THE REVIEWER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7932, 10 February 1904, Page 4

THE REVIEWER.

"Britain's Peril: An Exposition of our Fiscal Policy," by T. J. Morris. (London.; Greening and Co., Limited.) In this sixty-page booklet Mr Morris is successful in stating the case for Mr Chamberlain's proposals clearly and concisely. Starting with a. resume of- the reasons that have induced Mr Chamberlain to demand an inquiry into England's present fiscal policy, and showing the position of England under freetrade, "trying to live by consumption alone," with- the population increasing and the work decreasing, Mr Morris goes fully into the trading figures of Britain and of her three chief rivals, the United States, Germany and France. The figures speak for themselves, and the true meaning of freetrade is plain. Mr Morris then deals with preferential colonial tariffs amd their effect when'" New Zealand will become to England what Cornwall is to Yorkshire." He asks the pertinent question, "Why shop abroad when, if protection is not adopted, the time must arrive when English industries must cease to exist?" But it is in Chapter VT. that Mr Morris has something new to say on tbis important question. Here he deals with the freetraders' chief objection to the proposed tariffs, .which is that they must increase the price of corn. Canada, he says, produced last- year 60,000, 000cwt of wheat, her area under cultivation being some 5,000,000 acres, representing but a small portion of her available land. She can raise, he says, some 3,500,000,000cwt a year; England annually imports some 70,000,000cwt. Canada, therefore, can feed England; but- how?' First, do away with free imports from abroad and let the Dominion Government either (1) raise a special agricultural loan, and, by advertising the good prospect, for wheat-growers in Canada under a preferential tariff, obtain men to work the country (with State loans, if necessary), or (2) undertake the corn business itself. Mr Morris points out bow this could easily be done ; he would guarantee that within three months the Government could secure 25,000 men in England alone. He points out the 'merits of working on a large scale with modern machinery and adequate oapital, and the consumer would have no huge profit to pay. The result would be the keeping within the Empire 0f £50,000,000 a year which is paid foreign countries for cereals, the providing of healthy and! lucrative employment for English unemployed, the providing of fresh markets for English manufactures, and, above all, the cheapening of bread and making the supply certain. Possibly from a colonial point of view the scheme might not look so rosy as from Mr Morris's, but from any point of view it is' distinctly one to receive full consideration. It seems feasible and likely to work well.

"Betty and Co t ," by Ethel Turner. (London and Melbourne: Ward, Lock and Co.) '.._■'■'■■.

A -set of' charming stories of. and for children. Mrs Curlewis has a motherly sympathy -with the Australian child ; she displays an insight into the characters of her little heroes and heroines that no one without that warm feeling of sympathy could display. And the little ones are flesh and blood, they are no mere dolls to be sentimentalised ever ; their lives are lived and their words are spoken in these pages. Grown-ups, too, will find inspiration here. These are wholesome, heart-stirring stories ; fictiohs they may be, but the real things of ■ life are pulsing on every page. Mrs Curlewis -writes in a simple, artistic style ; the tone of her work is of the highest. Few will read unmoved of the struggles of Betty's widowed mother and the way in which the children -faced the world, br of how Marsden, the lank, repellent-faced-business man, treasured -'his ailing .little one. This book should be, amongst thdse in every child's library. • .

of a smart corps, whom his brother officers > try to " rag " out of the corps. The play was refused a license by the Lord Chamberlain, and it is here printed as it -was offered to him. There is an introduction explaining and illustrating what " ragging " is ; it is described as " sometimes farcical and at other times disgraceful." There is no doubt about the objectionable nature of a system of the kind practised upon Smith, if what he was subjected to for being " keen " and " swotting for a tactics examination " is common in British regiments it says very little for those regiments. Smith, of course, behaves heroically in putting up with', the " ragging " at home and saves the life of one of the " raggers " at the front, thereby gaining the V.C. He forgives the brother officer who tried to shoot him, wins a titled lady-love, and generally shows that the alleged socially undesirable officer was the j pick' of the bunch. The play is practically a number of "ragging" episodes strung on | a plain, unvarnished plot with a similar dialogue.