THE PACIPIt TETANCLE.*

MR. GRBENBLg'S method in this book is interesting and deserves to succeed rather better than it does. He is an American traveller who during his wide voyages judges the world dis- passionately, and who, in describing scenery, telling anecdotes about the people he meets, making a study of racial charac- teristics and watching the ebb and flow of trade, is all the time preparing the stage for the discussion of political questions. Probably he is wise not to try to fuse into one continuous narra-

tive his physical and political observations. Although his division is not a hard and fast one, he gives us in the main that a narrative of travel and, secondly, in the last quarter of the book, a discussion of political problems. This is quite a good method in itself. The reader has an opportunity of getting

to know the people before he is asked to try to understand their manner of approaching their difficulties. Where Mr. Greenbie falls short, as it seems to us, is that his narrative

of travel though clever and furnished with many phrases which neatly strike off a situation or a scene is often uneasy in spirit.

We are conscious of living on more comfortable terms with the author in the latter part of the book, where he discusses the political problems directly and positively and in a less ambitious style.

Ms attitude is that of an idealistic American who takes all humanity for his province. He likes the British people— though he says the Empire is no proper home for an American —and he is on the whole much impressed by Australia and New Zealand, though he finds a good deal to provoke his mirth and astonishment. On our side we think we are justified in being a little amused at the way in which he discovers rather better motives in kb own countrymen than in Englishmen, when as a matter of fact both are doing the same kind of thing. For instance, he regards the American hold upon the Philippines as an experiment in democracy and therefore in the interests of humanity. He does not allow quite so mush credit to the Administration at Samoa. So far from objecting to this attitude,

however, we rather like it, as it merely means that Mr. Greenbie is a good American. His point of view is distinctly preferable to. that of some inhuman nondescript whose allegiance is flabby

and indistinct.

Mr. Greenbie found the people of New Zealand strangely different from the Australians. This difference) is, of course, a commonplace to those who remember the great geographical distance between Australia and New Zealand and the dis- similar social origins of the two settlements. Yet even many Englishmen are in need of being informed upon this subject,

for many of those who do not act upon the late Lard Salisbury's exhortation to consult large-scale maps regard New Zealand as a kind of armese to the Australian continent. Mr. Greenbie found in New Zealand a touch, of social 'precision which was absent in Australia. He says :— ." In these circumstances, one is immediately classified and accepted or rejected, according as one is or is not acceptable. Having recognized certain outstanding features of the gentleman in you, the New Zealander is Briton enough to accept you without further ado. There is in a sense a certain nalvet4 in his measurement of the stranger. He is frank in questioning your position and your integrity, but shrinks from carrying his suspicions too far. He will ask you bluntly : Are you what you say you are " Of course I am,' you say. 'Then come along, mate.' But he does not take you very far, not because he is niggardly, but because he is thrifty. As a result of this New Zealand spirit I found myself befriended from one end of New Zealand to the other by a single family, the elder brother having given me letters of introduction to every one of his kin— in Hamilton, Palmerston North, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. And with but two or three exceptions I have always found- New Zealanders generous and open-hearted. Wherever I went, once I broke through a certain shyness and reserve, I found myself part of the group, though generally I did not remain long, because I felt that new sensations could not be expected. My one great difficulty was in keeping from falling in love with the New Zealand girls. Rosy-cheeked, sturdy, silently game and rebellions, they know what it is to be flirtatious. For them there is seldom any other way out of their loneliness. Only here and there do parents think it necessary to give their daughters any social life outside the home."

In spite of all the Labour legislation of New Zealand, Mr Greenbie thinks that there is little of the characteristic spirit of Labour as we understand it here. He explains this by remind- ing us that New Zealand was not a rebellious offshoot of England but was made in the image of the Mother Country. Nowhere in New Zealand did he come across evidence of "awakened • The Pacific Triangle. By Sydney Greenbie, Illustrated with Photographs. London : Mills and Boon. Mts. nut.] consciousness on the part of the masses to their opportunities."

The New Zealanders, as he sees them, Content with their most beautiful islands and never stirred by any political or intellectual upheaval, have not experienced any of the provoking causes of artistic development: He says that there is not from end to end of New Zealand any great architecture, nor a single Statue or monument of artistic importance, nor a painting of excep- tional quality nor any poetic outpouring of the love of Nature. Turning to Australia he describes, for example, his impression of Melbourne :— " On Bourke Street, in the very midst otthe plashing crowd, a soft-voiced lad approached me for some information and strutted off, tall in his self-confidence. Victorian belles, tall, graceful, russet-skinned, plump but not flabby, moved with a fine air of self-reliance. On closer acquaintance, I found that these girls were not silent and opiniothess as were most of the New Zealand girls. Whatever the issue before the public, they had their defined opinions concerning it, and they were not sneered at by the men. Then, too, there was a companionship between the boys and girls, without reserve, that was balm to my soul after the year in New Zealand. . . . Given a Continent wherein nothing of civilization was to be found, Australia has made of it, in a little more than a century, a land productive, healthful, and promising. Much praise j. dueJapan for what she has accomplished along material lines in seventy years ; how much more praise is due Australia for what she has done in about the same time !"

This is all very well, but surely the Maori wars in New Zealand provided enough yeast for intellectual effervescence. They

were more truly an excitation than any that came from the contact between the white men and the Australian aborigines.

Sir George Grey was an epical figure. Of course the Australians, in their struggles with their desolate interior and in. many other

episodes of their progress, including at least one serious challenge to the authority of the Mother Country, also "lived their lives," All we mean is that the experiences of the two countries in their

development do not sufficiently account for any intellectual or artistic disparity.

Mr. Greenbie, Iffie all Americans, is sorry for the Chinese and suspicious of the Japanese. What strange and indescrib- able trait is it in the Chinese which makes nearly all white men move comfortably among them, and causes most Europeans, when. they spend many years in China, to assimilate their ways

of thinking more and more to Chinese ways ? In. Japan Mr. Greenbie was conscious of no attraction. He saw, of course,

that the Japanese have strong and impelling national motives, but his humanitarian idealism forbade him to approve of them :— " I search my memory and experience earnestly trying to find a basis for Japan's leadership in Asia that is not materialistic, and I cannot find any. Energy and intellectual capacity Japan has. Her present leadership in practical affairs is a great credit to her. In time, when greater leisure will become the possession of her teeming millions, there is doubtless going to appear much more that is fine and valuable in the fabric of the race. For Japan has fire. Her people are an excitable, flaming people who may burst out in a spasmodic revulsion against their commer- cialization. But for the time being, her only right to a voice in the destinies of Asia is found in her industrial leadership of the East, but that is a leadership which is fraught with more menace to Japan than to the world."

Mr. Greenbie deplores Japanese religion as merely a material- istic glorification of Empire, and as for that cult of chivalry

known as Bushido he agrees with the view that it is the invention of very recent, times. On the whole he attributes his dissatisfaction with Japanese habits to the fact that the Japanese are not really Orientals but are Malays mixed with

Oriental and Caucasian elements. The Chinese, on the other hand, have the elemental passivity of the Oriental in their child- like manners and charming simplicity.