Hall's book has already appeared thone columns, in view of ite) special terest we give the fol-of the volume which the "Spectator Almost—but, alas! not quite—Mr. King-Hall' has written a really important book. - Even as it is his book is of great value. But what treasure it might have been! How invaluable would be a comprehensive, sensible, unbiased account pact of Western Civilization fon the East. And what assets Mr. King-Hall had for the writing of such a book! He is sensitive enough to notice not only that Chinese are different from Euro-but also that some Chis Europeans differ amongst themselves. Observant enough to notice the awakening of a continent (not, one supposes, a necessarily easy thing to notice—tlike some names fon the map, it may be written too big to be seen); independent enough to conclude that the "immemorial East" is at the moment about five years old, having started a wholly new and rapidly accelerating movement in an unknown direction in about the year 1919; irritable enough to say that all' the judg ments of Kipling-fed merchants who have lived in treaty ports for 40 years are, ex hypothesis, worthless, ince they all refer to a condition of things which no longer exists except in. their. on imagination And yet at the same time no crank, bhut a practical, hearty, beef-cating Britisher! It all sounds too good to be true, This must be the perfect. book on East and West, that the world needs so badly: But, das! for human aspirations, there was Jone thing lacking in Mr. King-Hall, Tu spite of - all those magnificent qualifications' "for writing. this particular book he lacked one essential qualifieation—the ability to write a book at all. Now, writing any book is not as easy as shelling peas, and to write as big and ambitious a book as this one is, merely from a technical, point of view, a task of the very greatest difficulty. Unfortunately, " though perhaps inevitably, people do not consider book construction a craft [which needs learning like any other jeraft. The only school is experience, bout: the first lesson, even in that school, should surely be a comparatively, short and unambitious Unhappily Mz. King-Hall had to write this, perfectly understand that. the-scale was necessary if the subject was to be dealt with comprehensively. But the result is, frankly, chaos, The book is arranged." neither chronologically nor by subject. leap from century to century—from China to Japan, from Religion to Railway Statistics. Even within the chapters themselves. there orders a chapter will be headed innoently enough, "Domestic Politics in Japan." The first 20 pages will turn out to be a discussion on a modern state religion; the middle 20 conscientious account of party fluctuations from year to year; and often cover the same ground again as the middle or the beginning, from a different point of view.
Thus it must be admitted that th book is an extremely diffeult, one to read, There is no central theme running through it, no. thesis on which the facts can be hung, s0 that coherent whole is constructed, These are the book's faults, and they are grievous. But we' must, put up with them as best we can, because, in spite of them all, this is the best book we have on the subject, "Indeed, except for Mr. Russell's admirable which deals, it is true, with the same subject on roughly the same lines, but which is much shorter and slighter and now two years old, there is no other book that we know of written from an even reasonably modern point of view on the situation as it is today in the Far East.
On "Japan especially Mr. King-Hall is much faller and more com-Plete than Mr. Bertrand Russell, His) main. point isan interesting tone. "Japan, by the most amazing experiment "in artificial "nation: building that the world has. ever seen, hax been turned. in 60. years from n feudal state of the Middle Ages into a first-class aggressive modern Power, armed to the teeth, equipped with' all the weapons of [modern diplomacy from poison gas to a ready-made philosophy of 'rat politique. This process reached its completion, Mr. King-Hall says, ithe end of the Great Wa At Paris, Japan had arrived.
Her ree presentatives sat in solemn juigment, together with the Allies, over the prostrate bodies of two of the great White Empires, from one of Which she had learned her own mi system, But irony intervened in the person of President Wilson, Just' when Japan had grasped the principles, of rather the want of principles, of statecraft had learned that in international affairs Might was on every occasion, Right; that the countries of the world lived in that "state of nature in which the devil did in fact with unerring precision take the hindermost—just as she had learned all this, in came President Wilgon with Jan entirely new set of rules for the great game. The reign of law was to be established—the League of Nations was actually established—international good will, not. shin: ing swords, was in future to gulate the affa Tt wa all very baffling to the new Power that had just learned the opposite lessons, and Mr. Stephen King-Hall seems to think that Japan is finding some difficulty in adjusting herself to this new point of view. Like all arrivistes, she is anxious to live up to her international company, but the fashions seem to change bewwilderingly quickly! There may be good deal in this, but we cannot help feeling that Mr. King-Hall exaggerates the diffeulty for Japan, Surely her own lessons of rat politique in international affairs will till stand her in very good stead, unless it be that our hopes and not our fears about the League of Nations are, after all, to the fulfilled.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.