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PASSING NOTES

(Prom KAiuidayb D.nly Times.)

For radiant optimism and soothing suggestion commend me to the Pri'ne M.mster's Auckland spoech. For a week I have found otlier fiction quite unnecrs-ary to my idle moments : it i o a delightlul lit of polite persuasiveness to which ciie returns again and again for refreshment, and never in vain. The whole effusion is so penetrated with the freshntss and optimism of the infant year (that rosecoloured period of high hopes and good resolutions) that it is difficult to remember it -was not uttered antil February. The later da3 r s of the old year and the first month of the new year are always recognised as a period set apart for the most fascinating labour in life — paving the road to ruin with go6d resolutions. Hut that is for the oidinary man : the political man has his own peculiar times and seasona in which he, Hans Breitmann, " cwoldivates die Peaudifool, likevise die Goofc und Tine," aloud, and in public. Anyway, it is a touching and a pleasant thing to find the master mind, which has, so to speak, " created " our post and telegraph system — to say nothing of other big, tasks. — descending to the detail of maiket-garden-ing schemes. We have many a time had occasion to admire our own Sir Joseph's "coat of many colours," but never moie amazedly than when he proposes to hide the yellow stripe with the broad arrow. Upon^ my word. I don't know which to i'dmire meet : the delicacy with which the Piime Minister refers to "married men and boys who unhappily find themselves piisoneis," or the dehciously ingenuous tone of his ' Why, I ask, should the unfortunate whes be called upon to suiter for their husbands' sins?" Why indeed? especially when an easy and admirable solution can be found in gaol-grown \<?getables! It is really hard for the ordinary citizen of the world tc enter that larefied atmosphere of 'llusion in which Sir Joseph sentimentalises over " the youths who, not infrequently, have a mother or someone dependent on them," left destitute when these young hopefuls " unhappily find themselves in prison." Pietty, but unpractical. Experience. I fancy, would point to the fact that Sir Joseph's own Government is much more likely to be suppoiting the lelatives of siu h youths in one or other of its numerous institutions.

Liike Hans Brcitmann, too. Sir Joseph has long realised that "second-rate moral idee "' which his aclviseis urged upon Bieitmann on the eve of his electioneering campaign: " Dat Gou\evnament for ofeiy man moost a alvays do cfery dings." So the Auckland speech points the pleasant path of progress to "efeiy dings," penfaions and annuities among them. And in tins List item I find myself vondei fully in agreement m ith Government views. The old-age pensions scheme and the superannuation scheme have long been to me as Paradise to the Peri, but in the larger ethics of that " well-thought-out one, under winch reasonable piovision for e\ery section of the community will be piovidcd," I may Lope (in pioper journalistic language) to find shelter for mv declining years under the wings ot the State. Bastiat defines the State as " that great fallacy by which everyone thinks he can live at the expense of somebody else."' But if Bastiat had been able to study the duodecimo Dominion he would doubtless have substituted "institution" for " f allacy." When State benefkeocp, after seeing to the comfort of the sped with pensions, encouiaging the young with maternity hospitals, and sweeping all cni ployees, public and pi hate, into one magnificent scheme by which they may a]l get something for nothing, turns its giandmotheily solicitude upon the general rrab lie, then lam ti ith it all the way! I want no Socialist colony — even " Christian colonists " with a million shares of £1 each, with " Scriptural phraseology nnd othei persuasive means" thrown in, may ]mss me by : I am content to wait for the "well-thought-out" scheme of —

(the phra<-e is stiictly complimentary) — our master schemer. Also, I wait v ith seme impatience for the State Limenck and the tixpenny coupon, with which no doubt weare to canj out the modern principles of self-help nccvfisaiy to pie^erve our wltvespeet. T'le lefeienee to the life a.-iiir-ance companies suggests that behind the luscious plum for Ihe public lies a solid kernel foi the Sate — a monopoly ct lifeassurance throughout th© Dominion — a thro-n-bnek to thp cli'orts of some years bark. With all thete good things simply pom me, upon us, we shall vralibe what mv \\itt\ conespondent " M." defines as' "'Sciialism in a nutshell,"' and "When e\erybody owns everything Nobody will waivt fcr an\ thing Like a woman's letter, the Prime Minister's poot sessional speech contains its ' true inwardness in the postscript. In that final sentence he permits us to see that, after all, the whole thing was a joke — delicate, diaphanous, even demure; but for all that a joke. I suspected it in the prisoner- \ eisus-Chinaman market gardening scheme. The suspicion of delicate iiony deepened with the magnificence of the amuuties-for-the-million programme, and when "Roads" and "Department of Tto.uls " both figured with persuasive eloquence, while silence enveloped that spoon-fed gumoa pig. the Tourist Department, the feeling of pejplexity inaeased. But it was the postscript, so to speak — the valedictory closing sentence, — which revealed the admirable humour of the situation, and routed the covert joy with which I had found out how to eat mv cake and have it — be a Socialist without calling mysi'lf one. A few sentences of platitudes so thieadbare as to almost constitute an insult to the intelligence of his audience teiminated in an appeal to "promote a feeling of national pride in the breasts of the people in this free and happy Dominion of the pakeha, the Mpoii, and the moa ! Oh, Sir Joseph, what a hnnicuiist you are! And to think that •they have been taking you seriously from one end of youi little Dominion "to the othei ! Never realised that yon had taken to heait that little epigram by some seekei after smartness who sairl :'■' There are enough serious things in life without considenng onc&elf one of them."' Moved by the validity of the German Empeioi's latest claim "to peiennial versatility, let me emphasise the fact that T have always recognised William's greatness. Latest ad\ : cei> portray nim a* having reached a summit of all-round excellence inaccessible to smaller men. The Daily Mail was able to inform its readcis that before leaving London the Kaiser himself chose and purchased several Into ■ for the Kaiseiin. tlioi'ghtiully adding the delicate detail that this feminine headg^uwas of "\ery Luge size," etc. Xow, the man who daies chor.se his wife's hats in her absence is an autociat. or a lover, or both. At anyrate, the Kaiser has captmcJ the domestic sympathies of middleclass London by " shopping for his wife." just as eifectnely as the courtly salute with which he greeted the fox which ciossed his coveit at one of the big "shoots" won him the qcnidl applause of the English sportino vorld. Thus William, War Lord and High Piiest of Fea^o, returns to his great industiial kingdom ' leaving the great B.P. convalescent of Germaniaphobia — for the moment. And while I momentai lly move among the world's notabilities, what better time to rejoice at the return to civilisation of a veteran soldier, statesman, and diplomatist ; for Kaid Mac Lean is all these things— and more. AYe true colonists of the older school are nothing if not waimly personal (it is part of the heritage of earlier days, which we have no desire to exchange for the chilly negations of t.'ic younger set), and we 6hall not be the less interested^ in the welfaie of the plucky Scotch Kaid now that we know near relatnes of his are among our colonists. In those long and frequent waits between the crumbs of news that only whet the . appetite for more, one was apt to become ' pessimistic, dwell on the chances of age. ' climate, haidship. and, most of all, "to dread the old Adam underlying the out- ' ward calm dignity of the !\loori&h brigand and his followers. Time, however, has pro\ed that R.iisuli belongs to neither of those popular typos, lieio or fool. Underneath his pi< ture-que trap- ' pings of master bngand he has shown commercial instincts as keen as thee of any huckster in Petticoat lane or tlio Xow Cut. Far fioin killing the goose that 1-nJ i thp golden eggs. Raisuli has pro\ ed him- \ self capable of conducting an egg-laving competition in this metaphoi icil field. The diplomatic basis of the Kakl'g random I on our side is a master stroke, and leaves I Riisuh divested for ever of romance, -md reduced to the lespectable monotony of a settled income. Despite the truculence of its general aspect, Labour appears to be in a soirv ' case. "So much to do, so little done." | The agitators, I suspect, are knocking out ' a comfortable living, "on tour" or other- I wise: but Labour, as an institution to be ' exploited, is in parlous case all over the world. How buried in the dust of silencr , is that quaint aphorism of Leonardo da Vinei — -"Thou, O God, sellest all good, things at the price of labour." At pre- ! sent the Labour situation promises to produce an endless play upon the words, everything — something— nothing : they are, ' indeed, the matenal of the moment for the plirase-m.ikor. For " the ingenuousWinston" I have always had more than an indulgent regaid, and' I like his "ffoits to lmpie^s on the young Libeials the 1 necessity of solving the most troublesome problems of all — the home problems. " Nobody should have everything until everybody had hid something," is neat, but as inconclusive as all those generalisations on the problem of humanity must be. For who in the woild ever had everything, assuming "everything" to mean! all the man himself desired, quite apart from his deserts? The gossip of ancient Greece sets forth that L^sis attained the

unattainable, and, "young, wealthy, an<l beautiful, he wearied of life and died.'^ It n.ay be that it was this very Lysis whoso pathetic tragedy inspired Johnson with the graceful figure of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, who was consumed with ennui, in that, possessing all that he wanted, he found " one day and one hour exactly like another, except that the latter is still more tedious than the former." In plain English, the young man wan unemployed. Homely sybarites! they do but carry into practice those lines of Browning'i , which we quote, and hear quoted, with amiable acquiescence, as a too rare ' experience : "Wheieon it is enough for me, !Xot to be doing, but to be Apparently the lines are finer in quotation than in practice — not an .uncommon thing in this inconsistent world, — or why so much carping criticism anent the unemployed? Perhaps it is because thereare too many of them They begin to share the ignominy of numbers with the Eastern nations, whose adherence to Biblical injunctions to " increase and multiply" is not counted to them as righteousness by Westerns. Morals, after all, are miserably dependent on climatic conditions, and, like the equally intricate aphorisms of Captain Cuttle, " the meaning lies in the application thereof." That, no doubt, is why the industry, frugality, and thrift of Eastern peoples stinks "in the nostiils of Western nations — which naturally brings me, straight as a die, back to Labour. Labour's divertissement of the moment appears to bo "processioning," a hcalthtu! foim of exercise infinitely more simple and economical than the " p-ngeantino" with their betters, which beguiled the summer months. The Manchester processionists having unaccountably weakened- on the really original idea of sharing Windsor Park with the King, cut but a poor figure, being railed back per favour of the Salvation Army! Meantime it would all be very funny if it we-e not so sad. Even the prospect of the monster procession of Ame'ncan unemployed, who propose to evade the truism tint "Satan finds some mischief still foii idle hands to do," by walking up to Washington, falls flat. There is no longer a "sick man of Europe" ; all Europe, all the earth, is sick of the deadly fumes given off by the corruption of wealth and the wrathful £tiiviii£s of labour; and each political party has its own nostrum to quench tht fumes by curing the cause. In just such a content as this.. Lord Cromer told a. delightful little siory the other day, which lan like this: A conjurei, having >pei formed the tuck of cutting up a hat borrowed from a member of the audience, and then resioii"g it intact to its owner invited auyo.ie x\ho liked to ccme on th© platform and pejfoini the same operation. A joiinsj officer stepped up, borrowed a hat. "sliced it into pieces, and then stepped down from the stpge with the remark- "I can only do tha cutting-up pair. I lea\o the rest to the professional conjuier. who. I do not do.ibt, will be able to re3tcie the hat to its onginal condition." Civis. In the case heard at the Supreme Courft borne little time aao in which heavy dunVages woio claimed from a firm of denti-ls. it \\a, urgod _or the defence that the plaintiff might be suffering from tuberculosis, and not fiom the injury inflicted by the intriib on of a foreign body into tin lung. This being a point of some importance to tiie plaintiff, specimens of the sputum were sent co Mr J. A Gilrur/i, who is a foremo«t bacteriologist. Mr Gilruth forwarded his report. « hir h said : " Xone of the specimens had to the naked eye the pppearanre of tube/ciilar sputum. Microscopic examination of the material. e\en after centr-fugahea-tion, failed to demonstrate the presence of any tubercle bacil'i whatsoever, and eie:i the inoculation of a | guinea n'g with some of (he centrifugahseri material failed to establish tuberculosis m , thp animal." Then for the first time Mf Gilrurh was ,nac!e aware of the facts of the case, upon which he furn.ohed an additional report a* folious: — ''As to the question o* a foreign body being- present, in the lung-, I I a?n of opinion that the general cliarac* torintic^ of the sputum, both macrcscopi* e«lly and microscopically are compttibla with this." I Some people app"a.- to he Incapable o£ reo lining that the books and papers in the Athenteum arc for road ng pui looses only. | and svq not supplied in order to afford | facilities for supplying «crap-books with interesting paragraphs. The mean and paltry offence of purloining cuttings from papers still continues intermittent ly The offenc" is aggia\aied when the paper cut . is a local production, and can be purchased in any bookseller*. The 'atest piece ol I sneak-thiering in this respect occurred just the day, when from the " Ladic6* I Page "' in the Otago Witness the account of a Dunedin wedding was clipped out 'c Jis entirety, apparently by some person 1 whoso name happened to be mentioned therein. The librarian authorises the statement that he has ear-maikcd sixpence for this individual wherewith to buy a , Witness if he or she will- call round end r-k for it. In fact, he would give a gooi^ deal mere than sixpence to know who th< culpj-it js To cut out an article or paragraph from a paper belonging to a public or semi-public reading -oom is the acme of selfishness. At tho Magistrate's Court at Lawrence on the 10ih charges of failing to keep dowrt labbits wore preferred by the Stock Department against 11 persons. A conviction was obtained in every :ase, and fines of varying amounts were inflicted. ' The Dunedin Fire Eoard ha 6 practically decided to purchase a 50-55 horse-power motor chemical fire engine and hose reel.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/OW19080219.2.16

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 5

Word count
Tapeke kupu
2,625

PASSING NOTES Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 5

PASSING NOTES Otago Witness, Issue 2814, 19 February 1908, Page 5

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