REVIEWS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 192, 15 August 1931, Page 14 (Supplement)

REVIEWS

WHITCOMBE’S MODERN HOME COOKERY AND ELECTRICAL ■ GUIDE (Revised edition).—This is a handy recipe book for the increasing ’ band of housew’ives who are using the electrical range and the hot point for cookery. The growth of cookery by electricity is not appreciated, but when • it is asserted that fifty per cent, of the students of the Wanganui Girls’ Col1 lege use electricity for cooking in their own homes the position can be appreciated. The preface of this book is appropriated by a chapter on the use of electrical 1 appliances in the home. In the counsel concerning the use of the electric 1 range the authors advise the scrapping “of old iron saucepans— they eat power. • Aluminium or first grade enamel give thj best and most economical service. ’ ’ There i» plenty of useful advice on the • economical use of the oven, the reading of the meter. “Donts for users.” ’ Shocks and how to absorb it, and of course of recipes there are plenty, and ' of infinite variety to keep up the supply of conversation at afternoon teas from now till next year. “GERMANY AND THE GERMANS,’’ by Eugen Diesel (Macmillan) [ pp. 300.—Germany to-day is the weak ; spot of Europe. From a position of ! dominance it has been cast to a position jof being dominated. When a slave is ‘ , chained tv his master the slave owns i the master almost as much as the master owns the slave. This inconvenient 1 and sometimes annoying nexus between Germany and the rest of the Europe in particular and the world in general is' becoming increasingly felt. Germany cannot escape from Europe, but neither ■ can Europe escape from Germany. Es--1 cape being impossible tho association must continue and because of it understanding is essential for the better 1 working of that association. Eugen Diesel’s “Germany and Germans” will contribute to the better ( understanding of Germany and the Germans, not because he paints a '“sympathetic” picture, nor because he [tries to “interpret” the character and i German aspirations as something -which the rest of the world has not under- ! stood, but which when it appreciates it • will love or at least like, but precisely . because the author has done none of . j these things | Eugen Diesel has not tried to become ! . Germany’s advocate nor has he enIdeavoured. to adopt the role of the , ; apologist. Rather is he the photoi grapher, for he sets out the facts in a searchingly plain way. The lens is high powered in his mental camera. It is because he portrays Germany as it is, Germany in transition. Germany in internal mental conflict, Germany in the valley of the shadow, Germany in its j travail that the reader comes to grips | with the humanity that is Germany. I “One might indeed describe the, ibook,” says the author, “as a philoso- | phical or artistic geography; in a word, as “Geo-philosophy.’ ” Borders Not Frontiers. It is not surprising therefore to find the book opening by drawing attention to the unsatisfactory nature of the German frontiers. “Only in the north does Germany possess a clearly defined frontier; the sea-coast. But it is broken into by Jutland and Poland. Without the Polish corridor the Baltic coast would be Germany’s most extended geographical line. The eastern frontier broken by the Polish corridor lacks definition in other respects also, j Whe. _ Pole and German meet the definition is indistinct. Upper Silesia is part of an economic whole, half of , which is now incorporated in Poland. The southern border gets lost in a series of mountain valleys in the foothills of the Alps. While the Rhine Valley touching Alsace again brings a lack of definition while the Rhine itself, Germany’s own river rises outside ' its borders in Switzerland and eventuj j ally departs from German territory. Internal Geography. This lack of definition has a disturb--1 in . effect on the German outlook, but the internal geography contributes a similar disturbing effect. The North Germany Plain, which is a continuation of the Russian central plain gives to North Germany a character of its own which differs completely from the central upland while across the Danube rise the Alpine foothills again differ. The valley of the Rhine provides still further variation in country and in climate. In each of these different geographical districts life • changes and so does the occupation and outlook of the people. Both externally and internally therefore Germany is a land without design. Even the rivers contrive to disunite the land. The Oder, the Elbe, the Weser and the Rhine have most of their main tributaries flowing in through their right banks. There is no natural gravitation point as is Paris in France, for instance, and, in consequence, Germans when they look inwards cannot say as does the Englishman “All roads lead to London.” History’s Part. Nature having provided no design for Germany, history seems to have contrived to accentuate the situation. Germany to the Englishman is a land of one people, but the German thinks otherwise. Ho thinks and speaks of Swabians, and Bavarians, (Saxons, Franks, the Eastern tribes, and German Poles and also of the German Jews not as an Englishman thinks of Scots and Irish and Welsh, but of distinctly different races. The breach w’as never healed between Prussia and Bavaria. They are different people with different temperaments, outlook, reactions and ideals, living in distinctly different countries. The German Empire came late into existence, but the cohesive force has not been strong as it has been in other countries and because of it, even the capital, Berlin, is not the centre of the country. Berlin. f I ••Berlin,” says Diesel, “is altogether I 1 without any real geographical or historical form; it stands, 30 to speak nowhere on nothing, and this is one explanation, perhaps of its formless, indefinable character. . . . It was only after the Thirty Years; War that it began to grow to any extent, and only since 'the war of 1870 that it has played the part of Germany’s capital. In this respect it is not only younger than London and Paris; it i*. younger than Petersburg or even Washington. In no respect is Berlin Germanv j, f

natural centre. I tlies on the edge of the Reich. It is true that London and Paris and Rome also lie on the edge of their respective countries; but then London is the gateway to England, Paris is the centre of the most important area of France, culturally considered, aud Rome is the historical centre of power. Berlin cannot be considered as a centre, either from the historical, intellectual, cultural, geographical, or even from the economic point of view. Berlin’s importance, is not, so to speak, rooted m the soil; it depends on rules and regulations. Its spirit is not moulded or defined by the landscape on which it stands. It lies unconfined in space; the office and the barracks arc its natural expression: it penetrates into the rest of the Reich by means of abstract and invisible formulas and regulations. Berlin’s cathedral, for instance, — which is neither Christian, nor Protestant, nor German —has been planked down on a space that would be much more suitable as a stretch of grass. At the Technical High School it might paas muster as a. not too bad example of Italian Renaissance architecture. But it is a building without a soul; it has no religious patina. W’here, indeed, could it get this patina, in the most irreligious city in the world? By what it lacks one sees what other cities have.” The Changing Scene. Germany’s position from a developmental point of view is also at the cross-roads. It has come out of a charming old worldism and has without leaving it behind been overwhelmed by the blatancy of the new worldism. ?Cts old towns are therefore an admixture of old and new. A medieval castle carries high power electricity transmission lines. The dynamo purrs beside the old water wheel. The peaceful old land meets the main highway, the quiet river and the less quiet canal is disturbed bv the chugg of the motor barge. The railway trains rush by and overnead the aeroplanes make their scheduled comings and goings and in the midst of this old-new world a people, perplexed in soul stare out from a formless, changing country upon an unfricndlv world. What effect has all this and more upon these peculiar German peoples? This is the question ■which the author continues to answer. ■ To Be Concluded. The orld Peace Foundation is publishing William Henry Chamberlin’s “The Soviet Planned Economic Order. ’ The author has been a resident of Hie U.S.S.B. for eleven years, nine of them as special correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. In his first book, “Soviet Russia: A Living Record and a History,” he established a reputation for cool and accurate fact reporting under conditions highly conducive to excitement and hastily-formed conclusions. Mr Chamberlin has supplemented his personal observations by sifting of source material and has translated for the appendices various pertinent official documents.