The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 14, Issue 12 (March 1, 1940)

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I Have spent much of my spare time this month reading Centennial books. They made me realise what a wonderful story is wrapped up in this Island home of ours. What thoughts these books arouse of the early struggles of our pioneers and of the heritage they have created and handed on to us—a heritage of freedom and security! The reading of these books makes us realise more keenly that this freedom, so carefully protected for us by Britain, is to-day being menaced; yet might we not have grown selfish, careless and indolent, if sacrifices did not face us now? With the pioneer spirit still with us, however, we feel that the freedom we hold is safe in our hands, for we know how to guard it. We are reawakened and we will carry the grand torch forward.

Linked up with this thought is the realisation that what the pioneers fought to create for their children and their children's children was made infinitely more precious because it was born of sacrifice. So it is that a strong virile race has emerged—proud of the past and grateful for the present created for them.

Our centennial books, therefore, are particularly appropriate and also inspiring reading at the present time. The creative side of New Zealand prose and verse, however, is not built on or directly inspired by the national spirit. True, our writers in this field have written much of their own land, but, particularly in the case of our poets, they have told us more of the beauties of New Zealand than of the hard facts of life surrounding them. However, our poets write of “the golden dream” and our historians, of “the iron finger” so beautifully described by Arnold Cork in his pioneer poem:—

“The roads that thread my country are the weaving
Of faith into a deathless tapestry,
Wherein by golden dream and iron finger,
Hope wrought the frieze of her nativity.”

The books reviewed below tell this story. Alan Mulgan in his “City of the Strait,” unfolds the story of Wellington and we realise that this gift to us of a glorious capital city is to be guarded, and, maybe, pioneered again in the light of modern developments. Another book, “A New Zealand Judge,” reveals to us what character has meant and will mean in the creation of freedom and justice. “Pioneering the Pumice” shows us how a grappling with the soil will make her release to us her choicest gifts. Another book reveals new aspects of Maori tradition, the inspiration of our brown brother. Then we go to South Auckland and learn more lessons of Empire building from the pen of E. R. L. Wily. In fiction, built on historical fact by Nelle Scanlan, we read a novel of Wellington taking us even to the present day. The home, such a powerful influence in Empire building, is here intimately disclosed. Finally, we have two further numbers of Centennial Pictorial Surveys, one dealing with our squatters and the other with the winning of gold.

These “Pictorial Surveys of a Century” are truly the lesson books of the school we all must learn in now—the school wherein we must determine that sacrifice, which is really another name for charity. This learning is necessary for the holding together and the perpetuation, of our Empire of Faith and Freedom.

The book reviews following fit in, therefore, with the particular motif of this issue.