CHILDHOOD STUDY

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 92, 12 January 1935, Page 19

CHILDHOOD STUDY

A Story of Elusive Charm and Appeal “Mrs. Piffy,” by Norah C. James (London: Dent). When the subject of this book was one year old, she play'd a game in which her sister Ann was Mrs. Brown and she herself Mrs. Piffy. Mrs. Brown became Ann when the game was over, but Mrs. Piffy remained Mrs. Piffy. She was three years old at the time this book was written.

It is no( easy to pin down the elusive charm and appeal of “Mrs. Piffy,” but perhaps it is best expressed by that overworked word “real.” Mrs. Piffy is very much herself, but she still stands for all the three-year-old little girls in the world. Miss James has been wonderfully successful in conveying an impression of a world seen through a child’s eyes. It is all done in fleeting fragmentary sketches of commonplace happenings touched delicately lest the essential essence escape. Fifty's world is not the world of Daddy, Mummy, Ann or Rose. The inevitable ■clashes are portrayed with rare and subtle instinct. To love Mrs. Piffy is to experience adoration, irritation and remorse, and to touch the eternal pathos and mystery of early childhood. The photographs by C. C. Gaddum are of especial charm and interest, yet it is precisely here that the reader may be inelined to quarrel with the producers of the book. One is conscious of a slight jolt when after sympathetically visualising Piffy as seeking consolation from the rain outside by “diggipg into the red paint,” he finds her shown in this incident as seated in a sunny garden. And why when, before getting out of bed, she remarks, "Lady’s got frock,” is she pictured as fully dressed? A small point perhaps, but in a work so perfect as “Mrs. Piffy” one resents even this momentary troubling of the atmosphere. RACIAL DECLINE? “Whither Away?” a study of race psychology and the .factors leading to Australia’s national decline, by John Bostock and L. Jarvis Nye. (Sydney: Aligns and Robertson).

The authors of this book, a psychologist and a physician, write in the conviction that Australia’s national decline has already set in, and there is some statistical information purporting to justify this view. There is throughout the book evident worship of Spengler and a view of nature as still “red in tooth and claw.” It is a pessimistic picture, as this paragraph signi- ' fles: “From within we see unemployment, distress, 'trade dislocation, and even the sinister murmurings of Communism and chaos. From without are rumours of wars and a growing realisation that the eyes of the Orient are glancing covetously towards our island continent. Commerce is disorganised, and an intensive nationalism in almost every country betokens the closing of more and more barriers upon world trade. There is hardly a thinking person in Australia, who in spite of whatever bravadeire he may show to the external world, has not serious misgivings as to the future of his country.” • The nation’s declining birthrate has caused the writers some concern, particularly as they are among the fervent group of alarmists who believe that the dread arm of Japan is waiting, about to descend on the land. There is no denying that there are grave sociological problems facing the world to-day but they are common to the western world and ndt particularly applicable to Australia. This book is vigorously written and provocative, and allowing that the conclusions drawn from the facts as the authors see them are far too sweeping, it may have its value in focusing someattention on current race and sociological problems. PROGRESS IN MANCHURIA “Fourth Report on Progress in Manchuria, to 1934,” issued by the South Manchuria Railway, Dairen. Tokio. (The Herald Press.) This report is an authoritative and carefully compiled statistical and letterprfess survey of the affairs of the new state of Manchukuo, dealing with trade, shipping, current and ancient history, geography and sociological questions. “Manchukuo,” it says, “in spite of the short period since the establishment of its independence, has made steady progress, disproving the pessimistic observation made by the Lytton Commission to the effect that ‘there is no indication that this Government will in fact, be able to carry out many of its reforms.’ ” It asserts that Manchukuo was founded as an independent state by the spontaneous movement of the local inhabitants, coupled with an ardent aspiration to restore the Manchu Dynasty in the land of its origin. The establishment of a monarchical regime, it is said, will allay the suspcion that the establishment of a protectorate or annexation of Manchukuo to Japan is the ultimate goal of Japanese policy. “Neither Japan’s special position in Manehkuo nor her relation with the Government thereof, however, has ever threatened the territorial integrity of the new state, or of the principle of the open door an equal opportunity to all nations.” CALL TO ENGLAND “0 England,” by A. B. Cox (“Francis Iles”), (London: Hamish Hamil ton). Under the pen name “Francis Iles.” the author of this book has won some renown as a novelist, and in this volume he enters the fields of sociology and politics. It is not an auspicious entry, and apart from the fact that it is entertaiuhwstuff, it will hardlv merit the attention of serious students. It claims to represent the view of a very large but almost voiceless section of the population, but many people have attempted to do this and there is no evidence that this book succeeds any better than the others. The views of the elusive man in the street are notoriously hard to catch. In addition to this difficulty the author suffers under the illusion that “Great Britain is, without any doubt at all, by far the most civilised Major Power in the world.” Rather rough, this, on the civilisation of our American cousins, of France and of Germany, and a spirit hardly conducive to international good I wilL 1