FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 390, 26 June 1928, Page 8

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

“THE LOOKOUT MAN.”

ITALIAN AMAZONS Mussolini’s latest activity in training the girls of Italy to carry arms is meeting with strong disapproval from many quarters. It is considered that the girlhood of Italy “should not he told to hang its ideals on a rifle.” Surely hanging ideals on a rifle is better than just “hanging them.” MERCEDES GLEITZE AGAIN It is reported that another attempt to swim the Irish Sea is to be made by the indefatigable Mercedes Gleitze, who will take the same course as formerly—from Donachadee, Ireland, to Portpatrick, Scotland. Any Irishman could tell her that she would do better swimming in the opposite direction. WHAT IS THE USE? Of course we have to be cheerful when the price of butter goes up, and we are expected to say: “ ’Tis good for the backbone of the country;” An extra penny a pound has gone on in the past few days in sympathy with an appreciation of retail prices on the London market, but the L.O.M. finds it difficult to see what is the use of producing butter in this country if we cannot buy it any cheaper than those who are 12,000 miles away and who have nothing to do with its production and distribution. PRUNES AND SPRING Nature plays some queer pranks with trees in Auckland. Labouring under the belief that spring has come again a hard-working fruit tree at Herne Bay has delivered a second crop of luscious plums within six months of the last bearing. How it came to mistake the season is vexing horticulturists. The L. as lie staggers blindly from the cold shower these mornings has no doubt about such things. Can it be that some plum trees have warmer hearts than others? It is mystifying . . . now prunes . . . prunes, it would seem, have found the secret of eternal spring. At all events they are being eternally sprung upon us. “I’LL SEE YOU YESTERDAY Are things what they seem? Everybody knows that two and two make four, but nobody can prove it scientifically. An English writer notes that M. Maurice Maeterlinck, in his latest book, “La Vie de l’Espace,” takes readers from the world of three dimensions, length, breadth, and height, into the realm of the fourth dimension, where commonsense becomes lost in a maze of what many people would call utter nonsense. There is really no such thing as Time, but if there was all the events which Time caused to cease are kept alive by Space. For example, from the point of view of dwellers in the star Mira, whence light takes 72 years to travel, our present is now happening 72 years ago; in other words, if the Mirans possess powerful telescopes, they may now he watching episodes in the Crimean War. All this is bewildering and almost like midsummer madness, but it is worth mentioning if for no other reason than to demonstrate that the budget of the Auckland City Council is not the only mystery.

WANTED-. A SLOGAN It is admitted that in American Presidential elections, if a party has got the right slogan, almost any kind of a candidate will do. Failing a catchword, a popular Christian name is very useful. Hence the Democrats, if they run Governor Smith, of New York, will have some advantage in shouting: “All for Al’.” It is perhaps well for Mr. Hoover, the Republican favourite, that God’s blessing on his candidature has been sought, for “Herbert” is not a great name as a battle-cry. Sometimes a weak slogan succeeds beter than one with a challenge in it. “Keep cool with Coolidge,” for example, although it suggested a quiet, judicious term of painstaking administration, was an anaemic thing compared with the famous slogan of the Republicans away back in the 60’s: “Against Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.” Piquant phrasemaking can he very serviceable in political elections. In this art no American has ever been more effective than Teddy Roosevelt, whose glib phrases stuck like burrs to the opposing party: “Rose Water Reformers,” “Hyphenated Americans,” “The Ananias Club,” and (borrowed from John Bunyan), “The Muck-Rakers.” The ideal slogan, of course, capitalises prejudices or, failing that, gives a greater value to promises than Is intended to produce. It is the promissory slogan that succeeds best in New Zealand politics. *