OBITER DICTA

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19610, 4 May 1929, Page 14

OBITER DICTA

(BjK.)

I believe that the Pope is not a Socialist, and that in this respect, as in many others, his Holiness is at one with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the heads of all the other Christian Churches. For all these leaders I have long been foolish enough to have some respect. It is not pleasant, therefore, to discover that they are all astray. They cannot all be dolts, and therefore some of them must be rascals. For as Mr Archer explained in yesterday's paper, " Socialism is the economic expression of the teaching of Christ, and no man can oppose it without being disloyal to Him." I was glad, as I read on, to find that our Mayor, despite his unaccountable failure to obtain the " 95 per cent." vote which he expected, inclined towards mercy in his criticisms of his fellow clergymen. " I realise, of course," he said, " that a man may be unconscious of disloyalty." Still, it is " appalling," he says, thai prominent men in all the Churches should differ from him. There can scarcely be any doubt that the conversion of Pope Pius and Dr. Lang and the other " prominent men in the Churches" is much more important than the extension of the Socialist fish market in Christchurch. And it is more than appalling that the man who can rescue those lost souls should be wasted on ,this small town.

Still, one has one's doubts. When the Hon. Mr Stall worthy (and worthy of a good stall with a good supply of hay and thistles in the rack he certainly is) when Mr Stallworthy said that God had arranged his appointment, I doubted it. And I doubt whether Mr Archer's mirror, in which he sees himself as the economic image of our Saviour, is a very well-made mirror.

Some of the clergy are so abandoned as sometimes to think of other subjects than religion, plain or political. Archbishop Averill, for example, asked this question in his Anzac Day address: — "Is there not in New Zealand a poet and a composer who, in combination, would give to us a really great national hymn or ' anthem of thanksgiving, which would be appropriate for use, and woald embody the thoughts and sentiments of the heart, and would be a means of expressing the feelings which well up in the heart of every loyal New Zealander, arid crave for vocal expression on occasions like this?" The answer is, unhappily, in the negative. New Zealand may have a poet or two, but it has no composers at all. Nor does it feel the need of them. Of poetry I know a little, but of music my knowledge, in' spite of almost daily "auditions" of Delius and Balakirev and George Gershwin, is exactly equal to that of the old lady of Sheen, whose musical ear was not keen, and who said it was odd, but she didn't know "God Save the Weasel" from " Pop Goes the

Q-een." His Grace ig student of poetry and rash of him to send oat a mB stirring and vital anthem of giving. For unless it has lost the Manufacturers' Associate* Dr. Averill's address as an onuSk-fl for the encouragement of local u2#dl and a 100 per cent, duty on ftetfjH music and poetry. The send a deputation to a Minute 9 it, probably to Mr Stalhrortfcy, hT«I certainly worthy of—l wish I kailltfl said that already; I should Eka ft fJ■ it again. -^Jm While the more flighty-miudai ifJi -M have been giving attention to tfaaagSfl jects and to what are perhapi ttWilKfl important of the week's cabk»—Agjg ■ announcing that lions can dhab IbM If especially if their meat is pbtajS a branch, and the other t»«mfljaVjfe decision of the English golf •&*££& that the size of the golf baQ i3ml main as it is—Commissioner Bt¥*K not lost sight of the evils of ffcflMr a subject of which he hat fllws special study. It is the expert, therefore, which teßs ggß the most striking sign of ence of the age" is the women who are smoking. *Msteg]lJ are thinkers/' he says, " and %iS|m at the past lives of nations, tpiK gate the mentality that smoking, ceaseless gambling, q]w playing to the decay that kiT-SK associated with nations in the WsfffK: is news to me that Homer ■Mjflß and Rameses XXXI. and ffeNHK I fellows came to a bad end tfatHfJMJjH j wives' addiction to cigarettes. sH must have been an age in tbi when there were no cards or <W9EI or totalisators or even rak <SB]I then, caused the nations of to decline and fallt I am iIeJHLIM ' them, because they obviously <4lifl||j§§H ' and fell without having —yJHwH

Daring the eompo&itim notes the election officials assistants have been multiplying and dividing **f tJNHJffI ing in order that we may Councillors whom we got <*-S!h|HH morning. One is supposed (>ftflHl truly represented if the fourteenth preference k MHHH accurately. Yet Ido not **£iNinßl { one person in a thousand wmßb about this. 11l toy case aooe stout-hearted or the hnmosoaa JHmHS all his preferences. Tor mj oyfA |Hfl could not put a 18 oppoiShHilQ' " No," he explained, that you would not %e JJifcl^^B and I achieved it, so enable me to obtain just -4^^HHH