REVIEWS UNDER REVIEW.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20254, 24 July 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

REVIEWS UNDER REVIEW.

Ceremonial Celebrations :: Parades and Pageantry.

(Ivor Brown in Manchester Guardian.)

A YEAR OF CORONATION, as of Jubilee, is prolific of parades and rich In reviews. These are busy times for the Saluting Base, and the march past becomes a familiar exeroise. The monarch must look upon his men, and his men must return the compliment by looking to the utensils and acooutrement of war. I do not know why it is the fighting servioes whioh are always singled out for the oompliment of -so muoh overlooking. The heads of the Civil Servloe have as much right to a place of honour in any national procession as the heads of the martial departments. . If the King surveys his sailors and his troops he might surely survey his tax-colleotors too, for without the constant aid of the Treasury and all its servants the fighting foroes would not retain their bellicose spirit or efficiency for a week. The helm of Mars may be a form of headgear with Imposing aspect: but your bowler hat Is the true Cap of Maintenance. Let the generalissimos remember that there Would Be No Gold Lace without the help of humble men In grubby offloes poring over those buff whose harvest Is of gold. Moreover, it affords a melancholy oomment on our national attitude to life that artists and scholars, who surely are considerable contributors to what common glory we possess, are never Invited to the grand parades. When James II was King, his Players, Shakespeare among them, marched In the royal processions In special scarlet gowns. But nowadays the soldiers and politicals have It all to themselves. Poet Laureates can stay at the desk and the gorgeous robes of learned doctors are left to the lectureroom, though some of them would grace even a oavaloade of Household Troops and outshine Heraldlo Bigwigs. Civil servants, however, will hardly be grateful for the suggestion that they should be subjected to formal review, nor will the men of letters and the high aoademleals. They would only be wearied. For the kind of reviews which are a substantial part of royalty’s burden are more ceremonial and complimentary than testing and praotioal. They are a nuisance to all participants, however muoh they gratify the eager spectators and those who stroll up to stand and stare. A regal Investigation of Whitehall would mainly mean larger profits for the London laundries, since a universal and unchallengeable display of clean linen would be the major part of It. Charwomen would work overtime, and metal polish would be lavishly applied to typewriters. The tops of cupboards, kept undusted for years, might receive, to the oommon benefit, an investigating flick of damp cloth. But that methods of conducting public business would be noticeably accelerated or improved is doubtful. Reviews have Little to do With Reform. They spring no surprises and they deal with surface matters. They thrive on spit and polish. Due notice is given, and the parade is according to plan and preparation. Ancient armies and navies must have been occasionally submitted to this kind of august and formal scrutiny. But the great age of reviewing only begins with the regular supply of regular equipment and the organisation of sailorlng and soldiering as careers of some duration and establishment. When FaJ staff collected his oonsoripts In Gloucestershire (after freeing those with a bribe in their pookets) he exclaimed, “Bardolph, give the soldiers ooats,’* The species of coat obtainable from such a master of ordnance and supply as Bardolph would scarcely stand up to inspection. Somewhat earlier Sir John had described his troops as the unloadings of the gibbets. “There’s but a shirt and a half In all my company; and the half-shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulder like a herald’s coat without sleeves: and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host at St, Alban’s or the rednose innkeeper of Daventry." It was all very well for Harry and his comrades to go All plumed like estridges that wing the wind, Bated like eagles having lately bathed, Glittering in golden ooats, like images, but these notables with culsse and beaver on, however worthy to stand at a Saluting Base, could never have endured the speotaole of FalstafPs Ragamuffins Shambling Past. The review business worked itself up as equipment became better distributed and more apt to take a shine. The invention, for example, of smooth, polishable leather, whioh occurred at the end of the seventeenth century and introduced the shoeblacks of whom Gay wrote In his London survey, provided both footgear and belting whioh

could be turned into good material for the inspecting martinet. Then came metal buttons. Even in Bardolph’s time there may have been some inspection of pikes and calivers, but one cannot imagine it amounting to very much; the Improvement of the rifle naturally improved the opportunities of inspeoting-offleers with a taste for making trouble. If formal reviewing on the large and regal scale is to be Justified at all, exoept as a speoles of exhibitionism designed to entertain the taxpayer who hires all this labour and buys all this gear and the unguents whioh make it shine, it cam only be done on the assumption that a man will really do his work better If he goes to the office with a oiean collar, his coat well brushed, and a nice crease in his trousers. It is not an opinion whioh appeals to all or even to most. There are many home-keeping brainworkers who, if they have the chanoe to do so, will do their morning’s work —and do it well—in a dressing-gown and only start to Bhave and Bmarten Up at lunch-time. But that attitude to work is not officially supported: it is deemed, for example, at Oxford that a candidate for examination is only to be allowed a desk if he or she wears a seemly suit of solemn black—or near it. It Is obvious that the suitable dress for schoolboys is not a starched collar over a black coat which shows every speck or dust, yet there are still many important and respected academies where a sensible grey suit and open oollar are not permitted. The sahib, it is said, insists on dressing for dinner in the desert: he must learn at school to pay homage to a hard, curious, and misshapen hat and to observe the sanotity of starch and stud. Man is born free, though the romantic Rousseau; but wherever the unromantio sahib goes he is put in oollars. Does it work? Is there any grace in feeling correct —after the pains and boredom of achieving correotitude ? It is the Judgment of many in authority that clean hands go with clear heads and a natty aspect whioh a nice attention to business. A week or two ago the boot-polishing expert attached to a seotion of the New York Police resigned after a long career of diligent service, and his senior officer delivered an ecstatic oration about the stimulating effect upon the professional efficiency of “oops" exercised by a pair of gleaming boots. This seotion, it seemed, had always burned as brightly as Blake's tiger at the feet and had gone forth, their Light Thus Bhlnlng Before Men, to do incomparable battle with the evildoers. One fanoles that only the higher and mightier of English polioemen or polioewomen have their boots set gleaming by hired labour: shoe-shine experts are not on the normal establishment of a British police station. But they too may feel that when they take the road with an unusually brilliant shine about the feet they start in finer fettle than is normal for correcting the sauoy miss in her Jaunty oar or for entering in the inevitable notebook all the less lelevant details of an aooident. The British addiction to reviews and reviewing, with the consequent largesse of flags and bunting, may seem strange to the alien who thinks of us as living rather drably under a dull sky. But the explanation of our taste for a formal parade with flags in the air is, after all, not difficult to discover. Nothing is more certainly fixed in the British point of view than the notion that happiness and sin go together. At any national junketing some pietist will arrive with a banner of admonition: w r e who rejoioe shall certainly be turned Into hell. Amid the Coronation crowds were flags announcing “After this the Judgment.” Such harsh and menaoing prophecy does orudely represent part of the national attitude to “a good time." The oorollary of this is the association of virtue with miserv. That is why so many pupils must still have stiff oollars: They Hedge Off Depravity. Women, being less ethical, are less frightened of ease and convenience. But men, tortured by moral notions, continue to wear the least comfortable clothes for occasions of ceremony, festival and dance. Their dlsoomfort Is their tribute to goodness, their salute to duty and decorum. When soldiers or police or dustmen are inspected they have to waste a great deal of time on spit and polish for selves and gear and harness. Then they stand motionless, for long periods, often in extremes of heat or of rain. As far as their real work goes it is all quite needless: no professional advantage is achieved. They are bored, and probably they are bullied. But so, being made miserable, they are brought, it is believed, into some state of grace. The polish on boots and buttons is thought to be reflected in their souls. It is an odd theory, but very dear to our governing class and still accepted by the governed. The theology of both is simple.