BOOKS AND WRITERS

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20513, 1 June 1938, Page 13

BOOKS AND WRITERS

COMMENTS AND EXTRACTS

“Richard B. Bennett never failed to tie rude and boorish to me when he was Prime Minister of Canada. In his own eyes he’s a small edition of a dictator.” From “ Sentenced to Adventure,” by Serge Zolo.

“ACROSS THE FRONTIERS” THE INTERNATIONAL SITUATION PHILIP GIBBS'S NEW BOOK “The British Fleet rushed into the Mediterranean It was a sudden decision due to the despatch of Italian troops to Libya, and to secret information suggesting that Mussolini had made plans to attack Egypt. It caused a tremor in all the Chancelleries of Europe. “For 24 hours peace and war were in the balance. There was forked lightning about. One could feel it. One could almost smell it. We were very near to war. If Mussolini, alarmed for the safety of his communications between Italy and Eritrea, had touched his bell in an explosion of rage and desperation, risking everything, there would have been war.” Just so close were we to Armageddon, declares Philip Gibbs in “Across the Frontiers.“ his latest dissection of the much-mancled body politic of the Old World, and his contribution to the floodtide of schemes to achieve appeasement. And he is entitled to be heard with some respect, for he has been in touch with the statesmen and the people of the several nations since August. 1014.

Death and Decay Death and decay all around he sees, yet he still has sufficient faith in the spirituality inherent in human nature to believe the chance of reconciling the Great Powers of the Continent has not passed. He has harsh things to say about England and her leaders, and France and her politicians. The Versailles Peace was inspired by the Evil One, and its provisions precluded peace descending upon butchered Europe, but even these conditions might have been overcome had it not been for the parochial and revengeful spirit in which England approached every problem touching Germany. Germany and her allies “waited with furious impatience " for the promised disarmament, and only when their hopes had waned did they commence that, resort to Hip old Mailed Fist whence emerged the present frantic and debilitating race of armaments. Terrible Events Mr Gibbs tolls of terrible events. “I saw a famine on the Volga where 25.000.000 people were waiting for death by hunger, and where 4.000,000 perished before help came from capitalist countries. I saw piles of corpses taken from death trains and flung into heaps. I saw little living skeletons in homes where there was no warmth.”

“The bug of Communism still bites. In spite of all that has happened in Russia, all those agonies and all that blood, there are still minds, even in the intelligence of France, who are working always for the terrible delusion that the way to Paradise is through the Gates of Hell. “ The League of Nations lies stricken In the big white palace on the Lake of Geneva, which Is now a mausoleum of lost hopes.” Mr Gibbs, though “dictators are winning all along the line.*’ holds that Mr Chamberlain is almost inspired in his new foreign policy which comprehends a better understanding of Germany and the gradual building of a bridge between the two countries, for “Hitler is a visionary and eager to be the architect of peace.” “It is not for this country or any other to force a quarrel upon the German people, because of rival ideologies. They must work out their own destiny, make their own mistakes, endure their own political and social failures within fheir frontiers, without hostile attack from hose who have different views.” Meet Present Conditions Pre-war days have gone, and much bother would be spared mankind if our educationists would only understand that the present generation knows little and cares less about the early years of this century. The nations of to-day have to adapt themselves to the conditions which now obtain. The men and women of 1914 find i difficult to follow the mental . processes of their own children. How much more difficult is it, therefore, to attempt to interpret 1938 in the terms of 1914?

FREE IBRARY BOOKS DECLINE IN DEMAND A WORLD-WIDE PHENOMENON Declining demand for books from free libraries in Australia is attributed by the Sydney City Librarian (Mr Bertie) particularly to a flood of cheap crime and sex magazines from overseas which the Federal Government has decided to prohibit. In his annual report for last year Mr Bertie says that the decline in the output of free libraries is a worldwide phenomenon. He points out that the “ sophistication"’ of much of current popular writing—“which causes libraries to refrain from seeking popularity by copuntenancing it"—makes a difference. to the demand. He then ventures the theory that “the phenomenal outbreak of eyearresting and mentally-arresting periodicals now flooding the country—which a youth was overheard to characterise as gruesome—plays havoc with the type of reading which free libraries exist to encourage and perpetuate.” Sydney Decrease Output for the year from the Sydney Municipal Library was 562,562 books, compared with 639,826 in 1936. The decrease was largely in the output of Action. Mr Bertie said a world-wide characteristic to-day was that it was the literary “froth” that fell away flrst. “In Sydney,” he said, “we have found that the tide of output is affected most by economic factors. During the height of the depression an annual output of more than 900,000 volumes was attained, but as prosperity returned the total has dropped. “The consoling aspect is that the output is still much higher than it was in pre-depression days and that the decrease is largely due to a drop in the output of Action.” BOOK BY EX-CONVICT KINDNESS AND CIVILITY STARK, UNEMOTIONAL RECORD Most books by ex-convicts are embittered. “Lifer, Jim Phelan” (Peter Davies), is a signiflcant exception. The author has served sentences totalling 14 years in half a dozen English gaols, but he goes out of his way to say—- “ During all the last years of my long imprisonment I never once personally encountered anything but kindness and civility from the higher and lower authorities.” It is no part of his purpose to suggest an alternative to the convict prison system, but his stark and unemotional record (gene, lised, he is careful to point out, from a long experience) produces an indictment more disturbing than any number of vitriolic accounts. “We place a man in one end,” he writes, “turn the wheels and eject a mummy at the other.” And this though nearly every member of the prison service works zealously to attain a completely opposite result. We watch a young man, with many good qualities and a fair education, slowly degenerate through 15 ' years’ Imprisonment, until at the end liberty is useless to him. He is At for no place except prison.