THE OLD WORLD.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 May 1920, Page 12

THE OLD WORLD.

A VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS Professor T. I)- Adams, who occupies the chair of classics at Uiago University, recently returned to Diuiedin after an absence of over two years from New Zealand. Professor Adams courteously responded to a request by a member of the Dunedin Star staff to jjive some of his experiences. "You visited the Continent, I understand!" "Yes; I had seven weeks there in October and November of last year, in which I ran through Italy and Sicily, and got as far as Athens." "Was travelling expensive?" "Very, in spite of the exchange being so much in our favor. For example, the three days' run from Athens to Marseilles cost £3l lft;—that is, lOgs a day —and both table and accommodation were quite ordinary. In Italy the rate of exchange rose from 45 to 52 lire to the English £ in the course of a few | dayß, and with that advantage an Englishman could buy more cheaply in Italy than in London. But Greece has contrived fiot only to prosper financially during the war, but to keep the rate of exchange greatly in her own favor. When I was there it was 23 drachms to tho £, as against the normal 25, the French 41, and the Italian 52. C'onse- | quently one found Athens ruinously expensive—an impression that was cmphfttlcally' confirmed by representatives Ol tile various firms concerned in tho big | exhibition of British industries that was JieJi in the Zappeion at Athens in October find November of last year. "In sharp contrast witli the prosperity of Greece was the serious poverty of Italy, which doubtless aggravated the strong anti-Entente feeling that wa<s so noticeable throughout Italy, especially in tho north. The Fiumc episode was boing exploited to the full for party purposes in the November elections. ' Among the numberless placards I remomber one which declared that the great disaster for Italy had been suffered, not at Caporetto, but at Ver"lilies. .In their elections, by the way, tho Italians have no respect for their statues and other public monuments—not even for their ohuHies and cathedrals. For instance, in Naples the statues were almost entirely covered with posters and placards in favor of the rival candidates; and at Syracuse the cathedral was defaced with posters and roughly-painted legends such as 'Viva Giaraca,' 'Viva Di Giovanni,' Viva Flamingo.' Feeling was running high even over in Sicily, and on the eve of the election I saw bodies of troops being Jnoved to places (especiallv Catania) where trouble was feared. One or two of the towns I was in gave me the impression of being hotbeds of Bolshevism, hut of course a tourist's impressions are likely to be very wide of the mark. Nevertheless, I have no -doubt at all that it is only the extraordinary popularity of the present King that saves the present dynasty from overthrow. "In Italy the number and confupion of the parties is very bewildering to a stranger, and, I believe, hardly less bewildering to large sections of the Italians themselves. It is surely characteristic of the Neapolitans that,"whereas in Rome there were, I think, only five lists. Naples boasted 11. All the names I don't remember, hut t'/.ere were, of course, the Combatants and the Democrats and tho Republicans and the Popular Part" and the Socialists and th Q Independents and the Isolateds. Inevitably also there would be one or two offshoots from the official Socialist Party. Out of all this complication, however, there emerged two strong and well-organised parties—the SoeTalists and the new Partito Popolore Italiano. This latter is a. church partv. and 't can he imagined that, when' in Italv the Roman Catholic Chitrch runs a pariv on democratic principles, that party wiil J'ave a wide nppeal- | "An interesting novelty in these elections was tho appearance fnr the first time of candidates from the humbler callings. Hitherto, I was told, even the Socialist candidates lityd been drawn from the educated classes; but the Catholic Popular Party seemed to bo taking the lead in putting forward an occasional workman or peasant. Of course, the lack of educational facilities in Southern Italy and Sicily is appalling. I canont vouch for the accuracy of this, but I was told by one Italian who semed to be in a position to know that over 00 per cent of the Southern Italians have had no schooling. The Government, however eager to advance education, are apparently too poor to establish an adequate system, and part of what is done—probably only a little, but still some part of it is financed, for example, by Masonic bodies. And yet this poverty-stricken nation must needs spend millions on the erection of —a new Treasury, no less! This enormous splotch of white and gilt with which the capitol is plastered covers a larger area, than either the Colosseum or St. Peter's. But. then, it is characteristic of your Italian that he will always erect a building sooner than mend a road, however unnecessary the building and however impassable the road; and the very striking' contrast of palatial buildings and squalid poverty in immediate juxtaposition keeps recalling to one's mind Hilnire Belloc's happy description of the Italians as the impoverished heirs of a great time." "Did you hear any good music?" "Yes, though nothing in Italy. There the opera season does not begin until the day after Christmas, and the only opera I saw was a second or third-rate performance of 'La Giaconda.' in Rome by a company of about the same standard as a provincial Carl Rosa Company, only the orchestra was superior to the London Carl Rosa. The one thing I heard strummed on every piano in every hotel I stayed in throughout Italy and Sicily was "The Broken Doll." ' In Milan, however, as I came down on a Sunday morning from an excursion among the statues on Hie roof of the cathedral, I heard the choir singing an anthem. The ricli quality of the voices arrested me, and was most satisfying, But for beauty and sweetness and devotional character the choir nf King's College Chapel at Cambridge and Dr. Walford Davics' choir in the Temple Church, in London, seem to me to be unrivalled. I heard the same Dr. Walford Davics give a very brilliant lecture. On a. midsummer Saturday afternoon of the hottest that London can provide he addressed a very uncomfortably crowded audience of W.TC.A. students for exactly (wo hours on "How to Make a Tune," and in spite of the oppressive heat and the discomfort not once did the interest of the audience flng. and frequently it was roused to demonstrative enthusiasm. "Of opera, of course, one had the greatest feat at Covent Garden —old favorites like Melba and Kirkbv Lunn, snd newer favorites like our own Rosinu

Buckman antl Annsoau and Martinelli. The staging was a revelation, that of 'Aula' bein;; specially magnificent. The orchestra, too, was supremely fine —in fact, the contributor of the music notes in the Daily Telegraph claimed that it 1 was the finest operatic orchestra in Knn ipe. (If the conductors Mugnone £ol wonderful precision and compactness of tone: Albert Coates' quiet, magnetic personality one associates particularly with Faust; while Sir Thomas Beecham himself, in spite of a somewhat irritatimr superfluity of flourishes and mannerisms, is, of course, a masterly conductor, and as a producer lie has put England under an incalculable debt."