PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17687, 26 July 1919, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Wo have celebrated the peace, and tlie world-resounding victory that won us tho peace, as patriote, and not less as Christians. Tabor and pipe, iluio Britannia, Marseillaise, Ya-nkeedoodle, —but also chant and- psalm, Te Deuras, and Handel's mighty Hallelujah, not forgetting Dirges and Requiems for our dead. We were all of one heart and soul, —not a jarring note. Tho pacifist looked on in gloom but made no sign; the conscientious objector sorrowed or sulked in secret. Elsewhere, in places beyond sea, exuberance ran to riot and bloodletting,—the chronic feud between returned soldiers and police, as everywhere. Irish Sinn Fein celebrated by hoisting tho black flag; London was unable to illuminate because some malignant labour union held control of the metropolitan electric plant. Untroubled here by political crank or crook, thanks •be, we without let or hindrance. Of time, labour, money, we spared nothing 'to mako the city streets worthy of so great a day. At first there was some hesitation about expense,—in the spirit, perhaps, of the old criticism: "Wliy was not this ointment sold for behoof of the poor?— Wherefore this wasto?" I myself hesitated, and said so. But we came to a better mind. When an Empire rejoices it should rejoice-with, imperial munificence. No one can prove that I failed to illuminate with the rest, or that I neglected to burn an extra candle or two by way of repentance.

Tho labour unionist when off his chump and disposed to a general cussedness sticks at little. First and last he is " agin the Government." Throughout the war and since he lias shown a perfect indifference to the -risk of paralysing all industries and bringing the whole nation to wreck. Note it, however, as a curious fact that neither the militant unionist nor, usually, any other political. malcontent attacks the reigning house. These are days in which monarchy, one would say, should be at a discount. Since the fateful August of 1914 crowns royal and imperial—half-a-dozen of them—have gone to the dustbin. Bat, unless things are not what they seem,' the British monarchy stands firmer than ever. In London, on any event of national moment—tho armistice, for example—crowds gather at Buckingham Palace; the people mass themselves, cheering and singing for hours, till the King and Queen come forth to accept their greeting. The other day in canny Edinburgh the Prince of Wales attended a public gathering unannounced. He came late; being a modest young maft he thought to slip in unobserved. But that might not be. Uprose the audience, and« there was a demonstration of welcome that interrupted business for some minutes. No one,can sav that indications of this kind, cropping up continually, go for nothing.

If popularity is the test, things were very different with the British royal house a generation or two back. At Queen Victoria's wadding, February, 1840, the London populace, as usual on such occasions, had an opportunity of expressing itself. Greville writes: ° Tho Queen proceeded in stale from Buckingham House to St. James's without any cheering, but then it was raining enough to damp warmer loyalty than that of a London mob. . Upon leaving the palace for Windsor sho and her young husband were pretty well received. " Were pretty well received," —merely that! fLator, 1854, time of the Crimean War, the Queen and Prince Consort became unpopular to an incredible degree. It was common talk that they might be | committed to the Tower. In a letter dated January 24, 1854, the Prince himself wrote: "People surrounded the Tower to see us brought into it."' The truth is that this young royal couple— they were in their thirty-fifth year, both of an age—were suffering for sins not their own. Tho fathers had eaten sour grapes and the children's teeth -syere set on In 1830, seven years before the Queen's accession and ten before her marriage, her uncle George IV had died. Here is the obituary notice (editorial) given bv the Times:— • * The truth is—and it speaks volumes about the man—that there never was an individual less regretted by his fellow creatures than this- deceased King. What eyo has wept for him? What heart has heaved one throb of unmerccnary sorrow? Was there at any time a gorgeous pageant on the stage more completely forgotten than he has been, even from the day on which the heralds proclaimed his successor? If George tho Fourth ever had a friend—a devoted ' friend—in any rank of life, we protest that the name of him or her has not yet reached us. After the lapse of four score years and more George IV grows dim. But it has taken all the merit that three successive reigns, good and virtuous, could pile up, to cancel the evil . tradition from him deriving. ( The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones. Someone sends me the Hymn of Hate New Version, current in Australia. I select, with care, a dozen lines or so, the best, shall we say? Anyhow not the worst:— Wo hate you with hand, and heart, and head, body and mind and brain. Wo hate at tue forge, in the mine and mdl, in the field of golden grain. We curse your name in the marketplace as tho workmen talks with his mate. And- when you dine in your gay cafe the waiter spits on your plate. We hate you! Damn youl Ilate you! Wo hate your rotten breed. We hate your, slave religion with submission for its creed. Wo hate your judges. We hate your courts. Wc hate that living lie That you call "Justice," and wo hate with a hate that shall never die. We shall keep our hate and cherish our hate, and our hate shall ever grow. We shall spread our hate and scatter our hate till all of tho workers know. And Tho Day shall cpme with a red, red dawn; and you in your gilded halls Shall taste the wrath and the vengeance of the men in overalls. The riches you heaped in your selfish pride wo shall snatch, with our naked hand. And tho house ye reared to protect you shall fall like a castle of sand. For ours are the hands that govern in factory,, mine, and mill. And wo need only to fold our arms and the -whole wide world stands still! So this is what we are "up against," in American phrase. Sly first feeling is a feeling of pity for men of English speech whose hearts are ravaged after this fashion by the passions of hell. The inspiration of this Hymn of Hate was tho inspiration of tho Gadarene swine. The man who wrote it is a demoniac. And tho end of the Gadarene swine, be it Remembered, was that they rushed violently down a steep place into tho sea and were choked. Pending that catastrophe, to arrive in duo course, there is an answer to tho threat of tho lorldly striker—that tho men of the factory, mine, and mill have but to fold their arms and all 'the world stands still. The answer of the farmer and tho dairyman from their " gilded halls," of tho btrtcher, tho baker, and the grocer, will bo that he that will not work neither shall he eat. On that simple principle all strikes are controllable, and before long by rule assuredly will all strikes be controlled.

As a London editor works it out (Spectator, May 10), the anti-strike—tho strike against the strikers—would take this form: —Tho grocer to the striker: " If you are going to stop the traffic, not an ounco of tea or a pinch of tobacco shall you buy from me." Tho baker: "Nor a loaf of bread from me." Tho butcher: "Nor chop, or steak, or joint, or sausage, from me." The doctor: "If you are going to stop my coals, I will not cure your illnesses." The schoolmaster: "If you are going to starve me, you cannot expect me •teach on an empty stomach; I shall bar the doors of my school against your children." And even the publican—f.rom behind his bar to the bibulous victim of Ojaitalusn? .IQ. N»&Ang doing.

Out yon go J" On these terms tho seamen's strike in Australia would not have lay tod a week. Take a simpler case:— WANGANUI, July 24. Tho eteamer Inga still lies at tho wharf with 1100 tons of coal, which tho wuitersiders still rofuso to unload. The local gasworks ia at its last limit, and tho munager has intimated that unleaß supplies are forthcoming before Monday ho will havo to clo&o down. What it is thai ia wrong with tho steamer Inga (which has been in the same paralytic condition for a fortnight), what the offence of hor 1100 tons of coal (for lack of which Wanganui people are perishing), what the grievance, what the pretext, —all this is beside the point. Which point is that in so compact a little town as, Wanganui every one of these lords of the waterfront is known and ear-markable; wherefore it would bo easy to stop his beer and tobacco, his tea and sugar, his beef and potatoes. Let it bo done. It is a fundamental of Christianity that he who will not work neither shall he oat; —which may be a principal reason why the labour unions have "no time for the Churches." Beginning with subtle and delicate flatteries, tho lady correspondent below can of course do fjnything with me. I do not in the least understand her letter; but that is unimportant. Dear "Civis,—-Passing Notes have been my education and salvation for many years—l'm a born colonial, incipient Pankhuistian, but gradually forgetting it ancf becoming more of a credit (I hope) to our "Athens of tho South " as the Saturdays go by. This week my ignorance hit me in the eye while I was reading this paragraph of "Honours in Literature," an article in the latest issue of Quick Marclh. (voL H, No. 15): "The greatest living English poet,the greatest master of the teohniquo of verse the English-speaking world baa ever listened to (or, more correctly, refused to listen to),this man though still y&ung, • has published nothing in this century. After onoo seeing ' upon the conquered pa/*e Tho shadows of created Beaiuty fall' and winning- ' the joy that fills a, clotsdy night "When bursting from hor misty fallowing, A perfect moon wins to an empty spaoe,' he took his small whit© book of song and retired contented to ' The brohon ebsrine, tho lonely ■war-ship-pec.' " Dear "Civis," I looks towards you. . Who is he? If this is a conundrum, I give it up.

Abandoning myself to other correspondents, more or less sane, I have here three. Dear " Civis " : In last week's Passing Notes wo read of " teeth-breaking cacophanics," also of writers who of set purpose are "caeophanous and 'obscure." -This is a column that prides itself as the pink of perfection, and thinks to bo accepted as a court of appeal. " Cacophanies" and " cacophajioua"! Are you responsible for these misbegottens? Guilty, m'lud. No defence. I did not see the proof; but that again is no defence. To make amends I formally admit that the -words should be "cacophonies" and " cacophonous " ; that the " phone" part is the "phone" of "telephone," "phonetics," "phonography" . . . ; and that if -sve may say "cacophane" we may say " telephane." Next, an inquirer who -writes with pencil,—an error which might justly send him below; —asks the meaning of the term permanent-casual" used, in some departments of the public service;—" is it allowable to bracket opposite terms?" Sometimes. A tricky statesman may be accused of his " YesNo" policy;' contemporary satirists summed up James the First and Sixth as. " the wisest fool in Europe." The term " permanent-casual 1 ' means, I should say, one who is not on the; regular staff but who, nevertheless, is regularly—that is, continuously — employed. But official English is a vain thing. _ Take a specimen notice by the Food Ministry in England: Scliomo (B). —Other birds, bein<r hen birds, hatched since January 1, 1916, and not receiving rations under Scheme (A), will bo able to obtain certificates, entitling their owners to purchase up to an amount per head per day ... to be fixed from time to time, according to the quantity of foodstuffs available." Next, a contribution to natural science: Dear "Civis."—ln the "Recollections of Sir Algernon West" ho says—"Coming away from Walmer with Frederick Loveson-Gcfwer we found in the train at Deal Sir William Gull (eminent medical man). Ho told mo what in my ignoranoe I had never known before: that all animals that chew the cud rise on their hind-legs first, while all other animals rise first on their fore-legs." A curious fact; what is the explanation? What indeed? As I make out, the cow elevates her haunches while supported on her knees at the other end: but the horse sits on his proper behind like a Christian, and Taises himself from his wrists. And these modes of motion are related to the fa«t that the cow chews the cud- and the horse doesn't. We must all sit at the feet of science. To science nothing is great and nothing small. The" number of the hairs in the Caliph's Beard, the statistics of Councillor So-and-so's h-dropping,— it is all knowledge. Doubtless; —and the thomsrht is humbling. Still it remains to say that Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. Cms.