LAND AND .W A l K E 
August 28, 1915. 
BOOKS OF THE WEEK. 
A LITERARY REVIEW. 
"The raithlul: A Tiaj>cdy iu Three AcU." By John MascQcld. 
(Heiiiemano.) 3s. 6d. net. 
Wr. Jlasefield ha.s atleinpt^ed to transport Limself, and us, 
into the atinospiiere of old Japan two hundred years ago. 
We u^ed not suppose tliat tlie psychology of the Japanese is 
more familiar to him than it is to the reader who knows JapJin 
onlv through surli scanty literature as is available. We must, 
therefore, take this play as a piece of imaginative reconstruc- 
tion, with the known etiiics and social life of old Japan as the 
fixed condition. That is to say, we may regard the play as 
taking place in any heroic age you please, v/hen the wicked 
may be powerful, but wlien it is the virtue of the hero to resist 
tyranny, and of lesser men to follow the hero to the death, or 
to sacrifice all to avenge him after death. This is an epic 
atmosphere which it is not easy for Englishmen to realise; it 
has behind it no familiar epic or ballad literature to give it a 
literan/ authcntieity ; nor can we read this play with the 
reassurance that it comes straight from the heart of Japan — 
that it has any kind of historical authenticity. 
This, however, is only to say that Mr. Masefield has set 
himself an extremely difficult task, and it is the more to his 
credit that he has in some measure succeeded. We do not 
quite realise in what way the hero Asano has benefited hi? 
dependants, but we understand vaguely that he is a just man, 
and that the Lord Kira, whose arrogance he resists, represents 
wickedness backed by legal power and soldiery. Mr. Mass- 
field has iugeniously contrived the incidents by which Asano 
is tricked and done to death by Kira. The rest of the play 
turns upon the avenging of Asano, with Kurano as the 
principal figure. We do not see any necessity for the long scene 
in which Kurano feigns madness, save that it gives the author 
an opportunity for many Hamlet-like pronouncements. The 
killing of Kira, in the last act, is well done, and affords oppor- 
tunity for some grim and gruesome play-acting. Revenge, 
perhaps, is not an ambition which appeals very strongly to an 
English audience, but Mr. Masefield has glorified the ambition 
by mingling with it the conception of fidelity to the memory 
of the just hero, and the desire to be united with him through 
the successful sacrifice of death. A curious mingling of 
English and Japanese ! 
Mr. Masefield, having iu his temperament a strong 
vein of outlandish romance, has made something 
strange and interesting out of a theme which few 
writers could have handled at all. W^e welcome the work us 
a return to that fine order of achievement which we had 
always expected from Mr. Masefield. 
'.' The Freelands." By John Galsworthy. Heinemann. 6s. 
To praise or dismiss Mr. Galsworthy as a writer of suc- 
cessful or partially successful fiction would be little to tlie 
point. W^e have not finished with his novel when we say 
that his plot is this or that, that certain characters are " con- 
vincing " or the reverse, that the descriptions are vivid or the 
ideas stimulating. Mr. Galsworthy is an institution of a 
special kind; he is part and parcel of the intellectual stock-in- 
trade of this country. 
Now Mr. Galsworthy sees this England of ours as a 
society divided up into almost water-tight compartments. 
These compartments are occupied by men and women not dis- 
similar in what is essential to human nature; the same selfish- 
ness, the same generosity, the same common humanity may ba 
found in all of them. They differ in their environment, in 
respect of the special prejudices, interests, and habits which 
are cultivated in some of them ; the men who live in one small 
compartment only peep over the edge to get a distorted view 
of the men who live in the larger and more crowded compart- 
ments. It is his function to introduce the one class to the 
other; to let in a little light through the barriers; to help in 
establishing social sympathy and understanding by exposinc' 
the e.icisting barriers of prejudice. In "The Freelands,'"^ 
his new novel, he takes up the question of " the land." 
The brothers Froeland represent three types of tlie class 
in which authority reposes and one individual who has brok"n 
away from that class. Of the first three, Felix alone is com- 
paratively free from the prejudices of the elder brothers lis 
is an observer of life, an intellectual, a novelist holdin- some 
such position as Mr. Galsworthy himself holds. He attiibutes 
most of the evils of this world to Indu.strialism and Officialism' 
just as his brother John, a precise man, attributes them to 
liidustnahsm and Intellectualism ; and hi? brother Stanley 
who owns the Morion Plough Works, in Worcestershire, at' 
tributes them to Ofllcialisra and " the advanced ideas of these 
new writers and intellectuals." It is at Becket, Stanley's 
country house, with its " lawns, park, covert, and private golf 
course," that the question of the land is discussed and dis- 
cussed. It is examined from every point of view save that of 
the labourer ; whilst close by, on a neighbouring semi-feudal 
estate, with its model landlord, its well-meant patronage, and 
the tyranny of petty interference, the actual tragicomedy of 
the laud isbeiug enacted. It is the fourth Freeland brother. 
Tod — a Tolstoyan figure — and his wife and his two " rebel " 
children, who, living the life of cottagers, are stirring up the 
labourers to a knowledge of grievance, a knowledge which pro- 
ceeds to criminal violence when a sturdy labourer, wlio has 
been evicted for marrying his deceased wife's sister, bums a 
barn and a hay-rick. On the one side, from one compart- 
ment, only " tyranny " is discernible; on the other side on» 
sees arson, crime, an attack upon the sacredness of property. 
Mr. Galsworthy knows well how to present these con- 
trasts, how to push these diverse ideas and prejudices to their 
extreme logical conclusions. The Freelands and the Mallor- 
ings, embodiments of what Mr. Galsworthy is accustomed to 
call the " system," the " code," are types firmly and satiric- 
ally drawn. Their mother Frances, with her absurd kindli- 
ness and irrelevance, introduces a softer human note. Tod, 
the Tolstoyan, is not very happily conceived; or, rather, he 
is conceived only. As presented, he is unreal. The children, 
too, embodiments of the modern " unrest," of the desire to 
throw the world into the melting pot and make it afresh, are 
successful, not as characters, but only as instruments for 
furthering Mr. Galsworthy's plan; whilst Nedda, whom wa 
may call the hercine, exists for the sake of love and soft sensi- 
bility and apprehension of the beautiful. Regarded merely ts 
a novel, we should find that the book has many defects; but 
as an analy;;is of the " laad problem " on the social and human 
side Mr. Galsworthy entirely succeeds. He makes good his 
just perspective. 
In spits of the mass of Napoleonic literature available, 
there is room for such a book as " The Little Corporal," by 
M. M. O'Hara. (McBride, Nast and Co., 2s. 6d.) The book 
consists of a series of little studies, with descriptions of some 
of the most critical episodes in the life of the great conqueror. 
The day of Austerlitz, the amazing adventure of Elba and 
Napoleon's return, and the story of the hundred days are told 
with a freshness that makes the old .story new again, and in 
one chapter — the last in the volume — is crystallised all that 
one need read to settle the controversy regarding Napoleon's 
days at St. Helena. If there is one fault in the book, it is the 
way in which the author insists on the Irishness of Welling- 
ton's genius, but few will regard this as a fault. The book 
itself is a well-written and concise study. 
COMPANY MEETING. 
LIPTON. UMITED. 
MR. ROBERTSON LAWSON, presiding at the meeting of Lipton 
(Ltd.), expressed his regret that, owing to illness, Sir Thomaa 
Liptoii was unable to be present. The Biiaid much regretted, 
ho s.iid, tliat tlic position indicated in the repjrt nust be a disappointing 
one. To none was it more so than to Sir Thtmas Lipton and the Board 
of Directors. Mr. Peters, the man.iging diie<tor, f.nd himself had not 
been long on the Board before, in co-ojveratiou with Mr. Bowker, they 
realised that the position of affairs reqirrid t<j be de.ilt with very 
fiinly, and, in certain directions drastically. They tliercfore com- 
menced the reorganisation of the internal management. 
It seemed that certain of tlie stocks carried wore too heavy for th« 
business done, and they therefore applied definite tests witli the object 
of checking these stocks. The result of the full str,(ktaking investigatiotw 
revealed the fact that the stocks had b'Scn seriously overstated and 
were deficient, so that they were faced witli -a substantial shortage of 
capital hi consequence of this and of several speculations having been 
entered into which resulted in a considerable loss. These sfwculationa 
were for the purpose of developing outside businesses. Tlie result was 
tliat they found themselves shoit, in view of actual working capital, of 
£250,000. On Sir Thomas's return from Sit>cria the facta were placed 
before him, and he lost no time in expressing his determination to make 
good these losses himself, large though they were. It was now for the 
board, as reconstit\itcd, to see that never again in the history of tha 
company could there be a repetition of the events they had had" to face. 
Added to the troubles of management had been those connected with 
the war, which liad had a bad elTect on tlie company's trading. The 
profit was less by £79,489. Tlie turnover had been practically tlio 
same. He thought it was only a question of time before the busineaa 
would respond satisfactorily to the re.irr.ingemcuts made. 
Mr. H. L. Peters, the managing director, in seconding the adoptioa 
of the report, spoke hopefully of the future. 
The report was adopted and the usual formal business transacted. 
Prmtcd by the Viotobia Hodsb PaiNTiNO Co., Ltd., Tudor Street, Whitefriars, London, E.G. 
