OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17815, 14 July 1923, Page 12

OBITER DICTA.

_—« — (By «K.") '"When Mr Stanley Baldwin became Prime Minister, people began to aak who he was, and other people courteously explained. Mr Kipling, who is Mr Baldwin's cousin—and who ought therefore to stand a good chance of seeing his blood-and-iron banjo enc its honourable career on top of a butt of sherry—was one of the explainers. His relative, he mentioned, was not a politician, but a good Conservative. I admire Mr Kipling so sparingly that I hope he has here had an intent which will make me incline a little to him If he means ihat politicians' are things one's cousins ought not to be, let us praise him. Some English radicals grumbled at the implied condemnation of politicians, admitting that "once upon a time" "politician" was a term of abuse. Alas, that it is so no longer. Shakespeare made one of his grave-diggers suggest that a skull might be "the pate of a politician-one that would circumvent God," and in many a play he makes it clear that his only objection to P.R. would have been that it required one to express a prtferenco for one politician above another. Since Shakespeare's time the politician has come | into acceptance as a respectable person, and I dare say ho will never be got rid of. The tyst guarantee of his continued existence is the f&ct that the public complacently endures the drivellers on the Opposition benches in Wellington. . Even Mr Massey is far from being at his best inside the Chamber of debate. But outside that dreary place he is very good, especially when he can come into collision with Dr. Gibb. He had such an opportunity this week, ro discussing the Bible with a deputation. Foi Mr Massey there is no question about the credibility of Geneeis or the edibility of Jonah—Father Ronaia Knox's phrase, quoted recently by the Headmaster of Christ's College in a pleasant lecture. "I can say honestly that 1 believe in the Bible from cover to cover," he told the deputation, and he added that he does not allow anyone to interpret it for him. Ensued the following dialogue: The Rev. Dr. J. Gibb: You might bo the bettor of a little instruction all the flame. (Laughter.) Mr Massey: Woll, I should lika to have a, Bible class with myaelf as teacher and, D*Gibb as a pupil. (Laughter.) Dr. Gibb: Before a week wsa out Dr. Gibb would be teaching Mr 'Massey. Mr Massey: This is not a thing to boast about, but I belieye I understand the Bible just aa well as Dr. Gibb, and, perhaps, a Httlo better. (Laughter.) Dr. Gibb: Mr Massey is not a Scotchman, but an Irishman, and tho liiafa have a good conceit of themselves. Mr Massey: Many Irish are of Scot-oh descent, and lam one of them. After they have lived in Ireland for two or three hundred years the Irishmen oan improve the Sootohrnen. (Laughter.) Yon will note how easily, and how inevitably, this contest between the amateur theologian and the pro. turned into a clash between a rampant Irishman and a dour Scot. Had time and circumstance permitted, Cabinet room would have begun to sound like a sequel to the recent lively correspondence in "The Press." This is how wars are made. When, men begin to argue, even about something—say the Bible—upon, which they are fundamentally agreed, they sooner or later remember that they came from old Ireland, or eld England, or old Czechoslovakia, or old Assyrja-Chaldea.—and