"NEW ZEALAND SOCIALISM"

Chronicle (Levin), 2 December 1946, Page 5

"NEW ZEALAND SOCIALISM"

NEED FOR ASSESSMENT Received Sunday, 9.30 p.m. NEW YORK, Nov. 30. Mr. 0- Hartley Grattan, in an article in the New York Times' Book Review 011 "New Zealand:, Pacific Pioneer" by Philip L. Soljak, says: "It is a good handbook lackmg the immense assurance of Walter Nash's 1943 hook on his country and the comprehensiveness of Professor P. L. W. Wood's adipirahle survey in 194.4, but within its limits satisfactory. ''What I really miss is a clear statement of what Mr. Soljak thinks the social experiments ot New Zealand really mean. There is crying need right now for a critical assessment of New Zealand 's 'Socialism'. New Ze.alanders who write seem extraordinarily reluctant to give it to us. They explain that they survey but they don't evaluate. "Here is an opportunity for still another hook on New Zealand. Perhaps the University of California 's Professor Horace Belshaw who knows New Zealand in detail, will attempt the task one day. " Mr. Grattan aiso reviews "introduction to New Zealand" which he describes ag the best example of official publicity he has ever seen, and the United States Marine Captain John Lee Zimmerman's "Where The People Sing; Greeji Land of the Maoris". He agrees with Zimrner- . man's praise of the Maoris and of their treatment by white New Zealanders and sums up the hook as an extremely good if rather suhjective and emotional story of a strange adventure for a soldier at the wars. Mr. Grattan adds: "I wish some New Zealand agency would let Americans know how to huy books published there. Must one travel to that land each time he wants a hook published in New Zealand?,"