WHO HANDSOME DOES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 418, 27 June 1947, Page 25

WHO HANDSOME DOES

a re te WITH A TOMMYGUN. By G, Burchett, F. W. Cheshire Pty. Led. So oe Coen

HIS is an Australian war correspondent’s iconoclastic account of different phases of the Pacific war and of his personal experiences. He was in China, Burma, India, met Wingate (on whom he has already written a book), Chiang Kai Shek, travelled with United States fleets assaulting Formosa, landed on

Guam, in the Philippines, in Japan, "scooped" Hiroshima; and he looks back on it all now with a sharply democratic philosophy moulding his observations and deductions into a pattern of sympathy with the underdog (to-day called "the little man"), disgust with Imperialism, and with capitalism (not that he is more than a liberal), which he tends to identify. Much of what he says is known from other sources, and he states the problem of India and of China with a firm grasp of essentials. The staunch spirit of the Filipino guerillas is perhaps not so familiar, a devotion to the Allied cause curiously rewarded by the United States official post-war support of persons who had collaborated with the Japanese, one of whom is to-day President of the Philippines. Democracy with a Tommygun is an honest and balanced if not a brilliant book. Burchett writes with restraint in. spite of his definite point of view. He appears to have formed his opinions from his experience and information rather than chosen those facts which suit his opinions. He is fair-minded enough to describe the "White Australia" policy as suicidal, and remarks that most Australians travelling in the East are "esteemed for just those qualities for which their country is condemned," viz. "their personal lack of racial discrimina-

tion."

David

Hall