Scott, George Lelnl, in the Pittsburg Commercial Gazette, says:—"The great labour novel is here." Jack London writes a review of the work for the San Francisco ".Examiner," in the course of which he ■;ays:—" X«*t only is it human document that is significant, opportune, and real, but it is the first fair-minded labour novel to make its appearance in the midst of a- flood of labour novels which aro anything .and everything but fair-minded. *T~3ie .writer shows close familiarity with his subject—with the lives of the people with" whom he deals, with their home life and work life and business life."

We take the following description from "The Dial" (Chicago):—"Here we have a ■work which is fairly brutal in its realism, a vivid and vigorous transcript of life in the labour world of a great city, a book written without any pretence" of style, yet crudely impressive by virtue of its picturesque speech and its close acquaintanceship with the conditions depicted. . It is a study of the 'labour leader' and his methods—as illustrated by a Parks or a Shea—and unsparingly exposes the corrupt and criminal practices whereby a strong and unscrupulous bully becomes the master of his union and maintains the terrorism of his rule. His exposure and disgrace are finally brought about by the persistent efforts of the honest workingman who oppoposes him, andhfg, rmb rm rbrm brmbn poses him, and virtue is triumphant in the end. The book ie quite as scathing in its treatment of the corrupt methods of the employer as in its implied denunciation of trade union methods, and thus holds a fairly even scale between the two parties to the struggle. It is a veritable sink of iniquity that is here -uncovered for our gaze, but the whole story is made only too sadly credible by the actual occurrences with which our newspapers make us familiar from dav to dav."

. The London Athenaeum treats the -work with—respect and concludes a review as follows:—"The characterisation of the story is gripping, and the dialogue is better than the curate's famous egg. The style is pisturesque without being purple."