NEW BOOKS REVIEWED.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 16096, 20 September 1924, Page 11 (Supplement)

NEW BOOKS REVIEWED.

CURRENT LITERATURE "The Blind In the Making." In a brief but most appreciative note on Professor James Harvey Robinson's "S'he Mind in the Making" (Jonathan Cap*), Mr H. G. Wells describes the volume as "a cardinal and fascinating book," questioning "whether in the long run people may not come to it, and the School of Research asociated with it, as marking a new and characteristic American initiative in the world's thoughts and methods, far more important than the Washington Disarmament Conference." As to the dominant note of the essays here collected, the author writes: —"I venture to think that if certain seemingly indisputable historical facts were generally known and accepted and permitted to play a daily part in our thought, the world would forthwith become a very different place from what it now is. We could then neither delude ourselves in the simple-minded way we now do, nor could we take advantage of the primitive ignorance of others. All our discussions of social, industrial and political reform would be raised to a higher plane of insight and fruitfulness." As a plea, or series of well supported pleas, for the creation of a new standard of thought on current political and social problems, with a view to the coming of a general and much deeper sense of what is' really sound and right public opinion, using these two adjectives in their true and best sense, Professor Robinson's little volume is well worth reading.

Tale of a Tipster. Lively stories of "the boys," whose precarious living by betting is varied by occasional retirements in charge of the police, are told very amusingly by Mr ■ Edgar Wallace in his newest book, "Educated Evans." Mr Wallace has made a distinct addition to his "gallery" in "Educated Evans," ruinous sporting tipster ("The man'

who gave . What a Beauty! vide Press"), who eludes all the efforts of a devout inspector at "the Yard" to lure him into meetings of song and praise and almost lives under the watchful eye of "The Miller," a cute and affable detectivesergeant with a weakness for horses', and not above exchanging a good turn for a useful tip from his prospective victims.

"That's history," the Educated one would assure his admiring clientele, which "included many publicans and the personnel of the Midland Railway Goods Yard." "History" would be — "Lewd-creature Burgia, the celebrated wife of Henry VIII., who tried to poison him by pouring boilin' lead into his earhole." On another occasion it would be—"As Looy Fifteenth said to the Black Prince, so called because, bein' a lord, he swore he wouldn't wash his neck till Gibraltar was taken."

Mr Wallace gives a taking and occasionally even touching picture of these shiftless-—shifty, too, one must say—but genuinely kind-hearted souls who, for all their keen wits', follow the great game so hopelessly. But race lovers all round the world will enjoy "Educated Evans' tremendously. He is a "real character." Mr Wallace has made a big hit.

Tracing The Hidden Hand. In her new volume, "Secret Societies and Subversive Movements" Mrs Nesta H. Webster has carried the war into her critics' camp. She proves many of their statements to have been wrong, and brings forward a great mass of evidence, which will require the most careful consideration, to show that behind the subversive movements of the present day, as of the past, there is some secret and directing influence. The Grand Orient Freemasonry of the Continent, which she specially inculpates, has been so sternly condemned by British Freemasonry that its danger seems obvious. So far back as 1878 British Masonry banned it is anti-religious, and in December last British Masonry issued this offlcial warning against it: "All members of our lodges are warned that they cannot visit any lodge under the obedience of a jurisdiction unrecognised by the United Grand Lodge of England." British Masons declined to be represented at an "International Masonic Congress in Geneva" on the ground that the Grand Orient had rejected "an express belief in the Great Architect of the Universe." Further, as the author shows, British Masonry refuses to interfere in politics, whereas the Grand Orient is Socialistic or Communistic in tendency.

It is a most suggestive fact which Mrs Webster brings out, that —"Grand Orient Masonry is the enemy of Fascismo, which saved Italy in her hour of peril. Indeed, the Italian Masons (who arc of the Grand Orient) passed a resolution which was directly opposed to Fascist views, especially with regard to the religious policy of Mussolini." The Grand Orient appears to call the tune to which Socialists and Communists dance, and even to have some subtle influence over the people known here and in the United States as "high-brows." What is perhaps even more' striking is the evidence of close touch which Mrs Webster produces between the Irish Secret Societies, the Bolshevik organisations, and the Pacifists. She holds that there may be a secret "centre of direction," such as the Illuminati supplied in the eighteenth century when they had a very considerable part in bringing about the French Revolution; and that this centre is apparently under German influence. "On this point," she says, "it would be dangerous at present to dogmatise. But that the problem is capable of elucidation I have no doubt whatever. If the Secret Services of the world had chosen to co-ordinate and make public the facts in their possession the whole plot might long since have been laid bare. A "Department for the Investigation of Subversive Movements" should have had i place in every ordered Government." Governments, however, will not act because they arc swayed by "the same mysterious influence as protected the snemy during the Great War." The iiope is in an organisation independent if Government. —"In which men of all -lasses, and above all of the working ■jlass, .will take part. Fascismo Irtumphedin Italy because, it was not, is it, has been absurdly represented, a -cactionary movement, but. because it was essentially democratic and projressive. appealing to the noblest instincts in human nature." This is a book which ought to be .vide.lv read and studied; its conclusions "cannot be shaken by offhand; ienlal but .will have to be investigated j seriously- i