10
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.
FRIDAY, AUGUST
6, 1937.
BOOKS Edited by Roger Pippett
Empire Suicide
S
THE DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE
By Sir Norman Angeli
(Hamish Hamilton, 63.)
OCIALISTS and Liberals should put this book at the top of their reading ist, master Ita argument and hammer it home upon the electorate,
They will thus combine duty with pleasure, for the book is written with all Sir Norman Angell's entrancing skill in argument and mastery in exposition, and in the immaculate literary style which he has made the complete servant of his thought,
His subject in the "new John Bull ": the new "Old Guard of Im- foreign policy of the periallam," of the Colonel Blimps, the Chelten ham Majora of the Tory Right
How shall we explain, he asks, the astonish- ing fact that for the last six years the foreign policy of the "Old Guard of Imperialism" has been precisely that which threatens the Empire fost acutely, which has, stage by stage, weakened its defensive posi- tion in actuality and has also spread wider and wider about the world the opinion that the Empire Is "done for "?
About the amazing political fact Since 1931. there can be no argument.
the defensive position of the Empire has been weakened in the Far and Near East. in the Eastern and West- era Mediterranean and in Western Europe.
Japan has begun to establish her power on the Chinese mainland, men- acing British outposts on the same mateland and, at one stage removed, India and Australia.
Italy's conquest of Abyasiula, taken with her possession of Libya, may well nake the British position in the Ne1: Enst untenable. Franco, if he wins, and if his German and Italian allies are established in Morocco. will cum- plete the closing of the Buez Catni route, the "fe-line" of the Empire, and the longer Cape route threatened by German bases in the Canarica.
will be
The dingle-handed defence of the Empire has already become impossible against a concerted attack-and would It be otherwise than concerted 7 by the "three great carnivores."
If it were the case that these en- croachments on the defensibility of the Empire were inevitable owing to the impossibility of preventing them, then
PAMPHLETS
NUTRITION: THE POSITION IN ENGLAND TO-DAY, by G. C. M. M'Oonigic, M.D. (Industrial Christ. lan Fellowship. 2d.). Stockton-on- Tees' forthright Medical Officer of Health on the conditions which breed malnutrition in system of revno- inics which is "profoundly unsatis inctory."
FACTS OF UNEMPLOYMENT, by 11. J. Hutchinron. (Industrial Christian Fellowship, 2d.). An analysis of tlie causca and distribution of unemploy ment which underlines the urgency of" deliberate and organised "nction. FIFTY PACIFIST POINTS, by the Rov. A. C. Pritchard, LOC. (Row- ling. 36, York-rond, S.W.11. 1. post froe). The pacifist case, clearly and honestly stated. But no new argu- ments.
O
rate.
THREE COMRADES
By Erich Maria Nemarque (Hutchinson, Ba. Od.)
LD soldiers never die: they don't even fade away-In the world of fiction, at any
Like Biegfried Bassoon, Herr Re marque has-and always will have the War on hh mind. The accent of the old soldier predominates. And, an in All Quiet on the Western Front are The Road Back, so in his latest novel the theme of comradeship peralsts. Robert, Olto and Gottfried. mur. vivors of 1914-1918, meet again in Berlin shortly before the 1tler coup. Robert, who tells the story, and Oottfried, are repair mechanics and relief drivers in a small garage run by Otto, who is also the proud owner of Karl, a battered- looking car which can actually pass anything in sight.
In the course of one of Otto's wild races. Robert meets Pat and falls in love with her. A rich man's girl, hr
Batt, to his de feels despondently. lighted surprise, she falls in turn for hilm. They depart for their honey- And his Pat is taken 10. moon. friends get a specialist to her after a tremendous night ride.
Not long after she has to go to an Alpine sanatorium. Things slump from bad to worso with the others. They Gott are forced to sell the garage.
Nazi. Otto motors tried is not by Robert to the sanatorium, where Pat 1 dying, returns to Berlin, sells Kar? nad wires Robert the money-a-week- or - so before Pat dies.
Comradeship, love and death-there re the author's Inspiration. And how forcefully ho stages them, how sensi Lively he sets their background, so thi overy detall. fives-the deceptively shobby car, a 'pale queus outside a cinemn Robert's room lit by a lurld night-sign, the city drifting in a mist. Pat's cap bobbing in the blue swell of
the sea.
From All Quiet to Three Comrades, Herr Remarque has travelled a long way. But he has not altered. Thù simpla and moving tale has its roots in the trenches. For-and this, first and Inst, in his significance-be is a Man Who Will Never Forget.
FUN AT THE BALLET Оле of Nicolas Bentley's illustrations to his high- spirited and most amusing book, "Ballet-Hoo" (Just Cresset published by the Press, 59.).
they would have to be made the beat ot.
But the Batontaling fact is that cach of these encroachments has been Halled with pleasure by the "Old Guard." Japan, Italy, Franco, Hitler - have
been egged оп and applauded, excused or defended by the very Imperialist circles who, before the War, would have been hysterically calling upon Britain to save herself before it was too late.
Why?
First, says Sir Norman, the British capitalists are genuinely afraid of what war will do to Capitalism, and their first thought reaction is to clear out of the way, even if the only way open is, effectively, retreat.
Becond, they are unwilling to take steps that might have the inevitable effect of embarrassing Fascism at the expense of Socialism. Communism or egalitarian democracy.
Third, disilke of the League and of everything it stands for in the way of
new international druer is stronger with the Old Guard than fear for Im- perial accurity. They hate the new world order, as witch-doctors hate physicians. If the Empire can be de tended only by policies which will will resounding successes for the League, abolish Imperialsın and build a world of justice and freedom-then so much the worse for the Empire.
Socialists and Liberals should be making these facts known to the British peoples. The defence of the Empire," for them, becomes more and more the defence of Britain and of .four smallish Dominion democracies. This defence is part of the general de- fence of democracy and Inw against Fascism: and this vital "defence of Empire" the Old Guard consistently
R. F. betraya
L
LOIS IN LOVE By Lewis Gibbs (Dent, 78. 6.)
OIS, that sensitive child, adored her father, a man who could never be relied on to re- member her birthday, but had "a way of appearing at unexpected moments with the most magnif- cently useless presents."
He sent her to boarding-school and then to a less expensive day-school- and then disappeared from her life for ever. On which Lois parked her trunk and went to work on the staff of a country orphanage.
How she fell in love with Mr. Weston -the letters they wrote to each other, their meetings, his strange avoidance of her, her disappointment and his ultimate relur-that shall be Mr. Gibbs' story.
There are many false notes and some affectations. For the author is stu keeping us waiting. Lois in Love la not the novel ho has it in him to write. But it is nympathetic and quietly con- trolled. And it has an attractive atr of the inevitable.
ENGLAND
R. P.
"Pardon!"
BONS OF THE EAGLE By Ronald Matthews (Methuen, 125. 6.)
LIFE IN
Fall European States new or old, Albania is, surely, the least known. But, also surely,
it is not the least important. A penalty of is geographical plac- ing
13 that it is one of Europe's danger zones."
It is a poor country, a weak coun- try-backward country-it lies only thirty miles across to stralta from Otranto, It is the first stage on the route of any Italian penetration of the Balkans.
Such penetration is not surprising. It has nothing to do with Fascism. L came very near to military conques! after the War. Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemencenu gave Italy the man- date for Albania ta charming and generous act!)
But the Albanians proved disrespect- ful to the treaty-makers and trouble- come to the Italians-so troublesome that in three months of guerilla war they persuaded the Italian troops to withdraw and the Italian Govern- ment to "return" the mandate!
Since then the. Italians have been creeping back by other meats. It in a dangerous business, this pushing of n And Big Power Into the Balkana. Albania, the point of the push, should be interesting because of all this, even it were deadly dull in itself.
But in point of fact, na any reader of Ronald Matthews' Sons of the Eagle will quickly agree, it is, so far from being dull, a fascinating. plcturesque and exciting land.
Mr. Matthews has not-and I am grateful-written a portentous poll- Ucal treatise, He has given me at any rate exactly what I wanted: a "por. trait of Albania," carefully, honestly. and at the same time brilliantly painted.
Necessarily It is a composite por trait. It has a vivid personal impren sion of King Zog, "the loneliest ruler in .Europe." It has sketches of the strange .impact of West and East in Durazzo and Tirana; of the killmen of tho high valleys where the blood feud 15 .still the law: of the Bektashi monks, whose secret rites may link with masonry.
It touches tears, because the bistory of Albania is tragedy and its ballads and legends are those of a tragic race. And it has laughter. In fact, it really is a good book--a very good book. And what more is to be salā? W. N. E.
MURDER IN HOSPITAL By Josephine Bell (Longman's, Green, 75, Gd.)
"A MOST origi ini plece of work " was the scientific verdict on the killings in this story. So it was -and the person in question, find- ing a hospital to be practically a murderer's paradise, might still have been bumping them of unnoticed but for aaldeling in strangling-
You will like this book, too, for its, lively, informed sketches of everybody, from patients to students and sint, with lots of agreeable technicalities about blood sugar curves and acute
F. E. H. anaphylaxis thrown in.
RAPID REVIEWS
UNDER TRUST. Do scribed and Illustrated by J. Dixon- Besil (Alexander MacLehore, Ta. Gd.), Being description of the principal properties held by the National Trust, from Dunkery Bencon to Carlyla's House With a preface by Professor G. M. Trevelyan.
A GREAT LORD, by Paul Frischauer (Cassell, 8. Ed.), An historical romance of the Napoleonie ora, staging the rise and fall of a schem- ing Polish nobleman, from his visit to Paris to his return to obscurity when the Emperor-falls. On tho graild scale, but leisurely. DEATH ON THE BOARD, by John Rhode (Collins, 7v. 68.). Five most ingenious murders - aro scattered through this story. Though the who and the why can soon bo guessed. you will read on happily to the end. A well-written, workmanlike tale of delection.
MATTHEW SILVERMAN, by Victor
Canning (Hodder and Stoughton, Sketches of life in a 72. 6d.). country town-a scen through the windows of the local newspaper ofco and the home of its pro- prietor. Full
humour and of pleasant observation. AVALANCHE, by Gordon Hayward
A
H
LYRIC
CRADLE OF LIFE
By Louis Adamio (Gollancz, s. 6d)
ERE in a distinguished and fascinating book which I am unable to classify. It is not fiction or fact or exposition, but
a mixture of all three.
Written throughout in the first person, thin atory of peasant life in Croatia before the War, tells how a lost child. Rudolf, is recor- ntaed by his maternal grandfather and transformed. overnight to a fordiing in a castle. So far, you say to yourself, this is fiction, founded on the author's childhood memorics.
And then a doubt creeps in. It is as though Louis Adamie had invented Rudolf only to and Rudolf Inking over the pen.
ΩΓΟ
Dut, anyway, they both want to say the samic thing-people who naturally good are often forced by circumstances to behavo badly, but change the circumstances and the natural goodness will come out on top. Meanwhile, don't condemn: try to understand.
And because Louls-Rudolf is far more of a poet than a preacher, he makes that tragle peasant, Darn, the
17 significant figure in his tale. world would brand her murderess: Rudolf acca her as the symbol of women everywhere who give all they have for the sake of the children who depend on them,
A strange, lyrical and remarkable book-with an ironleal ending. Life is going to get happier and happier for these peasants. Byt to-morrow an Archduke is coming to Earajevo. And abomb will be thrown, ...
TWO THOUSAND MILLION MAN-
R
POWER
By G. E. Trevelyan (Gollaner, 73, Ed.)
ECALLING the far-off-and- long-ago days of 1920, you
are probably startled now and again to find how different you were then and how different the world
seemed, about you Have things changed so much? Or is it you?
Miss Trevelyan's Intelligent novel will start the same hare and niso help For the traces a you to catch it double graph-history as recorded in newspaper headlines side by side with the contemporary history of two young people in London.
Fortunately, there are not two thou- sand millon Roberts and Katherines, But there are a good many of them working on their destiny behind a deceptive tacado of well-being and activity. A thoughtful story, skittuliy composed.
R. P.
RINGSIDE
ONLY PAIN IS REAL By Robert Westerby (Barker, 78. Gd.J
THIS tale is Rough Stuff, but
the Goods, Written in the clipped American style, using every triek of understatement and suggestion, it will keep you on tip- toe all the time,
Van and John Logan are twins. Van la a glant and as honest as the day: John is puny, wily and degenerate. with a talent for music
Van breaks into the boxing racket. He wins his fights and in on his way to the championship when he discovers that John is playing him for a sucker," that he hates being always second Пddle to Van. He is being battered and hammered for the sake of someone who only loathes and decelves him-and pain is real."
But there is more to the story than that. Mr. Westerby gives you à hair- ruising description of "riding the roda" (travelling without a ticket on a freight train), brief but vivid glimpses of young American intellectuals and several terrific fighte
The characterisation is conventional and yet extremely effective. It is typi- cal of the author's confident techniquo that he can sketch a crooked boxing promoter and hin vain, greedy wife in a few snatches of dialogue and let a murder take place off-stage.
This is not, however, a book for the. squeamish There is, for instance, n record of the farring and feathering of "a bunch of Reds" for the crime (1) of organising a union meeting which la the most powerful piece of writing lint has come my way in a long time. Yes, Mr. Westerby understands more than boxing. ite has acen men take the count from life...
R. P.
(Gollance, 73. 6d.). A first novel CANTON AGENTS
about life in a Swles sanatorium, which is a stift themo for a now writer to attempt, since Thomna Mann T⚫te that masterpiece, The Magic Mountain.... A fresh, lively, "honical "cany "in story-telling-in-its-
awn way. BUILDING A COTTAGE, by Father Meynell (Chapman and Hall, 70. 6d.j. A delightful successor to the author's Surtez Cottage, describing the pro- tical aspects of homo-making-
and
for
Hongkong Telegraph.
bricklaying, lath-and-plaster, joinery WM. FARMER & Co.
10 on Not forgetting the Eightolog-conductor,
COUNT THE
“TELEGRAPHS" EVERYWHERE
Victoria Hotel Building,
Shameen. Canton. Tel.. 13501.
LIVING
Dangerously
MORE explosives are being made
during 1037 than in any year since the Great War, not only be- cause Britain' and uther nations aco laying up, huge stores of explosives for defence purposes, but also be- cause dynamile and its companions Bre more and more taking the place of the man with the pick and shovel. Many think of explosives as being exclusively for use in lethal weapons, but most of the great engineerinu feats of this century would have been impossible without them.
A single pound of dynamite will break away cight tons of rock, and mining and irrigaling projects which demand the removal of vast masses of stone can be carried out with a been Im- speed that would have possible a hundred years ago.
To the ordinary man a visit to high explosive factory is in ordeal. that I I tried to convince myself
frame of scientific must adopt. mind. Explosions just didn't occur- unless something went wrong!
My guide explained the safeguards Row adopted, told me of the few ac- cidents he had seen in twenty-five years' daily contact with enough ex- plosives to send a goodsized city up in dust, sald he would rather, be in a street. I factory than cross the recalled that hundreds of men came to the factory every morning with as little worry ns I went to my office. but still...
The Supreme Offence
I Hut rid
"Empty your pockels!" not only of my matches, but also my fountain pen, knife, keys, and coins. 1 kept my pencil-there is no metal metal in it. Carrying matches or ubjects is the greatest crime, enough Just to make to get a man the sack.
are
it more difficult, pockets couraged, and even sewn up.
dis-
A pair of rubber; shoes were provided for me. My guide showed me his own special shoes, bulit witi- out a single nail in them.
of
Everywhere you see evidence precautions to avoid not only sparks, but even friction, for friction means heat, and safely depends upon tem- perature control. Thermometers are the most Important instruments in the factory of death.
to
When the glycerine is injected into the mixture of nitric and sulphuric be acids the temperature has
liquias watched, and the flow of controlled. Sometimes the tempera- ture insista on rising. The men can- not simply turn tail and run. If a thousands of "brew" of perhaps pounds of nitroglycerine went up, the damage would not be limited to that single building.
Without Trace
The guide keeps talking about the chemistry of the reaction that is I feel taking place, but somehow more interested in what would hap- pen if the temperature started to go up.
"It's perfectly all right as long as there are no foreign particles," I am told, "end as long as the Ingredients those cooling are pure. You see, coils keep the temperature down... ..Well, of course, sometimes it does go up. Then the operator drowns'
running the ultro-glycerine by Into a tank of water."
11
He did not add "und hope for the f best," but that is what I felt. Actual- ly the nitrating process, thanks to the research workers, is no longer the most dangerous. It is foreign partic- les in the package of the explosive, or perhaps the accidental dropping of you see, the a tool, or perhaps..
what difficulty about finding out makes a particular charge of high explosive go up is that it leaves very ittle evidence afterwards, and it is not often the man who makes the'), mistake lives to tell the tale.
in
But as we moved to another buil- ding, where the nitro-glycerlue purified, my guide told me of some remarkable esenpes. He told me of a miner who, strictly against the packed with each charge, cut rules
a knife. a stick of dynamite with The stick did not blow up, but when he closed the knife afterwards some tiny particles were detonated. The mun escaped with the loss of his hand.
Metal Banned
Then there was the man who was blown up and stripped of every inch his shoes, nt clothing, including which were found several hundred yards away, but escaped without a scratch.
100
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letting
1 Seems to lack sense,
crabs eat tinder (hyphen, 7, 7). Treats very breezily
10 London suburb that should be quite silent after 11.30 p.m. 11 Flag.
12 Man who makes sails.
13 Hall of the Middle Ages still
preserved in London.
Nitro-glycerine is a temperamental explosive. It is not os bad as some of the explosives used for detonators, and it does not blow up if a fly alights on it like nitrogen lodide, but it nervy for use. So it is combined substances. The other with sonic mixing is carried out by wooden machinery. There is not a piece of metal in the place, unless it is lead, which is used for some floors because
10 Performs a leech's function. will not strike sparks. Dynamite will afond a certain 22 Up-to-date lists.
the 25 James's orders.
it
amount of knocking about. I
10 Dp you know the Roman field In Ely? It should be sought with zest.
17 Not so sweet; in fact, it sounds
a nasty one to catch.
story books a stleit of dynamite ex-20 They still show where the flog- plodes when it is thrown, but actuni-
Ring was, in Wales.
lyn train-load of dynamite has been 27 This game is not vulgar in aplic
of its sound. derailed without a single stick firing.
Moreover, it can be controlled. The 30 Made with her best. experts can bore holes and place the 31 Recount.
chargo so. that
neot square foot of 32 Thoroughfare of a famous old stone is blown out of the concrete of lady (two words, 12, 2, ab="*
the ground floor without the tenants of the first storey knowing anything about it.
There are thousands of men eng- nged in making exposives every day, It is rather strange to find that they good risk for insurance that their death-rate la no different from #hundred other trades.
bre
Perhaps they get used to living in the presence of concentrated death. the For me two hours spent in proximity of enough high explosive to blow a city sky-high is enough,
Hugh Castelin
brev.).
DOWN 1.Tenso not in the grammars.
2 Dangling without a head: this
may
be catching.
3 Lot on.
4 I truly on anagram.
6 Climb down.
0. In coming down outside, or go- Ing up inside, you will and this
a tonle,
7 Does ple turn.
event? YeL:
cut to be an
D Glowing. 14 Credited
with having a pull with his fellow countrymen.
15 All the best,
10 Indecorous, indeed to 'Insist that
I'm not boastful.
20 Where the lamb is still to be
found in London.
21 Pertumed.-
22
Should one smoke in this when the conductor calls. “No smok- ing allowed"?
23 Put by itself.
24 Beats an egg any day. 28 Competent.
29 This iron was used by St. An-
thony, but not for golf.
Yesterday's Sofirilon
1MAGE BEARER U B ELEC X DATRY ALONE REPAIRO LWLEO NABOE
FRINALDE TANNIN
N
MERRIER
EN
BR
NDANTE BRITO.
FUCCINIM
10. LEABD
E
BURIAL
PAYEE N
TBAGBEAT DEAL