[We shall be glad to review books in all Indian languages and in English, French and German. Books for Review should reach the office at least SIX WEEKS in advance of the day of publication of the Journal.]

ENGLISH

The Hindustan Review.–Edited by SJT. SACHCHIDANANDA SINHA, Bar-at-Law (15, Edmonstone Road, Allahabad. Annual Subscription Rs. 6.)

It is now six months since The Hindustan Review commenced to reappear as a monthly magazine. And we have been wondering all the time whether it is right for a baby-journal like Triveni to appraise the work of a veteran publicist like Sjt. Sachchidananda Sinha, who for thirty long years, has maintained a high level of journalistic excellence and made his Review a power in the land. But the same pleasant convention which enables the rawest junior at the Bar to refer to even the Advocate-general as ‘my learned friend’, gives us an opportunity of rendering homage to ‘our esteemed contemporary’.

In the very first number, the distinguished Editor sketches the development of Indian public life during the last thirty years, and everybody will concede that The Hindustan Review and its Editor have played no mean part in that development. We are told how the first article for the Review, thirty years ago, was written by Mr. (now Dr. Sir) Tej Bahadur Sapru, a. rising lawyer. We note with great pleasure that Dr. Sapru's eldest son, Sjt. Prakash Narayan Sapru, is associated with Sjt. Sinha in the conduct of the journal. The articles in every number cover a very wide range, though, naturally enough, greater prominence is given to the political and economic problems of Modern India. With his usual catholicity of outlook, the Editor has thrown open his columns to persons of different schools of thought. Babu Rajendra Prasad writes about the Revival of Non-cooperation and Dr. Besant about Dominion Status for India. Among the younger writers of note may be mentioned Mr. C. L. R. Sastri, son of Mr. C.Y. Chintamani.

The reviewing of current literature is a particularly attractive feature of the journal, which enables the reader to keep in touch with the best contemporary thought. Further charm might be lent by including reviews of books in the various Indian vernaculars. The Modern Review led the way in this matter, and other Indian journals ought to follow that example. The Hindustan Review is not only well edited but also admirably printed and got-up. In this respect, it is like The Review of Reviews. We heartily wish the Review a future as brilliant as its past.

K. Ramakotiswara Rao.

The Law and Theory of Railway Freight Rates:- SRINIVASAN, K. C., (B. G. Paul & Co., Madras, Rs. 10.)

The Government of India's recent announcement that it proposes to revise the Indian Railways Act of 1890 must naturally compel the commercial community to take interest in the very important problem of amending the Act in such a way that adequate checks are imposed on the power of the various railway administrations to form their rates policy against the best interests of the country. There can be little doubt but that the very light control exercised by the legislative Assembly on the railway budget is in no small measure responsible for the grossly unfair treatment which the railways mete out to those who cannot enlist the support of the various European Chambers of this country or are not able to bring pressure on the Railway Board. The incorporation of the railway companies in England with direct-rates which are by no means responsive to the pressure of Indian interests, the powers which they wield out of all proportion to the capital invested by them, and their natural inclination to allow their policy to be guided by considerations fundamentally racial, are responsible for the gross maladjustment of the rates policy of the railways to the real and genuine needs of the country. An independent writer with a full knowledge of the facts would be in a position to expose the vagaries of the system now in vogue, but there is no one in India who is well-versed in the actual facts and at the same time enjoys the requisite independence. Our commercial men are not farsighted enough to make it worthwhile for anyone to specialise in investigations of the kind which lead to a thorough understanding of the complex problem of rates. The men on the staff of the railways take their cue merely from the I. R. C. A. and have neither the inclination nor the opportunities for studying the important questions of policy which underlie all rate making. That remarkable figure in Indian intellectual life, Sir Asutosh Mukherjee, realised with an astuteness which is really uncanny, how important a subject this is, and with his characteristic energy he set about finding a person who could be trusted to speak on it with inside knowledge. It is to him and the Calcutta University that we owe the publication of two excellent books on the rates-system,–the only books which gave the public an inkling into the processes by which the rates were manipulated to suit circumstances. The constitution of a Rates Enquiry Committee, however, gave rise to an opportunity for the system of rates coming within the purview of a person of really first-class attainments, and, as chance would have it, so capable a person as Sir B. N. Sarma was appointed the President of the Committee and so competent a person as Mr. K. C. Srinivasan, was appointed its Secretary. The three years of the secretary ship gave Mr. Srinivasan so full an insight into the system that the book which he has produced as a result of his intimate study of it is a work of abiding merit and of outstanding excellence. Mr. Srinivasan, however, is a servant of the Railway Board and naturally could not give away any of its secrets and his book does not indeed help us to divine the purposes of that body. But Mr. Srinivasan's purpose,–that of acquainting the public with a description of the rates-system and an account of how it has grown, and of the surface movements which have guided its evolution, and of the fundamental principles that underlie all sound rate-making,–has been admirably achieved in the volume before us.

The book starts with a historical survey of the growth of the Indian railway system and of its relation to the activities of the Government. Chapters follow on the elements of Indian railway finance and the outlines of railway statistics and the machinery by which a consistent rates policy is sought to be worked out and controlled for the whole of India. Mr. Srinivasan points out how the Indian system would be unintelligible to one ignorant of English and American conditions and therefore devotes, very rightly, a number of chapters to a comparative study of the conditions obtaining in those countries. A series of chapters follow on the classification of goods and of freight tariffs and the conditions of carriage, and he sets out, in admirable outline, the various considerations which determine the fixation of reasonable rates. An elaborate and careful study of the vexed question of undue preference is attempted in a series of three chapters, and the interesting–often complicated–problems of terminal charges are dealt with in three more chapters. The subsidiary topics of the minimum and the short distance charges go into a chapter and those of through rates and continuous mileage into yet another. The last chapter of the work is one of the most interesting in the book,–perhaps the most useful,-to the businessman who has a grievance and desires to bring it to the notice of the Rates Enquiry Committee. Every chapter bears the marks of careful workmanship and close thinking–and for the lay reader the subject has been treated in so popular a form that he is bound to find the book more attractive than he expected it to be. The only suggestion we would make is that, if a new edition is called for, the author may re-group the chapters so that Chapter V may follow Chapter VII, and Chapters XI, XVIII. XIX, XX, XXI, and XXII may follow Chapter XIV.

LEX.

Moonbeams:- V. N. BHUSHAN, (Masulipatam).

These short poems of Mr. V. N. Bhushan are not all of them equally inspiring. But this much must be said to the credit of the poet, that he has some beautiful traits of feeling and real appreciation of life. There are certain touches of fine and delicate feeling as in the ‘Jasmine’ and ‘Innocence’ and they reveal that true poetic quality of appreciation and criticism of Life. They have that blending of rhythm and meaning which points to achievement of poise. We wish him the success that he truly deserves.

K. C. VARDACHARI M. A.

TELUGU

Satyasamrajyamu :- Dhanvantari Raghutthamacharya (Sri Rama Press, Kuppam, Chittoor Dt. Price 8 as.)

This small essay on truth and the way of approach to it is a healthy and really clear presentation of the modern tendencies of all youth towards truth, shorn of all the small wisdom of the past which presented the world of existence as illusion. The world is a creation

of delight and therefore our problem is not how to get out of it, but how to get at its centre of being which is to be found only in the Self or Atman. He begins by saying that we may treat the Vedas as untrue, we may regard the Rishis as speaking falsehood and we may dismiss system-builders like Sankara as mere quibblers and barren logicians. But one thing alone we cannot treat as false and that is the aspiration towards truth which is at the centre of our inmost being. To disregard this fact of aspiration to truth and its possibility for our self is fatal to life. This realisation of intrinsic beatitude is possible only through infinite Love for the eternal. Love, the author defines as ‘inexhaustible affection’. He undertakes to show in the second section on Living,–refusing the theory of some people that the world is a vale of sorrow and unhappiness,–that the world is not such a wretched place but all this unhappiness, pain and fear and sorrow is limited and passing and has no eternal significance. For the Self seeks truth and happiness in itself because it knows that it is to be found within itself, however hidden and veiled this knowledge is.

This self-realisation is attained by giving up our life at the altar of that greater and diviner Life at the core of our existence, which is unlimited, and intrinsically and eternally blissful. It is only by subordinating, as the author says, our finite view of life to the richer and complete life that Bliss dawns upon our selves. Towards this end of complete happiness, faith in oneself and the truth alone will lead one. This small book is written in simple Telugu and can be followed easily by any reader. The author must be congratulated for putting forth clearly the philosophy of the age which refuses to regard the world as a place where intelligent creative happiness has no place and is only a vast monastery to practice austerities and put on melancholy airs of world-weariness. Such books of Hope and Faith in oneself are very requisite in India, at any rate, more than in any other country, and the author has done well to present it to the people of his country in their own language.

K. C. VARADACHARI M. A.