FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 399, 6 July 1928, Page 7

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” SO FATHER SAYS The name of one of the more foolish of modern song nits is “Do Shrimps Make Good Mothers?” We are unable to answer the query, but we do know that modern girls make poor fathers. A SNAPPY THOUGHT Visiting bis dentist the other day, the L.O.M. found the whole place in the hands of decorators. The dentist, who was sheltering in a little cupboard under the stairs, told his visitor that the place was being renovated and the dental parlour was to be papered and refurnished. A suggestion that the name might be changed to drawing room met with scant consideration. TABLOID DRAMA Americans have their own peculiar way of celebrating, and the Glorious Fourth is an occasion when the fervid national spirit is given free rein. The usual crop of accidents always attend the immense firework displays. Glorious Fourth, rightly famed: Bombs and crackers j thousands maimed, Some lose eyes and cannot see, Others dead, now, R.I.P. NOT “GOING TO THE DOGS ” When the Primate, Archbishop Averill, issued a strong criticism of New Zealand public life recently, be evoked responses in all corners of the Dominion. Mr. W. J. Rogers, Mayor of Wanganui, has joined those who disagree with the Primate. “Archbishop Averill evidently looks on the dark side of the picture,” he says. “If the history of this country is traced, it will be seen that it has -produced some of the best people in the world. I am not so pessimistic as the Archbishop in imagining that this coutntry is ‘going to the dogs.’ ” NEITHER TACTFUL NOR WITTY “No military man should be placed over such people as the Samoans, who require to be governed with tact.” The Hon. G. Witty, who made this remark in the Legislative Council during the Address-in-Reply debate, should go down to posterity as the 1928 model of tactfulness. Other people besides Samoans require to be governed with tact. That, no doubt; is the reason why practically every part of the British Empire, white, brown or black, is ruled over by a “military man.” * * * LITERARY PROLIFICACY Edgar Wallace, as we mentioned yesterday, published 97 books; that brought us to the general ques. /tion of literary prolificacy. H. G. Wells, including a novel on the autumn lists, has now 71 published works standing to his name. These include novels of classic quality, essays, a history of the world, sociological works, short stories, polemics, propaganda and biography. O, versatile and industrious Mr. Wells. Arnold Bennett straggles behind with 35 novels, a number of short stories, and 12 plays. John Galsworthy has 30 volumes of novels, stories, essays and verse, with 20 plays to "top off” with. How will these men fare in later days? James Blanca White wrote a single sonnet and won immortality.

A REBEL STATESMAN There is no more fascinating statesman on the world’s political stage today than M. Eleuthorios Venizelos, who, for the fourth time in a-remark-able career, has just been elected Premier of Greece. He is in his sixtyfifth year. A Cretan by birth, he has become the greatest Grecian of them all. Poverty hardened him in childhood and taught him the value of selfreliance. It was a gift of tongues that gave him fam6 rather than fortune. As an Athenian scholar he turned to the law for a living, but found it dry and dull. Politics beckoned, and soon he was the leader of the Liberals in Crete. In 1896 he headed the Cretan revolution—a role which he repeated ten years later with great success. Though at his best fighting opposition, the veteran rebel statesman knows how to play a meek part in order to gain all he wants. He got everything he asked for at the Peace Conference because he was honest and diplomatically humble. But he stayed in Paris too long, and paid the penalty on his return to Athens in 1920. An ungrateful electorate forced him to resign. A pleasant exile in Paris and in Crete within recent years sufficed to teach his countrymen the value of his statesmanship. And now he is again in the saddle, smiling, no doubt, behind his silvered beard. His argument as to the wisdom of Greece throwing in its weight with the Allies in the World War endeared him to the British nation. It was simple and subtle: “Britain always wins one battle at least—the last.”