FROM THE WATCH TOWER

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 510, 13 November 1928, Page 12

FROM THE WATCH TOWER

By “THE LOOK-OUT MAN.” PULCHRITUDE The Mayor of Northeote has been awarded first prize in a beauty competition. If this goes on , . . The Mayor is in the chair, and round the table Are grouped the councillorsj to do their 0 duty. Alas 3 the plight of these poor wights, unable To thinTc of aught except his Worship's beauty. —Beowulf. * * * FISH STORIES Sir Harry Lauder is going to Russell in January for the big-game fishing. His bait will be purchased by public subscription. * * * SHADES OF SCOTT “I will conclude my address with those magnificent words of Cowper’s: ‘Breathes there the man with soul so dead * “ Thus Mr. G. C. Munns at Mount Albert: to which we take the liberty of appending the following noble lines by Sir Walter Scott: Toll for the brave! Brave Kempenfelt is gone. * * * INNOCENTS ABROAD Not long ago one Murphy was appointed to a high political position in the administration of Soviet Russia. Now comes news that M. Hennessy, the bearer of another good Irish name, has been given a portfolio in the French Cabinet. Should there be ructions at Cabinet meetings, Mr. Hennessy should be able to make his colleagues see stars —at least three of them. France has good precedent for employing the talents of Irishmen, for Macmahon, one of Napoleon’s greatest generals, came of an exiled Irish family. Another famous French general, Etienne Macdonald, Duke of Taranto, was of pcottish extraction. The same charge was laid against August von Mackensen, the German general who subjugated Galicia and Rumania during the war. In the cases of two great composers, Donizetti (Italy) and Grieg (Norway), a parallel suspicion seemed to haye good foundation. Donizetti was said to owe his name to Donald Izett, a Scottish weaver, and Grieg took pride in his Caledonian ancestry. The shamrock and thistle can both flourish on alien soil. * * * BORNE BY THE BREEZE That political phenomenon, the Parliamentarian who does not know which way to vote when there is a division at hand, is not unknown in New Zealand’s legislative history. Of one esteemed and popular Southerner it was said that he never knew which way to go. until the last stragglers were filing out into the lobbies. He would hover between the two doors in palpable uncertainty, until some happy impulse, or the sight of a friend s disappearing coat tails, solved his little problem. It would be preposterous to suggest, of course, that such a type was represented in the House today. But there is one worthy citizen whose friends exculpate him only because he is deaf; his enemies don’t. He may lose his seat to-morrow; but then, many others are in the same box, for it is calculated that at an average election one-third of the seats change—should one say hands?

PROFIT AND LOSS The distinguished author of this week’s fairy story is Mr. Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, who denies that America made a profit out of the Great War. A profit has no honour in its own country—not even in America. LUSTROUS NA3IES There is an association of ideas in two news items from widely different sources —the one stating that Lord Birkenhead has accepted a seat on the directorate of a Johannesburg mining concern, the other mentioning some modest attempt at co-ordination of road and railway transport interests in New Zealand. Birkenhead's appointment is a reminder that illustrious names are coveted by promoters. Hence there are easy pickings for those' who are both Qualified and willing. Nowhest is this better demonstrated than in America. There the big railway combines, aware of the menace of motor competition, are dragging the big names of the motor industry into their organisations. The Fisher brothers, of Fisher Bodies and General Motors, and W. C. Durant, are a group long thus affiliated. Latest to lend support to the railroads is Walter P. Chrysler, wizard of motordom. His father was an enginedriver, and he himself used to be a railway mechanic. So, like Mr. W. A. Veitch. M.P.. who was an enginedriver before he became a he should be an authority on railways.