PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17693, 2 August 1919, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Whoevor would get up for examination purposes piu natural history of New Zealand strikes, whoever would know where we how we stand, and wliiit the outlook, may sit at the feet of Mv W. Downie Stewart,- M.P.see address on "Class Conflict," ])ailj r Times, Thursday. Reading this address, I not only apprehended bettor than before the why and wherefore of New Zealand strikes, but found that I had come upon a dictionary of its subject, clcar, concise, and of lasting value. AJI the same, I offer (with modesty) a contribution of my own. The history of strikes may bo run back to the centuries b.c. In republican Rome, Year of the City (A.U.C.) 260, —n.c. 500 or thereabouts— occurred a " secession of the plehs." For good reason, as seemed to them, the working people marched out of town in a body, and out of town took camp. Secession of the plebs,—in modern phrase, a strike. To bring the seceders to a better mind and get them marched back, Menenius 4S r 'PP a > himself of the plebs bv derivation, propounds a fable or parable, The Belly and the Members. The story is told in Liv} r , also in Shakespeare's " Coriolanus," which is more accessible than Livy. Note, if you read it, that the parable of the Belly and the Members still tells everything; that the gist of the age-long controversy between Capital and Labour is there; and that the striker has got "no forrarder" for all his five-and-twenty centimes of striking.

Says " First Citizen " (it should be First Striker) in Coriolanus, I, i: — You are all resolved rathear to die than to famish?

All: Resolved, resolved.. First Cit.: You lihow Oaius iMarcius is chiof enemy to the people. All: We know't, wo lenow't. First Cit.: Lst us kill him, and we'll have corn at our own price. Is't a verdict?

Later, the tribunes are praised for efforts "to make coals cheap." The grievances of the plebs seem plain enough. As now, so then. Closer still coines the parallel with to-day when we listen again to First Striker:—" They suffer us to t famish, and th'teir storehouses are filled with grain; repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide nwre piercing statutes daily to chain up arid restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will ; and there's all the love they bear us." How very modern all this. But we have yet to hear the answering parable: Menenius Agrippa: There was a time when all the body's members Rebelled against the belly; thus accused it: That only like a gulf it did remain I the midst o' the body, idle and unactive, Still oupboarding the viand, never bearing Like , labour with the- rest; where the other instruments Did see and hear, devise, instruct, walk feel, And, mutually participate, did minister Unto the appetite and affection common Of the whole body. The belly answered— First Cit.: Well, sir, what answer made the belly?

No need to continue. Each one of us for himself can supply, the answer of the belly. And, as we read somewhere in Dickens, the bearings of it lie in ine application.

Dear " Civis,"—Your ".Humiliating notes on the Irish tangle make me think you will be interested in the views of a Swiss paper on the same subjeet: J enolcso a cony of the Lausanne Gazette, April 14, 1919,. the first article m which you may find time to read. —Yours truly, Englishman.

It is good to know the interpretation a Continental journalist puts upon Sinn Fein. Neither Tros nor Tyrian, he can at least be impartial. And impartiality is the note of this editorial in the Lausanne Gazette. Britain (says the writer) at one time sinned against Ireland, sinned also against' her American colonies (elle a peche contre Paddy comme elle a peche contre Sam). But all that is ancient history;—praise for zeal in repairing faults committed has bpen Britain's due for a long time past.

Nothing is more instructive' than a comparison between tho agrarian policy of Prussia in Poland and the agrarian policy of Britain in Ireland. Whilst tho endeavour of Britain was to give the land to the people of the land, the endeavour of Prussia was to take it from them. Towards these contrary ends the two Governments employed tho most ingenious devices (tresors d'ingeniosite). If the policy of Prussia is to be oondemrosd, must we not praise_ the British policy, and regret that it has not reconciled the Irish people with their lot?

Far from being reconciled, the Sinn Fein Irish during the heat arid agony of the struggle with Germany attempted to stab their benefactor in the back (poignarder dans le dos; —the expression is John Redmond's, he adds). They plotted with the Germans; from the certain German triumph they hoped the annexation of the British Empire to Ireland. And, in short, by their odious conduct throughout the war- period,_ they have . ruined (sabote) their cause in universal opinion.

Germany being down and out, Sinn Fein lay at the mercy of the superior power it had sought to betray. Then was the time for vengeance;—any other people than the British would have put •Sinn Fein out of condition' to do any further harm. But no. That is not the British way, (l'Angleterre liberale ne mange pas, comme on sait, de ce pain-la). Far from vengeance, the British authorities „ .«cd on placidly at Sinn Fein fanatics (energumeues) proclaiming the Irish Republic,—a stage flourish (geste d'apparat) quite in the braggart Irish vein, a vein of boastful levity, destitute of political common sense (depourvu de tout sens politique).

Generous, and a little disdainful, the superior power will ■ leave Valera to perorate and tho Countess Markiewicz to continuo her extravagances; but Ireland will remain a dependency (sous le coupe) of Great Britain. The mad complicity of Ireland with Germany during the war has shown the Irish incapablo and unworthy of selfgovernment (a prouve quo Paddy restait incapablo et indigne de so gouvarner). Such is the conclusion of an instructed and impartial Continental journalist. • Let it be clinched bv a judgment from across the Atlantic. Professor HL H. Powers Ph.D., author of "The Tilings Men Fight For," says: " Ireland, as regards area, wealth, and population, is a negligible factor in the British Empire whose serious interests it continually jeopardises. But the location of Ireland is such as to make it the most strategic cf British possessions. Upon its absolute control depends the very existence of the Empire. Not the British Parliament, but the maker of the planet decreed the dependence of Ireland."

Quantum suff of Irish Tebels. Let me diverge to another topic, still Irish, but of a kind that will leave a better taste in the mouth, and that topic is—the Irish regiments at Messines. I quote from Conan Doyle's latest volume of " The British campaign in France and Flanders 1917."

Tho Sixteenth Irish Division for tho purpose of the attack consisted of four brigades, having been strengthened by tho addition of the 33rd Brigade from the Eleventh Division, In the attack tho 47th Brigade was upon the right and the 49th upon the left. If some further detail may be permitted in tho case of men -who were playing- so loyal a part at a time when part of Ireland had appeared to be so disaffected, it may be recorded that tho Irish lino counting from the right consisted of the 6th Royal Irish, the 7th Loin store, the 7/Bth Royal Irish Fusileors, and the 7th Inniskilliing Fusileers. These battalions sprang up the Wytschaete slope, olosaly followed by their second line) which was formed by the Ist Munstcr Fusileers, 6th Connaught Rangers, 2nd Royal Irish, and Bth Inpisldllings. In this order, in close touch with the Ulsterimr. on their right, and the English Nineteenth Division on their left, they swept up tho hill, their Celtic yell prmndintr hitrh above the deep thunder of tho pans. . Thoy owarrrued over Wi-teoho£te village nxti -wood, boating

down aJI resistance. ... It -was in ''ho asßuult of the villago that that groat Irishman, Major Willie Redmond, foil a± the head of his men. "Ho want in advance, when there was a ohecsk. Ho was shot down at once. As ho foil, ho turned towards his men and tried to say something. No words oame, he made an eloquent gesture with his right arm towards tlK> German line, and the Irish swept forward."

Conan Doyle continues: "The profound gratitude of every patriot is due to him, to Professor Kettle, to Mr Stephen Gw-ynn, M.P., and to all those Nationalists who had sufficient insight to understand that Ireland's true cause was the cause of the Empire, and that it was the duty of Irishmen of all shades of opinion to uphold it in arms. 0 si sic omnes! lliwi all been thus, an Irishman could hold his head higher to-day."

.Dear 'Civis," —Talking about municipal erudition, what do men make of legend which embellishes Wellington's coat-of-arms, or whatever it is— "Suprenw. a situ"? I have heard, too, of another town, which erected lamp posts bearing the words "Curo Secundo." The question as to what they either mean, or even are intended to moan, is one which I have submitted to a good many people. Can it be that at last—

"Drive slowly" might, in' a court case, be held to mean "lie extremely deliberate in the movements appropriate to driving; irrespective of the pace of horse or car bo guilty of no precipitate movements of your hands."

Wo read words, words, words, as Hamlet says; we speak words, words, words; all human intercourse—by utterance, eye glances, physical contacts, dumb show—is resolvable into words, words, "words; by our words we shall be justified, by our words we shall be condemned; —not strange is it that the right and wrong in words should bo of interest to us. Hence I allow this correspondent to add, quantum valeat, a paragraph that tends to the cryptic: —

"Still waters run deep," tfhich you quote approvingly, always appears to ine to have a strong Irish flavour, for "still" waters are those which do not run deep, deeply, or otherwise. We must absolve the originator from the modern vulgarism of "fish running five, pounds apiece." Indeed, in the' original it is "deep waters run silently." But more Anglice wo have urbanely improved that into nonsense.

I see nothing wrong in " fish running five pounds apiece." The Oxford recognises this idiomatic use of the verb "to run," and gives examples:—"our peaxs run big this year;" "prices run high;" oats run 441b to the bushel." Of "still waters run deep " and similar phrases only this need be said, that adjective for adverb %vhere possible makes for vividness:—"to hit hard," "to sleep sound," "to taste bitter'," "to sing small." You wouldn't say " taste bitterly." And it would be difficult to contrive a "sing smally."

Harking back to the letter above, —I have never clapped eyes on the Wellington coat of arms, if such a' thing there be. But, as it chances, I knew in his old age the Wellington Town Clerk who invented the motto; I also know that he prided himself on the achievement. His version was " Suprema e situ" (e for ex). It is quite good Latin for the local boast—

" Wellington the corner shop." Then the " Secundo ; Curo" lamp-postalas and alack-a-day! this mystery was discussed in Passing Notes and elsewhere by citizens of light and leading forty years ago. Set up in the streets of Old Dunedin were a number of cast-iron lamp-posts imported from Scotland, each of them showing on its base the untranslatable blazon— " Secundo Curo." This in the Athens of the South. Public opinion fixed on an eccentric town surveyor of the time as the culprit. But so far as I know he never confessed. Somewhere in the lumber sheds ofo the City Council a forgotten specimen of the Secundo Curo lamp-post might still be found. Its proper place would be the Hocken Museum.

• ,k. e added to my own museum of curiosities are two correspondents yet awaiting notice. One of them has got hold of an Herodotus story, and got it wrong. (Incidentally he should be anathema for writing with pencil, but I spare him.) Dear "Civis," —Is there any truth in this story? A certain sect some thousands of years ago—l think it was the priests of Egypt—had a discussion as to which was the .first language spoken. To settle it they put two male infants in charge of a man and a woman, both dumb, who lived in a hut in a forest, nobody else allowed to come near. When the children were grown, it was found that they could speak no language, but oould imitate all tho beasts and birds of the forest. The Herodotus story is that Pharaoh Psammitichos, ipaking an experiment of this nature, found that the children when produced stretched out their hands and cried " bekkos," the Phrygian word for bread; wherefore Phrygian was the primitive tongue! Thus in his " Euterpe," the delightful old gossip known as the Father of History,—credulous, garrulous, who in the 4th century b.c. made 'a personallyconducted tour of Egypt. He would thank me, I am sure, for putting his cock and bull story straight.. . Next, a point in theology:— Dear "Civis," —As a constant reader of your refreshing columns, I feel justified in going to the fountain head in search of truth. Could you enlighten me as to the meaning and derivation of the word "Amen"? Is it true, as some mainthat when we pronounce this •mystic word we are consigning ourselves to the Nirvana of Buddha? Anxiously awaiting some assurance on this matter, I am, etc., XXX "Amen" is Hebrew for "So be it," or, if you like the Masonic form, " So mote it be." To reach the Nirvana of Buddhism, which is nothingness, you must "acquire merit. I don t see how the word 1 * "Amen" Is to help you; unless indeed you repeat it and repeat it, incessantly, day by day and night by nigljt, till you produce softening of the brain. If softening of the brain is not Nirvana, it must be the next thing to'it. Civis.