WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 42, 13 November 1926, Page 8

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

President Coolidge says America is unpopular in Europe because she believes in the sanctity of international obligations.—lt should be clearly understood, ‘ however, that a Peace Treaty with an American President’s signature on it does not represent an international obligation of any sort.

“Gratitude,”- said Dr. Johnson many, years ago, “is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people,” and it might be added that there is very little of it anywhere in evidence when the Nobel Prize awards are annually discussed. -It is" thirty years ago since the great Swedish dynamite manufacturer died and left nearly £2,000,000 as an endowment , for prizes to aspiring workers in chemistry, physics, physiology, literature, and the promotion of world peace—provided such work of outstanding merit as had been done by them had tended, “to benefit mankind.” When the. awards are announced there is usually much more criticism of the pieople who get them than there is of appreciation of Mr. Nobel’s generosity in providing the wherewithal, and in the news this morning Mr. Bernard Shaw is depicted as extremely nonchalant about the £6500 now allotted to him. f •

There have been twenty-three Nobel Prizes awarded for ’ literature, and British literature is represented among the prize-winners by Mr. Rudyard Kipling (1907) and Mr. W. B; Yeats, the Irish poet, who was the 1923 ■ winner. It was laid down in Mr. Nobel’s will that the literature for which the prize is awarded must be of “idealistic tendency.” A good deal of comment occurred when the Nobel judges picked Mr. Yeats in 1923 as Britain’s leading literary light, and seemed quite unaware of the existence of the aged Mr. Thomas Hardy, It was more or less generally ■ understood that Mr. Hardy had not done any work of note during the year and the judges could not go back on to past work. According to Mr. Shaw he hadn’t done anything in the year for which -.lie gets the prize, but it may be the Nobel judges think this exhibition of restraint on Mr. Shaw’s part deserves especial recognition.

The judges who select the Nobel prize winners are all Swedes, but they show little partiality towards their own countrymen—though the only woman who has won the prize for literature happens by the way, to be a Swede.-. American literature during the past thirty years has found. scant favour in the judges’ eyes, for not one American writer has been deemed worthy of an award. France has had four prizes for literature, and Austria and Russia, alone in Europe, seem off the map so far as producing writing a “distinguished work of idealistic tendency is concerned.

The . most distinguished Nobel peace prize winner -was the late Mr. Woodrow Wilson, who. got the prize for his services at Versailles, which his countrymen so promptly repudiated lock, stock, and barrel. This prize goes to the person who tenders “the greatest service to the. cause of international brotherhood, in the suppression or reduction of standing armies, and the establishment or furtherance of peace congresses.” Mr. Nobel s own personal contribution towards international brotherhood and. the suppression, of armies was the invention of dynamite and other explosives, fhe British Government, in the year before he died came along with cordite, with a view to assisting still further m the reduction of standing armies as opportunity offered. Mr. Nobel did not take at all kindlv to sharing his own line of peace propaganda with others, and had a long fight in the law courts in an unsuccessful endeavour to secure, a ruling that the manufacture of cordite was an unwarranted trespass by outsiders within the realm of the dynamite (ring. So far, the efforts of the inventors of poison gas and tank warfare have not apparently been regarded as. tending sufficiently towards ,the reduction.of standing armies to warrant the. award of peace prizes to. them.

It is interesting to note that away back in 1808 Liechenstein. gave a fine demonstration of its friendly dispositions towards the nations surrounding, it. Up-to that date compulsory military’ service had been the rule ,in the State, but Liechenstein in that year showed its pacific intentions by not only abolishing compulsory service, but by disbanding the entire army as. well,, the ninety-one, men compnsmg.it returning home, to beat, .their swords into ploughshares.

The Doctor: And if he loses consciousness again, give him a teaspoonful of that brandy. . ■ , 'The Patient’s Wife: While he s unconscious? Sure, Doctor, he’d never forgive me.

Salesman (who for three hours has. tried to sell a car) : “Now,, sir. I’ll throw in tlie clutch.” Uncle Hiram: “I’ll take her, then.. I knew if I held out long enough I’d get something for nothing.” ■ THE TIE THAT BLINDS. Oh, some- may long for the soothing touch Of lavender, cream, of mauve, But the ties I wear must possess the glare Of a red-hot kitchen stove. / The books I read and the life I lead Are sensible, sane, and mild. I like caljn hats and I don’t woar spats, But I like mv. neckties wild! Give me a wild tie, brother, One with a cosmic urge! A tie that W'U swear And rip and fear When it sees mv old bine serw, —Stoddard King.