Notes

New Zealand Tablet, 31 July 1913, Page 34

Notes

The Qrey “Election Several correspondents have sent ns communications descriptive of the battle for Grey/ telling us with some detail how the fight was fought and won. We thank our correspondents for their communications, which will be carefully pigeon-holed for use if occasion should call for it but we have said elsewhere in this issue all that we think, for the present, needs to be said on the subject. It is a bad thing to start sectarian bigotry it is an almost equally bad thing to perpetuate it. The lesson of the election is perfectly obvious; and we may fairly conclude that it has been driven home when we find an influential daily, which supported the Reform candidate, lamenting the tactics employed as ‘ suicidal and deplorable.’ If such tactics are again employed, they will be once again just as strenuously resented; and that is the one fact now which needs to be impressed and remembered. It is clear that feeling over the recent contest had been wrought to a painfully high pitch, and we can quite understand the very natural desire of the participants to ‘ fight the battle over again ’; but we think they may well rest content with the substantial and triumphant success with which they have attained their end. Wanted, A Job The men —numbering, according to Mr. Foster Fraser, some 35,000 who have been making the Panama Canal will soon be wanting a job, Here is their appli-

cation for it as written by Berton Braley in the American Magazine: Here we are, gentlemen; here’s the whole gang of us, Pretty near through with the job we are on ; Size up our work-—it will give you the hang of us — South to Balboa and north to Colon. Yes, tho canal is our letter of reference; Look at Culebra and glance at Gatun ; What can w r e do for you — any preference, Wireless to Saturn or bridge to the moon ? Don’t send us back to a life that is flat again, We who have shattered a continent’s spine; Office workoh, but we couldn’t do that again ! Haven’t you something that’s more in our line ? Got any river they say isn’t crossable ? Got any mountains that can’t be, cut through ? We specialise in the wholly impossible, Doing things ‘nobody ever could do!’ Take a good look at the whole husky crew of us, Engineers, doctors, and steam-shovel men; Taken together .you’ll find quite a few of us Soon to be ready for trouble again. Bronzed by the tropical sun that is blistery, Chockful of energy, vigor, and tang, Trained by a task that’s the biggest in history, Who has a job for this Panama Gang ?