Brewers, Horses, and Fanatics

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21409, 27 February 1935, Page 10

Brewers, Horses, and Fanatics

Fanatic zeal in a cause to which the heart is given can drive otherwise sane and sensible men to ridiculous extremes. A case in point arose in a cablegram from London yesterday announcing that the Moderator of the Irish Presbyterian Church had telegraphed to Mr Ramsay MacDonald protesting against the use of the horses which are to be lent by a firm of brewers to draw the Speaker's State coach in the King's jubilee procession. The M .ierator's objection is that "the occasion " should not be used to advertise a " traffic to which multitudes of his "Majesty's loyal subjects are op- " posed." A point of democratic rights is clearly involved. It should be worth considering, now that the question is raised, whether a milk firm should not first have been approached to see whether it would supply the necessary traction. Then, perhaps, a referendum could be taken to decide whether his Majesty's loyal subjects prefer milk horses or beer horses. Or both teams might be paraded before a bench of horse judges. There would be a little difficulty, of course, in securing complete impartiality, but no doubt it could be arranged byhaving milk assessors and beer assessors with a total abstainer from both beverages as the chairman. The thing is full of interesting possibilities; but it is to be feared that Mr Ramsay Mac Donald, as an eminently sensible Scot, will explore none of them and that multitudes of the King's loyal subjects to whom the sight of a brewery horse is an offence will have to bear the affront as best they may.