OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17941, 8 December 1923, Page 14

OBITER DICTA.

(By K.) During the war Mr Asquith used a phrase which some people still remember—' t t |, e twittering of a sparrow in a thunderstorm." Attentive listeners to the tempest which has been howling through the cables —I refer, of course, to the British election —will have noted one brave chirp in Friday's news. While everyone has been assailing everybody else, with barbed metaphors and that homelier form of dissent, the brickbat, and proving as conclusively as politicians can that Britain's only freedom of choice is liberty to declare which set of rascals it shall be ruined by. Lord Derby raised his voice for the arch-enemy of his party. The incident is thus related: —- Derby, at Blackpool, Baid that the Dominions were asking Britain to meet them more than half-way. This election was going to determine whether Britain said "Yes" 01 "No." llero there were boos for Lloyd George. Lord Derby retorted warmly: "I will not stind at a Conservative meeting and bear that man's name booed! I know what that man did during the war. I am not unhopeful that even Mr Lloyd George, when ha realise* the offer of the Dominions, may even say to his own people, "We must not b* to<j; lata." The chivalrous Stanley may or may not have bedn torn to pieces by the crowd: the cable message is silent upon this point. But if he were, it was a gallant end. One would like to think that Lord Derby's brave and honourable firotest had u softening influence upon the raging parties. On the film it would have produced a storm of cheers aad tears. In poetry it would have turned to something like Flecker's "Tenebris Interlucentem"; A linnet who had lost her way, Sang on a blackened bough in Hell, Till all the ghosts remembered well The trees, the wind, tie golden day. At last they, knew that they had died When they heard music in that lAnd, And some one there stole forth a hand To draw a brother to hifl Side. In the wbrld of politics these things do not happen. Lord Derby would merely find his iptter-box crammed with scolding letters. Oho ought to draw from this incident the conclusion, that after all polities is not so vile, etc. Bdther I ahMld conclude that Derby is not a real politician. Wheiievor the word "education.** appears in a newspaper h'eadliiie, the matter that follows is sure of at least, if often at most, one reader. For I discovered long since that few write seriously about education without talking, if not nonsense, yet something which only extraordinary sharpness 6r extraordinary charity will call, sense* Edjication' is another matter. Minis* ters of Education add Professors., mi Education know (and insist Upon Baying) all that can be known or said upon edjication, of which this country has long had enough ana to spare. It ia on education that men will go wrong. Lately the "Teachers' WotM' f asked, "What is an educated Wan?" Mr Bernard Shaw's reply was that the marks of an educated man are intellectul and moral imbecility, and lie is happy to think that the educated man

*OW* ™»tal compotST* 1 ; »*Tfe °w mood bto woriT < ; Mr Sh aw h OB a .;j "Teachers' WotldV»2S«**<l law-abiding citi*ens, *' ly . \ »t. Nicholas fiSSi E* SffiT j^i* 1 «*2fc «*** But toM,^J*** a •?*« P«bU 6 - B pirit«4 tat«2?£ | good government * «*« inspect ffiaa? aaqrtjr devotion to the tw * ! postal repre«enUU6n. fci $* i Lodg e requires attll JS? ' skill in reading aloud, Ifo BetlteS for only fotw thing* pOWM u J+ ate irony, tho imiifpm to ife?? tery, cleat thiakiftg, tod „£ instruction to etiabl* Wto totS' argument and conahiaion by j3i tion. None of th* peopfc kfl scribing "an edited aaa >, } jCJg all describing only the qutOitEtti like best in their hrfghboura, W la S selves. FoHuaately the cussed in the "Tesehern* WW*?]* not one waifta troubles Jt».»qjji Wo are all educated hers. UxaZ is compulsory, as Mr H«agiy aaitgl telling the "Ninetee&th CtafcjjjfJ Happy, indeid, is a ooanWy make this boas*. ' J® The following c&bla ttVMgg <tfj§mk in Thursday*S papers:— Organised rowdyism fovmd fHHa ffirijjl Biiniinghun area,, i»ppar«atir M aTaEJ outcome of the Ooattniifllsl da&ttv by Lenin wh6, writing in Ji* giittlll "Ptavda" in Matob, 1911, under Soriet nils tbera V&M | speech and no freedom of a Chamberltm has falUn * ifalftjw! Aiiiten ChoJhberlaia, whlli »sliisfjl|P Bromwieh, being hti#le« dm tim* ill his oarwr. '"i . J 4^^^ The Bolsheviks are astive neBS knows, but it il m|a|l to ask me to believe Badical never thought 'arf-bflcks until a commended tbem in iSll i Labour leader told Court the other day teat ruled the employers free speech was denied hot occur to m§ that the Isvestia ft* the thing else but the love of the garotte ia ltt ; The BolaheVik WSi hot guilty, koig heard of the Libffjila ftiid. our own proficient ih ents. 'To Hftdtfiaf mWfl i thihgl come Quite I aid of toreign ia*t«js^|?^.^^M