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PALGRAVE STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT

Making Sense of
Joan Robinson on China

Pervez Tahir
 Palgrave Studies in the History
of Economic Thought

Series Editors
Avi J. Cohen
Department of Economics
York University & University of Toronto
Toronto, ON, Canada

G. C. Harcourt
School of Economics
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW, Australia

Peter Kriesler
School of Economics
University of New South Wales
Sydney, NSW, Australia

Jan Toporowski
Economics Department
School of Oriental & African
Studies, University of London
London, UK
Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought publishes contri-
butions by leading scholars, illuminating key events, theories and indi-
viduals that have had a lasting impact on the development of modern-day
economics. The topics covered include the development of economies,
institutions and theories.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14585
 Pervez Tahir

Making Sense of
Joan Robinson on
China
Pervez Tahir
Islamabad, Pakistan

ISSN 2662-6578     ISSN 2662-6586 (electronic)

Palgrave Studies in the History of Economic Thought
ISBN 978-3-030-28824-2    ISBN 978-3-030-28825-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28825-9

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland
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 Preface (2020)

Around the start of 2018, Geoff Harcourt encouraged me to send a

proposal to Laura Pacey at Palgrave Macmillan to publish this volume.
It was written during my stint as Joan Robinson Memorial Lecturer at
the Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge in 1990. Some ear-
lier work was done as part of my doctoral work at Cambridge, super-
vised by Geoff. In the original dissertation completed and submitted in
1988, “Making Sense of Joan Robinson on China” was a three-page
appendix. The main essay was on Joan Robinson in princely India of the
late 1920s. In a letter to the Director of Research at the Faculty, her
husband, Sir Austin Robinson, claimed that the work I attributed to
Joan Robinson was actually his. I believed I had enough evidence to
support my contention. However, in deference to Sir Austin (remember,
the Faculty building is named after him), the committee asked me to
revise the dissertation.
I had never known Joan Robinson personally. She had passed away
before I came up to Selwyn College in 1984. My college time in Lahore,
Pakistan, coincided with the heady days of the 1960s. Students every-
where in the world were revolting against the established order. Like
many others, Mao was our ideal. I had enjoyed reading Freedom and
Necessity and The Cultural Revolution in China. So as a young man, I was

v
vi Preface (2020)

a lot more starry-eyed than Joan Robinson! At the University of Colorado

at Boulder in 1980–81, an arch Post-Keynesian, Tracy Mott, exposed me
further to the continuity of thought in Marx, Keynes, Kalecki and Joan
Robinson. I was able to tell the “bastard Keynesians” from others.
Regardless, the reason to choose Joan Robinson as the subject of my dis-
sertation was different.
I had left the country because of the suffocation I felt during the
obscurantist and fascistic regime of General Zia ul Haq. I thought it was
a good time to complete my education. But I did not want to do any
empirical work that might require going back home to collect data or
carry out fieldwork. A few meetings with Geoff led to the decision to
work on the development-related work of Joan Robinson. In August
1988, the military regime ended after General Zia’s death in a plane
crash. Instead of revising my dissertation, I left for Pakistan.
Geoff had not given up on me, though. Not only did he prevail on
me to return and revise the dissertation, he and John Sender, my inter-
nal examiner, induced me to explore in depth Joan Robinson’s forays
into China. Peter Nolan, my official Faculty Adviser, challenged me no
end. Other doctoral candidates were all too willing to help in any way
they could. I remember Masood Karshenas, Andy Mckay, Anjali,
Additiya Mattoo and a nice couple from Sri Lanka. This is how a
three-page appendix developed into a long essay. Geoff must have
liked it enough to rope in Prue to bring out a shorter version in 2002.1
Thirty years on, its publication was not easy. When Geoff asked me to
submit the manuscript to Palgrave Macmillan, I discovered to my hor-
ror that I had misplaced my copy. Yet again, Geoff went scouting. He
found a copy in the National Library of Australia and arranged to
send it to me.
In the end, I would be remiss if I did not recognise the support
extended by Palgrave Macmillan, especially Laura Pacey, Joseph Johnson
and Rachel Sangster. My wife, Dr Nadia Tahir, Managing Director,
Quality Assurance Agency of the Higher Education Commission of
Pakistan, made every effort to ensure that I do not compromise on qual-
 Preface (2020) vii

ity. Nevertheless, any failing that remains is exclusively my own and has
nothing whatsoever to do with any name mentioned here.

Lahore, Pakistan Pervez Tahir

Note
1. Pervez Tahir, G. C. Harcourt and Prue Kerr, ‘On Joan Robinson and
China’, Ch. 13 of Joan Robinson. Critical Assessments of Leading Economists,
Vol. 5, edited by Prue Kerr with the collaboration of G. C. Harcourt
(London, Routledge, 2002), pp. 267–80.
 Acknowledgements (1990)

John Sender and John Toye suggested the idea of writing this volume as
part of my doctoral dissertation at Cambridge University, which was
completed under the able supervision of Geoff Harcourt. Many of the
arguments were drastically recast in the light of Peter Nolan’s comments
on an earlier draft. I also benefited from the advice of the late Sukhamoy
Chakravarty and Lord Kahn. Ajit Singh, Ronald Berger, Sol Adler, Carl
Riskin and Liu Minquan were helpful in various ways. The unpublished
material is quoted here with the kind permission of the trustees of JVR
Collection at King’s College. The work on the present version was sup-
ported by the award of Joan Robinson Memorial Lectureship in
Economics at Cambridge University. Although my debts are enormous, I
remain solely responsible for the views and any errors.

ix
 Contents

1 Introduction  1
References   5

2 The Contributions  7
Letters from a Visitor to China (1954)   7
China: An Economic Perspective (1958)    8
Notes from China (1964)  10
The Cultural Revolution in China (1969)  11
Economic Management in China, 1972 (1973)  13
Reports from China, 1953–1976 (1977)  14
China Since Mao   14
References  16

3 The First Phase: Thoughts on Socialist Development in a

Backward Overpopulated Economy 23
The Views Set from the Beginning   23
State Accumulation, Technology and the Price System   32
Performance and Prospects at the End of the First Five-Year
Plan  40
Some Important Events and Joan Robinson’s Point of View   46
References  56
xi
xii Contents

4 The Second Phase: A “Starry-eyed” Joan Robinson 61

The Famine That Never Happened   61
Birth Control: The Return of the Orthodoxy   64
The Leap in the Communes   65
Campaigning for the Maoist Point of View   74
The Cultural Revolution: Illusion of a Cooperative Solution   84
Managing the Economic Chaos—on Rightist Principles   96
References 113

5 The Third Phase: Self-criticism119

Looking Back—With the Benefit of Hindsight  119
Joan Robinson After Mao  122
Joan Robinson’s Insights and the Rightist Development
Initiatives 129
References 133

6 Concluding Observations137
References 149

Postscript (2020)153

References165

Index181
 Abbreviations

ACEI Anglo-Chinese Educational Institute

BCFA British-China Friendship Association
BCPI British Council for the Promotion of International Trade
CCPIT China Committee or the Promotion of International Trade
CPSG China Policy Study Group
FCFA Franco-Chinese Friendship Association
JR Joan Robinson
JVRC Joan Violet Robinson Collection
NCP National Conference on Planning
NEP New Economic Policy
SACU Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

xiii
 1
Introduction

Joan Robinson’s views of Maoist China do not make sense to many in the
economics profession. Some find these “scandalous” (Turner, 1989, 170),
others “completely uncritical”, even “totally unreliable”.1 She paid eight
visits to China—in 1953, 1957, 1963, 1964, 1967, 1972, 1975 and,
finally, 1978.2 The whole experience is seen to be “reminiscent of the
Webbs’ late love affair with the Soviet Union”.3 If a sympathetic Samuelson
is puzzled as to how an independent mind like hers “waxed successively
enthusiastic about Stalin’s Soviet Union; Mao’s China; North Korea;
Castro’s Cuba; American students’ new leftism” (Feiwel, 1989, 862), a
friendly Harcourt (1982, 319) has to admit that her “writing in this area
contains a deliberate leaven of advocacy”. Development economists are
sharply critical, too. Streeten believes that “she was wrong about Mao”
(Feiwel, ibid.). In an interview with the author, Chakravarty stated that
Joan Robinson’s interest in, and writings on, China were a less interesting
aspect of her contributions. Economists with a specialist interest in the
development of China hold a similar view. According to Riskin, “her
writing about China was probably the least interesting aspect of her work,
except in that it revealed views and attitudes that might throw light on

© The Author(s) 2019 1

P. Tahir, Making Sense of Joan Robinson on China, Palgrave Studies in the History of
Economic Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28825-9_1
2 P. Tahir

her other concerns”. But he hastened to add that “being Joan Robinson,
she could not write about anything completely without insight”.4
It might be said in Joan Robinson’s defence that the leaven of advocacy
was a way of countering the propaganda of those whose own writings
contained a bias in favour of capitalism (Harcourt, 1982, 359). It might
also be said that she was not alone in looking at the Chinese experience
as a successful strategy of development.5 A convenient approach would be
to dismiss her writings as traveller’s tales, which are not expected to con-
tain serious analysis anyway. None of these courses is adopted here. China
was isolated and quite misrepresented as well. Who would know better
than Joan Robinson that there is no substitute for information and analy-
sis? Even those extremely critical of her other works do not deny her acute
analytical prowess. She was thus not expected to respond to propaganda
in kind. Further, it is a fact that she shared the illusions about Maoist
China with many others. That does not render her position less vulnera-
ble than it is. Further still, her explorations in China and its development
were by no means a sideline activity. Some of her main works discuss
China as an economy where development was actually taking place
(Robinson, 1962b, 1968h, 1970g, 1979b; Robinson and Eatwell, 1973).
The main objective of this volume is to focus on the insights by sepa-
rating analysis from advocacy. Joan Robinson’s influence in the develop-
ing world exceeded the extent of her serious contribution to development
economics. At a time when theories and models of development are being
subjected to intense re-examination in view of the accumulation of a
considerable fund of experience in the developing countries as well as the
availability of more reliable information about socialist economies, it is
instructive to look afresh at the insights as well as prejudices acquired by
a theorist of the stature of Joan Robinson.
Joan Robinson had “no special knowledge of Chinese history and none
at all of the language” (Robinson, 1977b, 7). It is obvious that a writer in
her situation is dependent upon interpreters. Observation makes up for
the inability to communicate directly only to the extent that the sample
being observed is fairly representative of the population. She did not
write anything on China in the scholarly economic journals, except for
some book reviews. Most of the writings appeared in journals of politics
and social issues. Many of them were described variously as ­“reminiscences”,
“letters”, “notes”, “conversations”, “reports” and so forth. While Joan
 1 Introduction 3

Robinson’s China connection has been severely attacked by the right as

well as the left,6 no attempt has been made even to write up her work in
a thorough and informative way. This volume is an attempt to do so.
Chapter 2 sets out the main contributions which Joan Robinson made
in her work on China. The material—which is enormous, some of it
unpublished and most of what is published is in periodicals ranging from
the well known to the hardly known or in the form of pamphlets—is
organised with a view to getting a grip on the main economic arguments.
It is possible to look at her work in three broad phases. The first phase
comprises her thinking and writing before the third visit in 1963. As is
shown in Chap. 3, despite tremendous enthusiasm for the Chinese exper-
iment, she had her own set of views on how China should develop as a
socialist economy. The two field trips served the purpose of gathering
some evidence in support of her views. The study of China appears to
have provided for Joan Robinson, at least until her third visit or during
what is called here the first phase, a laboratory to intuitively test her own
thinking about economic development in the backward overpopulated
economies. Her ideas in this first phase were broadly similar to the views
of the right in China—a high rate of capital accumulation, achieved
without an intolerable sacrifice of consumption, profit-oriented indus-
trial management to avoid bureaucratic tendency, use of prices with
moral supplements, population control, reward by work done and the
extraction of agricultural surplus through gradual collectivisation.
Inequality, according to her, is associated with private property. With its
elimination, she assumes the prevalence of justice in the nonagriculture
sector, though the tax-free collective property differentials in agriculture
are seen to be a source of inequality. On the whole, she finds the planning
arrangement in China to be working well in industry, but still feels uneasy
about the suitability of socialism as a system for agriculture due mainly to
the difficulties of organising labour on a large scale.
In the second phase, she takes a sharp turn to the left. Between the
Great Leap Forward and the cultural revolution, a period of statistical and
informational blackout, she argues that the problems of socialist organ-
isation lie in industry not agriculture. The communes are considered to
have resolved the dilemma of organising labour in agriculture, whereas
Soviet-type industrial management (even in its reformed decentralised
form) is criticised for its profit motivation and a hierarchical structure
4 P. Tahir

resulting from differentials caused by intellectual property—an unfortu-

nate outcome of equal-opportunity education. Thus the planning system
is plagued not only by its inherent bureaucracy, but also by the inequity
of the property system. In the cultural revolution she perceives the pos-
sibility of a cooperative system, based on the serve-the-people ideology.
Chapter 4 discusses the second phase of her writings, which began after
the trip to China in 1963 and lasted until 1975. During this most impor-
tant phase, enthusiasm for the Chinese experiment turned into advocacy
of the Maoist position on economic as well as political issues. Believing
as she did in information supplied to her at the time of a statistical black-
out, the analysis was constrained by the quality of the information used.
It is argued that her incisiveness returns whenever she rids herself of the
distorting influence of the prepared information.
It was not until after the death of Mao that she discovered to her hor-
ror that the Chinese had not been telling the truth even to trusting ana-
lysts. This was the beginning of the third and final phase, which is the
subject matter of Chap. 5. With more information available in the post-­
Mao China, she was able to look back at her previous writings and put
some of the record straight. This is a phase of self-criticism, in which Joan
Robinson admits to having been starry-eyed about the cultural revolu-
tion decade and returns to supporting rightist economic reform. This is
not to say that her story is always plausible whenever she is not misled by
the Chinese. In some important cases, she does not follow up the logic of
her own argument.
The last chapter presents the conclusions of the volume. In the main,
it is argued that what is possible to salvage out of her thinking and enthu-
siasm about the economic development of China is a set of ideas not very
different from the views of those dubbed as the rightists in the so-called
two-line struggle in Mao’s China.

Notes
1. See Chipman’s reminiscences and Ilahn’s interview in Feiwel (1989, 868,
907).
2. In Robinson (1977b), the note introducing her mentions, incorrectly,
only six visits until 1977.
 1 Introduction 5

3. Matthews in Feiwel (1989, 912).

4. Carl Riskin’s letters to the author, 27 February (1987).
5. See, inter alia, Beitelheim (1958, 1974), Raj (1956) and Reynolds (1975)
from across the ideological spectrum. See also India (1956) and Pakistan
(1975) for reports by two official delegations of planners from developing
countries.
6. For a bitter attack from the radical left, see Robinson (1968d).

References
Unpublished Material

Carl Riskin’s letter to the author, 27 February, 1987.

Published Works

Beitelheim, C. (1958) ‘China’s Economic Growth,’ Economic Weekly, 10,

1460–4.
———. (1974) Cultural Revolution and Industrial Organisation in China.
New York: Monthly Review Press.
Feiwel, G.R. (ed.). (1989) Joan Robinson and Modern Economic Theory. London:
Macmillan.
Government of India. (1956) Report of the Indian Delegation to China on
Agricultural Planning and Techniques. New Delhi: Government of India Press.
Government of Pakistan (1975) Economic and Manpower Planning in People’s
Republic of China: Report of the Delegation of Development Planners and
Manpower Experts to People’s Republic of China. Islamabad: Printing
Corporation of Pakistan.
Harcourt, G.C. (1982) The Social Science Imperialists, P. Kerr (ed.). London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Raj, K.N. (1956) ‘The Indian and Chinese Plans,’ Economic Weekly, 8, 699–702.
Reynolds, L.G. (1975) ‘China as a Less Developed Economy,’ American
Economic Review, 65(3), 418–28.
Robinson, Joan. (1962b) ‘Review of E.S. Kirby (ed.),’ Contemporary China.
Economic Journal, 72, 734.
———. (1968d) ‘Reply to Sussex Internationalists’ Attack, SACU News, 3, 5.
6 P. Tahir

———. (1968h) ‘The Decentralised Society. Review of A. Donnithorne,’

China’s Economic System, SACU News, 5.
———. (1970g) Freedom and Necessity. London: George Allen and Unwin.
———. (1977b) Reports from China, 1953–76. London: Anglo-Chinese
Educational Institute.
———. (1979b) Aspects of Development and Underdevelopment. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Robinson, Joan and J. Eatwell. (1973) An Introduction to Modern Economics.
London: McGraw-Hill.
Turner, M.S. (1989) Joan Robinson and the Americans. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
 2
The Contributions

Most of the visits paid by Joan Robinson to China coincided with crucial
phases in the Chinese development. At the end of a visit, she would gen-
erally bring out publications containing her thoughts and fresh material.
This survey is organised around them. While these publications consti-
tute her main contributions, the writings between the visits—articles,
reviews, comments, letters and so on—were largely in the nature of fur-
ther elaborations, clarifications and reactions to criticisms of the main
contributions. Joan Robinson had a tendency to reproduce partly or
wholly her previous writings on later occasions, sometimes under differ-
ent titles. In this chapter, an attempt is made to sort out this
“double-counting”.

Letters from a Visitor to China (1954)

In the summer of 1953 (June–July),1 Joan Robinson paid her first visit to
China. The first phase of the Chinese development, 1949–52, had ended.
During this phase, the People’s Republic had been engaged in making its
revolutionary impact felt through institutional reform, together with the

© The Author(s) 2019 7

P. Tahir, Making Sense of Joan Robinson on China, Palgrave Studies in the History of
Economic Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28825-9_2
8 P. Tahir

more immediate task of rehabilitating the war-torn economy. Being in

China in 1953, therefore, afforded Joan Robinson an opportunity to
analyse the Chinese performance for the outside world. She recorded her
first impressions in the form of letters, originally serialised in the Monthly
Review during 1953–54 and subsequently collected in Robinson (1954a)
under the title of Letters from a Visitor to China.2 In addition, in a shorter
paper she made a forceful plea to end China’s isolation: she pleaded that
“Napoleon’s sleeping giant had awakened, and there was no use denying
either that the giant was a giant or that he was awake” (Robinson, 1954b,
125). In writing the Letters, she joined a noted group of authors—Edgar
Snow and Han Su-Yin among them—who visited China to tell the world
about developments taking place there and, on the international arena
dominated by the US-led policy to isolate China, present the Chinese
side of the story. The story is told passionately but not uncritically. Yet the
questions that are raised cannot but be described as those by a sympa-
thetic critic.
Joan Robinson was impressed by “the clean-and-honest” face of “New
China”. She considered cleanliness and honesty as important facts to be
explained as a visible reflection of “the state of mind” of the Chinese
people whereby they asked themselves in wonderment: “How is it that
we can perform miracles?” The economic topics briefly touched upon
included land reform, industrial and commercial reforms, organisation of
trade, technology and manpower, population, basic needs such as food
and health and education, management of inflation and the chaotic eco-
nomic conditions and the economic rights of national minorities.

China: An Economic Perspective (1958)

The second visit took place in the autumn of 1957.3 While the first visit
culminated in her giving out to the world the first impressions of an
enthusiast—the Letters—the second visit provided a chance for more
professional study. The first five-year plan had concluded and the draft of
the second five-year plan was under discussion. There is some confusion
here, created by Joan Robinson’s later remarks that the report based on
the second visit was not traceable, despite being published. The
 2 The Contributions 9

r­ eminiscences she provided instead say nothing about the developments

taking place in the Chinese economy (Robinson, 1977b, 7, 37–9). Berger
thinks that the missing report was published by the Britain-China
Friendship Association (BCFA), from which those sympathetic to the
Chinese line in the Sino-Soviet conflict had broken off to form the
Society for Anglo-­Chinese Understanding (SACU).4 However, a search
of the relevant records did not confirm the existence of the report, pub-
lished or unpublished. Sol Adler, who was with Joan Robinson during
the visit in question, recollected that she had written something in 1957
for the American periodical Nation.5 Robinson (1957a, b) were published
in it, but before the visit to China. Their subjects were Baran and Sweezy,
not China directly. In 1958, the British periodical New Statesman and
Nation did carry a piece on the specific subject of the Chinese attitude
towards birth control (Robinson, 1958a), but nothing in the nature of a
general economic report. Her own personal records do not provide any
clue either.6
Most probably, the report in question was prepared but not published
separately. It formed part of Robinson and Adler (1958), a Fabian tract
under the professional sounding title—China: An Economic Perspective.7
The non-availability of the 1957 report does not cause a serious gap as the
Economic Perspective and the article on birth control (Robinson, 1958a)
together throw enough light on her sojourn in China in 1957. Robinson
and Adler (1958) is among the earliest attempts to formulate a proper
economic perspective of the Chinese economy for the Western world in
terms the latter would understand. The contribution deals with the rate
of development, estimation of national income, the state of the Chinese
statistics, living standards, wage differentials, the spread of cooperatives
in agriculture, the factory system and the problem of overpopulation.
Although Economic Perspective was published after the Great Leap had
been launched, it “deliberately refrained” from discussing the develop-
ments since the visit in 1957, so as to look at the long-term prospects of
industrial development in China, with the main role of agriculture being
to provide a surplus for industrial investment.
The understanding of Joan Robinson’s perspective on the Chinese
economy is significantly aided by contributions that have not been pub-
lished. In 1957 she delivered the following lectures in China8:
10 P. Tahir

1. The relations between the rate of accumulation and the price level.
2. The problem of the choice of techniques for a planned economy in the
way which China is developing—that is to say, with limited industrial
resources.
3. How far and in what way the price system can be useful in a
planned economy.

Notes from China (1964)

Her well-known interest in agricultural communes and the strategy of
“walking on two legs” began after the third visit in the summer of 1963.
Until this visit, Joan Robinson did not make any significant contribu-
tion. She reviewed two books on China (Robinson, 1960d, 1962b).
During this interval, the Russians had pulled out, China had embarked
upon the Leap, the cooperatives were very rapidly converted into com-
munes and the now-known famine had occurred. Some issues arising out
of these developments were briefly touched on in Robinson and Berger
(1961, 222). In the beginning, Joan Robinson expressed greater keenness
about the urban rather than the agricultural communes. During the visit,
a press interview was published.9 Soon after the visit in 1963, a short
piece appeared in an Indian periodical on the Chinese view
(Robinson, 1963c).
It was only in the following year that in a flurry of writings, she
explained and advocated the concept of the commune as a bold new ini-
tiative for agrarian advance and transformation. The radical measures
taken during the Leap had by this time been in operation for some time,
making it possible to attempt at least a preliminary evaluation. The con-
tributions include Robinson (1964a, b, c, d, e). By far the best analysis
was presented in Robinson (1964d), which was reproduced with minor
changes as Robinson (1966c, d) and in full as Robinson (1973c).10
Robinson (1964e) was reprinted as Robinson (1965b). The booklet,
Notes from China (Robinson 1964h),11 reproduces Robinson (1964c) as
it is and Robinson (1964f ) with minor alterations. As the Soviet Union,
following the ideological rift with China, started to criticise China in the
world on top of the US efforts to isolate it, Joan Robinson also took on
 2 The Contributions 11

the job of explaining “The Chinese Point of View”, which is the exact title
of Robinson (1964f ). Further, she made an attempt to assess the pros-
pects for China in a 20-year perspective in Robinson (1964g), which is
too short and is judgemental rather than an empirical study. In October
1964, Joan Robinson paid her fourth and the shortest visit to China,
informing the world about “What’s New in China” in Robinson (1965c).
The effort was nothing more than hurriedly formed impressions, while
she waited in Beijing to make her first trip to North Korea.12
The interval between the fourth and the fifth visit seems to be a period
of study and reflection, with some 15 books on various aspects of Chinese
economy and society reviewed by Joan Robinson.13 Robinson (1965g)
was slightly edited and reproduced as Robinson (1966f ) in the context of
the debate on socialist economic reform. Liberman’s reform was adopted
in the Soviet Union with effect from September 1969. It was denounced
as “revisionistic” by the Chinese. With Joan Robinson also among those
who looked at the cultural revolution as the Chinese response to Soviet
reform, her contributions to the debate on socialist economic reform,
Robinson (1965h, 1967g, h), provided an important backdrop to her
own first-hand account of the cultural revolution. In this context, her
short intervention in the debate on the modelling of producer coopera-
tives is also significant (Robinson, 1967b).

The Cultural Revolution in China (1969)

In November 1967, Joan Robinson visited China for the fifth time. This
visit exclusively focused on comprehending the cultural revolution. She
gave her immediate reactions in December in an Indian periodical
(Robinson, 1967i) and in February 1968 in the newsletter of the SACU
(Robinson, 1968b), which she had to defend against a bitter onslaught
from a group of British radicals (Robinson, 1968d). Her considered view
of the cultural revolution, presented first in the oft-quoted article
Robinson (1968c) and in the subsequent year in the well-known book
The Cultural Revolution in China (Robinson, 1969a),14 was no different
from her initial reactions. Actually this book substantially contains the
three contributions preceding it (Robinson, 1967i, 1968b, c). As the
12 P. Tahir

preface of the book was written in April 1968, which is also the date of
publication of Robinson (1968c), it seems that the three articles were
written as parts of the first chapter of the book. Joan Robinson herself
mentions the use of Robinson (1967i, 1968c) in the preface. Robinson
(1968b), which is used by Joan Robinson more than the other two but
without acknowledging the fact, is not a very well-known contribution.
The rest of the book chronicles the important events of the cultural revo-
lution and reproduces a number of significant documents. As she put it,
these “give far more insight into what was involved than can any analysis
by an external observer” (Robinson, 1969a, preface). A postscript, writ-
ten in 1968, also forms part of the book.
Robinson (1970a) gives her reaction to a review of The Cultural
Revolution. Until the sixth visit to China in 1972, her writings on China
show a marked influence of the cultural revolution. She became ever
more confident and assertive about the Chinese economic future. This is
borne out, on the one hand, by her reviews of the two Myrdal’s and, on
the other, the lectures delivered by her on the Chinese economic policy.
Robinson (1968a, 1971b) reviews two of Jan Myrdal’s contributions on
China. Gunnar Myrdal’s Asian Drama is reviewed in Robinson (1968f ),
and the conclusion is drawn that the failure of the South Asian econo-
mies such as India and Pakistan to deal with basic economic problems is
the consequence of what Myrdal describes as the “soft states”. In another
review of the same book, China is portrayed as having solved these prob-
lems because the Chinese “state is anything but soft” (Robinson, 1968h,
383).15 Robinson (1969d) also concentrates on proving the superiority of
Chinese socialism over the Indian variety. Robinson (1968e) is a lecture
delivered at the Royal Society of Arts and Robinson (1970c) is a paper
read at a conference on China. Both analyse the development of the
Chinese economy since liberation in 1949. Robinson (1970d, e, 1971a)
are reproductions of a lecture given in 1969 on the bases of “Chinese
Economic Policy” in Mao’s “ten great relationships”.16 Mao’s view of his-
tory as “continuous development from the realm of necessity to the realm
of freedom” was explored in Freedom and Necessity; a separate chapter on
China suggested that, compared with the capitalist and other socialist
economies, it had found a way to marry freedom and necessity in a
humane framework (Robinson, 1970g, 100–4).
 2 The Contributions 13

Among the other writings on China before her visit in 1972 are
included two book reviews, Robinson (1968h, 1970b); two introduc-
tions to books on China, Robinson (1969e, 1970f ); one short comment
to mark the first ten years of the communes, Robinson (1969b); a short
note and a letter to project China’s foreign policy moves (Robinson,
1968g; Needham and Robinson, 196917) and a letter focusing on the dif-
ficulties of the Great Leap and the analogous situation in the Soviet
development (Robinson, 1969f ).

Economic Management in China, 1972 (1973)

By the time Joan Robinson returned to China in April 1972 for her sixth
visit spread over six weeks, the economic and political climate seemed to
her to be in a settled enough state to talk about economic management.
The booklet Economic Management in China, 1972 (Robinson, 1973f ) is
the main contribution of this period.18 Robinson (1972a, 1973d) form
the first two sections of Robinson (1973f ). Robinson (1973e) is also
based on the material from Economic Management, the foreword of which
describes it as an “account of the system of planning and management
which is evolving in China in the ‘period of transformation’ emerging
from ‘the struggle and criticism’ of the cultural revolution”. Economic
Management ran into a second edition in which were added a postscript
and a few minor points of detail that took note of the events since her
visit in 1972 (Robinson, 1975c).19 Robinson (1972b), which reviews
three books on China, indicates her exasperation with the manner in
which information was managed in the Lin Piao affair.
While her interest in socialist economic reform had continued
(Robinson, 1973g), the year 1974 provided an opportunity to look back
at the achievements of a generation, as the People’s Republic had come
into being in 1949 (Robinson, 1974c), as well as an occasion to compare
the Chinese revolution with the Russian revolution (Robinson, 1974d).
Robinson (1975d), which is a foreword to a pamphlet on the Chinese
education, and Robinson (1975e), a book review in the journal History,
were written in the hilarious mood of what she thought were the suc-
cesses of the cultural revolution. In August 1974, while introducing the
14 P. Tahir

second edition of the third volume of her Collected Economic Papers, she
stated with some satisfaction: “My traveller’s tales from Asia [1965] were
first greeted with scepticism, but recently many observers have confirmed
them and I am now quite in the fashion” (Robinson, 1975b, xiv).

Reports from China, 1953–1976 (1977)

Joan Robinson embarked on her seventh visit to China in May 1975 to
study the Chinese method of dealing with the tricky question of the eco-
nomic and social development of the peoples and regions falling outside
the mainstream. Robinson (1975f, g, h) are concerned with this aspect of
her contributions. Robinson (1975f ) is also reproduced in Robinson
(1977b, 121–31). She admitted that the “story of Tibet or of Sinkiang is
more dramatic and more important”, but she never really analysed their
problems.20 Her visit was confined to Hsishuang-panna autonomous pre-
fecture in the province of Yunnan. The visit “provided a glimpse of a
fascinating scene that could well repay years of study” (Robinson, 1975f,
32). All the same she feared accusations of having “just made it all up”
(Robinson, 1975g, 23).
She is clearly perturbed over the Lin Piao affair in Robinson (1975i).
Though still critical of China-watchers’ view of China (Robinson, 1976a,
92), Joan Robinson had begun to ask questions about the cultural revolu-
tion (Robinson, 1976b, 51).21 With the benefit of hindsight, a selection
of the past writings was put together as Reports from China, 1953–1976
(Robinson, 1977b).22

China Since Mao

Mao died in September 1976. But Joan Robinson took some time to col-
lect her thoughts after Mao. In May 1978, she made her eighth and the
last trip to China. She did not write directly about her experience this
time. However, when Beitelheim (1978b) dubbed the post-Mao reform
as “the great leap backward”, she wrote a strong rebuttal (Robinson,
1978c). It was reprinted (Robinson, 1979e) by the Monthly Review (May
 2 The Contributions 15

1979, 2) “to clarify the anti-Bettelheim view” in its coverage of the debate
on China since Mao. In the following year, Joan Robinson returned to
this debate in Robinson (1979f ), appropriately titled “the pros and cons”.
Coincidentally, the Western translation of Mao’s critique of Soviet eco-
nomics was published after his death (Mao Tse-tung, 1977a, b). The two
reviews of it by Joan Robinson, as also the review of the second edition of
a book containing material written before 1976, again reflect her approach
to the questions raised in the debate on China since Mao (Robinson,
1978d, 1979d, 1980b). Robinson (1982) is her last writing on China.

Notes
1. The Times, 13 June 1953.
2. Robinson (1954a) is sometimes referred to in this volume as the Letters.
3. The Times, 21 August 1957.
4. Interview with Ronald Berger, 20 February (1987). A colleague of Joan
Robinson at SACU, he first visited China in 1959 and with her in 1975.
See Robinson and Berger (1961) for a BBC discussion between the two.
5. Sol Adler’s letter from Beijing, 30 November (1986).
6. JVR Collection, King’s Modem Archives. There is something amiss
about 1957. Even the passport containing the entry of the visit to China
in 1957 is missing! The only writing on China in 1957 is on “The
Chinese Classical Theatre” in the Manchester Guardian Weekly of 19
September 1957 under the initials “JR”. Robinson (1977b, 7, 38) indi-
cates an interest in the subject.
7. Sometimes this publication is referred to in this volume as Economic
Perspective.
8. JVR Collection, iii/5.1–5.3. King’s College Library, Cambridge.
9. Survey of China’s Mainland Press, 6 September 1963.
10. Robinson (1973c) was included in the first edition (1973) of the read-
ings collected by Wilber in The Political Economy of Development and
Underdevelopment but omitted in the second edition (1979), which
came out after the death of Mao.
11. Robinson (1964h) has sometimes been referred to in this volume as
Notes for short.
12. This quick trip became the basis of Robinson (1965d), which described
North Korean economy as a miracle. She was not impressed by Cuba
16 P. Tahir

(interview with Berger, 20 February 1987), which she re-visited in 1965.

See Robinson (1965e), reproduced as Robinson (1966b).
13. Robinson (1964j, 1965f, g, 1966a, e, f, g, 1967c, d, e, f ).
14. Robinson (1969a) is also mentioned in this volume as The Cultural
Revolution for short.
15. Robinson (1969c) is a reproduction of Robinson (1968h).
16. The lecture was given to the Anglo-Chinese Educational Institute (ACEI)
on 21 November 1969.
17. The letter was sent to The Times jointly by Joseph Needham and Joan
Robinson as chairman and vice chairman of SACU, but it was refused
publication.
18. Robinson (1973f ) is mentioned in this volume as the Economic
Management for short.
19. A review note in Broadsheet (March 1975, last page) states that Joan
Robinson visited China in the summer of 1974. The information seems
to be based on the title of the postscript written in 1974 for the second
edition of Economic Management—“Postscript—summer 1974”
(Robinson, 1975c, 42). The fact, however, is that Joan Robinson did not
visit China in 1974. The postscript in question was written on the basis
of reports from other visitors, particularly Berger (1974) and Daly (1974).
20. Except of course for the brief mention in Economic Management: “The
autonomous regions have planned revenue which is much less than
expenditure. For example, since 1960 the bulk of Tibet’s budget has been
financed and 30 per cent of its grain supply provided by the central
authorities. By this means, the government is taxing the relatively richer
part of the population to cover its own outlay and to even up develop-
ment for the poorest” (Robinson, 1973f, 30).
21. Her fascination with North Korea continued, as is evident from
Robinson (1976a, 92, 1977c).
22. Robinson (1977b) is also referred as Reports in subsequent discussion in
this volume.

References
Unpublished Material

Interview with Ronald Berger, 20 February, 1987.

Sol Adler’s letter from Beijing, 30 November, 1986.
 2 The Contributions 17

Published Works

Beitelheim, C. (1978b) ‘The Great Leap Backward,’ Monthly Review, 30,

37–130.
Berger, R. (1974) ‘Chinese Economic Planning,’ Broadsheet, 11, 1–3.
Daly, P. (1974) ‘China 1974: Growth without Waste,’ China Now, 45, 3–4.
Mao Tse-tung. (1977a) ‘On the Cooperative Transformation of Agriculture
[1955],’ in Selected Works, Vol. 5, 184–207, 1955. Peking: Foreign Languages
Press.
———. (1977b) A Critique of Soviet Economics. New York: Monthly Review
Press.
Monthly Review. (1979) ‘Editorial,’ 31, 1–19.
Needham, J. and Joan Robinson. (1969) ‘Too Much for The Times,’ SACU
News, 4, 1–2.
Robinson, Joan. (1954a) Letters from a Visitor to China. Cambridge: Students’
Bookshops.
———. (1954b) ‘Britain and China,’ Nation, 179, 125–8.
———. (1957a) ‘The Policy of Backward Nations. Review of BARAN (1957),’
Nation, 184, 485–6.
———. (1957b) ‘Clues to History,’ Rejoinder to Paul Sweezy. Nation, 185,
opp. L.
———. (1958a) ‘Birth Control in China,’ New Statesman and Nation, 55,
66–7.
———. (1960d) ‘Review of T.T. Hughes and D.E.T. Luard,’ The Economic
Development of Communist China, Economic Journal, 70, 409–10.
———. (1962b) ‘Review of E.S. Kirby (ed.),’ Contemporary China. Economic
Journal, 72, 734.
———. (1963c) ‘The Chinese View,’ Seminar, 50, 44–6.
———. (1964a) ‘Communes in China,’ Listener, 71, 177–89.
———. (1964b) ‘Notes from China,’ Economic Weekly, 16, 195–203.
———. (1964c) ‘A British Economist on Chinese Communes,’ Eastern Horizon,
3, 6–11.
———. (1964d) ‘Chinese Agricultural Communes,’ Coexistence, 1, 1–6.
———. (1964e) ‘The Chinese Communes,’ Political Quarterly, 35, 285–97.
———. (1964f ) ‘The Chinese Point of View,’ International Affairs, 40, 232–44.
———. (1964g) ‘Prospects for China,’ New Scientist, 22, 756.
———. (1964h) Notes from China. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
———. (1964j) ‘Review of S.H. Chou,’ The Chinese Inflation, 1937–1949,
Economic Journal, 74, 680–1.
Other documents randomly have
different content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Joyce Kilmer
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Title: Joyce Kilmer

poems, essays and letters in two volumes. Volume 2,
prose works

Author: Joyce Kilmer

Editor: Robert Cortes Holliday

Release date: September 28, 2023 [eBook #71748]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: George H. Doran, 1918

Credits: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JOYCE

KILMER ***
 Transcriber’s Note
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 JOYCE KILMER
POEMS, ESSAYS
AND LETTERS
IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME TWO: PROSE WORKS

SERGEANT JOYCE KILMER
165TH INFANTRY (69TH NEW YORK),
A. E. F., FRANCE, MAY, 1918
 JOYCE KILMER
EDITED WITH A MEMOIR
BY ROBERT CORTES HOLLIDAY
VOLUME TWO
PROSE WORKS

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN
COMPANY
 Copyright, 1914, 1917, 1918
By George H. Doran Company
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS—VOLUME TWO
PAGE
ESSAYS
Holy Ireland 11
The Gentle Art of Christmas Giving 26
A Bouquet for Jenny 39
The Inefficient Library 49
The Poetry of Hilaire Belloc 62
The Catholic Poets of Belgium 78

LETTERS
To Charles Willis Thompson 101
To Shaemas O’Sheel 101
To Louis Bevier, Jr. 103
To Sara Teasdale Filsinger 104
To Katherine Brégy 105
To Amelia Josephine Burr 107
To Howard W. Cook 108
To Thomas Walsh 111
To Robert Cortes Holliday 114
To Reverend Edward F. Garesché, S.J. 116
To Reverend James J. Daly, S.J. 119
To His Mother 144
To Kenton Kilmer 163
To Deborah Kilmer 165
To His Wife 166

MISCELLANEOUS PIECES
A Ballad of New Sins 227
War Songs 230
“Try a Tin To-Day:” A Short Story 233
Some Mischief Still: A Play in One Act 252
 ILLUSTRATIONS
Sergeant Joyce Kilmer Frontispiece
PAGE
Joyce Kilmer, Age 5 120
Joyce Kilmer’s Grave 222
ESSAYS
 HOLY IRELAND
WE HAD hiked seventeen miles that stormy December day—the
third of a four days’ journey. The snow was piled high on our packs,
our rifles were crusted with ice, the leather of our hob-nailed boots
was frozen stiff over our lamed feet. The weary lieutenant led us to
the door of a little house in a side street.
“Next twelve men,” he said. A dozen of us dropped out of the
ranks and dragged ourselves over the threshold. We tracked snow
and mud over a spotless stone floor. Before an open fire stood
Madame and the three children—a girl of eight years, a boy of five, a
boy of three. They stared with round frightened eyes at les soldats
Americains, the first they had ever seen. We were too tired to stare
back. We at once climbed to the chill attic, our billet, our lodging for
the night. First we lifted the packs from one another’s aching
shoulders; then, without spreading our blankets, we lay down on the
bare boards.
For ten minutes there was silence, broken by an occasional
groan, an oath, the striking of a match. Cigarettes glowed like
fireflies in a forest. Then a voice came from the corner.
“Where is Sergeant Reilly?” it said. We lazily searched. There
was no Sergeant Reilly to be found.
“I’ll bet the old bum has gone out after a pint,” said the voice.
And with the curiosity of the American and the enthusiasm of the
Irish we lumbered downstairs in quest of Sergeant Reilly.
He was sitting on a low bench by the fire. His shoes were off and
his bruised feet were in a pail of cold water. He was too good a
soldier to expose them to the heat at once. The little girl was on his
lap and the little boys stood by and envied him. And in a voice that
twenty years of soldiering and oceans of whisky had failed to rob of
its Celtic sweetness, he was softly singing “Ireland isn’t Ireland any
more.” We listened respectfully.
“They cheer the King and then salute him,” said Sergeant Reilly.
“A regular Irishman would shoot him,” and we all joined in the
chorus, “Ireland isn’t Ireland any more.”
“Ooh, la, la!” exclaimed Madame, and she and all the children
began to talk at the top of their voices. What they said Heaven
knows, but the tones were friendly, even admiring.
“Gentlemen,” said Sergeant Reilly from his post of honor, “the
lady who runs this billet is a very nice lady indeed. She says yez can
all take off your shoes and dry your socks by the fire. But take turns
and don’t crowd or I’ll trun yez all upstairs.”
Now Madame, a woman of some forty years, was a true
bourgeoise, with all the thrift of her class. And by the terms of her
agreement with the authorities she was required to let the soldiers
have for one night the attic of her house to sleep in—nothing more;
no light, no heat. Also, wood is very expensive in France—for
reasons that are engraven in letters of blood on the pages of history.
Nevertheless—
“Assez-vous, s’il vous plait,” said Madame. And she brought
nearer to the fire all the chairs the establishment possessed and
some chests and boxes to be used as seats. And she and the little
girl, whose name was Solange, went out into the snow and came
back with heaping armfuls of small logs. The fire blazed merrily—
more merrily than it had blazed since August, 1914, perhaps. We
surrounded it, and soon the air was thick with steam from our drying
socks.
Meanwhile Madame and the Sergeant had generously admitted
all eleven of us into their conversation. A spirited conversation it was,
too, in spite of the fact that she knew no English and the extent of his
French was “du pain,” “du vin,” “cognac” and “bon jour.” Those of us
who knew a little more of the language of the country acted as
interpreters for the others. We learned the names of the children and
their ages. We learned that our hostess was a widow. Her husband
had fallen in battle just one month before our arrival in her home.
She showed us with simple pride and affection and restrained grief
his picture. Then she showed us those of her two brothers—one now
fighting at Salonica, the other a prisoner of war—of her mother and
father, of herself dressed for First Communion.
This last picture she showed somewhat shyly, as if doubting that
we would understand it. But when one of us asked in halting French
if Solange, her little daughter, had yet made her First Communion,
then Madame’s face cleared.
“Mais oui!” she exclaimed. “Et vous, ma foi, vous etes
Catholiques, n’est-ce pas?”
At once rosary beads were flourished to prove our right to
answer this question affirmatively. Tattered prayer-books and
somewhat dingy scapulars were brought to light. Madame and the
children chattered their surprise and delight to each other, and every
exhibit called for a new outburst.
“Ah, le bon S. Benoit! Ah, voilà, le Conception Immacule! Ooh la
la, le Sacre Coeur!” (which last exclamation sounded in no wise as
irreverent as it looks in print).
Now other treasures, too, were shown—treasures chiefly
photographic. There were family groups, there were Coney Island
snapshots. And Madame and the children were a gratifyingly
appreciative audience. They admired and sympathized; they
exclaimed appropriately at the beauty of every girl’s face, the
tenderness of every pictured mother. We had become the intimates
of Madame. She had admitted us into her family and we her into
ours.
Soldiers—American soldiers of Irish descent—have souls and
hearts. These organs (if the soul may be so termed) had been
satisfied. But our stomachs remained—and that they yearned was
evident to us. We had made our hike on a meal of hardtack and
“corned willy.” Mess call would sound soon. Should we force our wet
shoes on again and plod through the snowy streets to the temporary
mess-shack? We knew our supply wagons had not succeeded in
climbing the last hill into town, and that therefore bread and
unsweetened coffee would be our portion. A great depression settled
upon us.
But Sergeant Reilly rose to the occasion.
“Boys,” he said, “this here lady has got a good fire going, and I’ll
bet she can cook. What do you say we get her to fix us up a meal?”
The proposal was received joyously at first. Then someone said:
“But I haven’t got any money.” “Neither have I—not a damn sou!”
said another. And again the spiritual temperature of the room fell.
Again Sergeant Reilly spoke:
“I haven’t got any money to speak of, meself,” he said. “But let’s
have a show-down. I guess we’ve got enough to buy somethin’ to
eat.”
It was long after pay-day, and we were not hopeful of the results
of the search. But the wealthy (that is, those who had two francs)
made up for the poor (that is, those who had two sous). And among
the coins on the table I noticed an American dime, an English half-
crown and a Chinese piece with a square hole in the center. In
negotiable tender the money came in all to eight francs.
It takes more money than that to feed twelve hungry soldiers
these days in France. But there was no harm in trying. So an ex-
seminarian, an ex-bookkeeper and an ex-street-car conductor aided
Sergeant Reilly in explaining in French that had both a brogue and a
Yankee twang that we were hungry, that this was all the money we
had in the world, and that we wanted her to cook us something to
eat.
Now Madame was what they call in New England a “capable”
woman. In a jiffy she had the money in Solange’s hand and had that
admirable child cloaked and wooden-shod for the street, and fully
informed as to what she was to buy. What Madame and the children
had intended to have for supper I do not know, for there was nothing
in the kitchen but the fire, the stove, the table, some shelves of
dishes and an enormous bed. Nothing in the way of a food cupboard
could be seen. And the only other room of the house was the bare
attic.
When Solange came back she carried in a basket bigger than
herself these articles: 1, two loaves of war-bread; 2, five bottles of
red wine; 3, three cheeses; 4, numerous potatoes; 5, a lump of fat; 6,
a bag of coffee. The whole represented, as was afterward
demonstrated, exactly the sum of ten francs, fifty centimes.
Well, we all set to work peeling potatoes. Then, with a veritable
French trench-knife Madame cut the potatoes into long strips.
Meanwhile Solange had put the lump of fat into the big black pot that
hung by a chain over the fire. In the boiling grease the potatoes were
placed, Madame standing by with a big ladle punched full of holes (I
regret that I do not know the technical name for this instrument) and
keeping the potato-strips swimming, zealously frustrating any
attempt on their part to lie lazily at the bottom of the pot.
We forgot all about the hike as we sat at supper that evening.
The only absentees were the two little boys, Michel and Paul. And
they were really absent only from our board—they were in the room,
in the great built-in bed that was later to hold also Madame and
Solange. Their little bodies were covered by the three-foot thick
mattress-like red silk quilt, but their tousled heads protruded and
they watched us unblinkingly all the evening.
But just as we sat down, before Sergeant Reilly began his task
of dishing out the potatoes and starting the bottles on their way,
Madame stopped her chattering and looked at Solange. And
Solange stopped her chattering and looked at Madame. And they
both looked rather searchingly at us. We didn’t know what was the
matter, but we felt rather embarrassed.
Then Madame began to talk, slowly and loudly, as one talks to
make foreigners understand. And the gist of her remarks was that
she was surprised to see that American Catholics did not say grace
before eating like French Catholics.
We sprang to our feet at once. But it was not Sergeant Reilly
who saved the situation. Instead, the ex-seminarian (he is only
temporarily an ex-seminarian, he’ll be preaching missions and giving
retreats yet if a bit of shrapnel doesn’t hasten his journey to Heaven)
said, after we had blessed ourselves: “Benedicite: nos et quae
sumus sumpturi benedicat Deus, Pater et Filius et Spiritus Sanctus.
Amen.”
Madame and Solange, obviously relieved, joined us in the Amen,
and we sat down again to eat.
It was a memorable feast. There was not much conversation—
except on the part of Madame and Solange—but there was plenty of
good cheer. Also there was enough cheese and bread and wine and
potatoes for all of us—half starved as we were when we sat down.
Even big Considine, who drains a can of condensed milk at a gulp
and has been known to eat an apple pie without stopping to take
breath, was satisfied. There were toasts, also, all proposed by
Sergeant Reilly—toasts to Madame, and to the children, and to
France, and to the United States, and to the Old Grey Mare (this last
toast having an esoteric significance apparent only to illuminati of
Sergeant Reilly’s circle).
The table cleared and the “agimus tibi gratias” duly said, we sat
before the fire, most of us on the floor. We were warm and happy
and full of good food and good wine. I spied a slip of paper on the
floor by Solange’s foot and unashamedly read it. It was an
accounting for the evening’s expenditures—totaling exactly ten
francs and fifty centimes.
Now when soldiers are unhappy—during a long, hard hike, for
instance—they sing to keep up their spirits. And when they are
happy, as on the evening now under consideration, they sing to
express their satisfaction with life. We sang “Sweet Rosie O’Grady.”
We shook the kitchen-bedroom with the echoes of “Take Me Back to
New York Town.” We informed Madame, Solange, Paul, Michel, in
fact, the whole village, that we had never been a wanderer and that
we longed for our Indiana home. We grew sentimental over “Mother
Machree.” And Sergeant Reilly obliged with a reel—in his socks—to
an accompaniment of whistling and hand-clapping.
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