NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1560, 2 October 1912, Page 6

NOTES OF THE DAY.

It is nflturnl enough that Mr. G. \V. Jii.'ssEi.i, should have been asked in Christchiireh this past, wenk-eiul to say sompthing to cncoitrnge the antiR«form party in Christchiirrh. Even Christchurch has been unable not to notice the disorganised state of the Opposition. But Mn. Kussfxl ought surely to have clone a little better than' ho did, bad as his case is. "Tin; party," he said, is not "disgnintled or divided, ,: and "the members are working solidly, together,"

How solidly they work together was made pretty clear on Friday night, when Alit. ilrssEi.L, leading a direct attack on the Government, could only got four or five members of "tha party" to stay in the House, and had to wind up with one solitary assistant, Mil. Macdonald. The recent divisions, in the House ; wb are also told, were "most satisfactory from the party's point of view"; and since they were most- satisfactory from the Government's point of view also, we must all rejoice. Nobody will complain of the member- for Avon's idea of what his "party" stands for: its object is to turn out the Government, naturally. If he had stopped there the member for Avon would have been on fairly safe ground, but he could not stop there. He had to say that "the Government's legislation clearly was in the interest of a class." It certainly is, in one sense, but not Mu. Russell's sense: it is legislation clearly in the interest of the honest and progressive class in the community. The point is, however, not that Mr. Hussell need be argued with, but that the Christchurcli anti-Reformers apparently are feeling rather down in the mouth and neecl cheering up. They would be more cheered as to their chances of ever getting on top again if Mr. Russell and his colleagues could show that "the party" is solid enough to elect a leader and be loyal to him. But as it dares not choose a leader, Christchurcli will probably go on doubting its "solidarity."

_T 'he. Saturday Review, which delights in running against settled conventions, and in showing the other side of the coin, had a suggestive article lately, on "armaments as an investment, in which it set out certain "arguments in favour of armaments which have probably never occurred to those supra-patriotic philosophers" whb are agonised by "the huge sums wasted" on defence. It points out that while every Minister, Liberal or Unionist, rejoices when ho can announce an increased expenditure on other things, no Minister, Liberal or Unionist, ever "proclaims triumphantly that he is going to spend many millions more than his predecessor" at the Admiralty or the War Office. The Review attacks tho economic case against naval and military expenditure, which is that "it diverts power, both in men and money, from productive to unproductive energy." "Productive of what?" it asks. "What would the soldiers and sailors do?" "What is the useful tiling these men and this money would be doiiig?" It is ten to one, the Review says, that the soldiers and sailors would be engaged in the production of some luxury. And "ii tho man is not engaged in making wealth and is not wasting his energies, he can only bs improving himself or somebody else educationally (in the true broad sense)." Then, how good to the nation is the character produced by military and naval training! "It is agreed that military or naval service probably docs more for the man during his term than would any other.occupation during the same time. _ How then could the State spend its money better or more reproductively V' We fancy this may be the established philosophy of a later and wiser age than oiirs, bu(i we cannot feel sure, for the assumptions in the Review's argument are too many and too doubtful. Its final sentence is one, however, that we give to our readers as an excellent stimulus' to thought:/ "We .are persuaded of this, that an intelligent and benevolent; despot who had private information that there would never be another war would be extremely careful, out of regard for his sub-, jeets' good, to keep the information to himself." That is well worth thinking over.

We are afraid that Mr. W. F. Ward, in his interesting little lecture last week on "Literature in Australia and New Zealand" left just where it was the problem: why has New Zealand produced no literature of any volume or merit? Tho longing for "a true national literature" is a vain one. As soon as any country has reached the stage of contributing notably to the world's store of written wisdom and beauty, it has ceased to be "national": it lias become a State, in the Federation of Intellect. What is the "national note" in English literature to-day ? There is none—there is no distinctive mark. (We leave poetry out of account, because the language and tho inspiration of great poetry is common to all races. Poetry is a universal thing.) Modern French, German, American, and English literature are alike in all essentials. You can find to-day modern French reincarnations of Jane Austen and of Thackeray, modern English reincarnations of Balzac, American De Maupassants, Russian Hugos. No, it is not "a true national literature" that we need wish or waste time in expecting. It is all very well to quote the American War of Independence as the cause of Lowell and Emerson, but why has the South African War failed to produce anything in South Africa ? _' And to the suggestion that it requires "a cultured leisured class" to furnish literature, one need only answer by quoting the fact that in America and Britain to-day the best workmen includo scores of men and women who started poor and at a disadvantage. Is it not rather likely that tho reason why Australia and New Zealand have, contributed next to nothing to the literary possessions of the world is to be found in the fact that the colonisers were for the most part men and women to whom living was a more important thing than thinking about life , ! In time, perhaps, a steady little stream of good work will How from New Zealand into the ocean of the world's literature, but it will not be "national" or "nationalistic."