PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 25 August 1909, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From S»turday's"D;»ily Times.)

On a calculation of chances the case of the missing Waratah is undeniably dark. But r?ot yet is the " may be "' of hope altogether ruled out. It may be that a smash-up in the engine room left her a log upon the sea, an-d that ghe is still drifting disabled. It may be that she has pulled herself together ; and now — slowly and painfuiiy, like a broken-winged bird — is striving towards the African coast and rescue. It may be that already she has been sighted, picked up, taken in tow. It may be that alongside this paragraph, when it gets into print, will appear the news of her safety. Nothing that is really known about her excludes at this stage the hopeful "may be." What is known v that she has disappeared and left no trace. It is true that many a ship has sailed out into the vast ocean spaces and sailed clean over the rim of the world, to disappear finally. But this doesn't happen to a 10,000-ton steamship on a coasting voyage. The sea-road between Durban and Capetown is virtually under patrol; traffic passes along it continually. It is inconceivable that at any point in this sea-road a great nautical catastrophe, such as the of the Waratah, could happen and leave no trace The owners justly lay stress on the fact that discoverable traces there are none. Whichever way the present suspense ends, the owners may be moved to consider the fact that they send their ships to sea inadequately equipped. Other owners likewise. Anywhere within a thousand miles of the Cape a disabled ship might indicate her position, if fitted with wireless telegraphy. V I am for hanging a shipowner or two from time to time, with an underwriter or two to keep them in countenance. It is the discovery of a French journalist that newspaper irony is usually misunderstood, and for that rea«>n is dangerous. I am sorry to hear it ; 1 decline to believo it; I deny the possibility of proving it. Examples cited by the French journalist from his own experience come to very little. " How on earth did you come to say that Rome is without historic interest?" " Why, I never said anything of the kind." " Well, if you didn't say it, you wrote it. Here is the article in which you maintained that Rome is co poor in ancierrt monuments that it is not worth E-tudying." " But, my friend, permit me. It is trre thai I said that, but it was in order to imply precisely the contrary." He had said it in irony, — very clumsy irony, if lam any judge. To say that Rom-e is without historic interest is like saying that Rome does not stand on the Tiber, or that the name " Rome " is net a word of four letters, — statements inconceivable as irony <md merely stupid. In another example the report of a railway accident had a remark, intended ironically, on " the extraordinary solicitude of* the company for the lives of travellers." Whereupon came a letter to the editor : " Sir, — You must have been well paid by the company to say that."' The reviewer of a book of travels had written — " This author is a remarkable man. He lias just discovered America." "No so," replied a correspondent, — " America was discovered by Columbus." Then there is the following letter of general protest : — Irony is all the fashion among journalists to-day, 'but it is a very deplorable fashion. It only serves to mystify the reader. You write one thing; we are to understand precisely the contrary. Do you say Pascal and Voltaire did the sa,m-e? Well, I should hope you do not propose to rank yourself with those masters. In you journalists, let me tell you. irony is both an impertinence and a blunder. If it is obvious, it is pointless; if it is delicate, it is lost. Tell your colleagues that for me. It will do them good. These things may hold true in France, though the French are not usually slow in the uptake; but they don"t hold here. If there if? any form" of rhetoric that with us is instinctive, coming readiest m the polite exchanges of the street, the playground, the workshop, it is. irony. " Here's a pretty go !" '-' You're a nice

fellow !" " Charming -weather, this !' — * when it is blowing »nd snowing; etc., etc. ; — examples are endless. When newspapers talk in irony, they talk in the every-day language of the people. Not that the ironic vein can be constant. Newspapers are occupied chiefly with persont, facts, and things that must be presented just as they are. There is, fox example, the Hon. Roderick M'Kenzie and his cometary progress .through the Otago hinterland. . Of the M'Kenzie flights and Sittings the newspapers have kept accurate tally, setting Sown all things ju&t as they befell. A Miniscer for Public Works and what not is but a transitory phenomenon, but for the time must be accepted seriously, reported seriously, rebuked seriouely. At Lawrence he received a deputation — the last of a series — on the Lawrence-Rox-burgh railway. Jack-in-office was his tone and temper; metaphorically he strewed the floor with that . deputation and danced all over them 'in his West Coast boots. This is the straightforward • way of reporting, blunt and plain-. •' But • there is room also foe" 'the aesthetic "way, which is the ironic. Presenting the same fact*, -I would dilate on the Minister's courtesy and fairness; his patience, has moderation, his modesty; his graceful tact; his unerring good taste. And there is not the slightest danger that 1 should be misunderstood. It curiously illustrates .the vogue of irony that/ certain words -are going over bodily to its service and losing all other use. " Sa'pien-t " - should- mean '.' wise " ; ." sage ",. should mean "wise";- "wiseacre " should mean " a.- saver of wise things." Hut nobody would thank you for these honorific epithets. To talk ol the sage opinion of your sapient adviser would be to imply that your adviser is a fool. Add that he is a wiseacre, and' you ! further define him as a simpleton and of j weak intellect. The word "patriot" is ' another example. As far back as Dr Johnson's time, patriotism was, the last refuge of a scoundrel ; but the ironic suggestion in the word " patriot " itself is later than Johnson. fopeak of a New '. Zealand politician as "that patriot" and ' everybody perceives that you are satirising him. It is of the essence of satiric irony that your words are the precise contrary of your meaning. A political promise, a Seddon-Ward promise, we say is sacred ; — we are talking irony ! Also, before hearing his reply to the Dunedin deputation this day, Friday, 1 should have said that we were talking i irony in , any reference to the sweet I reasonableness of Mr Roderick M'Kenzie. . There is no reason why a politician ; should not be" a preacher, if he feels a calling thereto. Mr Lloyd-George, Chancellor of the Exchequer, feels a calling thereto, accordingly has been holding forth from a chapel pulpit in his native j Wales. Given -^he opportunity, a Welshman takgs to preaching as a duck to' water. The Chancellor's .subject was Zaccheub the publican, and his? sermon fell under two heads — " Zaccheus was a tax-gatherer :• so am I. Zaccheus was up a tree :so am I." Oppositionist reporting, evidently. Zaccheus at the , British receipt of custom is still, going ■' btrong; it is the other side that will be up a tree. Let them find any fun they can in his occasional pulpiteering; they are not finding much in his Budget. The other side would ,say that politics ought to be kept out of the pulpit. No doubt, — particularly when the politics are bad. And the politics that get.; into the pulpit are usually bad. Recently, at Whitefield's Tabernacle, wherever that may be, Indian affairs were discussed from the t pulpit by a Radical M.P. who recommended a policy of scuttle, and did what t in him lay to encourage sedition. Their take the following item from the Pall Mall Gazette : Thanks to the pernicious practice of turning Nonconformist chapels into pDlitical babble-shops, Sir Francis Carruthers Gould was able, yesterday, to pour the vials of his scorn upon the two-Power standard, to th« huge delight of the Men's Meeting at Whitefield's Tabernacle. This Sir Francis Carrutheis Gould, the wickedly clever cartoonist of the Westminster Gazette, is a principal fighting asset of the Government partyTo which fact hit» recent knighthood bears testimony. Even so, I should have thought him less a politician than an artisfc, and that he only half believed in the politics of his own cartoons. Anyhow, his sense of humour might have kept him out of the pulpit. "F. C. G.," a tabemacular tub-thumper ! — only a Westminster cartoon could do justice to this; and only "F. C. G." himself can draw a Westminster cartoon. Perhaps the repentant humourist in him wall " tak' a thocht" and do it. Sad that his pulpit exercitations should be levelled at the British fleet. Reminds me of something in Tennybon's Maud ; — Last week came one to the country town, To preaoh our poor little army down, And play the game of the despot kings, Though the State has done it and thrice as well: This broad-brimmed hawker of holy things, Who^e ear is stuffed with his cotton, and rings Even in dreams to the chink of his pence, This huckster put down war! can he tell Whether war be a cause or a consequence ? Put down the passions that make earth Hell! Preaching our poor little army down, as Tennyson found the Manchester cottonspinners doing, was bad. Preaching | down our not-big-enough fleet is worse, j But in what way the mischief is to be ■ restrained does not appear. I bethink me, apropos, of an old Oxford story, and regret th.it it affordb no precedent. An undergraduate of Oriel had taken to preaching in the slums. The Provost inhibited him. " But, sir," said the young enthusiast, "if the Lord, who commanded me to preach, came suddenly to judgment, what should I do ?" *" I

will take the whole responsibility,* answered the Provost. " George Meredith as a poet," — can ClviS- give any information on this subject? asks a correspondent. But was George Meredith a poet? A question in that form suggests its answer, an answer in the negative ;— I am aware of it. Nevertheless I stand by the question. That amongst recent English novelists Meredith was perhaps the greatest, and certainly the obscurest, may not be gainsaid. But, for poetry — that is another thing. It is certain, however, that George Meredith _ published several volumes of verse, and quotations from them have been common in press notices of his death. Take an. example : — For love we Earth, then serve wa all; -Hen- mystic secret then is ours: We fall/ or view our treasures fall, Unclouded, as beholds her flowers. Earth, from a nigfit of frosty wreck, EnTobed in morning's mounted fire, "When lowly, with a broken neck, The crocus" lays her cheek to mire. ■There are two broken necks here, that o! the ortocus, and that of the poetry itself. "As beholds her flowers Earth " is, oi course; "mere inversion, the sentence standing on its hea<i. But when the head, torn .from its parts, is thrust into the next verse, we have a dislocation altogether too painful. TTrom. , poetry of this quality I 'turn' away with" a shudder. One other example :-*- : Sensation is a gracious gift, But were it cramped to station, The prayer to have it cast adrift Would spout from all sensation. ' Enough if we have winked to sun, ' Have sped the plow a season; There is a soul for labour done, Endureth fixed as reason. That the last two lines have a meaning I don't doubt, though I have not been able to discover it. I remit the search to my correspondent. Civis. A Press Association telegram from Auckland states that Mr F. M. Downes, who made a claim of Id upon the Auckland Tramways Co. in respect of two fare« charged upon th© Queen street section during ■fche .«pair operations recently, has been notified by defendants' solicitor that the sum of Id, together with 3s costs o£ the summons, has been paid into court. The claim will not, therefore, come before th© Bench. At Wellington or the 17th, Mr Riddel!, S.M.. delivered judgment (says Press message) in the case in whic'.i John Shelley,' of the Foresters' Arms Hote!, was charged *wifch permitting drunkenness on his premises. A prohibited person narood Hyde entered the hotel while' drunk, and was found bbere by the police. The defendant stated that he ordered Hyde, who was not served with liquor, to leave, bufc he refused. His Worship oited a judgment of Mr Justice Williams, which was to the effect tihat merely telling a man to leave was not performing the duty of putting 1 him off the premises. Defendant was convicted acd fined £6 with costs (76). At the Magistrate's Court on the 17th "Mr Widdowson, S.M.,.gave judgment for £35, and coats {£10 Is 6d), in favour of the City Corporation ag&inet James Booth, -a settler on the Boss Creek "W'ter .reserve, for cutting down 15 trees on the reserve outside the area of his grazing license. Me W. O. MacGregor, for the corporation, stated 1 during the hearing of the «yso. that, settlers on or near the wafer reserves thought thov had a" right to go on the reserves and do ' as they liked; »nd this case and one bro-.nrr.it last .year were for the purpose of convincing, them otherwise. Mr C. J. Payne, for th<» defence, pleaded leave and license, under ! the grazing lease, and permission from on© i of th« corporation employees. I " The placing of Mr Justice Sim's famous anti-strike clause in various awards caused the unions to support the executive of our federation in taking a legal opinion on this matter/ said Mr D. M'Laren in his report to the Waterside Workers' Federation on Monday. "We believe the opinion to be very sound, and, as the opinion is to th« effect that bhe court has been exceeding its powers, it may bo considered advisable later on to carry the question further, and have a case stated for appeal- The only difficulty that appears to arise is that, although the Arbitration Court may bet prevented from repeating a wrong action of judgment, yet once it has committed a wrong judgment there is, apparently, no remedy. We are advieed that once the. court has made an award, it matters not whether the court had, in some particular, exceeded its powers. The aw*.rd must at«und, arad the only hope is that the court may be prevented from repeating its offence. It will be recognised that w« have in New Zealand created a form of industriallegal autocracy which may prove to be afl imimical to the maeses as a political or any other form of autocracy, and I think the unions must be advised to rely less on Jth* present established legal powers, and more on their powers of organised control." At last week's meeting of the Southland Hospital Trust the members went carefully through a list that h*d been, compiled by the .secretary of all those, whose accounts to the hospital had been outstanding for more than a year. " Thi secretary reported that the amount owing by patients, from April, 1905, to AjpriF, 1908, was £900. This sum did not include absolutely hopeless cases of payment, in ■which accounts had not been rendered, 'nor, cases in which accounts had been returned by post as Having failed to find owner*. Certain names were marked off on. the list (says the Southland Times), and the secretary was authorised to take action I* recover the money outstanding.