WALPOLE HAS A WISH

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 387, 22 June 1928, Page 14

WALPOLE HAS A WISH

If I had my own personal way, what grand presents in the shape of fine literature would I wish 1928 to give me? I would like a novel from E. M. Forster, a novel -and a book of essays from Virginia Woolf, a volume of studies from “Golden Bough” Frazer, a volume of poetry from T. S. Eiiot, something on eighteenth

century history from George Trevelyan, some plays from Shean O’Casey, a startling collection of poems from a new poet, most deeply needed just now, and a book of personal anecdotes trom George Saintsburv. I say nothing about American letters lest I should offend Mr Mencken, but we in England are eagerly asking for more from Mr Hergesheimer, Mr Cabell, Mr Van Vechten, Miss Cather, Mr Kromlicld, Mr Thornton Wilder, and Mr Hemingway.

Records of the N.Z.E.F. Officers, nurses and first-class warrant officers who served with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force overseas will be interested in the publication ot a most useful record of “personal services during the war,” compiled by Lieutenant-Colonel John Studholme, sometime A.A.G., N.Z.E.F. The book, which has been issued by the Government Printer, contains in tabulated | form the individual records of all commissioned ranks in the N.Z.E.F., with length of service, date of attes'tation, appointments, decorations and special services. Here are to be found, too, particulars of all transports that carried New Zealanders to, or brought them from, the war, and lists of the principal engagements in which our troops figured. Space has been found for Sir Alexander Godley’s Special General Farewell Order to the soldiers who had been under his command since the creation of the Expeditionary Force. The work must have entailed much labour on Lieut.Colonel Studholme’s part and although he is careful to place the equivalent of “E. and 0.E.” at the end of his foreword, it would appear that the book has been meticulously checked for errors. It offers a valuable record for those who cherish their association with the Expeditionary Force. “Some Records of the N.Z.E.F.: Unofficial, But Compiled from Official Records ” The Government Printer, Wellington. Our copy from the Minister of Defence. Palmistry By Numbers Madame Zuleika and Madame Aspidistra and all the other sibyls who read palms for a consideration will have to look to their laurels if they are to retain a grip on their clientele “‘Hands Up” or “Palmistry for Pastime,” by Capini Vequin, sets out a simple method of telling the fortune by the hands. All the reader has to do is to compare the formation of his hand with diagrams in the book, glance at an accompanying questionnaire and put down a series of numbers as indicated. Later these numbers may be sought in the back of the book and their meaning deciphered. The decoding process is rather good fun. If the fortune-teller should find that his victim lias both “a desire to dominate, a self-reliant and ruthless nature,” and “Is vacillating and possessed of inhibitions,” something has gone wrong with the initial reading, and he should gloss gently over these contradictions —or start again. Quite a relief from cross-words and intelligence tests. _ “Hands Up.” Cornstalk Publishing Company, Ltd,, Sydney. Our copy from Angus and Robertson. Ltd., Sydney. Christ or Krishna Once upon a time we sent our missionaries out to the heathen of India, hoping that light would burst on their barbarous idolatry, Mr. E. Stanley Jones, who has followed up the success of “The Christ of the Indian Road” with “Christ at the Round Table,” went out there knowing that "there are more words for philosophic and religious thought in Sanskrit than in Greek, Latin and German put together,” and that “India has thought on these things more deeply than any other nation on earth.” He had his doubts before he began his moral and spiritual offensive and at the zero hour he had a fear that Christianity might prove to be “only one among the many ways.” Then he made a brilliantly strategic move; he abandoned what he calls the longdistance shelling and assembled the representatives of all the religions he could find in India for a "round the table” conference. The first one was a garden party and each representative was asked to state what his religion was meaning to him in his life. Did religion centre for him in “Rama, or Krishna, or Buddha, or the Vedanta or the Koran or Christ?” The writer, having thought of this plan, put it often into effect and the book is a broad-minded record of the views expressed and a logical but not so broad-minded summing up of the facts marshalled. He confesses that he was always nervous at approaching a conference with “a people who have persistently searched for God and Reality . . . sons of a philosophical and cultural past that stretches back millenniums before Europe awoke from barbarity.” Just to prove that Mr. Jones has been impartial in his recording, one may quote a Hindu judge who said at the Round Table: “I once heard of a man who wanted to see God and He was revealed to him in the form of Kali with a hundred heads. He laughed. When he was asked why he laughed, he replied, ‘I was just thinking of what would happen to you if you caught a cold.’ It am not sure I want to see or know God.” “Christ at the Round Table.” Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., London. Our copy conies from the publishers’ Australian agent, W. S. Smart, Sydney. An Enemy of Socialism There have been many critics of Socialism, but few have brought such clarity of thought and practical argument to the subject as Mr. Austin Hopkinson, who is member for Mossley Division of Lancashire in the House of Commons. The second revised edition of his book, “The Hope of the Workers,” appeared recently. Mr. Hopkinson is an uncompromising enemy of all Socialistic theory and pins his faith implicitly in the worker finding his economic freedom within the four walls of the capitalistic system. In so far as he envisages a society organised upon a single-storey basis he will fail to convince those who feel that society exists actually in a many-storeyed structure, ramshackle and winding perhaps, but one providing for an infinite variety of activities not always actuated by thoughts of the next meal. It is perhaps this very method of thought which makes Mr. Hopkinson’s argument so refreshingly clear. He extolls the system of collective bargaining, and would like to see every trade union buttressed by leadership which concentrates on the job in hand, drives as hard a bargain as possible and then gets on with the day’s work. This is sound advice in a world sadly in need of honest effort, but. while many workers will be prepared to take this advice, they will not necessarily go all the way with Mr. Hopkinson in his denunciation of the development of many social services, such as old-age pensions, and unemployment insurance. He believes that these things are evidence of the failure of democracy. There are others, however, who regard them as part of the heritage of past errors, errors unavoidable perhaps in an industrialism which developed too quickly for man’s humanity. “The Hope of the Workers,” Austin Hopkinson, M.P. Martin Hopkinson and Company, Ltd., London. Our copy from ibe publishers.