TRIVIA.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 19972, 5 July 1930, Page 15

TRIVIA.

Dr. J. B. Condllffe, la bis recent book, "New Zealand in the Making," reminds us that cultivated observers like Lord Bryce and Sidney Webb have deprecated the "vulgarity" of political life In the Dominion. The edifying gentility of English polities is too little regarded. Happily, as if on purpose to edify Mr Forbes and Mr Coates and Mr Holland, at the beginning of a new session, Mr Baldwin and Mr Lloyd George have just furnished a perfect example of polite controversy. Mr Baldwin classes Mr Lloyd George and his supporters as a bad smell; Mr Lloyd George notes that Mr Baldwin is at home among the pigs. ("You'll know father, because he's got a hat on.") Of course it would be unfair to forget that lowly disputants sometimes maintain the same lofty tone. There was George Belcher's celebrated heroine: "But I kep' me dignity, Mrs 'Arris. 'Pig!' I sea, and swep' out."

If I were interested in raising the publio esteem of New Zealand politicians, I should see to it that stories were plentifully circulated, illustrating their remarkable powers of mind, the noble strain of their utterance, their tenacity, their ingenuity, their wit, their every ornament and resource. Why, for instance, do we not hear some such story as this!— How once, when Mr Coates was in the full and majestic flow of a speech on the importation of Chinese egg-pulp, he upset a box of Eens from his desk to the floor; and ow Mr Forbes stepped across, and with artful deliberation began picking them up, one by one, and putting them back; and how Mr Coates faltered and was brought to a stop, distracted by this interrumpent politeness. Certainly, the original dramatis personae were Gladstone and Disraeli. Certainly again, it would be wrong to embezzle the story, or convert it to Mr Coates's and Mr Forbes's use. But we have the actors, with all the aptitude for the fine old parts: why do they give us no plays? Or we might hear how Mr Tavemor made the House quail. When Sir X. Y had been boring the House on some eommerolal question, and introduced th* word "sugar" so often that there wa* at last a laugh as often as he did so, Mr Taverner . . . grew very angry, and at last his wrath boiled over. When Y*——— sat down, Mr Taverner rose, and with • tone and manner Of the ottnosi Indignation began, "Mr Speaker, Sir— Bay sugar. Who laughs now t" And nobody did laugh. Adapted from Greville's Diary, wheffl the hero is Chatham; but there should be no necessity to adapt. Taking for the moment the part or Cassius to this Brutus, I may ask: What should be in that Chatham t Why should that name be sounded more than yours) Write them together, your* Is as fair a name; Sound them, it doth become tha mouth as well: Weigh them, it is as heavy; nay, in fact Yours hath a syllable's preponderance. Why do we never hear how Mr Wright avenged himself and a suffering House on a tedious memborf What would it not be worth to bear thist—— Rising to follow a well-known bore, ha mildly complained that he had listened patiently for more than aa hour. "I only spoke for fifty minutes by the dock," interposed the member. "I beg the hon. aohtleman's pardon," said Mr Wright, "but It seemed longer."

It is lamentabls to have to borrow this from Lord Balfour, in order to suggest the sort of Mr Wright the public ought to hear about. But tho want of authentic parallels is the very thing I am deploring. I c.m think of no explanation, except an Infamous one. Everybody knows that the numerous but necessary linoleum-and-coConut*mat-ting pronouncements of the politicians are deliberately garbled by tne reporters* Do they also deliberately suppress their governors' nobler efflorescences!

President Hoover lately sighed for tho power to nominate fifteen or twenty people a year to bo executed, no reason given, no appeal allowed. He said overy President ought to bo able to do it. He said it eagerly, because he has high ideals of social sorvioo find would like to realise them more fully; he said it wistfully, because he feels that old-fashioned prejudices veto what might bo his best work. But the idea is winsome, and, even as a distant hope, consoling to those who feel that the number of pestiferous citizens has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished. Of course it need not tako the special form of presidential privilege in which it appeals to Mr Hoover; and the correspondents who wrote to The Press this woek, complaining about rufflian motorists and ruffian flappers, will probably agree that Mr Stacy Aumonier gave it a broader and more useful turn: As populations increase so bewilderingly and social problems become more and mora complex, it is not at all oertain that Govern* meats will not hare to appoint bodies of refined and educated official murderers, who will go about among the people with a license to kill in their pockets. Their position will bo somewhat analogous to that of a doctor, and their mission somewhat similar, only more direct. They should be carefully trained and be Quite unrecognisable. The effect of having social life leavened by such a body of men would key up tho whole standard of human behaviour wonderfully. Suppose, for Instance, you wers seated in a club listening to some incredible old bora talking about his ailments. Suddenly a man comes up and plunges a dagger Into his heart. You would simply say: "Excuse me, sir, but have you • license?" If hd says do, of course, you must n&w him arrested. But If he says yes, and pro. duces his license, you merely thank him, ana ring for the waiter to oome and elear up the mesa. Tour own behaviour would improve remarkably. Imagine overy time you go Into a restaurant or a bus and yon don t know whether the quiet little man In the corner may not have a license in one pocket and a revolver In the other. You would surely be constrained to act discreetly. You would give up your seat to a woman or an older man. You wouldn't throw banana* skins and paper about the streets, or write foolish articles for the Press. You wouldn t ring people up early in the morning, and then say, "Sorry you have been troubled. You wouldn't come In late to the theatre and tell tho person next to you the story of the play In advance. Yon wouldn t be a Nosey Parker, or a Road Hog, or a Superior Person. You would become terribly ■ nice. And think of the presence of such purgative strangers in the Gallery during the Address-in-Reply Debate. They would be the new agents of an old oivil--1 ising process, They would make a i solitude, and we should call it peace. —J.H.E.S.