i8 
LAND & WATER 
Books to Read 
By Lucian Oldershaw 
February 22 , 1917 
ONE of the most illuminating critical remaiks 
ever made on the work of Mr. H. Ci. Wells is 
that he is a writer who conducts his own educa- 
tion in pubHc. There is no need at this time of 
day to dwell oil the imagination, the logical acumen and 
tlie grip on the sensational realities of an}' of his subjects 
of study which Mr. Wells brings to his task. The 
' interesting thing is what he happens to be studying at 
the moment and what progress he has made in the 
subject. Just now he is, of course, studying the war, 
and the contents of some of his note-books are to hand in 
War and the Fiiiurc (Cassell and Co., 6s. net). Most, 
if not all, of the essays herein collected, which include 
impressions of visits to the French and the Italian fronts, 
have appeared before in various periodicals, but it is 
interesting to have them all together and to note the sum 
total of the impressions produced on such a very im- 
j)ressionable mind — the mind, too, of a Pacifist who has 
decided to see the war througli. His work, as some 
critics are fond of asserting, may be superficial, but it 
presents a brilliant superficies, like that of pohshed steel, 
that reflects a great deal. 
***** 
The chief impression I get from War and the Future 
about Mr. Wells's present attitude of mind is that he has 
passed, like Mr. Bottomley, from a species of agnosticism 
to a species of Judaism, but that while Mr. Bottomley 
has stopped short at the Psalms, Mr. Wells has got as 
far as Hosea. However, we are promised a further book 
from Mr. Wells on his discovery that the Kingdom of 
(iod is " the only possible ruling idea for the greatest, 
as for the most intimate of human affairs," and it will 
perhaps be well to wait for that before examining his 
way out of " this muddy, bloody, wasteful mess of a 
world war." Otherwise I find in the book a varied, 
pro\-ocative and always interesting series of impressions 
and opinions, of which the most valuable to English 
readers at the present moment are those which present 
sympathetically the efforts of our French and Italian 
Allies. Quite the most attractive- pages in the book 
contain descriptions of visits to Joffre and the King of 
Italy, men whom Mr. Wells contrasts with the " effigies " 
which he hopes the war will cause to pass away. Mr. 
Wells gives as an example of the effigy " an imported 
Colonial statesman, who was being advertised like a 
soap as the coming saviour of England " ; and appears 
to mean the word to include both idols and symbols. 
It is a characteristic touch. 
Mr. Wells deals with many things, from spurs, wmch 
he regards as symbols of our miUtary inefficiency, to 
Tanks, the sj'mbols of our efficiency, from the National 
Mission, which is " touting for pew-rents " to the end 
of the war about wliich he re\ises his jirexious prophecies. 
It is impossible here to deal witli them all, but I still 
feel that something is wanting to complete my sug- 
gestions as to the tone of the book. I think I can find it 
in a sentence. " The impression I ha\'e of the present 
mental process in the European communities is that 
while the official class and ti)e rentier class is thinking very 
poorly and inadequately and with a merely obstructive 
disposition ; while the churches are merely wasting 
their energies in futile self-advertisement ; while the 
labour mass is suspicious and disposed to make terms for 
itself rather than come into any large schemes of recon- 
struction that will abolish profit as a primary aim in 
economic life, there is still a very considerable movement 
towards such a reconstruction." In fact, as Walt 
Whitman says, " under the measureless grossness and 
the slag, nestles the seed, perfection," but Mr. Wells, 
who seems to have so mighty poor an opinion of so many 
people, forbears to tells us in so many words who knows 
where or how it is to be found. 
Tlie daj's are gone, for ever let us hope, when the 
Briton's interest in politics stops short at the seas 
which surround these islands. \\'e must all in future 
be good Europeans as well as good Englishmen or Scots- 
men or Irishmen. Consequently we must welcome all 
opportunities of studying foreign politics. A weekly 
opportunity of an exceptionally valuable kind is providecl 
in that ably conducted magazine The New Europe, the 
first completed volume of which is now before me (Con- 
stable and Co., 7s. 6d. net). Here will be found a frank 
and full statement of the \-arious problems of foreign 
politics raised by the war and well-reasoned attempts 
to meet them by constructive criticism. The contributors 
number many of the best known historians and jurists oi 
our own and our AUies' countries. Moreover, The New 
Europe, by its reviews of foreign books, and its extracts 
from foreign pampers, both very judiciousl}' done, gives its 
readers a very clear idea of the essential things that are 
taking place in Europe to-day. For example, I do not 
remember to have seen anywhere else so full an accoimt 
of the speech of Professor Miljuko\% the Cadet leader in 
the Duma, that almost directly brought about the fall 
of Stiirmer. I strongly recommend this \olume to 
any one who wants to be well-informed and well-directed 
in tlii^ cri^i^; in international affairs. 
***** 
Two valuable articles by " Rubicon " in The Ne-x 
Europe, deal with the case of Poland, admittedly one 0I 
the hard cases in foreign politics. It is a case that will 
never be solved without considering the past as well as 
the present. Mr. J. H. Harley helps us here with liis 
Poland Past and Present (Allen and Unwin, 4s. 6d. net). 
This book is introduced by an appeal, that will not fall 
vainly on English ears, from the pen of Mr. Ladislas 
Micciewikz, the son of the great Polish poet. It is an 
appeal for Poland a nation ; an appeal for the redress 
of the great culminating crime of the Eighteenth Century. 
Mr. Harley's lucid and learned summary of the history 
and present condition of Poland gives weight to this 
appeal. Mr. Harley attempts to show how Poland, 
once in the vanguard of European civilization, has kept 
her national ideals after more than a century ofj ex- 
tinction as a pohtical entity. He pleads well the ca'^e of 
a bra\e and suffering country which is now permitting 
herself to hope for better things, with the underlying fear 
that she may once again, as in 1814, be but the material 
for the bargaining of diplomatists. Meanwhile, the 
complications of the problem should not be neglected, 
and Mr. Harley's book maj' be well supplemented by the 
■ articles in The New Europe and by one or two chapters 1 
in Mr. StepUen Graham's recent book on Russia. 
***** 
In The True Cause of the Commercial Difficulties oj 
Great Britain (Allen and Unwin, 2s. 6d. net), Mr. Mark 
Major and Mr. Edward Edsall ask I'ree 'I'rader and 
Protectionist to agree that all their problems were solved 
by /the contentions of the late Cecil Balfour Phipson. 
This contention is that gold should be demonetized and 
Treasury notes issued as sole legal tender. Thus we 
should get true Free Trade, because goods only would be 
exchanged for goods and adequate Protection because 
other countries would only import into ours goods that 
could be paid for b}' our own surplus products — for our 
money would be no use to them. An ingenious and well- 
supported theory, which h&s at least a modicum of truth 
in it, but which, I fancy, has tempted countries before 
now into financial morasses. 
* * « * «. 
After so long a concentration on the haute politique 
and finance, one may be permitted the relaxation of a 
little light literature. What about this book with gay, 
decorative pictures and an intriguing title : IJtinam : 
A Glimmering:, of Goddesses (John Eane, 5s.) ? The 
pictures by Mr. (ilyn Philpot are well enough, but I 
find the satirical sketch that accompanies them common- 
place to the verge of \ulgarity, though here and there 
there isa jjicturc in words that remains in the mind with a 
certain haunting jirettiness. 
