TOO TOLERANT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 263, 30 June 1932, Page 4

TOO TOLERANT

"1 was in Hyde Park last Autumn on the anniversary of the October Revolution, and again this First of May," writes Mr. Aldous Huxley in Time and Tide. "I left on both occasions feeling glad I wasn't a Communist speaker. Against the gentle and humorous indifference of the London crowd the fiercest enthusiasm seems to hurl itself in vain. It is like throwing stones at a woolsack. One of the speakers I listened to last autumn — an admirable orator with a masterly command of his subject — actually turned on his auh'cnce in a rage. 'The trouble with you English working men,' he shouted, 'is that you won't keep your attention fixed on anything for more than five minutes at a time. That's why you're being exploited as you are.' Gently, humorously, uncaringly, the crowd laughed. In angry despair the orator turnecl back to the poli-tically-conscious few who had come with him in organised procession from the East End. Under the impact of his eloquence, these, at least, could be relied on to return an answering sound. On the rest his words seemed to fall noiselessly ; these men and women were quilted and muffled with English gentleness and the English sense of humour. Facts and rhetoric just bouneed off them."