EXTERMINATING ENERGY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXX, Issue 20, 28 April 1916, Page 4

EXTERMINATING ENERGY.

Just on the eve of the Easter holidays', the Pastrycooks' Union of Sydney mad e .certain demands on the Master Bakers and caused a sad shortage of hot cross buns in the city. The "Daily Telegraph," in dealing with the matter, says: "One of the cherished institutions of many generations _ has' Wen threatened with extinction. This is the hot cross bun. Even the fine ims- V toms which are surrounded with a thousand memories cannot escaipe the ruthless destroyer when they stand between him and his material advantage. In Melbourne the bun is doomed. In Sydney there is still some hope that the iconoclast will soften and that a demand on one side and a concession on another may produce a compromise by which its life shall be extended. But there is little chance for its'permanence. A frigid industrialism which has been' abfe to defy even the'decrees of arbitration courts is not! to be terrified by the protesting voice 'of youthy with its eager appetites and' its-gVo\VT ing expectations', or age with itslsatted memories and its willingness to take a bond of fate for the ipurpose.of another wrestle with' its digestion. ,< The KlentJ less power which has. proscribed. the morning roll and made the stale loaf the only solace to epicurean;delights inj ' the matter of'bread sees in the Good, Friday bun not a symbol of somethingj which' he cannot appreciate, but wha.fj Byron called a fiery particle that.if ft' is'not checked may destroy one of the. sanctified principles of trade unionism. ... That character in Goldsmith's; great comedy who .preferred . old friends, old wine, old books, would find no survivor in the modern industrial who sees an ancient custom standing between him and a concession from an arbitration court or even a concession without its assistance. If we are ! to have no rolls in the morning, no warm bread on the table, only one kind of loaf from a future monopolistic State •bakery and now the possibility of no hot cross buns, where is the world leading us P There are other institutions to be attacked. And as soon as one ie got rid of we might ! as well begin on another. .. . The prohibitionist u •already after our wine and the State bakery will impose restrictions on the variety of our cake. A leading physiologist has declared war on afternoon tea ■and the breakfast coffee, has been stigmatised as the harbinger of an early and dismal demise. Soon we shall have to learn what Pope'called 'the virtue and the art, to live on little with a cheerful heart.' And from diet the ruthlesshess of exterminating energy will extend till one institution will go after anotheY and we shall either have to invent others or remain denuded of all the things which add to the pleasures of life."