James Bertram the Chinese Communists

A New Zealand Qyarter!J' VOLUME THREE 1 949 Reprinted with the permission of The Caxton Press JOHNSON REPRINT CORPORATION JOHNSON REPRINT COMPANY LTD. 111 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10003 Berkeley Square House, London, W. 1 L OF LL A NEW ZEALAND QlJARTERLY EDITED BY CHARLES BRASCH AND PUBLISHED BY THE CAXTON PRESS VOLUME THREE NUMBER ONE MARCH 1949 CONTENTS Notes 3 Six Place Names and a Girl, Maurice Duggan 7 Three Poems, Pattl Hendmon 10 The Chinese Communists, 7ames Bertram I2 For Ever and Ever, 1ohn Kel/y 21 Four Poems, Lorna Clendon 25 The Waitaki Valley, Theo Schoon 28 Summer's End, Bruce Maron 29 Commentaries: THE GROUP SHOW, JOhn Summers 60 A NATIONAL THEATRE, George Swan, Ngaio Marsh, Arno/d F. Goodwin 63 Reviews: THE FIFTH CIDLD, Frank Sargeson 72 YEAR BOOK OF THE ARTS IN NEW ZEALAND, 1anet Paul 73 OUR OWN COUNTRY, J· F. McDougal/ 76 GUNG HO, David Ha// 78 RIPTIDE IN THE PACIFIC, 1ohn A. Brai/sford 80 THE MAORI PEOPLE AND US, Ernert Beag/eho/e 82 NEW ZEALAND, B/ackwood Paul 84 THE POLITICS OF EQUALITY, E. A. 0/rren 86 Correspondence 93 Photographs by Theo Schoon NOTES I THE committee of the State Literary Fund is to be congratulated on making a grant to Allen Curnow to enable him to spend a year overseas. It is fitting that one of the first of the country's poets and critics-the only New Zealand writer whose standing is equally high in both fields-should be the first to receive such a grant ; Mr Curnow has not been abroad before, and no one could better represent New Zealand letters than he. It is to be hoped that other similar grants may be made from time to time. Writers in this country have to work as teachers, journalists, librarians and the like to support themselves ; while there is a constant demand upon their nominally ' free ' time for lectures and broadcasts and summer schools (whether in their professional capacity or as writers), a demand very difficult to resist in a small community. The danger of this pressure is that they will simply dry up from a combination of exhaustion and frustration. Works of art cannot be turned out like scones. Ideas for them, inspirations if you will, are not offered every day even to the genius. If the ideas have to be rejected again and again for sheer lack of time, they will cease to occur. And, when it comes, an idea needs time to grow, to ripen in the mind; this means that the writer must have leisure for rumination, for apparent idleness (in fact no born writer, no artist in any medium, is ever idle in the usual sense : his mind and his sensi- bilities never cease to work), for periods of gestation; we may recall T. S. Eliot's remark about the poet's 'necessary receptivity and necessary laziness.' In short, if you want the writer to write, set him free to do so, and leave him alone. To give writers a period of freedom is therefore the best way (apart from making grants for publication) in which the state can aid literature. rr THE State Literary Fund also made a grant towards the publication of The Pioneers and Other Poems by Arnold Wall. According to a note on the dust-jacket this is intended ' as a final collection of his work.' It contains three hundred and sixty one poems (the table 3 of contents occupies eleven pages) set solid, without any division into sections, even of serious pieces, light verse and jingles, without any indication as to chronological or other order or previous publication if any, and, though well printed, is bound and jacketed to look like the deadliest of The result is so forbidding that no conscientious reviewer is likely to face the book without dismay or finish it without vertigo. Professor Wall states in a preface that but for the Literary Fund's grant the book would have been a much smaller one, and it must be asked whether a smaller book at a lower price than fifteen shillings would not have been more widely read. A good selection of Professor Wall's work would be welcome, but he is not one of the poets whose every trifle need be preserved with the aid of the public purse. The State Literary Fund will hardly increase its reputation by being associated with publications so ill-planned and so unfortunate in appearance. m THE Canterbury Society of Arts has added a further illustrious page to the annals of art in New Zealand. Last year the Society decided at a general meeting that a painting by the late Frances Hodgkins would be a good addition to the Society's collection, since neither it nor the McDougall Gallery possesses any of her work. With the help of the British Council three of her oils and three water colours were brought out from London on approval, and were hung in the Society's gallery in Armagh Street. But this did not mean that they were being shown to the public : such is not the Society's way; mysterious notices put up beneath them explained that they were not really on view (the annual Group Show was hanging in the gallery at the same time) and must not be photographed or mentioned in the press. Of these paintings, two of the oils had been shown in a British Council Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Sweden, and one water-colour at least in an exhibition of British water-colours at the Brooklyn Museum in New York, while one is reproduced in the Penguin Modern Painters Prances Hodgkins; all come from well-known London dealers. They are, that is, quite reputable paintings and they belong to the later period of the painter's work, 4 of which there are no examples in public collections in New Zealand. The Council of the Society held a meeting to consider them (the proceedings were rumoured to be lively) and decided by a maJority vote not to purchase any. The decision met with some public disapproval, and after a hard-hitting signed correspondence in the Christchurch Press, and after a petition asking for reconsideration of the decision had been signed by a considerable number of visitors to the gallery, a further meeting of the Council was held with the same result as before. The Council had not advertised the arrival of the paintings, but news of them had by now reached Dunedin and Wellington and there were requests to have them shown in those cities. The requests were stone-walled : the Council apparently did not wish any other body to buy one of the paintings and so make it look foolish ; its only aim now was to end the matter quickly and quietly, and as the president (who was not in favour of this) disclosed, some members urged that they should be packed up and sent back to England. But finally Dunedin prevailed. Meanwhile, in December, the Society held its annual meeting. At this, the three members of the Council who had been most active in promoting the purchase of one of the paintings were voted off the Council by a ticket vote originated by members associated with the Canterbury School of Art. The School is the stronghold of the ' established ' Canterbury painters, nine of whom are now officers of the Society. The most interesting reason which has been offered for the decision not to purchase one of the paintings in question is that if such work were to be shown and become popular it would spoil the market for the work of local painters. One question remains. What would have happened to one of the paintings if the Society had bought it? Would it too have been preserved jealously in the darkness and dust of the rooms behind the Armagh Street gallery where for so many years the Society's collection has been shown only to the spiders? IV IN countries such as our own, without a written constitution, the powers of the executive in certain spheres are not well defined. 5 But if a government can retain and give to the press for publication, on whatever plea, the private correspondence of citizens, its power can have few limits, and there can be little safeguard against it for the individual. In such a situation, critics of society or government-and one government is likely to prove much the same as another, if it possesses such power-will feel themselves under constant threat; no journalist or author will be secure in the exercise of his profession ; no private life safe from invasion. It may be that this power, even if not challenged, is unlikely to be exercised often in normal times-if any times are now normal. But the mere existence of it, the knowledge that it may be used at any moment, on any excuse, will have a stifling and blighting effect upon the whole political and intellectual life of the country. Independent newspapers and journals will exist precariously, upon sufferance; the fate of Tomorrow should not be forgotten. V LAST year the New Zealand Film Censor brought opprobrium on himself by banning the film Brighton Rock. The censorship of films does however operate publicly. But the censorship of books in New Zealand is operated in secret: no announcement is made when a book is banned or placed on the 'dangerous' list: no list of such books is available to the public. News has now leaked out of an attempt to secure the suppress- ion of Dan Davin's novel For the Rest of our Lives.

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