BOOKSBYThomas E. Watson.
BOOKSBYThomas E. Watson.
Note:Reviews are by Mr. Watson unless otherwise signed.
On the Field of Glory.By Henryk Sienkiewicz. Little, Brown & Co., Boston.
After the reader has finished reading this book he disapproves of the title. He has been taken into ancient Poland, where the winter snows lie deep, where the wolves of the forest come with the night to make danger for the traveler. He has been shown how the upper class lived in the time of the Soldier-King, John Sobieski. He follows the thread of a passionate and tender and happily ended love-story. He laughs with and at the four brothers, the huge, rude, boisterous, but brave and good-hearted foresters. He feels impressed by the genius of the author during the whole time, for he knows that this strange Polish world, with its unfamiliar men and women, is a creation born of the mental processes of a great literary artist.
It is not an historical novel in the sense that “Quo Vadis” was. There is no field of glory at all. John Sobieski does not appear before us as Nero was made to do in the book just named.
The John Sobieski of this novel might be any other King. So far as we are told about his appearance, manners, dress, personal peculiarities, he might have been Rudolph of Hapsburg or Henry of Valois.
There are no battles, no sieges, no heroic advance or retreat. As the book closes, the Polish army has set out from Cracow to Vienna; and that’s as near as we approach the field of glory.
With the heroine the reader never gets in full sympathy. She drives away the man who has always loved her and whom she loveswithout knowing it.
She then consents to wed her hideous, lecherous, old guardian. More indignant than the bride, the spirits of the Unseen World resent this unnatural union, and they prevent it by claiming the groom while the marriage feast is being eaten.
With the hero the reader is on good terms from first to last, for his is a fine character finely drawn.
When the guardian and intended husband is dead, and the rejected lover is far away, the hero is subjected to trial and temptation, beset by dangers, marked for destruction by a lustful brute, neglected and hated by family connections. It is then that human interest of the deepest kind centres in the poor orphan girlPanna Anulka, whom we had condemned on account of her readiness to marry oldPan Gideon. We follow her fortunes then with painful attention and we rejoice when she is saved.
While “On the Field of Glory” is not, perhaps, so great a book as “Quo Vadis,” its atmosphere is purer, its store of love more tender and its portrayal of ancient manners and character apparently quite as faithful.
The Strange Story of the Quillmores.By A. L. Chatterton. Stitt Publishing Company, New York.
To write a novel which shall hold the reader with a strong and constant grip, and yet give him no love-story, is a feat not done by everyone that tries it. Mr. Chatterton tells no story of love, but I have not read many books that interested me more than “The Strange Story of the Quillmores.” Mr. Chatterton’s pictures of life are true to life: his men are the men who wear breeches—not impossible abstractions who say or do things which no human beings ever said or did. And his women are as real as his men.
Uncle I’and his store, where the neighbors buy all sorts of things, from ham to coffins, and where a group of loafers and tattlers is generally on hand, are as well known to the reader as if he had been there.Uncle I’must be a character taken from life. He is full of quiet humor, homely wisdom, sound common sense, manly courage and loyalty.
Old-fashionedUncle I’, keeping his old-fashioned carry-all store, swapping stories and repartee with his old-fashioned neighbors, struggling heroically with his old-fashioned telephone, and with it all, living up to the best standards of honesty and usefulness—yes,Uncle I’is a complete artistic success.
So isDoctor Gus. True, he reminds the reader, in a general way, of Ian Maclaren’s Scotch country doctor, butDoctor Gusis American, and he is stamped with sufficient individuality to make him a very live man to the reader.
What could be better than the old Germanwoman,Mother Treegood? The chapter in whichMother Treegoodcomes to visit Uncle I’s wife, who is broken with grief on account of her dying daughter, is one that is worthy of Dickens. It has the heart-throb of human sorrow, human sympathy, human love.
I don’t know of anything more touching, in its simple unpretentious way, than the story of howMother Treegood’sboys, the twins, ran away from home, and how one of them was drowned in the Ohio River, and was sent home for burial.
“My pretty boy was to our house brought, aber no one could him know—he was in the wasser—de water—so long—oh das Kalte, Kalte Wasser!so many, many days. I took more of the fever—und go out of my head—und so I never my Liebling seen again.”
The cry that was heard in Ramah, “Oh, that cold, cold water!”
Then, later on, there came a little box of tin-iron, “mit a hole cut in the on-top side.” But letMother Treegoodtell it in her own way:
“One day there came by the express company a little bundle. When it was opened—it was an oyster can—a box of tin-iron, mit a hole cut in the on-top side. The letter was from de other boy—und it say—that his brudder, who vas ver-drownded, did begin his business life in a hotel in Cincinnetty, as a bellboy, und he safe his money und put it in the oyster can. Und in dat oyster box was the shin-plasters, the five centses, und de ten centses—yoost as he take them in for noospapers and shoe-blacking—und it was yoost enough, ach mein lieber Gott!—yoost enough to pay for his grave at Brookfill.”
Surely this is very effective. It probably happened just that way. To know that it could, and perhapsdid, is just the right impression for the author of a novel to make on the reader.
Another splendid episode is that wherein a “run on the bank” begins, as the funeral of Colonel Quillmore is in progress. The chapters which relate the tragedy, the fire in the Colonel’s laboratory, the wild ride ofFather LessingandUncle I’; the dramatic climax whereMrs. Quillmorelashes herself into raving madness; the funeral procession whose mourners get caught up in the growing excitement of the “run on the bank,” and leave the hearse to fly to the bank for their money; the nerve and resource ofDoc. Gusin saving the bank, and in saving the cashier from the would-be lynchers—are chapters which bear convincing testimony to the power and creativeness of the author.
The book is so finely conceived and written that one is tempted to scold the author for a few glaring faults which are well-nigh inexcusable.
Why paintL’Oiseauso black when he was to be white-washed at the end? There was no need to have him behave so brutally to the boy,Lanny Quillmore. It was a blunder to make him insult the boy, incur the hatred of the boy, assault the boy, and drive the boy from his own home. The lad is allowed to think and believe thatL’Oiseauis on terms of criminal intimacy withMrs. Quillmore, Lanny’smother. There was no necessity for this. IfL’Oiseauwas brother-in-law toMrs. Quillmore, and was prompted by paternal interest in paying her such suspicious attention, and in being out in the woods with her at unseasonable hours in the night, why permit the lady’s son to torture himself under a misapprehension?
What earthly reason was there for keeping from her only son a knowledge of the fact thatL’Oiseauwas her brother-in-law, and that her abnormal physical and mental condition required these unusual and suspicious attentions from him?
Again,L’Oiseauwas rambling about at night withMrs. Quillmorewhen she lost consciousness, fell by the wayside, was found by the priest, and succored byDoc. Gus.
What had become of her escort,L’Oiseau?
He had mysteriously disappeared, andDoc. Gushad a right to put the worst construction upon his conduct.Father Lessingknew the truth; why didFather LessingallowDoc. Gusto remain in ignorance?
But the most serious blunder in the plot relates to the climax—the fire inColonel Quillmore’slaboratory.
Doc. Gussees the shadow of two men thrown upon the window shade. Only one of these men is accounted for, and the reader is left not only in doubt as to what happened, but in hopeless confusion. He cannot adopt any theory which will explainall the facts.
Now,thatis against the rules. Let the plot be ever so complicated, the mystery ever so deep, the authormusteither clear it up himself, or furnish the reader with the clue. Wilkie Collins, in spite of his bewildering tangles, unravels everything before he quits. In “Edwin Drood,” the book which Dickens was writing when death interrupted the story, the author had constructed one of his most involved and difficult plots. Before he had furnished the key to the riddle, he died. Yet Edgar Allan Poe was able to tell, with unerring certainty, just how the story was meant to end. By a keen analysis of the facts which Dickens had already related, and by a course of reasoning that left no room for doubt, Poe demonstrated thatJasper, the guardian and devoted friend ofEdwin Drood, had murdered him; that jealousy was the motive; that the body of the victim was hidden in the new tomb which the inflated ass,Sapsea, had recently built for the deceasedMrs. Sapsea; and that the corpse was located by oldDurdles, the drunken workman whose skill with his hammer was so great that he could, by tapping, tapping, tapping on the outside or a wall, tell whether a foreign substance, such as a human body, was inclosed within.
Poe’s own matchless story, “The GoldBug,” illustrates the rule which Mr. Chatterton broke. There are all sorts of mystifications to start with, but they are cleared up at the end.
Even in Frank Stockton’s famous “The Lady or the Tiger,” the rule is kept. The reader is left in a dilemma, but he can clear up everything by choosing one horn or the other. If he says that it is the lady who is behind the door which is about to be opened, no mystery remains. If he says that it is the tiger which is behind the door, nothing is left of the puzzle.
But in the Quillmore story there is no possible explanationwhich will dispose of the facts. IfColonel Quillmoredied in the laboratory, andL’Oiseaudidnotkill him, who did? What about thetwomen quarreling in there at the time of the tragedy? What becomes of that other man? And how couldQuillmore’sson meet him again in Paris? With the exception ofL’Oiseau, no one hadthe motiveto killColonel Quillmore; and the author made a point of showing that other people were afraid to go near the laboratory.
But if theColoneldidnotdie in the laboratory, how did his false teeth get into the mouth of the dead man whenDoc. Gusdragged him out of the flames? How did theColonel’s Masonic ringget on the dead man’s finger? How did theColonelmake his escape without being seen, and,who was it that he quarreled with and killed before he fled? Nobody appears to have been missing from the neighborhood. Usually when somebody is killed, somebody is missed.
Had Mr. Chatterton refrained from putting another man in the laboratory, had he left theColoneldead in the flames, identified by his Masonic ring, had he left the reader to suppose that the sudden death of theColoneland the sudden blaze which broke out in the building resulted from some dangerous chemical experiment, such as theColoneldelighted in—the story would have lost not a grain of interest and would have escaped a flagrant violation of the rules of literary construction.
The Game and the Candle.By Frances Davidge. D. Appleton & Co., New York.
Frances Davidge set herself too difficult a task when she attempted to make the characters in her novel. “The Game and the Candle,” speak in epigrams on every other page. The consequence is that the story, with its really brilliant beginning, develops into a commonplace love-story, and is only saved from absolute banality by its unforeseen and dramatic ending. In the field of literature which attempts to picture New York society the story will not find an enduring place, but it serves its purpose very well. The novelists are numberless who have sought to satirize our men and women of wealth and leisure; but few have given us any books that have lived longer than their allotted span of one brief season. The big society novel has not yet been written. Miss Davidge evidently knows a great deal of the foibles, the follies and the manners of the people of whom she writes, and her career is worth watching. At present she seems a bit immature and prolix, but there is no doubt as to her ability to write amazingly clever dialogue and to tell a story logically and well. Some of her characters are greatly overdrawn. One wishes that there were less ofGussie Regan, the hair-dresser; andEmily Blair, lovable as she is, could never have existed. Altogether, however, the story is pleasing and will find, doubtless, a large and appreciative audience.
H. C. T.
The Carlyles.By Mrs. Burton Harrison. D. Appleton & Co., New York.
In “The Carlyles” Mrs. Burton Harrison relinquishes the modern field which she has occupied for so long and with such marked success, and goes back to Civil War times for the scenes of her story. The Reconstruction period has been covered by innumerable writers. Indeed, it has been so frequently used by novelists and proven so fruitful a field, that one is apt to be overcome at the courage of an author who selects it now as the background for a tale; but Mrs. Harrison brings a certain freshness and charm to a subject that, it would seem, could inspire none. The opening chapter, which describes the impoverished condition of theCarlyles, brought on by the ravages of war, reveals the author at her best, and shows her intimate knowledge of life in Richmond in the ’60’s. The splendid fortitude of oldMr. Carlylein the face of his calamity and financial ruin, and the pride of the aristocratic Southerner are depicted with faultless art.
The story itself is the old one of a girl who is unable to choose between two lovers, one of whom, of course, is a Yankee soldier and the other a Southerner fighting as a lieutenant-colonel under Lee. The usual complications occur.Lancelot Carlyle, a cousin and lover ofMona, the heroine, is imprisoned at Fort Delaware, and of the long period of his confinement Mrs. Harrison writes graphically, describing minutely the terrible ordeal of prison life. Fine as this portion of the novel is, however, it is in the chapters dealing with quiet domestic scenes that Mrs. Harrison writes with most force and distinction. The incident of the Christmas dinner-party, with the unheralded return ofLancelotand the sudden death of oldAlexius Carlyle, is handled with consummate skill. The author has written no finer passage in any of her previous novels, nor one more certain to move her readers to tears.
H. C. T.
The House of Mirth.By Edith Wharton. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Undoubtedly no novel during the past season has elicited more favorable criticism and more numerous letters from constant readers than “The House of Mirth.” The book had a certain artificial success from thestart, because the impression went abroad that here at last was a book about Society, meaning the smallest number of the narrowest brains in any community from Kankakee to New York. On this very account there are a few millions of people in the United States who would not care to read it; but in view of the fact that some of the most serious critics have hailed “The House of Mirth” as a great American novel—only the bookseller now speaks oftheAmerican novel—a good many of the few millions, being persons of means and intelligence, would be tempted to indulge themselves in the rare luxury of such a boon. We cannot profess to treat the book as a true picture of American Society; because while we know how to wear the clothes and order the things to eat and drink, when we have the money, we have never, in our best-dressed and best-fed moments, been able to convince ourselves that we are anything but hopelessly middle class. Yet we are happy—sometimes; and we are bound to marvel at some of the things the society people in “The House of Mirth” do. For the most part they act like those people in New York who are loosely described as Fifth-avenue bohemians, which means they are people of much money, thoroughly informed about the decorative issues of life, with nothing to do but bore themselves and with a taste and intelligence that, in literature or the theatre, never craves anything more exciting than a musical show or a third-class novel, written by a man in Chicago, about lords and ladies of some corner lost and forgotten in Continental Europe. Our marvel that these society people should seem so underbred is only an exhibition of our unfamiliarity with a certain social stratum. We would have no right to make record of it, if it were not for the fact that so many people, of the better class themselves, have written letters of protest to divers publications, protesting against the impression that “The House of Mirth” is a story accurately representing New York society. We quote one letter from theNew York Times Saturday Review:
“I am not a literary man, much less a literary critic, but I look forward each week to the appearance ofThe New York Times Book Reviewwith renewed interest and read the various criticisms of your readers as to the merits of “The House of Mirth,” which in almost every instance meets their approval as a literary production of unusual merit. The writer, however, an octogenarian, born and bred in New York City, member of one of its oldest families and presumably familiar with its society, can but look upon “The House of Mirth” as a gross libel upon that society, and as an insult to a class as pure, as refined, and as intellectual as may be found the world over....“That such a condition as is therein described does exist in the lower strata of New York society, which may be termed swelldom, composed largely of “newrich” who swarm from other parts of the country to exploit their newly acquired wealth in showy equipages, wondrous wardrobes, and loud manners to the disgust of refined people, cannot be denied; but why a lady who has the entrée into the best society should elect to open the sewers of its lowest strata and allow its fœtid airs to escape through the medium of her pen is beyond the ken of your contributor.”T. R. W.
“I am not a literary man, much less a literary critic, but I look forward each week to the appearance ofThe New York Times Book Reviewwith renewed interest and read the various criticisms of your readers as to the merits of “The House of Mirth,” which in almost every instance meets their approval as a literary production of unusual merit. The writer, however, an octogenarian, born and bred in New York City, member of one of its oldest families and presumably familiar with its society, can but look upon “The House of Mirth” as a gross libel upon that society, and as an insult to a class as pure, as refined, and as intellectual as may be found the world over....
“That such a condition as is therein described does exist in the lower strata of New York society, which may be termed swelldom, composed largely of “newrich” who swarm from other parts of the country to exploit their newly acquired wealth in showy equipages, wondrous wardrobes, and loud manners to the disgust of refined people, cannot be denied; but why a lady who has the entrée into the best society should elect to open the sewers of its lowest strata and allow its fœtid airs to escape through the medium of her pen is beyond the ken of your contributor.”
T. R. W.
For our part, we prefer to depend upon the octogenarian who has just spoken, and who asserts his membership in one of the oldest families in New York, for an opinion upon the accuracy of “The House of Mirth” as a Society novel. As a novel pure and simple it seems to us to be radically defective in imaginative power, slow and cumbrous in construction, and wholly ineffective to impose an illusion. We say this with regret because we have read a good many of the author’s short stories from the time the first volume of them was issued; and the impression conveyed by her work in the short story field, as contrasted by the impression of this novel, makes clearer to us than ever the conviction that to write a short story a short-story writer is required, and to write a novel a novelist, and they have always been two persons from Mr. Kipling down and across. The author’s style is clear, sharp, refined, as before; but the gross defect of “The House of Mirth” is that the characters are pushed here and there by the author like so many wooden soldiers on a cardboard field of battle. They have no more volition than marionettes. In fact they are merely described names except in the instances of the three chief characters. One could have borne with the waxlike fibre of the attendant persons if the figure ofLily Bart, the heroine, would stand the gaze of the naked eye during even half the book.Lilyis described by the author as possessing a fine sense of diplomacy in intercourse with the people of her set, yet her whole register of action from the first page reveals her as moving through the comedy without prudence, yet without conscience, with maneuver, yet without skill; with an under-appeal to the reader’s sympathy, yet exasperating the reader until in the moment of tragedy he feels that the heroine deserved all she got and ought to have got it sooner. But, when one gets away from the book, one feels that the fault is not the fault of the character, but of the author who has paltered by trying to make literary academics and psychology square with life itself and a good story.
The minor irritations of the book are the absolutely fictional flavor of the names of most of the characters, the use of English or Continental idiom, and the mummery of the illustrations. Among the English phrases which the author so much affects isthe wordcharwomanforscrubwoman. It may be that Society calls a scrubwoman a charwoman, but we would like to see any society man or woman do it to the lady’s face.
It is announced that Clyde Fitch is to dramatize “The House of Mirth” for production next fall and that he will adhere to the construction of the story as much as possible. The book is worthy of Mr. Fitch’s lofty talent.
R. D.
Letters and Addresses.By Abraham Lincoln. Unit Book Publishing Company.
Even if there were a man, at this day of awakening in the United States, who could honestly say he had no interest in politics, providing he had any intelligence at all and ambition to think, he could not pass over such a book as “Lincoln’s Letters and Addresses” for the simple reason that on account of the style alone, the reading of them is a solace and a refreshment that endures. Of course, most of us are familiar with the addresses and the letters that have been so widely quoted, repeated, and learned by heart in school, that they are become as household words; but in such a book as this, containing infinite riches in little room, one secures not only the loftiest kind of pleasure but also a strangely intimate and attractive vision and understanding of the gaunt, unshapely figure whose genius towers higher as the years are added to the history of our country.
R. D.
Contrite Hearts.By Herman Bernstein. A. Wessels Company, New York.
Some books are interesting because of their content alone; some only on account of the personality of their author: some for the reason that both the author and the content of his book are humanly valuable. Of the third distinction is “Contrite Hearts,” a story of Jewish life in Russia and the United States, by a writer who on occasion before has shown that he can use an alien language with simplicity and force. He has shown before also that he can present a picture of the people of his race without bias and with a due understanding of their defects and qualities. The Jew in America as presented in melodrama is a creation almost wholly of the romance spirit of the theatre. It is not to be denied that the prevalence of the very poor Jews in the lowest ranks of traffickers among men has provided an obvious type. In sharp contrast to this is the growing dominance of the Jew in the very highest ranks of commerce. Between the two must of necessity exist the Jew of the middle class; and all these varieties of the race have expanded to their utmost in the United States rather than in any other country. From a purely artistic standpoint, therefore, there is nothing more evident than that the field of Jewish manners and customs is wide and rich ground for the novelist. The transmutation in one generation of a peasant in Russia, with no rights beyond those of a street mongrel, to a man in the most advanced as well as the most vigorous civilization of the day, is material too obvious to be overlooked by the most casual scribe.
Mr. Bernstein, while not a writer of dramatic quality has that quieter and more sincere gift native to Russians, whether Jew or Gentile, of presenting life as an actuality against the artificial background of the printed page. Many who are called novelists among ourselves, and who have never talked or written any language but English, could learn a good deal of simplicity from this foreign-born author. Of course, one runs across the traces of his birth in certain peculiarities that even constant practice cannot wear out. These blemishes, however, are never vulgar as are the strainful phases of an indigenous author who uses his language as a race-track tout spreads himself with the flashy colors and fabrics that the clothier and the haberdasher of his station provide. It is rather interesting to hear what one of the characters in “Contrite Hearts” has to say of this country.
“Here in America it is different. All are equal. Everyone is free. And all roads to success are open to the able, the enterprising, the persevering. There is no difference here between Jew and Gentile. People flock hither from all lands, and within a few years the Jew, the Frenchman, the German, the Irishman, the Italian—all are proud that they have become American. You ask me about the Jews, about Jewish affairs, about Jewish institutions—well, we have various kinds of Jews here. Orthodox Jews—these are the plain Jews like ourselves. Reform Jews—Jews who imitate the ways of the Christian. There are also Jews here who try to be both Orthodox and reform at the same time—that is, neither this nor that.”
Is this all true?
R. D.
Politics in New Zealand.By Prof. Frank Parsons. Edited by Dr. C. F. Taylor. Dr. C. F. Taylor, Publisher, Philadelphia, Pa.
This is one of the Equity Series published quarterly by Dr. Taylor, and contains the chief portions of the political parts of a book entitled, “The Story of New Zealand,” by Prof. Frank Parsons and Dr. Taylor. The latter is a large, heavy book selling at $3.00, and is doubtless the most complete history of New Zealand and exposition of present conditions there ever published. It is a beautifully illustrated volume containing 860 pages, and includes history, description, the native people (the Maoris) and their treatment by the whites, the splendid resources of the country, and, more than all, a full and interesting account of the rise anddevelopment of the remarkable institutions and government of New Zealand which are attracting the attention of all the rest of the world.
As Dr. Taylor well says in his explanatory note in “Politics in New Zealand,” the size and cost of the “Story of New Zealand” prevent it from reaching the masses of our people, and the political facts, particularly of that progressive country should reach the mind and thought of our voters. “It is,” he says, “with a view of placing these political facts within the easy reach of the masses of our people, that I have selected the most important of these facts from the large book and arranged them as you see them in this unpretentious pamphlet.” “Politics in New Zealand” is now being used in combination with subscriptions toWatson’s Magazine. (See advertising pages.)
The great value of “Politics in New Zealand” lies in the fact that it gives the workings of many Populistic ideas put into actual practice. In this country the People’s Party has been obliged to theorize and resort to an appeal to the reasoning faculties of the people. It has been unable to point out many illustrations of the actual working of its theories, except by reference to foreign countries. For example, to sustain its contention for public ownership of railroads, it has been obliged to use the lines in Germany and other monarchies as illustrations. The United States is such a vast domain as compared with countries in Continental Europe, that considerable discrimination is necessary in order to draw a fair conclusion. Besides, the European countries are so old that the habits of the people are a great factor not to be lightly dismissed. In using New Zealand, however, as our object lesson, the conditions are more, nearly parallel. It is true that country is much smaller than the United States, but in point of age and habits of the people, there is much similarity. Accordingly, New Zealand is without doubt the best object lesson in the world for proving the soundness of Populistic theories.
Those who have either bought or sold real estate in the older portions of the United States, understand the difficulties and uncertainties surrounding land titles under the system which is in vogue generally. As Prof. Parsons points out, it is often necessary to search through many big volumes of deeds and mortgages, and carefully construe the provisions of various wills and conveyances in order to follow the title to its source, and form an opinion as to its validity. And even then the opinion of the most accomplished expert may prove fallacious, and the purchaser may lose his land through some defect of title. As early as 1860 the New Zealanders passed an act to remedy this condition of things by establishing what is known as the Torrens system of title registration. The owner of land may give the registrar his deeds and the claims of all persons interested, and the registrar investigates the title once for all. He accepts it if he finds it valid, and registers the applicant as proprietor, giving him a certificate to that effect. The certificate gives an indefeasible title in fee, subject only to such incumbrances and charges as may be entered on the register. An independent purchaser has only to consult the register to learn at once who is the owner of the land, and what burdens, if any, rest upon it. He is not obliged to trace the title back to the Government Patent. This system is now in force in some places in the United States, but its adoption is generally opposed by those who profit by examining titles—that is to say, the lawyers.
There were some telegraph lines constructed under the provincial governments of New Zealand prior to 1865, but nothing was done in a national way until that year. Then the General Assembly authorized the Governor to establish electric telegraphs and appoint a commissioner to manage them. Existing lines and offices were to be purchased, new lines built, and a national system developed. The commissioner made the regulations, fixed the rates, and employed operators to transmit all messages presented. Afterward the telegraphs became a part of the postal system. This naturally led to government ownership and operation of the telephone when the latter means of transmitting intelligence was introduced. It is also a part of the postal system, and as Prof. Parsons points out, “The Government is ‘hello-girl’ as well as postmaster, telegraph operator and banker.”
Mr. Gladstone secured the establishment of postal savings banks in England in 1861. New Zealand adopted the idea in 1865, and since that time nearly every country in the civilized world, except the United States, has followed England’s example. The object of the New Zealand Post Office Savings Bank Act (1865) was stated to be: “To give additional facilities for the deposits of small savings at interest, and with the security of the Government behind it.” Practically all the money order offices in New Zealand (470 a few years ago) were open under the Postal Banking Law for the transaction of savings bank business, while there were but five private savings banks in the Islands. In New Zealand there is a place of bank deposit for each 1,800 people. In the United States there is one for each 7,650 people. The total deposits in all sorts of banks is $110 per head of population in the United States, $125 in Great Britain, and $140 in New Zealand. Comment seems to be unnecessary. The postal banks will not receive less than a shilling at a time, but printed forms are furnished on which stamps may be pasted, one or more at a time, until the total amounts to a shilling or more, when the slip can be deposited as cash to the amount of the stamps pasted on it. The great advantage of postal banking, and in fact all government banking, is its safety. No postal bank in any country has ever closed its doorfor liquidation, or experienced a run on its funds.
In view of our insurance scandals and the recent investigation, the chapter on Government Insurance is especially interesting at this time. In 1870 New Zealand adopted the Australian ballot and a public works policy, together with a Government Life Insurance Department. As the author points out, “The philosophy of this new departure was very simple. The purpose of insurance is the diffusion of loss. Instead of allowing a loss to fall with crushing weight on one individual, or family, it is spread out over a large number of stockholders or premium payers. If it is a good thing to distribute loss over a few thousand people who hold stock in a given company or pay premiums to it, it is still better to distribute the loss over the whole community. It is also wise to eliminate the expenses and profits of insurance so far as may be, and put the guarantee of the Government behind it, so that it may reach as many people and afford as much security as possible.”
The insurance department was popular from the very start. The latest report when this book was written (1901) showed in force 42,570 policies covering $51,000,000 of insurance, or practically half the total business of the Colony. The Government office had beaten the private companies in fair competition, for there was no attempt to exclude private insurance companies. It had, in 1901, a much larger business than any of the companies, and almost as much as all the companies put together. This refers, of course, to the ordinary life insurance business, for there were 21,000 policies in industrial societies, which were not included in the regular life insurance statement. Two of our companies mixed up in the recent scandal, the Equitable Life and the New York Life, had, in 1901, been in the Colony 15 and 13 years respectively. The Equitable had 717 policies in force and the New York Life 139, as against 42,570 Government policies.
The people of New Zealand prefer the Government insurance because of its safety—it has the guarantee of the Government behind it. It is in no danger of vanishing through insolvency, as ordinary insurance does now and then. Because of its cheapness, the rates being lower than any ordinary private companies; and because of its freedom from all oppressive conditions. The only conditions are that the premiums must be paid, and the assured must not commit suicide within six months after the insurance is taken out. As Professor Parsons says, “The policy is world-wide. The assured may go where he will, do what he likes—get himself shot in battle, smoke cigarettes, drink ice-water and eat plum pudding, or commit suicide under the ordinary forms after six months, and the money will still be paid to his relatives.” Instead of wasting valuable time and gray matter on devising schemes to prevent scoundrels from looting private insurance companies, why not devote a little thought to inaugurating a system of government insurance?
An unique institution in New Zealand is the Public Trust office, established in 1872. Its purpose is to serve as executor, administrator, trustee, agent, or attorney, in the settlement and management of the property of decedents, or others, who for any reason are unable or unwilling to care for it themselves; to insure honest administration and safe investment; to provide for a wise discretion that may avoid the difficulties and losses incident to a strict fulfilment of wills and trusts imperfectly drawn; and to give advice and draw up papers, wills, deeds, and other instruments for the people in all parts of the Colony.
“In the earlier years,” says the author, “nominations for representatives were made and seconded vocally at an assembly of the voters of the district. But since the Act of September (1890) representatives are nominated by petition in writing, signed by two or more voters of the district, transmitted with the candidates’ assent and a $50 deposit to the returning officer, who immediately publishes the names of the candidates. Each candidate must be nominated on a separate paper which must be transmitted to the returning officer at least seven days before the polling day. If the nominee doesn’t get one tenth as many votes as the lowest successful candidate, the $50 deposit is forfeited to the public treasury. This shuts out frivolous nominations. The nominations are usually made some time before the voting day, and the candidates go about the district and meet and address the electors in all parts of it. No candidate would stand any chance of election who failed to give the people he wished to represent an opportunity to get acquainted with him and ask him questions about his attitude on issues likely to come before the next Parliament. Seamen, sheep-shearers and commercial travelers are permitted to vote by mail. Such person gets a ballot paper filled up by the Postmaster with the names of the candidates in the applicant’s district, and the postal voter then marks the ballot and mails it.”
Another Populistic economic theory put in practice in New Zealand is the Land and Income Assessment Act which abolishes the personal property tax and establishes graduated taxation on land values and incomes. The avowed objects of the law are to tax “according to ability to pay,” “to free the small man,” and, “to burst up monopolies”; and its cardinal features are the exemption of improvements and of small people and the special pressure put on the big monopolies and corporations and on absentees.
All improvements are exempt. All buildings, fencings, draining, crops, etc.—all value that has been added by labor, all live stock also and personal property; only the unimproved value of the land is taxed. Mortgages are deducted also in estimating the land taxesas they are taxed to the lender. There is a small-estate exemption of $2,500, where the net value of the estate doesn’t exceed $7,500. So that if a farmer has no more than $2,500 of land value left after deducting improvements and mortgage liabilities from the value of his real property, he pays no land tax.
Besides the three exemptions mentioned, there is another conditional exemption. If an old or infirm person owns land or mortgages returning less than $1,000 a year, and can show that he is not able to supplement his income, and that the payment of the tax would be a hardship, the commissioner may remit the tax. Here the custom is quite the other way. The millionaire swears off his tax. Out of 110,000 land owners, in New Zealand, only 16,000 pay tax.
The graded tax begins when the unimproved value reaches $25,000. It rises from ¼ of a cent on the pound of $25,000 to 16⁄4ths, or 4 cents, a pound on a million dollars, or more, of unimproved value. This graduated tax is in addition to the ordinary level-rate land tax levied each year, which is 2 cents on the pound. Absentee owners of large estates have still another tax to pay. If the owner of an estate large enough to come under the graded tax has been out of the country a year, this graded tax is increased 20%.
The income tax applies to net income from employment, and net profits from business. There is an absolute exemption of $1,500, except in the case of absentees, and companies whether absentees or not, and a further additional exemption up to $250 a year for life insurance premiums, if the citizen wishes to spend his money that way. All income derived from land or from mortgages, so far as they represent realty, is outside this tax, which affects only income from employment or business. The farmer, who derives all his income from land, pays no income tax. The same may be said of a lawyer, doctor, teacher, artisan, or any other person who makes no more than $1,500 a year. The total number of income-tax payers is only about 5,600.
United States Consul Connolly, reporting to our Government in 1894 and 1897, has considerable to say regarding taxation in New Zealand. He says that country excels in the matter of taxation. That in a very short time the system of taxation had been revolutionized and the incidence almost entirely changed, not only without disturbing to any appreciable extent existing interests, but with the most beneficial results. He says the income tax was most fiercely denounced as inquisitorial, destructive of the first principles of frugality and thrift—in fact all the forms of evil lurked in the shadows of the words “income tax,” and a united effort was made to resist this “iniquitous tax,” but all to no purpose. And that in 1897, after six years of experience, the more liberal and fair-minded of those who opposed the income tax frankly admitted that it is a fair and unembarrassing tax. “In New Zealand the land and income tax is now popular; it is accepted in lieu of the property tax; it is a success.”
In the United States the Government is paternalistic toward banks, railroads and manufacturing interests. It loans its credit to the national bankers at most advantageous terms, but has persistently refused to favor other classes in a similar way. In New Zealand, however, in 1894, there was established a Government loan office which lends public funds to farmers, laborers, business men, etc. at low interest, and on easy terms. The security taken is on freehold, or leasehold, interest clear of incumbrances and free of any breach of conditions. The loans are on first mortgage of land and improvements. No loan is to be less than $125, or more than $15,000, and the sum of the advances to any one person must not exceed $15,000. There are two kinds of advances, fixed loans and installment loans. The first may be for any period not exceeding ten years, and the principal is due at the end of that term. The second is for 36½ years, and part of the principal is to be paid each half year. Interest in both cases is at 4½%, if paid within fourteen days of the time it is due (5% if payment is not prompt); and in the case of an instalment loan, 1% more is to be paid for the reduction of the principal.
Passing over the chapters devoted to the labor department, the state farm, the factory laws, the shop acts, the 8-hour day, industrial arbitration and co-operation, all of which are of intense interest, but of such a nature as to preclude brief statement, we come to the Government ownership and operation of the railways. The year 1894 Prof. Parsons calls “the glory year of land resumption. Government loans to farmers, nationalization of credit, labor legislation and judicialization of strikes and lock-outs.” It was in this year that another important move was made through a vital change in the national railway policy. In 1887 a commission system was inaugurated, under which the roads were put in the hands of commissioners appointed by the Governor, with the assent of Parliament. This did not prove satisfactory to New Zealand. The commissioners managed the roads with a view to making a good financial report. They were looking for profit. In the Parliamentary debates it was charged that rates were so high that firewood went to waste in the forest, and potatoes rotted in the fields, while the people in the cities were cold and hungry in the years of depression; that goods were frequently hauled more cheaply by wagon than by rail; that while rates were reduced somewhat now and then, it was done by reducing wages; that the pay of the men was cut while the salaries of high-priced officials were increased, and so on. This is a striking parallel to conditions in the United States today.
Prof. Parsons admits that the commissioners were honest, but they were simply railroadmen, running the roads to make money for the treasury. Finally public indignation became intense. The air was full of complaints, and in 1893 the abolition of the commission was made an issue in the campaign, and the people, by an overwhelming majority, elected representatives pledged to put the roads under direct control of the Minister of Railways and the Parliament, and to bring the railroads within speaking distance of the people.
The result of this change is that the roads are no longer run primarily for profit, but for service; and the men are treated with the consideration due to partners in the business. It is announced that the definite policy of the Government shall be that all profits above the 3% needed for interest on the railway debt shall be returned to the people in lower rates and better accommodations. This is in striking contrast to the facts brought out in the letter of Engineer William D. Marks to Hon. Wharton Barker, recently printed as a public document at the instance of Senator Tillman of South Carolina, in which it is shown that the people of the United States are today paying interest on a fictitious railway capitalization of something like $7,000,000,000.
In 1899 the Minister of Railways announced a reduction of 20% on ordinary farm products and 40% on butter and cheese, etc. These concessions, Prof. Parsons declares, amount to one seventh of the receipts—equivalent to a reduction of $150,000,000 on the yearly freight rates in the United States. That alone would be a yearly saving of almost $2 a head for the people of the United States. In 1900 Mr. Ward, the new Minister of Railways, announced a general lowering of passenger fares as the first fruits of his administration. “The announcement was received with cheers by the audience—stockholders in the road.” Care is taken in New Zealand that small men shall not be put at a disadvantage. The State roads carry 400 pounds at the same rate as the ton rate, or the train-load rate, and one bale of wool goes the same rate as a thousand. No such thing is known in New Zealand as the lowering of rates to a shipper because of the great size of his shipments. All the rates are made by the management openly. There are no secret modifications of the tariff. There may be a variation on scheduled rates to equalize a long haul, or enable a distant mine or factory to reach the market in condition to compete with nearer rivals, but the total charge is never lower than the rate that is given to others for the same service.
The State roads are used to advance the cause of education. Children in the primary grades are carried free to school. Other children pay $2.50 to $5, according to age, for a three-months season ticket up to sixty miles. This gives them a possible 120 miles a day for 3 to 6 cents in round numbers, or 20 to 40 miles for a cent. A child who goes in and out six miles each day rides 12 miles for 3 cents.
It is impossible in the limits of this article to more than touch upon many of the other advances made in New Zealand. The Referendum is now used to a considerable extent in local affairs, and its use is being extended. Old age pensions are in force, being a much better method than maintaining poor houses. Immigration is carefully guarded. The State is now opening coal mines and engaging in the business of furnishing fuel to the people. Many other innovations of this character are being considered and put in operation from time to time.
Prof. Parsons summarizes his study of New Zealand in some sharp contrasts and conclusions, from which we quote in part:
“The United States is in form a Republic, but ... an aristocracy of industrial power. New Zealand is in form an Imperial Province, but in fact it is substantially a Republic. The will of the great body of the common people is in actual control of the Government.
“In America, farmers organize for agricultural needs, and the working-men organize for labor purposes, but they do not join forces to take control of the Government in their common interest, as is the case in New Zealand. Not only have our farmers and workers failed to get together, but neither group has learned to use the ballot for its interest in any systematic way. The farmers divide at the polls and organized labor divides at the polls. In New Zealand the small farmers are practically solid at the ballot box, and organized labor is solid at the ballot, and the two solids are welded together into one irresistible solid.”
C. Q. D.
BACK HOME. By Eugene Wood. S. S. McClure Co., New York.
It isn’t often that an author writes a real review of his own book. Well, maybe he does, too, but it seldom happens that he writes it as a preface to the book itself, very seldom that it is an interesting one, very, very seldom that it tells you what to expect to find in the book, and very, very,veryseldom that he isn’t too much wrapped up in his own private idea of his story to write a fair one from our point of view. However, Eugene Wood, being unconventional and other pleasing things, has done all this in the preface to his “Back Home.” When you have read the preface, you are glad you did, instead of feeling sorry you wasted time on it and fearful lest a book by the same author of that preface will be something of a bore. After Mr. Wood’s preface you know Mr. Wood and about what to expect in Mr. Wood’s book. You like one, and you know you are going to like the other.
It would be the easiest thing in the world for the reviewer to sit down and write reams of “copy” on “Back Home” and the good things therein, but it is much more to thepoint for him who reads to listen to Mr. Wood himself. If you are human instead of petrified, you will enjoy both the preface and the book. Both reach for the heart-strings, and the terms—the term is good.
Here is the larger part of the preface:
“Gentle Reader:—Let me make you acquainted with my book, ‘Back Home.’ (Your right hand, Book, your right hand, Pity’s sake: How many times have I got to tell you that? Chest up and forward, shoulders back and down, and turn your toes out more.)
“Here’s a book. It is long? No. Is it exciting? No. Any lost diamonds in it? Nup. Mysterious murders? No. Whopping big fortune, now teetering this way, and now teetering that, tipping over on the Hero at the last and smothering him in an avalanche of fifty-dollar bills? No. Does She get Him? Isn’t even that. No ‘heart interest’ at all. What’s the use of putting out good money to make such a book; to have a cover-design for it; to get a man like A. B. Frost to draw illustrations for it, when he costs so like the mischief, when there’s nothing in the book to make a man sit up till ‘way past bedtime’? Why print it at all?
“You may search me. I suppose it’s all right, but if it was my money, I’ll bet I could make a better investment of it. If worst came to worst, I could do like the fellow in the story who went to the gambling-house and found it closed up, so he shoved the money under the door and went away. He’d done his part.
“And yet, on the other hand, I can see how some sort of a case can be made out for this book of mine. I suppose I am wrong—I generally am in regard to everything—but it seems to me that quite a large part of the population of this country must be grown-up people. If I am right in this connection, this large part of the population is being unjustly discriminated against. I believe in doing a reasonable amount for the aid and comfort of the young things that are just beginning to turn their hair up under, or who rub a stealthy forefinger over their upper lips to feel the pleasant rasp, but I don’t believe in their monopolizing everything. I don’t think it’s fair. All the books printed—except, of course, those containing valuable information; we don’t buy those books, but go to the public library for them—all the books printed are concerned with the problem of How She got Him, and He can get Her.
“Well, now. It was either yesterday morning or the day before that you looked in the glass and beheld there The First Gray Hair. You smiled a smile that was not all pure pleasure, a smile that petered out into a sigh, but nevertheless a smile, I will contend. What do you think about it? You’re still on earth, aren’t you? You’ll last the month out, anyhow, won’t you? Not at all ready to be laid on the shelf? What do you think of the relative importance of Love, Courtship, and Marriage? One or two other things in life just about as interesting, aren’t there? Take getting a living, for instance. That’s worthy of one’s attention, to a certain extent. When our young ones ask us: “Pop, what did you say to Mom when you courted her?” they feel provoked at us for taking it so lightly and so frivolously. It vexes them for us to reply: “Law, child! I don’t remember. Why, I says to her: ‘Will you have me?’ and she says: ‘Why, yes, and jump at the chance.’” What difference does it make what we said or whether we said anything at all? Why should we charge our memories with the recollections of those few foolish months of mere instinctive sex-attraction when all that really counts came after, the years wherein low passion bloomed into lofty Love, the dear companionship in joy and sorrow, and in that which is more, far more than either joy or sorrow, “the daily round, the common task?” All that is wonderful to think of in our courtship is the marvel, for which we should never cease to thank the Almighty God, that with so little judgment at our disposal we should have chosen so wisely.
“If you, Gentle Reader, found your first gray hair day before yesterday morning, if you can remember, ’way back ten or fifteen years ago—er—er—or more, come with me. Let us go ‘Back Home.’ Here’s your transportation, all made out to you, and in your hand. It is no use my reminding you that no railroad goes to the old place. It isn’t there any more, even in outward seeming. Cummins’s woods, where you had your robbers’ cave, is all cleared off and cut up into building lots. The cool and echoing covered bridge, plastered with notices of dead and forgotten Strawberry Festivals and Public Vendues, has long ago been torn down, to be replaced by a smart, red iron bridge. The Volunteer Firemen’s Engine-house, whose brick wall used to flutter with the gay rags of circus-bills, is gone as if it never were at all. Where the Union School-house was is all torn up now. They are putting up a new magnificent structure, with all the modern improvements, exposed plumbing, and spankless discipline. The quiet, leafy streets echo to the hissing snarl of trolley cars, and the power-house is right by the Old Swimming-hole above the dam. The meeting-house, where we attended Sabbath-school, and marveled at the Greek temple frescoed on the wall behind the pulpit, is now a church with a big organ, and stained-glass windows, and folding opera-chairs on a slanting floor. There isn’t any “Amen Corner,” any more, and in these calm and well-ordered times nobody ever gets “shouting happy”.
“But even when “the loved spots that our infancy knew” are physically the same, a change has come upon them more saddening than words can tell. They have shrunken and grown shabbier. They are not nearly so spacious and so splendid as once they were.
“Some one comes up to you and calls you by your name. His voice echoes in thechambers of your memory. You hold his hand in yours and try to peer through the false-face he has on, the mask of a beard or spectacles, or a changed expression of the countenance. He says he is So-and-so. Why, he used to sit with you in Miss Crutcher’s room, don’t you remember? There was a time when you and he walked together, your arms upon each other’s shoulders. But this is some other than he. The boy you knew had freckles, and could spit between his teeth, ever and ever so far.
“They don’t have the same things to eat they used to have, or, if they do, it all tastes different. Do you remember the old well, with the windlass and chain fastened to the rope just above the bucket, the chain that used to cluck-cluck when the dripping bucket came within reach to be swung upon the well-curb? How cold the water used to be, right out of the north-west corner of the well! It made the roof of your mouth ache when you drank. Everybody said it was such splendid water. It isn’t so very cold these days, and I think it has a sort of funny taste to it.
“Ah, Gentle Reader, this is not really ‘Back Home’ we gaze upon when we go there by train. It is a last year’s birds’ nest The nest is there; the birds are flown, the birds of youth, and noisy health, and ravenous appetite, and inexperience. You cannot go ‘Back Home’ by train, but here is the magic wishing-carpet, and here is your transportation in your hand all made out to you. You and I will make the journey together. Let us in heart and mind thither ascend.
“I went to the Old Red School-house with you. Don’t you remember me? I was learning to swim when you could go clear across the river without once ‘letting down.’ I saw you at the County Fair, and bought a slab of ice-cream candy just before you did, I was in the infant-class in Sabbath School when you spoke in the dialogue at the monthly concert. Look again. Don’t you remember me? I used to stub my toe so; you ought to recollect me by that. I know plenty of people that you know. I may not always get their names just right, but then it’s been a good while ago. You’ll recognize them, though; you’ll know them in a minute.”
A. S. H.