A GERMAN LOOKS AT OUR PUBLIC MEN n Vander. By
Rudolf Kircher. (Frankforter Drfickerei. 12s. 6d.) THE author of this shrewd and fascinating volume is the ndon correspondent of the Frankfurter Zeitung, which still one of the three leading daily newspapers in Germany. do not know whether an English version is in course of paration. I hope so, for the book is a pleasure from ginning to end. In the meantime, no one who has a reason- le mastery of the German language ought to fail to read in the original. Can it be that, as a people, we are gradually coming more intelligible to foreign observers ? Within e last few years three brilliant writers have shown us our- Ives as others see us from varying angles. First there was • Andre Maurois, who in the immortal Colonel Bramble d its sequels gave us a picture of the English civilian turned liller in the Great War ; then the Czech dramatist, Karel pek (the author of R.U.R. and The Insect Play). His ty book was admittedly the fruit of a holiday visit to shores—but first impressions are often the surest. d now, in a long book of considerable political importance r it goes far back into.the years leading up to 1914) comes err Kircher with his observant eyes, his retentive memory his ironic pen. His style, though less epigrammatic, is !ascent of Mr. Philip Guedalla, but he has no corresponding re to pull the statues from their pedestals. Rather, Herr Kircher apiiears to want to explain them to countrymen, emphasizing their perfections, glossing over illaperfeetions (as he sees them) with delightful wit and Partial tolerance. The temper of the whole book is !nimble. Herr Kircher's range is wide, travelling from Lord Balfour to Lord Beaverbrook via the most popular living Englishman, whom he charmingly calls "Mr. Hobbs." Few will disagree with his pen-portraits of Lord Oxford and Lord Derby, particularly the latter, which is a brilliant piece of writing. For Mr. J. H. Thomas and Mr. Baldwin he reserves the full measure of his enthusiasm. Few English writers, indeed, have bestowed such praise on Mr. Baldwin, nor found in him a subject for poetry, but Herr Kircher has the courage of his convictions and states feelingly that he is a modern Joan of Arc. The Prime Minister is sometimes reported in the Press to be a sad, even a broken-hearted man : this sketch of his personality should restore his self-confidence.
When all is said, one comes back to "Mr. Hobbs." Herr Kircher is that rare phenomenon, a foreigner who understands cricket : not only its queer and abitrary rules, but also its contribution to the English character and its place in our scheme of things. He understands the value of cricket and its levelling influence for good, but he sees danger on the horizon if we abandon ourselves more and more to sport and lose the will to work.
The position of newspaper correspondent in a foreign
capital is a responsible and an honourable one, hardly, if at all, less important than ambassadorial rank. He is, or should be, the human rather than the official link between the peoples of two countries. The Frankfurter Zeitung has every reason to be proud of its representative in London. One small point, perhaps, is worth adding. The Germans, by training and instinct, are a methodical race. There are no slips in this book of the sort generally made by French writers. No "Lord Lloyd George" for Herr Kircher ; still less any confusion between Sir Austen Chamberlain and the sorely- tried gentleman whose melancholy duty it is to blue-pencil our plays
E. S. A.
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