PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26637, 6 December 1947, Page 9

PASSING NOTES

How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown.—Shakespeare: "Henry VI." As when a son of Erin sucking an egg heard a chirrup and exclaimed, “ Bedad, my young friend, you spoke too late,” even so when a young friend of mine (not a chicken) informs me that in my notes I alluded to “ the only three Queens of England,” I too exclaim, “ You spoke too late.” It was not ignorance that blotted from my mind the two Marys, one the daughter of Henry VIII, the other the daughter of James 11, but just that rascally lapse of memory—something like what the radio announcers apologise for as a technical fault. Well, I apologise—but I hasten to my own aid hy recalling that there was a sixth Queen of England, a Queen, however, who never actually wore the crown, though entitled to birth to wear it, as she was the only legitimate child of Henry I, who died in 1135. Those were violent times, quite unfit for a woman ruler; for in those days of barons’ wars the monarch had to be a warrior as well as a ruler. Matilda had been named as Queen by her father, Henry I, who had made the barons swear to accept her. Oaths were made to be broken. Stephen took the oath, broke it. and became King. Matilda is best known under the name of Maud, and the story of her escape in a white dress over the snow was once very popular. Five Queens—six counting Matildathree with' reigns made brilliant by famous men! Some day there may be a seventh, and other Shakespeares, Drakes, Popes, Marlboroughs, Tennysons and Darwins may arise to make her reign glorious over old England. Dolce far niente (sweet doing nothing). The chancellor of Chicago University, Professor Hutchins, is a forceful man. Several times he has made or attempted revolutionary changes in university curricula. Now he comes forward with an atomic energy picture of a heaven on earth, provided war ceases. We are all to be Methuselahs, basking like South Sea islanders m perpetual sun, plucking the bread-fruit. Factories will work only a few hours per week, human ailments will be diagnosed and cured instanter. And with “isotope tracer” studies cancer growth will be understood within seven years. All kinds of new metals and fabrics will appear, and cars will run on two punces of fuel per annum. My prayer to heaven is that I may not live to see it. If Hutchins himself survives till that blessed era, he. being an energetic person, will lead a revolution to restore war. work, confusion—anything to break that intolerable monotony, a monotony that resembles the old conception of a donothing heaven. Somehow it recalls Henry Lawson’s old swaggie: And we’ll rest about the station, where the work bell never rings.

The first depiction of this prolonged siesta is in Homer’s Odyssey, where the active yiysses wisely scorns the lure of eternal loafing. Tennyson makes a lovely poem of it, “ The Lotos Eaters.” Hutchins doesn’t mention food. If Asia begets progeny at its present rate, the food doctrine of Malthus will beat the lotos eaters, and Cowper knows that “in every heart are sown the sparks that kindle fiery war.” But war or no war, may the atomic bomb, if nothing else, preserve me from 969 years amid the melancholy mild-eyes lotos eaters of the coming age! Give us Ulysses before Methuselah.

Arthur Thomson’s audiences listened with rapt attention.—J. G. Crowther. In Dunedin a few days ago Dr Gerard, a professor of physiology from Chicago, deprecated the method of popularising science for the layman as practised by some magazines. I dissent from this view, though it may be sound enough in medical science where popular articles engender quackery. But in science generally, the world of ordinary men owes a great deal to the popularisers, the interpreters between the gods and men. When Copernicus removed our little earth from its premier position—at the centre of the solar system—this knowledge without the aid of popularisers might have remained an abstraction. When Newton explained gravitation, the popularisers made him intelligible to the multitude. In our day we owe much to H. G. Wells, Julian Huxley, Sir E. R. Lankester, and especially the late Sir Arthur Thomson whose Outline of Science M held nn immense suecess. Several of his other books, too were widely read, e.g., “The Gospel of Evolution” and “Science To-day. Of course there are arcana, secret things, that are beyond the general reader. I once attended a lecture by a Cambridge expert on the mathematics of Einstein, and departed a sadder and no wiser man, because I was out of my depth. But once, happening to be in Australia when the American scientific expedition was observing the total solar eclipse, I heard the leader, Dr Cameron, give a popular exposition in an easy American style I understood the Einstein theory then, and read it up intelligently afterwards. So if any reader detects popular science in these paragraphs, be it known unto him that such knowledge as is there has been acquired from popular writers.

There is no arguing with one who denies first prihciples.—Roman Law Saying. One need have no prophetic vision to see that the present discussions of the Foreign Ministers will reach nc agreement. In an argument on religion a debater starting from a belief in verbal inspiration of the Bible cannot reach agreement with one which begins by denying it. Both contestants rely on superior emphasis. America has one set of ideas which predetermine certain conclusions; Russia has another, an opposite set of ideas, equally predetermining certain conclusions. In between lies Britain. The anomaly is that Britain, while a monarchy, is more socialistic than America, which is a republic. If America inteilsifies her anti-Communism, Russia will make a corresponding intensification, and vice versa. Britain takes over from private enterprise steel, coal, and railways and yet has a House of Lords, Conservative members of the Commons, and also Communists when they can gain election. This looks a hopeless muddle. But it isn’t. It is a compromise between past and present, it is an avoidance of a static condition of polity in that it allows of representation on a fair basis to all parties—and that is democracy. Russia’s democracy is imposed from above—if you don’t accept it there, you will be liquidated. The Russian people never developed their democracy themselves; it was pushed on them', not without extensive liquidation. British democracy is a steady growth from below. Jonah’s gourd grew in a night, but it didn’t last long. An oak lasts a long time.

Methought it lessened my esteem of a king that he should not be able to command the rain.—Pepys’ Diary, 1662. Amid all the great current events, such as Molotov’s intransigence, the dilemma over Palestine, the voting in China, the beer strike in Westland, and the confusion in France —amid all this comes an announcement which may be the harbinger of a discovery or invention almost as important to the human race as the discovery or invention of fire, the wheel, the canoe, or printing. Ir *is announced that in Dominica (look up your atlas) a nineweeks’ drought has been ended after moisture-laden clouds had been bombarded with dry ice chemically treated by scientists of San Domingo University. This artificially-produced rain saved crops valued at 18,000,000 dollars New Zealand often needs a timely downfall, despite its good general average. At present a fall of an inch or even half an inch would allay the fear of fires in the North Island. And even in Otago it cannot be said that the rain it raineth every day. Australia and parts, of Africa are in chronic disfavour with Jupiter Pluvius. Recent experiments in producing rain in Australia have not yet persuaded Nature to hand down her gifts, but success will come. In many parts of the world the doctrine of Malthus that population was outgrowing food-supply is painfully evident. Scientists are, however, on the march. Only a few weeks ago in Victoria an electric message was de-

spatched to the moon and reflected back (I think that is the correct word) under five seconds. Those who live another 50 years will see strange things. Since the discovery of radioactivity, nuclear physics has opened a new world, and as chemistry is conjoined therewith, great things may be looked for. Complete success in ar-tificially-inducing rain would render the invocation of supernatural aid superfluous in time of drought. Civis.