QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4532, 26 February 1923, Page 2

QUEER SIDE OF THINGS.

PROFESSIONAL ETIQUETTE.

(By

“Septimus.”)

Etiquette is a splendid thing, whether it is professional or otherwise. In a way it’s unique. It’s a monopoly, at present—what Labour,would call a “hoctepus”—and, curiously enough, it was, I am told, adopted by professionals because it is unprofessional. It wants extending—should become universal, in fact, like grouching. Such a course would bring new joy into the homes of the workers, as advertisers say when introducing a new soap that does nothing useful apart from extracting money from the pockets of the people. One can imagine a doctor’s “shuvver” declining, with a lordly air, to take his employer’s car out on the ground that his pal Bill S*mith had driven another car to the same patient’s house five years ago—and that to accede to his employer’s wish would be a breach of eitquette. The employer would, of course, uphold his, “shuvver’s” views. Yes, professional etiquette is a fine thing; a very fine point, as it were. It’s a democratic move calculated to .conserve eneigy. History, for instance, tells that one “Balbus was building a wall.” His speed may have been one*brick per hoar. What a lovely chance for establishing etiquette among professional bricklayers. The modern Balbus might have a brick halfway into position—3o minutes’ work—when his employer required him. “Tell the boss that professional etiquette prevents me from answering the call,” Balbus would say to the foreman. Thirty minutes later Balbus would, if he did not forget, present himself at the office, but professional etiquette would prevent the boss from giving hh orders before lunch. Of course, it wouldn't do to apply it to the payment of salaries. That would be too ridiculous. As a means to providing a standardised go-slow policy, however, or to retard the payment of dividends, it would undoubtedly prove effective. We shouldn’t need doctors, because all their patients would be dead before they arrived. All property would automatically go inro chancery, because professional etiquette would prevent a lawyer from handling documents that had passed through anyone else’s hands. We should have true socialism —everyone doing nothing and receiving a share of nothing for it. If I could only make the world realise all this! But, like Copernicus and all other great men, I km frightened at the immensity of my ideas. A thought flashes through my mind. Shall Ibe sneered and laughed at, and then immortalised when the good that is in me is interred with my bones ? Will some ranting play-actor finger my skull and say : “ Alas, silly Yorrick, I knew him too well ?” —and then drop me into some scenic stage-grave and amuse the audience with yards of “ sob stuff ” dealing with the exploits of one Brigadier Gerrard —no, I mean, the great world’s etiquettjser, the champion of go-slow methods, who lived in the years of Massey, 1923. Think over it well. It presents a unique opportunity, this etiquette. The whole district could be “deferred,” including the Pokeno railway and the harbour scheme. And Thames and Paeroa, as well as Ngatea (sublime city of the Plains) could adopt one motto—“ The caravan starts for the dawn of nothing, 0 go-slow.”