NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19168, 26 November 1927, Page 13

NEW BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS.

NITTI AND MUSSOLINI. BoHhovism, Fascism, and Democracy. By Francesco Nittl. Gtorga Allen and Unwln, Ltd. It is difficult to reconcile the tone of this book with the cheerful and almost cherubic face that looks out at us from the frontispiece. Signor Nitti has been young, and now lie is old, he has been powerful, and now is shorn of power, and the world seems rather a stupid place to him. In particular it is a place in which there is no liberty nnd no idealism, liberty nnd idealism being the beautiful democratic ideas he acquired from Gladstone and Mill. The worst thing that has happened to liberty has, of course, happened in his own country, where "an Italian of the 15th century," taking advantage of an irresolute and hesitating crowd, has established "White Bolshevism." Fascism, he says, has no ideal, and not even a theory. It is "an adventure . . . a movement which has picked up certain sterile and dangerous formulae concerning military power, imperialism, and expansion," and makes every form of criticism lesemajeste. The Duee himself is "not a forerunner but a loiterer." In Ins speech and his gestures ho "reverts to the long past forms of primitive civilisation . . .he is not a man who will go far, but a man who comes from afar." Indeed, Signor Nitti is serious, ly alarmed by the foreign outlook, since, as he says, quoting Machiavelli, the man who has few enemies can have "security without a fuss," but "he who has the whole universe for enemy can never be secure." Even Russian Bolshevism, for which he has no kind of tolerance, does not seem to him to be so brainless and soulless as the "White Bolshevism" of Fascism. Red Bolshevism is a tyranny which will perish, ss all departures from Liberalism must, but it at least has a practical and philosophic ideal. But the most interesting features of Signor Nitti's meditations are his digressions into history, and especially his account of the manner in which the Italian idea of liberty grew out of the British and French ideas. To the English people, ho says, freedom is rather an historical fact than a political idea. "Without any theoretical formula, the English people have won, step by step, those liberties which have become the foundation of their liberal institutions." To the French people, freedom has been an intellectual inea, "an affirmation of principle superior to all the chances of historical events, an affirmation of human personality with its chains cast off." Out of these two conceptions, the Italians evolved their idea of freedom as "an inviolable heritage, the reward, of centuries of struggle for the emancipation of mankind," and now this mountebank on horseback, these fools in their black shirts, these hysterical women running after them and admiring them, are throwing it all away. Signor Nitti also has a thrust at the "imbeciles from all countries" who aid and encourage these wreckers, and think their work good—the "half-witted people who come to Italy without seeins: anything, who hear nothing, never talk with the people, and know the national life only through the theatres, shows, and banquets." But his principal target are the "modern barbarians who thinK nothing of the spectacle of a country with a population of 40 millions reduced to political slavery." A MARY JOHNSTON UTOPIA. The Exile. By Mary Johnston. Thorntoi Butterworth. Mary Johnston has deserted Virgink and laid her scene in Eldorado, a mythical island where life was carried on under Utopian conditions and the inhabitants were so happy and contented that they seldom wished to venture into the outer world. In fact they were all such blissful Arcadians that when Richard Kaye was sentenced to prison for life for involving himself in revolutionary activities, and had his sentence commuted to life exile on Eldorado, he lived cheerfully in his small house, farmed, and wandered contentedly about -the island. Then love entered, though-Miss Johnston has really .written the book to express her theories about pre-existenee, and her philosophy of lifo in general.

ON THE RIO NEGRO. Black River.' By Neville Brand. The Bodley Head. » Guaranay was ono of those South American republics which flourish on revolutions and the murder of their presidents. Black River was its chief waterway, and there Hugh Tressel had made a fortune out of interests which he had developed entirely by his own initiative. He had his own aeroplane and pilot, a yacht, and several steam launches, and to run these engaged Franklin Emerson, a sea captain work-, ing in an office in London as the result of the post-war slump. Although Emerson was doubtful about the job, he took it, and found himself let in for more adventures than he bargained for, but just enough to fill the book. The story is well toid, tho characters are interesting and natural, and the author has wisely refused to clog the movement of his very intricate plot by more than the merest suggestion of a love story. MEXICAN THRILLS. A White Man's Chance. By Johnston McCully. G. H. Watt. Mr McCully, who writes quite presentable mystery stories, seems to have set out with the intention of surpassing in extravagance all other writers of wild, woolly, and Western cowboy novels. His herb is a handsome, richly-dressed young man, who appeared suddenly in Quebrada, a onehorse, one-inn Mexican town. He was full of his own importance, interfered in everything that was not his business, and soon became so aotively hated that, he had to avoid numerous attempts at murder. The book is full of fights and sinister situations which keep the action moving fast all the time. Of course love smooths out all difficulties, and the end is highly satisfactory for the disguised Don Jose. (Through Dymock's Book Arcade.) PREPOSTEROUS BUT EXCITING. Echo. By Shaw Desmond. Duckworth and Co.. This is one of those preposterous books which you laugh at but keep on reading. It is preposterous because you can't even begin to follow it until you have sufrendered to the most ridiculous prologue ever penned by a competent novelist, and you keep on reading because you have no sooner surrendered than you have become absurdly excited. For you are back in Rome in the days of Nero, and in the sand where the blood is being spilt. You are watching fight after fight and murder after murder —by swordsmen, spearmen, slingers, archers, retiarii, stranglers—and waiting all the time for the last great fight that is to make your hero "free of the arena." And as you watch and wait you are seeing other things, many horrible, many just loathsome —ten thousand crucifixions, for example, with the victims kept alive for aa long aa water and vinegar

will sustain them—and are getting a lasting and probably accurate picture of Rome at its ugliest. THE TRAIL OF TE KOOTI. Sine and Tomahawk. By Mom Tr»ey, Waitcombe and Tomb*, IM. Scholars will pick holes in this book and stylists, if they are foolish enough, be annoyed by it, but it will give great delight to those for whom alone it is intended—boys and adventurous girls juft entering their teens. And before the highbrows complain of it they had better be quite sure that they could improve on it, or even know some one else who could. The Dominion has remained amazingly barren of people capable of presenting her day-before-yesterday accurately, and yet thrillingly enough to hold the imagination of youngsters, and until some one else eclipses her Mrs Tracy should have the first place at Chrijtmas time in the gift-lists of parents who are good New Zealandan.