INVASION OF MICE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 940, 16 August 1957, Page 30

INVASION OF MICE

BY

SUNDOWNER

JULY 27

HERE is a Persian legend that the ark, before the waters rose high enough to float it, was invaded by mice. As the days passed the mice multiplied and Noah had to turn to the Lord for help. The Lord said: "Pass thy hand

Over the hon’ face and a small lion will spring

out of his mouth and kill the mice." Noah did so, and called the kitten a cat. My Book of Beasts gives a slightly different account of the naming of cats: She is called Mouser because she is fatal to mice. The vulgar call her CATUS the Cat because she catches things (a captura), while others say that it is because she lies in wait (captat), i.e., because she ‘"‘watches." So acutely does she glare that her eye penetrates the shades of darkness with a gleam of light. Hence from the Greek comes catus, i.e., "acute." I have never seen Sir Walter Raleigh’s History of the World, but I gather from a footnote in the Book of Beasts that only hybrids were excluded from the ark, and that the cat, as a pure species, went on board with the rest. After the Deluge, however, but we are not told how long after, dogs and cats interbred and the result was hyenas. . I find it impossible to believe that anyone, let alone Raleigh, was still at that zoological stage in 1614-two years before the death of Shakespeare; but if I say that Sir Walter could not have believed such nonsense someone is sure to let me have bell, book and candle in historical proof that he did. To save the furniture I will change "impossible to believe" to "difficult to believe." But whatever ‘black pages our own cat has in her history she has not lost sight of: the prime purpose of her passage on the ark. Six inches of rain in a few weeks is not enough to engulf Canterbury, but it is enough to send Canterbury’s 2,357,023’ mice out of the grass and tussocks and hedges and haystacks into our pantries and ceilings and storehouses. There are not enough cats to catch and eat them all, but if other cats are as active as ours the mice population will shrink to the last six figures of our total as two million are pounced on and played with and allowed to escape and then pounced on again to teach them what the Lord taught Noah so many years ago that only the Maoris have long enough memories to know when it was. If Noah sits near Burns in Heaven I should like to get near enough to hear their conversation. st

JULY 29

HE cifference between a road on a run and a road on a map used to be that one had footmarks on it and the other tracings of ink.

Today the scene has changed. The map-roads are motorroads in nine cases out of 10, and to find the tenth case we have to search hard jthrough the early surveys and have a little luck. But road-ways and right-of-ways have not quite lost their ancient power of provocation. They have set farmers against fishermen since the first Agclimatisation Society was formed 96 years ago, trampers against runholders since the start. of mountaineering, city dwellers of all kinds against country dwellers of all kinds whenever there has been a conflict of

inclinations and interests, and they have greatly confused the understanding by the public of the difference between legal rights and rights ee she by custom. When two men were prosecuted recently in Christchurch, and fined, for

trespassing on a North Canterbury run the magis-

trate told the runholder that shooters could, if they wished, wander along any of his paper roads and camps anywhere within a chain of his river banks. At once there was a flutter among landholders and a sigh of satisfaction in the city. , But it will be a pity if we try to settle these arguments in the law courts. All the courts can do is to protect existing rights as far as they can be discovered and established. They can check high-handedness on both sices, and to that extent help to create the conditions for reasonableness, but you don’t make friends by legal pressure. Enmity should not exist between those who own land and those who don’t own it but -wish to enjoy it. They should meet as neighbours willing to concede something, and aware of the special place of land in the lives of both. * * %

JULY 30

WISH I knew the answer to the problems raised in my last note. But there is no answer as long as we live, and think, and feel at present. I am not sure that there will be an answer

im our second hundred years, and I will not pre-

tend to know what the answer when it is found, will, may, or should be, I agree that the earth is the Lord’s with the fullness thereof. But I do not encourage shooting on my few acres. I agree that no one has a better title to land than the man who has bent his back breaking it in. But what is the Position of the child, not yet born, who comes into the world to find the gates shut against him wherever he turns? If land is the foundation of prosperity,. and of our whole national economy, it must either be owned by everybody or controlled by everybody or remain in a position in which it can neither be cornered nor ‘damaged. But I resist (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) every proposal that would take control of my own corner out of my own hands. If it is a fact, as I believe it is, that the human race must remain in contact with land to be healthy and happy, there is no case for private ownership that descends from father to son. But I cling to my title deeds and wonder into whose hands to pass them to keep them most secure. If there is not enough land for everybody, or for those who want their share, and if the quantity can never be increased dramatically even by revolutions in production, no one should occupy more than he can use and improve, and if he is not making a good use of what he has he should be dispossessed. But even in old age life would be barren and bleak for me if I lost my few acres and my few sheep. If I were a young man the way to them would be over my dead body. I can't

justify the single ownership of big flocks or huge estates, but the results often justify them, and they are sometimes easier to defend than the cramped holdings of poor meh like myself who have not the resources to farm properly. I can see nothing ahead, as far ahead, that is, as I can see events clearly, but the present contradictions and the present compromises: some increase of pressure on the big areas, but not too much; some easing of the problems for land seekers, but nothing sensational there either; a better understanding between town and country; more generosity by owners of land and more responsibility by those who seek to enjoy it without working for it and paying for it-a few changes in all those directions, but no revolutionary changes until we are more ready for them mentally and morally. (To be continued)