OUR DEMOCRACY.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4839, 8 June 1925, Page 4

OUR DEMOCRACY.

A PEIiIOD OF BAD MANNERS. PLEA FOR COURTESY. "One advantage of living in a land where all men are equal is that you can be rude to everybody. This is a glorious prerogative. . . . But aren’t ladies and gentlemen who follow the golden fule of treading on your toes before you tread on theirs going (literally) one step beyond their democratic rights ? Aren’t they establisning the foundation of an autocracy—an autocracy of bad manners in which time Is money, and politeness a waste of time ?” Elizabeth Robins Pennell, in the “Forum,” under the heading of ‘‘Our Democracy of Bad Manners,” writes a searching article on a subject often in the minds of thinking people,’ even if it is not openly discussed. Although her criticisms are mainly of America —she has praise for England—yet what she statejs has its value and truth to other peoples besides Americans-. If you have leisure see if what the writer says .is true of . our land. “The efficient person of our time woudl, 1 know, dismiss good manners as useless in a money-making' age. But. it is precisely because of their uselessness that they arc of such importance, and it is only tb-day that •man has ceased to think so. At the very dawn of his existence he began to cultivate -.the superfluous ,the useless, as the most worth-while thing in life. “It was certainly for no useful purpose that lie endured torture to cover his body with unmarketable designs, distorted his ears' and ncjse with unsaleable ornament, twisted his hair into highly unrcmuncrative pyramids and spikes and tufts, loaded his arms and legs with rings that impeded his movements. Nor could utility have been his motive when lie gave up raw food for baked and boiled'meats, a trouble to prepare and no better cure for hunger when he scratched lines and curves on his pots and bowls, quite ats pratcical without them ; .when he wove his baskets into patterns of no service whatever; when he adorned the walls of his cave with drawings and carvings for .the sake of nothing more indispensable than pleasure to his eyes. “And, to complete this evasion of the useful, he was at the same time encumbering .the business of living witli an amazing elaboration of ceremonial, of surface manners, which for years and centuries it w r as one of his chief duties to improve, to polish, to beautify. Indeed, so absorbed has man hitherto been in his pursuit of the useless that by the manners, as well as the art, in fashion at any stage of history We can judge the degree bf civilisation attained.

“To-day, however, thanks to modern progress, we have discovered the folly of the useless, and by our want of manners we reveal the civilised hieghts to which, we have climbed., We have got far beyond even the worldly philosopher, who prized easy good breeding as a cover to eaSy light morals. We dould rather Haunt our ‘vice’ than bother to conceal it under a cloak of politeness. "The doctrine of a later cynic, that manners are more, important than religion, is for us as hopelessly outmoded. Our cue concession, or weakness, iis in our attitude towards the past, which we „still like best to remember for the very manners we disprove of unreservedly in the present. "If .l had my way there would be a Politeness .Class in every kindergarten school' and college in .the land,” Elizabeth Robins Pennell says later, and goes on to observe : “The present generation is too engrossed in more urgent studies, to support me in such a, scheme. In the principles of progress, not politeness, it must be trained if it would succeed,- and progress as defined to-day is based on business, not manners. Modern com-mno-iscnse forbids any clinging to customs and habits that do not pay. If. earlier standards distract thought

and steal time from business they must go, and sentiment over their going is unworthy .of’a practical people. Man would not have been such an unconscionable time.getting anywhere if lie had not turned, from the straight path to run after the Turveydrops of deportment and to dawdle with the useless.

"The policy pf push is observed as scrupulously in the open street where, if all unknowingly I impede the progress of three or four citizens abreast just behind me, in one second with a violent jolt they dispose of me—should I land in the gutter, that is my concern, not theirs. “To leave a shop or hotel or any big building by one of those horrlole revolving doors I must dash for a vacant niche, or somebody dashes in ahead of me, twirling the door with such rapidity that the miracle is how I get in or put again alive, though all this bustling may lead to nothing ■more pressing than the hustler’s chat with a friend in the middle of the pavement, waiting to be hustled aside in his turn. And there are no such words as ‘Pardon’ or ‘Excuse’ or ‘Sorry’ in the vocabulary of those for whom every movement, every action, has become the outward expression of the inward belief in the Gospel of Hustle.

“If not to isay ‘Thank you’ is a sign of good breeding, we can congratulate ourselves on being the best bred of all nations. In the leisurely days of an unprogressive past ‘Thank yb.u’ was one of the first phrases taught to the young. Who of my generation does not remember the gentle, reproachful voice asking, ‘And what do you say, my dear ?’ fo>r the gift received, or the growlpups’ condescension kindly meant if abhorrent to a healthy child. True, it is a convention that can be driven to an extreme, as in the England I first knew, where you were thanked for what you did not .de. or want as well ,ajs for what you did. 1 used to laugh at the ‘None to-day, Madam ? Thank you, Madam ’.’ On the whole, however, I like it belter than the other extreme of no thanks at all. But the little superfluous phrase is too severe a drain upon patience and breath now that new reasons for thanking have multiplied.

“And the sense of obligation is perishing with the formula of recognising it. Few authors however modest, few artists however great, have not received demands for the use of their work with an assurance that their names will be mentioned, or with a reminder of the advertisement they will get, as if it were the beggar who conferred the favour. “When nobody thanks any more no chance will remain for the retort courteous, old-fashioned but not without charm, ‘You arc welcome’ may have been another unnecessary waste of breath, but it was unquestionably prettier than the stony stare or the scornfful ‘Yah, keep the change !’ now the correct rejoiner to a belated ‘Thank you.’

“ ‘Good morning’ and ‘Good evening’ also are doomed, mere refuse to be filing into the garbugc-can of decayed manners. They linger here and there. Indeed, 1 have had it in my heart to wish I might never hear ‘Good morning’ again when, in a friendly hotel, it has reached its fifteenth repetition between my first leaving my room and my getting back after breakfast. But 1 would rather repeat it a. hundred times in an hour than dispense ■with it altogether. The occasional lapse into English manners which I could not help on my return home ’.after over thirty years in London misled me at first into saying ‘Good morning’ or ‘Good afternoon’ or ‘Good evening,’ according to the time of day, when I went into a slid]) and when I left it. But I was quickly cured by the young ladiqs behind the counter ■who were too startled by my guileless salutation to return it.

“I can see no gain in democracy if good manners arc incompatible with its doctrines, if, behaviour as well as work must be adopted to. the standard of the weakest, if wc mupt all. be levelled down to no manners at all by tlic weight of equality. To the

courtier who was the tine flower of the Italian Renaissance ‘Freedom under the Law’ was the beginning and end of goo-d manners,’ the writer sums up.

“To the men born equal of our day freedom without bad manners is an empty farce. ‘Be rude to one another’ is the golden rule, and, unfortunately, not only arc our manners corrupted by the new canons of behaviour, but the fundamental-things of life as well. The contagion hits spread to art. . It has spread to literature, emancipating verse and prose alike from form and restraint. It has spread to the theatre, exalting cheap humour and vulgar display at the expense of a noble dramatic tradition.

“It has spread to government, the people’s chosen representatives wrangling and snarling like dogs over a bone. It has spread to religion, the men who undertake to interpret the Word of God shrieking hell and damnation to each other like angry fishwives. Day by day the art of living withers and fades, leaving us to face existence, unadorned in all its nakedness. To doubt the blessings of democracy may savour of heresy, but it is not easy to lose without rcgiet that okler code which made men free and equal by the gracious Law of Courtesy.” «