CURRENT TOPICS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 53, 11 June 1910, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS

THE WORLD AND WAR. Mr. Maurice Hewlett, the well-known novelist, has written a forcible pa'per in the Fortnightly Review, in which he tells the working classes that they are "the masters of England," and that, taking England all over, they are "fifteen or twenty to one." If they are united and organised, he says, no force in the country can restrain'them, save only the law of' God and the law of Nature. But although they have, this absolute power, they°have practically left England to be governed by an "antiquated, mediaeval, feudal kind of system which every other nation has discarded." Mr. Hewlett proceeds to make a vigorous appeal to the laboring men to assist in abolishing war. Assured peace could be attained by the ; use of a weapon now in their hands. "That weapon." he writes, "is a general strike,' and with that weapon you can bid war to cease. If the Labor parties of Europe agreed that upon any declaration of war in Europe there should be a simultaneous general strike, not only would that war, but all war would cease. It would never be tried again. I believe myself that the mere threat of it would | be enough. If that is true and, of course, it is—it seems to me a cause in, the promotion of which any decent man would work until he died'. It is a cause l in which I myself am prepared, without question, to spend the remaining years of my own life. I can imagine no greater." The object in view, Mr. Hewfett proceeds to state, is to prevent any moneylender, newspaper owner, or interested' politician from sending the flower of the country's manhood to shameful death or shameful death-dealing, and from condemning the women and children of the nation to miserable bereavement. "That," he says, "is the crux of the matter; and to me it is as plain as a pikestaff .that you can prevent such trafficking with human life if you are a united party—as you surely will be." The suggestion made by Mr. Hewlett is not a new one except in the wideness of its application. The German workers have been urged by some of their leaders to make aggressive war oh the part of their nation impossible by refusing to bear arms or to take any share in warlike preparations. The point overlooked is that the workers themselves, in the mass, are generally eager participators in a war, when once their passions have been aroused, as witness the Boer war.

THE GREAT COLONIAL LANGUAGE. When we mentioned the other day thatj although the New Zealand child was taught abstruse problems in grammar, he did not speak the English language, it was not intended to show that the New Zealand child is a greater si;in?r in this respect than his English or Australian cousin. No New Zealand dialect is is so gross as any one of a couple of dozen used in Britain, and if any attempt has ever been made to teach the English Child to overcome his dialect and to speak correctly, there is little evidence of it. Mr. Justice Chapman, in Auckland, satirised the enunciation of young witnesses, and it seems that most of the evidence they gave was unintelligible. If the witness had been youngsters from the Cornish tin-mines, the Lancashire cotton mills, or the Yorkshire stables, His Honor would probably have had to call in interpreters. It is a remarkable coincidence t-'lmt the best education does not always give immunity from dialect. The special sin of the colonial youth is that he seems rather ashamed to enunciate distinctly, that he clips his vowels out of all semblance to their real sounds, and is in too great a hurry to get to the end of his remarks. As his teachers generally speak the language exactly in the same way as the pupil, there seems to be no doubt that the New Zealand dialect; wifl become as fixed as the dialects of Britain, or France, or Germany. The ordinary everyday State school child is by no means the only offender. University men frequently speak without bemitv. Some of the most successful lawyers in New Zealand are notably laeking in their use and enunciation of the language. What is to he done about it? It seems that it is a matter of personal predilection, custom and environment;. How is ; it that an Englishman or a colonial who! goes to America for a few months returns to his own country to chop the language to .pieces and to apeak the pieces through his nose? The colonial laughs at what he believes to be the affectation of the aristocrat, but the colonial who copies the affectation is almmt's grotesque. His method is real affectation: the aristocrat's is not. Who has not heard our nicest women affecting to copv eountesses. by saving "goodbay" for good-bye. If the New Zealand

child does nut, speak the English language correctly, could he leani it by sitting through a session of Parliament?, What is the standard, and whore can it be heard? Xobody knows why .some people bite their words in two, A"id no one has yet pointed out why some humble Irishmen and Scotsmen speak Iflo language beautifully, although they have not necessarily attended school. The e >"crage Maori's enunciation in using Engi:-li is frequently better than that of the pakeha youth, but it is no help to -, ie youth to blame him. Satire of the .•olonial youth is not now to the Rer.;-h. Mr. Justice Conolly used to be particularly severe on the incoherent witness, but His Honor's own enunciation was v-y •hard to follow. It is diiTicult to dot ermine the reasons for the misuse of the language, and more difficult still to s;i; Tgest a cure. At any rate, an Auckland colonial would be understood in Christchurch if he spoke loud enough, but i stray Devonian in Glasgow would probably have to talk in sign language.