OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18141, 2 August 1924, Page 14

OBITER DICTA.

(By K.>

It is {old of a "Pvellington City Councillor. now deceased, that when he was first elected to the Council he was asked by a newspaper reporter for material for a short biographical note. He pondered long and deeply, bet could think of nothing. At last he brightened up: "You might say that when I was 3 young man I was pretty good on the horizontal bar." I always think of that honest old fellow when, after months of trials and conferences and controversies and wire-pullings an-.l quarrelling and attempted nobblings o: innocent. Prime Ministers, an Ail Black team is selected, banquetted by the Government, and sent home to England. Vor when New Zealand is summoned to tb» bar of Ilistory and asked for au account of its contribution to civilisation, it will have nothing more to say than that it produced the be?i footballers in the world. Even if the present team finds that instead of the rabbits it has set out. to slay the world has been quietly getting bears and tiger* ready—l hope that the unrepealed War Regulations do not forbid such an hypothesis as seditious —there 15 «til! the record of the team of 20 years ngo. Although one might prefer that New Zealand were famous for some tf'iier contribution to the uplift of tne race, one must hope that the team will return covered with glory. For it would be too dreadful if we were robbed of what everyone seems to agree is our > on.lv chance of "putting ourselves on the" map." Not that getting on the 1 map is necessarily happiness in a world ! made safe for democracy: the happiest nations (Norway, say, and Switzerland) are those which have flung away ambition- But the Dominion has never been on the map, and it wants to know what it feels like.

Nothing could illustrate more strikingly the solidarity of the nation's veneration for football than the fact that Mr H. E. Holland could dine and wine with bloated Mammon, as ho did when the All Blacks were entertained by the Government, without causing Comrade Cooke to loosen his red tie lest he choke with indignation. Golf does not hold that place in England which football holds here, or else the spirit of the English revolutionary is sturdier than that of his New Zealand brother, for Mr Frank Hodges, now a Minister and once a labour leader, was not allowed to escape the penalty for plaving golf with the Dnkc of York. The president of the annual conference of colliery mechanics, Mr D. B. Jones, spoke np loud and bold:

"Not that I object to the man playing golf with the Duke. "What I do object to is the hypocrisy of the whole thing. "One of the most damnable features in public life is the hypocrisy of public representatives, and we are paying a heavy price in permitting this to go on without some protest." Mr Jones Beeme to mean that it is immoral in Mr Hodges to play golf with a Duke whom it will be necessary, obviously, to execute as soon as the proletariat assumes control. He, for one, will keep himself free to kill Dukes with a clear conscience. But his words may mean something else. He could not trust himself to be in possession of a niblick and a Duke in a lonely part of the course, and he evidently wonders how Mr Hodges could, for he said later in his speech that "students of history will stand amazed at the tragic failure of trade-union leaders who claim the ability to lead their people to the promised Canaan." Here was Mr Hodges ivith a niblick and an unsuspecting Duke; one good whack, and lo! Canaan. Instead of which, Mr Hodges and the Duke adjourned to the nineteenth hole.

The Bolsheviks are wiser than the Joneses. They have not the slightest objection to hobnobbing with the great, as Comrade Kutuzoff, a member of M. Eakovsky's Soviet delegation, makes clear in his letters to the "Isvestia." He attended a party given to the Bolsheviks by Lady Cynthia Mosley, and as the Marquess Curzon (Lady Cynthia's father) was not to be present Kutuzoff and his friends decided that they need not put on clean collars. They had rather a dull time: "We stood about £Ol a couple of hours until we felt frightfully hungry. Then wo were taken

downstairs, it 1 crowded, ani, still »Ums^|BSk : a cup of coffeer-oaa only too ,l.i l 0 f«T3SJS hack to our boattfbsg 1 supper. Next tr.ar.der KenwoTth*'* ' affair, in very fi ne to the Bolsheviks' Loris. Ambassador^ an<l S ° Kutuw >ff "In Russia when we a party, we We eat anything at host we knr.v.- we shall Manly it by eating our fill #t in Rngland it is wtt—when yp-,, a rc invito 3*£ i jelly vrfl'- tako tttt tft ttiSflpK-.-meai •n orthj s party as it was too late U> homo or m a rentaorsnt «* tLiSffi our way Lark r.t a IfjftiftfPr' a pood o].i feed of The Bolsheviks have ban tin Canr.au, and they have the dreams and standards arf ties of the Jonesta art a live Duke who cu ffci meal is better than a can give you only of having vindicated tlte proletariat. - B

Readers of these nobM fesfftrffigfe is a holy and wholesosn# demn politicians. As need hardly be raid; set m Wf beings, which all of than, be excused for foTp»tlt»g then, undoubtedly are. House the politician is a* fljjflt'ltflffi a rational ercature. clear this week by Sir Ma John, with Air Ted Qortrg other members of Parliaatgfy way to South Africa political conference or ' Melbourne he was itttmiewA* from the stupefying iaSneau* 4jb Speaker's wig, he is able rationally of things that and moat people will kgtm.* Jlßßh' was more substance thi TWilf)'TM|t square inch of his talk to viewer than there is par " sard. For his topies wan jgrtg;' and ladies. "Sir Jofctt-taKlfcfejgb fcralia was producing fimf'fht ifpji who were taller thaa i&fl Kn'i^jw' : landers, but did not Wl bloom on their cheeks, 2b a reason for the few faecs noticed in New Twhiiitß'parison with Australian rittailMKajr'' difference in complexiess,". s^#B, certain that the women tallness may not be entnataS jjgw ll tralia, and it is pooiUt (i.e., roses with the valued by the women of IfefcffiHK And Sir John may theiefie^Sffly, garded by the women at as VSN&m by men, who pay an attesting jfeMK which women, perhaps awn not, will think of what Sit have said, about wool SH& city government aaA parties, and trill b« grsMfttdlS*: for talking of sostettillf

after an operatioa with fl don't want to be ft dependent, economic Sir John Lake's raisp*ee^^^p'j| he does not want te that he wants to talk the men who are left beldlil-tsiHjp® ton at the dismal iwk B to be sensible. Bat we as they are, and tfcejr w-ißßwßfcjHj usual. For some tiaae -Many.ljjiWWaß been wondering, lose happily, what ha* beeoffl^ metical McCombs. Hie 68N|$MMHQS since'the beginning of made his net score f#f easily the best in the siWp|N^?S| is not like hint to bi to manship. The reawß was made clear by the <pWW||SR-1M Wilford and Mr Sidef. . each they multiplied Ik® two, subtracted the Settlement Account, tea, and* divided tween the railway raWSW fjpiffiiiS come tax, and found i had under-estimated several pounds. New, tkrt j thing to account for tSA 49ttj|HR|H ' McCombs's silence. his arithmetic book, «#i ! W*®|SBh|M it back he is helpleM. <-