WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 310, 24 September 1921, Page 6

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM (By T.D.H.) Many a damsel is a kitten 'with m«®. who is a cat with women. Bills are pouring into Parliament hr the score, but what are wanted most' al'e measures of accommodation. "Au ostentatious parade of mock pub-lic-spiritedncss’’ is how Mr Brindle. Labour leader, describes the effort to ■raise funds for his out-of-work comrades. Well, up to the present this: mock effort has paraded 1000 pounds of hard cash for the men who need it, while Mr. Brindle and,bis friends have par-' ailed nothing but their usual obsessions. ■Mr. Levitzki, the pianist, has been telling the community that all classes should go in for music, but unfortunately the mixture of human flats and sharps seems only to produce discord. Mr. Holland’s want-of-confidence motion is typical of extremist-Labonr idea* of doing, things.—lt will begin and end xn talk. A City Council official explains that motor-cars are exceedingly useful things' for killing rats. —The. idea that they are only fatal to human beings is mistaken. v ' "Oli many a shaft at random sent “Finds mark th© archer little- meant." These lines of Sir Walter .Scott’s are. recalled lo Mr. T. Brindle, so he write* mo, by a paragraph in yesterday’s “Notes - at Random.” It is not quite clear from Mr. Brindle’s letter'what the mark wai. that the random shaft reached,, but apparently it got home nt some sensitive spot amongst the leaders of the Labour Party. However, what Mr. Brindle really wants to do is to contradict the previousstatement issued to the Press to the effect that- the Labour Party has no opinion on .-the question of unemployment, and he says the platform of the party provides “something will reallv help to solve the problem." , I gather that the .solution is the. application of the principle of "the riftht to work." I am sure my readers will be as grateful as lam to find.a Labour leader like Mr. Brindle coming forward and boldly advocating this admirable principle. Too many; of the leaders of Labour confine their activities. to e F? couragement of the belief in toe., rlgar to dodge work..

In -going to. Gairloch for his holiday Mr. Lloyd George has chosen as sible a place as there is in the British. Isles. On a tramp in -Yorkshirwl one* reached a spot, at the head of dale, about, twelve, miles from the: ra wav in anv direction, and that, I think, is. as far‘fr 9 m. .the hurly-buriy as o« can go -in England or Wales. GaiHooh, a wav. on the wild north-west coast of Scotland, is 656 miles from London, via, Inverness. From Inverness., the lasb section, of-. 76 miles .is done .partly on a. leisurely . Highland. - railway, to Achnasheen, and thence by road along the rugged shores of Loch Maree, The avers ago inhabitant of England proper regard the journey as making a good second to a polar expedition.

Mr. Lloyd George, it. has been noted, nearly always makes for the hills wh<m he has a holiday. . No doubt it brings back early, associations, for around shores of his native Cardigan Bay the land is so "plentiful that Nature had to stack it, as it had to do around Wellington'. I. cannot .afford the price of Mrs. Asquith's autobiography, so I cannot sav wlierb her better half spent hie holidav« Mr. Balfour played golf and studteTphilosophic doubt. Txord Salisbury used to bury himself away in the conn-try-in France behind" Dieppe, where nobody who was anybody ever went, «nd »« avoided the'vulgar crowd. Cam P™“ Bannerman, expansive’ wnd eociable, sunned li’nnself at Manenbad, where the whole, universal brotherhood of man with monev to burn and digestions to repair used to foregather. Disraeli, who^ and wrote all the year round, tool s rest by re-Hring to Huglienden and locking the front gate and seeing no one No doubt a psychologist could tell a great deal about' us all by the -use we make of our holidays.

Ur Bumpus tells me he is pleased fa observe how painstakingly the editor of the "Maoriland Worker is opening the eves of the skilled trades unionists to their extraordinary folly in sticking fa the discredited Arbitration of joining themselves on. to the tail oi t no unskilled unions. It is a fact of anatomy well known to all students of veterinary science, that the tail wags the dog, and a mere vulgar error to suppose Hat the canine agitute the X over, as the editor ot the /Worker so cleai’lv points out. the skilled .unions in not hitching up with the Alliance of Labour and the One,Big-Union, the Bolshevites, the All for Everybody and Nothing for Anybody League. and .ho other forward movements of the ajf,.are taking action that, as tie savs, "tends to deprive them of .the lea dersiiin essential to the solution of fundamental problems.” .Leaders, like ev ry1X else, have to live, and. they canset live on air. and for leaders to must be people willing to lie led by the pose, br other appropriate organ. While the leaders would far sooner be brsakS Moves on the rood than worrying. k with the difficulties of bowing the One Bi<- Union, hanging and shooting routineers. mid clmsiim Parliament out. on to. the hills, still, if they, are willing o sacrifice themselves, it is ungrateful ir* the extreme for the skilled unionists fa refuse to come forward .nd themselves also ™ * lUr , of great eave. Finally, it must not b. overlooked that if any of these l«wder»; should chance to become unemployed, they will probably have to starve, as 1" ‘ would lie quite impossible fo- "H™’ l '" Sn i tlm Labour movement to assist in thMT relief without viola! ion of fundamentals,: and ns wo know from Russian cnee all true believers are agreed JMrfit i« better for 182,000,000 people fa nerish than for fundamentals to be ritw lated by a hair’s breadth.

Startling ..information from Mieehe.; Levitzki (vice our evening contemporary): "All children are not. born y'rhw'l. Perhaps i< is j” q t as well for the Ch«rniavskvs and th* Heifetzes and t*« Levitzkis that Nature is so sparing In her gift'. light verse. For ihe benefit of Hutt Valley readers. I append'the following verses written by Christopher Morley. T hope none of , the local borough councils or ratepayers , associations will consider that I am tree-: passing on its preserves in mentioning ■ this delicate subject;— ' Al night the gas lamps light our strsst, ' Electric bulbs our homes.; Th- gas is hilled in cubic fe«t, Electric, light in ohms. But: one illumination still Is brighter far and sweeter; It is not figured in a bill, Nor measured by a meter. Afore bright than light* that money buys. More pleasing to di.sccrners. .The shining- lamps of, Helen’s eyes, Those lovely double-bum WS.-e