RANDOM SHOTS

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 180, 1 August 1925, Page 22

RANDOM SHOTS

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Lord Burnham says that after-dinner speeches alone will not maintain the solidarity of the Empire. On the contrary, I have dozed through some that were solid enough to hold up the whole earth.

Christchurch is still looking for a bishop in England. Perhaps the clergymen approached do not know Christchurch; on the other hand, perhaps they do.

You would never think, would you, in reading the reports of the popular reception to the American Fleet in Sydney, that the Sydney Trades and Labour Council had decided to boycott the event?

A meeting of the Auckland branch of the English-speaking Union was held this week. In view of the approaching invasion of the American language it seems to have been rather tactless, but perhaps it was a necessary defensive measure.

Why should the Colonial Sugar Refining Company receive a five-pound note wrapped in a piece of dirty paper marked "Conscience" from an unknown sender? Could it possibly be from a shareholder or a director?

"Food Reformers" have something unexpected to answer for. Thp custodians of the Invercargill Corporation gardens complain that small boys are eating the heart of the ti-tree there, and have destroyed many fine specimens. This is vegetarianism in excelsis.

It may be explained that this "ti" is not our dear and universal friend, the shrub tea-tree (which often is called "ti-tree"), but the cabbage tree. ("Of course!" I hear a chorus of readers say. "Cordyline Australis." Of course.)

If you ask the average man who is New Zealand's greatest poet he , will answer without hesitation "Thomas Bracken," and if you say, "What did he write?" he will reply, "Not Understood" and "God's Own Country." There are signs, however, that the Bracken monopoly is being weakened. At the competitions this week only three or four competitors out of twenty-one in the New Zealand verse recitation section chose "Not Understood." Bracken has •his place in New Zealand literature, but it will be something gained when it is no longer "not understood" that there are others. The chairman of an Auckland suburban body says that some ratepayers are quite unreasonable about the rubbish they expect the dustman to cart away for them. "They evidently expect us to do impossibilities. One day I saw an old bedstead and a perambulator among the rubbish at one gate." Yes, but think of the position of the householder. What are you to do with an old bedstead and an old perambulator? You cannot burn them. You must either bury them, which sometimes is not easy, or pay to have them carted away. Rubbish of this kind is a problem. There is, of course, always the parish jumble sale, but you may not belong to the church. The crew of 34 in a British vessel that visited Auckland the other day included representatives of 14 nations— Britain, America, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Italy, Esthonia, Greece, Spain, France, Portugal, Malta, Belgium and Holland. I hope there is a branch of the League of Nations Union on board. This microcosm of the League, living in the narrow confines of a ship, ought to be worth observation. And do the officers give their commands in Esperanto? "Class distinction amongst farmers in this district has vanished, and both sheep and dairy farmers work together for the good of all," said the retiring president, at the anual meeting in Dannevirke of the Southern Hawke's Bay Farmers' Union. Good news. It is a curious thing that in New Zealand the American order should be reversed. In the wild and woolly West it is the cattle man who is the aristocrat, and the sheep farmer is looked upon as bourgeois. In New Zealand the sheep farmer has always been the aristocrat, and the dairy farmer is looked down upon. To hear some sheep farmers talk about cows is to be educated anew in the resources of the language. Yet the sheep is, I suppose, more stupid, if anything, than the cow. The explanation seems to be, partly, that there is something large and spacious and wholesale about sheep farming, and something restricted and retail about dairying. One of the curious things about life is that if you sell groceries wholesale you can command a higher position socially than if you sell them over the counter in small lots. The Duke of Rutland left £930,000 — minus £286,000 in death duties—but bequeathed nothing to hospitals or charities, "as the heavy taxation and the intolerable super-tax renders such action impossible." Some may recall the " Punch " joke of the intoxicated gentleman and the cabdriver. "111? I wish I 'ad 'arf 'is complaint!" The point of view in these matters, however, depends largely on what one is accustomed to. The Duke of Rutland was a nobieman and a territorial magnate, and no doubt he thought it iniquitous that half his income should be taken from him in super-tax. Places like Belvoir Castle are expensive to keep up. The other day the "Empire Review" editorially justified Lord Birkenhead's action in writing for the Press, on the ground that he was entitled to put something by for a rainy day. (Lord it should be explained, writes for the "Empire Review.") The noble lord, it was explained, gave up £30,000 a year at the Bar to serve his country as a Minister of the Crown. Why should he not eke out his £5000 a year as Secretary for India by writing for the Press? Let us look into this. I doubt whether "F.E." made as much as £30,000 at the Bar. I suspect that barristers' earnings, like those of actresses', are sometimes inflated. Let us assume' however, that he made £20,000 a year! Should not a man be able to save a little on that? Then he was in turn SolicitorGeneral and Attorney-General for a long period, and these law officers draw many thousands a year. Vor three years after that he drew £10,000 a year as Lord Chancellor. It is, of course, a come-down after all fliis to have to take a paltry £5000 a year, but one would think that in those yearii of affluei.ee a little provision could have been made for a rainy day. Perhaps, however, the sunshine was too exhausting. There are many men. it may be pointed out. who are expected to be contented with an old age pension when the rain comes.