QUOTATION AND EMPIRE.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18906, 22 January 1927, Page 13

QUOTATION AND EMPIRE.

TRADE SLOGANS WANTED

CHANCE FOR THE LITERARY. (SrsCIiLLT WRITTEN FOR THE TBES? / |By "Cyrano "J The -secretary for the Col— [ I1K ' ;Ul the Dominions (it is so hard to get out of the old habit) bus appealed to the English public for quotations to enrich the posters of the Empire Marketing Board. Mr Amery is a Haliioi man, and be wrote the best history of the South Alncan War, so he may uc presumed lu Have some connexion with literature. tie gives the mipiession, however, that humour is hanUy Ins strongest point, antl 1 judge ilia! this appeal was made in all hign seriousness, n is likely to alfortl some pleasure and harmless entertainment in winter evenings m iMigland, but I doubt whether it will produce much in the way of usable quotations. Can you think of any line of poetry or prose that could be used lor, say, New Zealand apples, meat, butter, or cheese:" i cannot, and 1 have been delving in poetry for many years. What is wanted, 1 take it, is something that is striking in itself, and relers, either directly or indirectly, to the article. Do you remember the quotations brought to the service of a certain popular remedy? "Give me health and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous." That must have sold millions of bottles. "There s no sweeter tobacco—" but you know that one, too. Emerson's sentence might be twisted into something like this: "Give me a New Zealand apple and a day, and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous." But to find appropriate lines is a hard task. I have just consulted Bartlett's standard Dictionary of Quotations, and have found nothing satisfactory about meat, cheese, apples, or butter. Cheese yields nothing better than the saying about the moon and green cheese, and Shakespeare's "Like a man made after supper of a cheese paring." The second could, perhaps, be adopted: "A cheeseparing from a New Zealand cheese will make Two men." Butter gives us: "The words of his mouth were smoother than (Waikato) butter, but war was in his heart." The deartli of quotations about meat is simply terrible. Arise, poets of New Zealand, and sing the glories of tender Southdown! Fruit, I think, is in the best case. There is something poetical about fruit, as there is about wine. There must lie many quotations about apples that might be used or adapted. There are the apples of the Hesperides; the apple that Paris handed out with, unfortunately for our purpose, traaic consequences, and the apples of Mr W. B. Yeats' lovely poem : •

An<l -walk among long, dappled grass, And nluck till time and times are done, Tlip silver apjjles of the moon, The golden apples of the snn. There is also Tennyson's Lo! Sweetened with the summer light, The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, Drops in a silent autumn night. We must walk warily, however. "A goodly apple rotten at the heart" might do as a warning against brown rot, but hardly ns a recommendation. Indeed, there are many pitfalls in our search. Commenting 011 the appeal, the "Times" warns its readers against the noble Tenriysonian cry: "We needs must love the highest wherj we see it," which, '"however useful on the poster of the Fijian coconut palm, should not be used of Empire meat and fish." This recalls Phil Mafy's notice in a London shop window : ' 'Try our butter; no one can touch it." Nor would it be tactful to use of frozen meat: "Oh, that this too too ( .solid flesh would melt." or, of Imperial lobsters: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on." It is a baffling search. It would be fine if we could have something with the lilt of "Tlie Flowers" : Buv our Chriatehurch mutton, Eat our Auckland ham; t Choose our Tai Tapu butter, Topped with Nelson jam. And the last line might bo : ''Masters of tho Seven Seas, oh Eat and Understand 1" A little elasticity will bring in many passages. For example: "Now blessings on him that first invented sleep! It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a clodk; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot: Wrap yourself up at night in rugs." It must be admitted, however, that in respect to Empire products, the poets have been apathetic. What has Dr. Bridges been doing all these years? Writing silly verses to spring. I suppose. Let him be up and doing; let him cement tho. Empire with odes to Canterbury spring lamb; and our own poets—why doesn't Professor Arnold Wall stop addressing the mountains and begin undressing the glories of our beef and mutton, for the benefit of the English public? Tennyson could be poetic about food: And half cut down, a pasty costly mado, Where quail and pigeon, lark and levoret lay, Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks Imbedded and injellied. Makes you hungry to read it, doesn't it? Another idea —why not get the publishers to annotate the classics in the interests of the Dominions? "A pasty costly made" would bear an asterisk, which would refer the reader to "*No doubt made with Canadian butter." The eggs that supplied tho "goltlen yolks" could be Irish, New Zealand, or Australian, according to which Dominion was prepared 'o pay the most for tho advertisement. Tennyson was unfortunate enough to live before advertising became a profession and an art. Our poets of today should be able to better his example.