OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17471, 3 June 1922, Page 8

OBITER DICTA.

(By K.)

Everywhere the unrest of the world continues, and it will be long before we ahall recognise our civilisation as the sane, comfortable thing it used to be—perhaps so long that it is not we, but our grandchildren, who will see a brighter Hellas rear its mountains By waves aerener far, A new Penens roll his fountains - Against the morning star. Looking at the world —which is to ear, looking up when the world actually forces itself upon me—l feel exactly as the mid-Victorian lady felt who, after seeing Sara .Bernhardt in "Antony and Cleopatra," exclaimed, "How different from the homelife of our dear Queen!" And what is the cause of itP I have no answer —I merely ask. One begins to suspect, however, that everything is the cause of it. The Prohibitionists will tell you it is due to the demon rum. Mr Parr believes it is a result of disloyalty. The Liberals know that Mr Massey is the evil influence. Others cataloguing. Perhaps they are all of them right: it is due to everything. There is a core of evil in all things good. If it only led anywhere—; but it leads nowhere. In one of the essays in his "Waiting for Daylight," that charming writer, Mr H. M. Tomlinson, expresses his wonder "not how much of our work in these years will survive to win the gratitude of those who will follow us, but just what it is they will be grateful for. Where is it, and what happy man is doing it? And what are we thinking of himP Do we even know ills name?" Let us be optimistic for once and believe that he exists, and that a future age may nnd in the records of 1922 something to be grateful for. We ourselves shall never know.

. In one of his matter-of-fact moments, Mr Max Beerbohm reflected, and wrote down, that The French Revolution, judged according to the hopo.it was mad© in, must be pronounced a, failure; it effected no fundamental change in human nature. But it was by no means wholly ineffectual. For example, ladies and .gentlemen ceased to powder their hair, because of it; and gentlemen adopted simpler costumes. This was so in Engtand as well as in France. The Russian revolution haa not even this on the credit eide. For the Bolsheviks camo to Genoa in top-bats. At least M. Tchitcherin did, and his top-hat caused more real excitement than anything else at that gathering. Was it a tragedy or a triumph? From the Western point of view, obviously a triumph, for the Bolshevik had surrendered to the Western convention. And yet was it not also an assertion by the Eo'sheviks of their equality with the West —an intimation that they met as silk hat to gilk hat? An English newspaper has upon the incident these observations, which look cynical, but are not: — After all the main obstacle to a resumption of normal relations between Western Europe and the Russian Republic has been a prejudice no better founded nor more deeply rooted than the prejudice in favour of conventional garb on ceremonial occasions. Our Chinchilla usually ascribe their horror of Bolsheviks to the bloody -deeds which are attributed' to them. But thoao are not its real basis—for Mr Churchill himself shook hands readily enough with the Irish 'murderers." Its real basis—for it is a: perfectly genuine sentiment—is far deeper and more unreasonable than that. The only sentiment with which it can be exactly compared is the horror which we might feel of a man who attended a London wedding in a tweed cap. It was Mr Dooley who, in days before the war, placed hie finger on the root ■ of the Western nervousness regarding Russia. "It's the whiskers," he said. "We shouldn't be afraid of Russia if it wud only shave." M. Tchitcherin's silk hat is as good as a shave and a bath. Yet one may do well to remember the wooden horse, which, like the ailk hat, is important not for what it, looks like but for what it contains. I

Czeeho-Slovakia, while Labour in most countries is aiming at a 12-hours week, has set about abolishing holidays wholesale. Like everything juvenile and ardent, however, (J'zecho-Slovakia is over-doing it: this week's cable news tells us it is cutting out Church festivals—Whitsuntide, Ascension Day, and so on. .Even the most determined enemy of the holidays habit

in a British country Wft ii • very progressive a ,; ««I 1* so bold as to seek to aD f have been s „ch m<ill -JJ jt the Bar, which h M **£****> of everything, records *kT lUtli, Ni Mansfield, who *** « * even on Ash * he suggested that the P 1* on Good Friday. J^^ us in one of the magaunl ?*"* U turned from his D»vy, who was in th« <**. acceptance of the pror.Jw 6 ' **"& lordship ■!*! be the first judge tK }"***< since Pontius Court adjourned till Saturt ' Slovakia will no donfc «2ft<*i mean in time, which C ' between its present the arrangement i a B,,tt q whore for years the pnbb* ment have been which now far days of the H expression on a Saint's JW** "N us have taken f or j*/.""M ness, hut which is realty »T *. "*■ his meditation upon the 8»k- W *'' * One tiling this quarrel at(or, as some think, efforts of the He%lt£ has produced which u jSj***} ing: the doctors Hitherto, when doctors rest of us looked oSS 41 each other and mutetyiEi * j any of us could dec He. Jw ■ i to reason why-ourg but fa* *H swallowing the pill ontfl tl» JM composed their quarre!, UiK"l ences were as the diiijjji men concerning the tiutawiTJl lower orders-the differs** L 3 say which the troops vert to JZ H Olympian different, and consciourfy uferior realised °»r inferiority the | the difference, of tha doctor.. Bnt J■' The gods are differing plane, ma way we can nndert ,J| It » «b if Hwg.andP, tainiP s| from strategy to steie l Mpu JfJJ j to go on to a plaiu'Wap" '# our turn, if not to feei superior i : at least to feel that 'cm kind of thing as well as tog "It is a lie," Dr. Valintiw jJ™, Timaru- "It is not true,'' of Dr. Blackmore's statenwjfc ffa to see the Olympiatia. wßa* f n the mud for once, fe &;'*„&&, the real facts of very complicated. |fc Jm&mnn, I gather, is not losis, but tuberoßtato iggrmttd by Dr. Valintine. Dr.tsfintiM will \am it that tuberculosis isVoefs nothing, which escapes his Wows only because Dr. Blackmore and often get in ha , way. And in the meantime—, >:

The controversy over the Prohilittoii pamphlet continues, and we are rt3| without Mr Parr's promised deraolitloj. of its critics. Possibly the pampbkt will not do much harm; and I .'stupe* that tho Prohibitionists do sot tlitl it will do muoh good. For children will grow up, and they will be apt It regard the story that alcohol is putt sublimated, defecated evil (this i Burk\ not Mr Williams) very nn| as they will regard iJM story that! they,were naughty a> ,.hjg c filqckipi would come for thci. Why, : M are the Prohibitionists so very defr mined that the pamphlet shall bejn tained in all its beauty? Simpf;!) suspect, because they 'believe tiiiljf' annoys many people, and if. yoV»i . not convert a man, the next besttwij is to nnnqy him- I myself, one (Alt! mere lookers-on. am not annoyti-li am merely patiently waiting for tb) l Prohibitionist' poet. There is onf/bs sure. For long ago a sort of friend assured me 'tbit'tty leaders of movements always keep ii mind the maxim of a prehistorio Pn> hibitionist: "I do not care whpwitaj the Licensing Laws so long ai'lisj' write the songs." Where is be biding? But about tho pamphlet—does 'A .not,, put Mr Parr is a difficult position? H] believes every word of it—anJoMWSj 'is that even one whisky-and-wda'fa-! pairs the intellect. Yet it i» Hot WP-1 posed that Mr Parr confines hfortlf <«' cocoa. If he does, he meritst#fo treatment. For all of those ,jm consideration who have never 4» I enough to do them any g00d;.?.-'