OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18425, 4 July 1925, Page 12

OBITER DICTA.

[By K.] During last session members of Parliament, as those may recollect who regard the General Assembly as a kind of zoo and nothing more, began to decorate their speeches with curious scraps of verse. As one whose interest in politics was first aroused by Mr Seddon's habit of quoting, whenever he was in a tight place, some incomprehensible lines which he said were from " Not Understood," by a writer whom he called " the poet Bracken." 1 was glad to hear the politicians dropping again into poetry; and naturally I was eager to see whether the fashion was being kept up. It is. Mr Coates scored the first point with the following lines: "A man whom the lust of office did not kill. "A man whom the spoils of office could not buy. "A man who possessed opinions and a will, "A man who had honour and would not lie, "A big man, sun-crowned, who lived above the fog "In public duty and iu private thinking."

As a first attempt, by a Prime Minister new to the harness and burdens of office, and worried, moreover, by the fusion negotiations, this is far from bad. If it is not Mr Coates's own, I am as eager as Ferdinand to know who wrote it, and would like the address of the pieman. Sir Francis Bell (if the Wellington papers reported him correctly) was not nearly so good. For this was his contribution: —

A statesman, yet a friend of truth so

sincere, In action faithful and in honour clear; Who served no private ends, Who could not know deceit, and who lost no friends.

Strangely enough, Pope wrote some lines like and unlike these. From one of his epistles:

Statesman, yet friend to truth! of s?ul

Sincere, Iu action faithful, arid in honour clear; Who broko no promise, scrvod no privato end, Who gained no title and who lost no

friend. I suspect that Sir Francis or his reporter must have got hold of the version of Pope written by the laureate whose ode on the death of King Edward VII. (printed in the Week-End Book) concludes with this stanza: His miglity work for the Nation,

Making pcaco and strengthening Union— Always at it since on tho throne:

Saved the country more than one billion. Pegasus M.P., I can sec, is going to make it worth while going on Avith my scrap-book.

In the meantime the Prohibitionists in Auckland are suggesting " that as Prohibition is the law of the United States no intoxicating liquors should be offered or supplied to the men of the American Fleet." Pussyfoot is so full of zeal and cocoa that nobody need be surprised that ho has no room left for logic or humour or a third thing to be mentioned later. If his object is to make the Fleet feel at home, he ought to arrange for a corps of bootleggers. And if visiting representatives of foreign Powers aro to bo provided with a home away .from home, I can foresee difficulties when a Spanish Fleet arrives and asks for the bull-ring or when a Turkish squadron pays us a family visit and disturbs the marriage market. In a good cause Pussyfoot may agree to bull-lights and polygamy, which) after all, are trifles to 6ne for whom nothing matters but strong drink. But his difficulties will begin when a British or Australian squadron visits America, for it will then be America's duty to serve liquor to the visitors. The question, however, is after all chiefly a question of manners; and no cause can be worthy the esteem of anyone which sends manners the same way as humour and logic. Ono of the members of tho Reception Committee in Auckland, Mr A. G. Lunn, settled the matter iu a single sentence. The city, he said, should tender the ordinary hospitality, and hospitality ho defined as "giving the best that tho city has." But what, Pussyfoot may cry> is better than a nice cold cocoa and raspberry? One wastes one's time answering Pussyfoot, but since he has asked the question, the ansAver in that there is something better than to offer whisky, better even than to offer soup-and-soda; and it is, to offer the visitor his choice.

Some of the papers had for this Auckland incident the headline, " A Problem in Etiquette "—a headline which might have been kept for an episode in the House of Representatives on Thursday :

Air 11. T. Armstrong was condemning the "Tories" in loud tones, at which Mr Nash, tho member for Palmerston North, gave vent to a scornful laugh. "That's a pretty empty laugh," said Mr Armstrong. "It's something liko a donkey's Hee! Haw!" Mr P. Fraser: Apologise to the donkey. Mr Armstrong: l'cs, I'll apologise to the donkey. Many people will have been sorry or angry when they read this,, and I admit that it is, to quote from a candid London bookseller's catalogue, " extremely curious and disgusting." But it is really reassuring. For so long as this is Labour's standard of humour and invective, so long may one sleep sound. It will be time to feel alarm when Labour's leaders rise to a higher level of invective than that of the

Lower Third, and can contribute softiil thins: worthy of inclusion in tt3p vohnno contemplated by Mr J. QS& Squire, " The Thousand Best lantitajO Not that one dislikes invective, resembles Mr 11. T. Armstrong J» J -| Jjfiit.er a good thing in its place. remembers with pleasure, for cxamp|*Jf the Irish politician who was dcauWp with an opponent whose wife happenrfl! to be sitting - in the Ladies' Ualterrjl He denounced the whole family, < *£rh£» the toothless hag avlio is grinning j*|| the gallery to the white-livered seOB»I| drel who is shivering on the flurlHf ."\lr Saintsbury praises this bomb in one of his Scrap-books, ht& !us for mere abuse, he says, there ijf nothing' interesting' in it: i\ is afoajgg as dull as ditch-water. 1|" j There must be a reason for I dullness, but I read the Her. J. Jjj|| I Archer's address in Timarti witl»nsf ' finding out what it is. lie cxplaintfp that the Labour. Party differed fiw2g£ other Parties in three essential partMal| lars. The first is that Labour staaflrf for the rights of the people; t||f second, that it is a religious Part) ; tail the third, that it believes in tfcjl| brotherhood of the human ntffcS (It was rash of Mr Archer to muJM that the Labour movement is a T*eHgkn»|[ movement, for it may get hiiu iotM. trouble with some of his followers, jaslff as ii similar statement by Mr HiraSb/ Hunter some years ago cost him ajjf least one vote. This was the vote «|ji an ardent toiler avlio concluded that W%" Labour was like a Church, as Jjfe Hunter had said, the Church must W| like Labour, and who accordingly, ogJ| the following Sunday, denied himself his morning in bed with bis pipe anO his Karl Marx, and went to Instead of hearing ''The Red Flagyl and a fighting speech on solidarity aw|| direct action, and a resolution demao&jinig the scrapping of the Xavy, iy| heard something quite different. Re«# covering from his stupefaction, he W«sJ| a mass of indignation when he lefOi: and at the next election he remember*&;l his wasted Sunday morning by oblitowSf ating " Hunter, Hiram," so decisir&Jl and completely that even the libellous/! remarks with which he filled up tfcft® rest of the ballot-paper could not in*« Validate it.) One supposes that tßftjl reason for Labours heaviness is thfcjt same as the reason why it never sings-! | at work. Mr Ramsay Mac Donald waaj | complaining recently that on a final! morning a short time ago he was od£#l j in the country, and the were neither whistling nor singing. <M{ "There must be a reason fttJl it," he added. "In your tfOtk* f> shops, in your homes, there is mudHfg Iftss song than there used to bCS One of' the reasons is that Capitalism & with its oppressive burdens of ime4ntip|| tainty, with its soullcssness, with iUfJf crushing materialism, is making us bot|C S muto of mouth and silent of heart. "ft the Labour movement succeeds at IsrM it will make our industrial towns oareS again nests of singing birds." »JJB This will be rather nice, but so loflgS as Labour thinks that" The Red H«#*lj is a fox-trot, and that Mr Combs's little arithmetic book* is all refutation of capitalism, and that MiwJ H. T. Armstrong's penny squirt is tim 16-ineh gun, we shall wait in tain. totjM the chorus from the glue-works. "a The critics of the modern girl usually || criticise only, and say nothing ttl| which you can pin them down. Some-j§ times, however, they slip; and one Omm them, in the person of the Hon. G."l| M. Thomson, slipped this week. llMfl| modern girl had too much freedom, 1»M told the Legislative Council, *aa43| ivas getting 'more money was good for her, which she spent M idly and foolishly. This, he said, M itJ|| a question which we mere men tackle," and he therefore appealed t»3| women to take the modern girl in n*n43§| He added that " he thought some for»|f| of legislation should be brought faH|| ward to deal Avith the matter." Mira| Thomson is not one of thoso whose stinct is to say " Bring in a Bitt* E l| whenever anything is being discussed, M' and one must assunic therefore that hiJS has somo specific legislative proposals in mind v It may be a Bill for com-||| pulsory woollen stockings and ginghaniS overalls or some other Blue Law sneaj|| as Pub'syfoot has showered over tlieJK United States. It may be nothing flf W the kind. But Mr Thomson should say JS what it is, and if I lived in Welling- JS ton I should rise up in the. gallery of 3e the Legislative Council and ask nnftJl daily until he answered, or ropenW4«l| and admitted lie was talking at i*%j|f dom. His criticism of the modern gnijl arose out of his development of tbeii themo that "inahy of the lessons *£*|i the Great War seem to have been lost m on the rising generation." One lesson w of the war is, for me at any rate, that fl Jolin Bull Avas the only honest man J in it. Does Mr Thomson know of any M others ? M

*lt will save Mr McCoinbs some troubte"ij (and mako even the possible lo» W of his little book a less terrible anxiety jl to him) to give him "The Rule* at,M Red 'Ritbinctic," compiled by tbefl Bnintsbury already mentioned: — S Addition is for wages. *yk Subtraction is for work. J? jtfultiplirntion is for taxation of upper tail i| middle class income*. _ Egf And Division is for tlipir goods and tkri£*sj| chattels and all that they po»scjs. *«■ "Particular attention," Mr Saintsbttry'Sg] adds, "is requested to the faet tftafr, j! the above is in a most elegantly WBr || stfuctcd rhythm— not metre. Thesing n;M jj middle rhyme of the third line is in- n I tentiojial in nil ways, in its singleness-jj| as well as its position. The voice ** i» recitation should begin slowly aa& M rather solemnly, quickening at -MuKKjji plication,' and thenceforward risii£v|l§ and hurrying to a sort of joyous a; 'possess'." aJk