Firmer than Facts
War with the Newts. By Karel Capek. (Allen and-Unwin. 7s. 6d.) This book is so distinct from current fiction that it is worth special consideration. It belongs to the same kind of literary creation as Stapledon's Last and First Men. People who enjoyed that remarkable book will enjoy this one. Both authors have in common an imagination directed by an unusually strong reasoning power, and fed frc m a large mass of sociological knowledge. Capek's method, Lo sever, is lighter, more humoi-
ous and satirical, and he does not indulge• in grand panoramas or Wellsian dream-stapes of futurity. All the - strange events in this book are presented in a matter-of-fact way, often by such oblique methods as quotations from news- paper reports, political speeches, trade union manifestos, international conferences, -and all the other solemn devices by means of which mankind explains away its ignorance and fears, and justifies itself for acting ostrich-fashion.
The story opens with a cantankerous old sea-captain looking for pearling grounds in the Pacific Islands, He comes across a kind of huge newt, a salamander about four feet high.
To his amazement it shows intelligence. He takes a year's leave to investigate the discovery,_ and the result is that he soon has a colony of these repulsive yet attractive creatures supplying him with pearls in return for knives which they use against their enemy, the shark. Thus protected, they begin to breed quickly. The old man goes home to Czechoslovakia, and soon this vast potential of slave-labour is put on a business basis. A great trust is formed. The pearl market being glutted and finally destroyed, the marine ability of these newts is exploited for building dams, harbours, canals. Much legislation is enacted with regard to the feeding of the newts, the question of ownership, hiring, organised breeding, and protection of these docile and willing workers. They are graded according to their ability and strength, and soon they are like humanity in having castes and as it were social strata. Trade in them is regulated, but, of course, piracy springs up, and it becomes so vast an enterprise that it has to be connived at by the Governments.
The ensuing horrors of cruelty are ignored by mankind, though there are cranks who promote societies for the educa- tion and so forth of the Salamanders. They respond so readily to this education that soon they have their sub- marine universities and a remarkable culture. It is no longer possible to treat them as animals or slavei. They become a moral as well as a social problem, and the organised religions of the world have to face that problem. Mr. C-apek shows what happens. Meanwhile vast libraries grow dealing with the scientific and other aspects of this new race which now threatens to submerge mankind. A German philosopher even discovers biolo0Csd differentiations in those newts who have been employed in &rid reclamation silong the Baltic coast. They are obviciusiy-Wliiter,,n; Ofeidealistie and nobler than the degenerate kind working in other parts of the world.
The growth of this -alnpillbian race; with all the social, political, superstitious and irrational interrelations between it and mankind, is worked out With astonishing thoroughness,' and we see the gradual approach_of that final conflict which results in a war, as inevitable as any other war, wherebY half the dry land is submerged by the newts, -and the human race defeated, at least temporarily. Under all the detail of realism, of course, lies the shadow of satire, as in The Insect Play.
• RICHARD CHTJRCH.
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