OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17419, 1 April 1922, Page 10

OBITER DICTA.

(By K.)

"Why," askfl a correspondent, "cannot you leave the Liberals alone?" For a hundred reasons, each better than tho other. First, because somebody must keep them alive, and to livo nowadays, I gather, ono must have publicity. If somebody would open a fund, or form :i League, or call a meeting, I should gladly hand on the torch to them, and think of other things. If you suspect that this reason is a downright lie, you are right. The real reason is otherwise. A lady once asked Whistler why he took the troublo to attack some old fellow who already had one foot in the grave. "Ah," said Whistler, "but it's the other foot I'm after." .The difficulty is to locate foot, head, or tail of the party, and the difficulty is beginning to irk even the Liberal watch-dogs. Tho "Now Zealand Times," it has been recorded this week, is anxiously hallooing to Mr Wilford to come forth and explain what his party exists for, and why. When Liberal meets Liberal, and tho questior. is asked, "What really is our policy?" the only answer possible is that given by the smali boy to tho Magistrate who asked him if he knew where people who told lies went when tLhoy died; "1 don't know, and you don't know, and nobody don't know." In the meantime the Liberal newspapers maintain their steady bombardment—giving us a literal application of th-3 famous rule for tho besieged garrison which has run out of ammunition, namely, to keep on firing in order to deceive tho enemy.

In the mwmtime the shameless Mr Massev goes on as if nothing were happening to tJhe Liberals. He is even tactless enough to have a birthday, and a birthday cake, and this at a time when anyone can see thai he has ruined tho country, and that the masses of the oppressed are bubbling up to revolution point. My authority for this description of the situation is tho Rev. J. K. Archer. While the Socialists and the Liberals are thinking of Nero, the rest of us will congratulate the Prime Minister, and wish him many birthday breaks in his Prime Ministership. Tho terrible war years made havoc of the average person's sense of time, and it is with surpriso that we find how many years have passed since that bright July "morning after" when Mr Massey strolled up to the House to survey the wreckage. Ten years—next to the reign of Mr Seddon the longest unbroken period of office in the Dominion's history. Reign is the word. Tho sign? are the same: we look to "Massey," praise "Massey," and curse ''Massey" as we looked to and cursed and praised "Seddon." Both big men, in body and personality. Democracy has few virtues, but one is its sound preference for the individual over tihe committee. Mr Massey, I should say, realises this, and celebrates his birthday without misgiving or remorse.

The Prohibitionists have a simple explanation of all anti-Prohibition utterances: they are paid for by "tho Trade." If this is so, one cannot but admire the skill with whidh the Trade buys up opinion. "Within the past week I have found that its purchases include the Prime Minister of Canada, Marshal Foch, Mr Justice Burnside of West Australia, and the "Church Times." Mr Mackenzie King explains that ho dislikes Prohibition because ho

fdielikec intemperance. Marshal Foch 1 confesses that lie drinks two glasses of wine at every meal. It is open to tli& Prohibitionists, of courco, to say that it was tlieso two glasses that enabled Germany to hold out until 1918, but after all the war wns won by a winebibber. Mr Justice Buruside enrriw tho war into the enemy's camp. \ sailor (had pleaded drunkenness as an excuse for his burglaries, and offered to give up drink if he was leniently treated. Whereupon tho Judge: ''There is no need to give up drink; but drink in moderation. To give up drink is simost as bad as to get drunk." A\ uirij is no more than was said by Archbishop Mngoe, quoted with approval f>y ths "Church Times" in tho courso of g dressing-down given to Sir Harry ston. "I am afraid," said Sir Harry, "the cense in which that most mistaken man, tho lat© Archbishop Magee, used the phrase of wishing to see England free xto drink herself to death) mthor than Kngland sober, and thus at liberty, was a mistaken one." W'hat did the Archbishop really say?. These are his words: ''l declare that I should say that it would bo better that England should be fro? than that England should be compulsorily sober. I would • distinctlyprefer freedom to sobriety, bcoau<sc with freedom we might in tho end attain to sobriety, but in the otiher alternative we should eventually lose both freodom and sobriety."

It is th© belief of one of our local Professors, they say, that Man has made greater progress in the past 60 years than in the preceding 500, and that the achievements of the next five years will mako the progress of the past half-century appear like th# Whitecliffs train. Thereafter, by geo. metrio progression, progress will become so rapid that the world will fuso (some time in 1928), and that will bo the end of us. Some people crawl along unaffected by the march of mind —the politicians, for instance, and tho players of golf, many of whom never get beyond being able to claim that they "made three perfect putts on tho home green," But the public prints—especially the American ones —are full of the evidence of progress: How to become a convincing talker in two lessons, how to play the violin in a week without any knowledge of music, All that kind of thing. Even hero America is soaring to greater heights. From St. - Louis, Mo., a friend has news of "Tho Master Key System." Madamo la Comtesse do Morode (her own accents) relates her titles and history and accomplishments:

"I apeak eleven, different languages. I have j lived in Egypt, in India, in Franca, and in j Belgium.- I have boen in Rom#, Berlin, l Constantinople, Russia., Chin*, Japan, and- j Alaska. I have seen the beauties of tho : Hudson liver, h&vo admired the wonderful ] castles along the Shine, have watched the : : ripple of the waves on the Danube, have > been fascinated by tho maffio colour of the sunset, on the Nile, have climbed the enow- i capped peaks of the Andes to the wonderful j Emerald Mints, and seen the fabled beauty v of the magio cities of Rio Janeiro asdßueno* ,p Ayrea.' I

She holds the degree of Ph.D. and M.D. | and has been around the world twice, 1 "but I find now," she says, "thlt the 1 mental and the spiritual treasures 1 which are unfolded in the Master Key | System have value far in excess of | anything with which the world has I heretofore been familiar." Another | student, full of "ineffable realisation," 1 declares that in the weekly letters 1 which make up* the "system" "each I word scintillates and burns to. j the centre of one's being." If you . j like the sensation, write to St. Louis, f Mo. |