BOOKS & AUTHORS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2402, 6 March 1915, Page 5

BOOKS & AUTHORS

(By Liber.)

BOOKS OP THE DAY. THE CHAMPION OF THE MILI TANTS.

For the time being the militant section of tho women's suffrago party in llniiland has declared a truce. At such a time a review of past operations, a description of the battles fouuht, the wounds inflicted on both sides, the ground gained or lost, is always accounted interesting. Tho appearance. therefore, of Mrs. Emmeline Pankhurst's book, "My Own Story" (Eveloifth Nash), is opportune. • Mrs. Pankhurst must be credited with having written a singularly interesting, Htid, in its own way, historically valuable record of tho militant movement in connection with the agitation for woman's franchise. With the main facts of that movement New Zealandors are fairly well acquainted, but in Mrs. Pankhurst's story much new and curious light is thrown upon certain incidents upon which, so it is more than than possible, the average newspaper reader may not hitherto have been correctly informed. It is, however, in the purely personal side of the author's narrative that she is most likely to interest the average reader. It is clear, from the story she gives of Ker childhood and earlier life generally, tftSt she is a born rebel, a rebel, it is only fair to say, against the iniquities, the injustices. and cruelties which too frequently and only too materially affect modern life, especially where women are concerned. Even those who, like the present writer, cannot but deplore and condemn the perversely wrong-headed, iiot to say positively dangerous views, set forth so boldly, and, let it be admitted, with such ability, in this book of Mrs. Pankhurst's, must at once concede to the author a sincerity and honesty—according to her own light— which stand forth oloar and unassailable in every chapter of her book. _ As a girl, Mrs. PankhursJ sympathised with the so-called "Manchester Martyrs," and exhibited so many tendencies of independence of thought and tb ill that one can well understand, and to some extent sympathise, with her puzzled father, who exclaimed "What 3 pity she wasn't born a lad!" The future axaailant of Mr.. Asquith was j only fourteen when she attended her first suffrage meeting. She left the meeting, she says, "a conscious and confirmed suffragist" 1 With such a beginning, later events need not Burprise us very much. Her early years were devoted, however, more to the cause of practical, material, social reform than to political agitation. _ The scandalously-sweated factory girls of Lancashire and ot that East End of London, with which she' hecame, as • wife of a Liberal candidate for Rotherhitbe, so well acquainted, gained her sympathy and won her support, and soon she came into personal contact with the leading London Radicals, such as John Burns. The suffrage question soon becamo specially dear toiler heart, and in the section of her book headed "Four Years of Peaceful Militancy," she gives a most interesting narrativo of Jier work in favour of a movement which at that time was undisfigured by those features which have more recently discredited it with so many earnest and sincere sympathisers with the just and decentlyfought struggle for the rights of women. When we reach tho final section, headed not inappropriately, "The Women's Revolution," the tone of the narrative gradually but perceptibly changes. Wild denunciations of "bias" and mendacity against Englishmen held in deservedly high public esteem, succeed each other with monotonous persistence. Judges, juries, journalists share with Ministers of the Crown, bisDops, and leading English statesmen a systematic and detailed vilification. Everything that the militants have done 16 justified; every course most reasonably and legally adopted by the authorities in tho, interests of public order and decency, and of wantonly-assailed property, and the common welfare of che community, is assailed. It is a thousand pities that so just and good a cause as that of woman's suffrage—and of- the justice and righteousness of that cause no sensible or fair-minded mail or woman can be otherwise 'than conscientiously convinced—should suffer, as it has suffered so severely, from' the ! misdirected zeal and perversity of thought and action of such well-mean-in'g but unwise champions, as _ Mrs. Pankhurst All this said, it is impossible to deny to the author an evident sincerity in her v fixed belief that only by terrorism of tho community could the cause of women, of women's just right, be practically furthered. That ■sincerity once granted, and what more can ho said, save to regret j'et again, that a good cause should suffer through the ever vain endeavour to bring about right by the doing of wrong. The bookf contains many interesting illustrations. (New Zealand price 10s.). "WHAT A WOMAN WANTS." Mrs. Dudeney's latest novel,' "What a Woman Wants" (Heinemann, per George Robertson and Co.), may prove somewhat disappointing to those who remember "The Orchard Thief," "A Rhmaway Ring," and that fine story, "The Maternity of Harriet Wicken." The heroine, the daughter of a small tenant farmer in Sussex, leads a sordid and miserable life, first with _ her miserly mother and ■ afterwards with a yet more miserly and drunken brother. Her sisters leave the home, and she finds comfort in a transient love passage with a young sailor, who then disappears and is supposed to be drowned.Two other experiences of love-making does poor Chxistmaß have before she finds her first sweetheart again, by this time a crippled wastrel. But he was her man, and the maternal element in her. love only makes his misfortunes have a higher claim to the pity she mistakes for a higher feeling. There is quite a Thomas Hardy touch about poor Christmas, and the,'rural scenes are well worthy of this pen that ga.v« us the Wcssex novels. But'the general atmosphere of the story is depressing, and one feels that the novelist is hardly at her best. SHORTER NOTICES. Curtis Yorke will please her many admirers by her latest story, "ISie Woman Ruth" (John Long; per Whitcombe and Tombs); The heroine, an orphan, is driven away from a situation by the caddish son of the house, and finds new employment in the home of a wealthy manufacturer. Here again there is a son, and soon an interesting plot is developed, from which is worked out a story which Miss Yorks'c readers will doubtless find highly to their taste. Labour troubles play an important part in the story, wnichj by tho way, has scarcely that sentimentally satisfactory conclusion usually favoured by this popular writer. Historical novels, with France Ifor a back "round, generally deal with the period favoured by Dumas —and Stanley Weyman—but in his "Little Madaino Claude" (Stanley Paul), Mr. Hamilton Drummond goes further back and provides a well-written and very readablo story of the early days of Louis the Twelfth, the heroine being the daughter of that monarch and Anno of Brittany. The princess is the prize of a deop political intriguo which, though waged in secret,. goes keenly and bitterly to its end. There is much exciting adventure and some very pretty love-making, and the historical colouring is pleasantly convincing. Quite a good story in its class. Mr. R, Murray Gilohrist is by this.

time a skilled story-teller, and in his latest novel, "Under Cover of the Night" (John Long; per Whitcombe and Tombs), easily secures the interest of his readers. The scene is the peaceful English countryside, t'he fortunes of the dwellers in a quiet inn being thrown into strong contrast with those of the residents in a dilapidated mansion. There is a murder, the victim a lord, and more than one mystery. For a time the path of the innocent is by no means rose-strewn. Everything, however, ends happily. Lovers of the ultra sensational in fiction should be agreeably entertained by Coralie Stanton's and Heath Hosken's latest novel, "Thistles, a Study of the Artistic Temperament" (Stanley Paul), a story in which a pretty typist is the heroine, and in which villainous Chinamen and kidnappers are tracked and pursued through town and country. The authors are skilled in the art of "piling up the agony," but although a melodramatic interest predominates, the authors have taken greater pains with their character-drawing than is usually the case with writers of newspaper serials.

1896-1900. For purposes of comparison, the following birth-rates for spme other countries will be of interest:— Russia, European (1005) 44,8 Rumania (1911) 43.0 Bulgaria (1908) 40.4 Servia (1911) 3G.2 Hungary (1911) 35.0 Japan (1909) 34.2 Italy (1911) ;.. 31.5 Austria (1911) 31.4 Spain (1911) 31.2 German Umpire (1911) 28.G Switzerland (1910) 25.0 United Kingdom (1913) 23.9 Belgium (1910) 23.7 Canada (Ontario) (1911) 21.7 Franco (1911) 18.7 It should be borne in mind that the death-rate in all' European countries is much higher than in New' Zealand. In European Russia, for instance, the deatli-rato is no less than 31.1 "per thousand of population, and the natural iucreasc is only 13.7 as against 16.68 in New Zealand. In the United Kingdom the natural increase is only" 9.7. The position in France has become extremely serious. In 1911 the deaths actually exceeded the births by 34,800. This means that unless .effective measures are taken to check the downward tendency, the French will become a dying race. The gravity of the situation is realised by the authorities, and the matter is receiving the attention of sta'tesmen and scientists. Commissions have been set up both in England and France to consider- the oauses and effects of the falling birth-rate. It is probable that the report of tEe English Commission will be made public during the present year. I