LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 774, 24 March 1910, Page 5

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE LOWER HUTT RAILWAY TIME-TABLE. Sir, —Now that the railway timetables are to be rearranged, it may not be out of place to suggest that the suburban time-table might be greatly simplified, to the groat convenience of the travelling public; at present we have to be continually referring to' the printed tables, as it is quite impossible to make a mental note,of them. lam now referriag only to the times of departure from the Lower Hutt to Wellington, but tho sarno remarks will apply to the outward time-table from Wellington. Now, the time-table as it stands displays a large amount of ingenuity, and to my mind it appears to be diabolical ingenuity, as, whoever compiled it evidently had his mind bent on making tie times of departure as diverse as possible, or, probably, like Barney O'Flynn, of cherished memory, he believed there is luck in odd numbers, as every train of the 20 starts at a different minute, except cne pair of, 19 minutes and one pair of 6 minutes, and only one train leaves at an even 10 minutes. One would imagine that a commonsense method would be to. make the trains start at the even Hours and halfhours as often as possible. If this is nob feasible in all cases, then mako the times an even 10 minutes; but I cannot believe that it is necessary to cut it so fine as to start a train at 11.31 instead of the half-hour, or at 2.59 instead of 3 p.m. I give the present and proposed time-tables in parallel columns, and trust that you will print them in the same way, so that they may be easily compared. Existing. \ Proposed. a.m. a.m. H. M. H. M. 7 11 .„ 7. 10 7 19 ... 7 20 8 17 ... 8 20 8 37 ... &■ 40 9 25 ... 9 30 10 14 ... 10 20 11 31 ... ll 30 p.m. p.m. 12 '4 ... 12 0 ■ 1 44 .... 1 .45 Sat. 2 19' ... 2 20 • ■ 2 59 ... 3.0 4.6 ... 4 0 5 6 ... 5 0 ■ 5 28 ... S 30 .Sat. 6 . 2 ... 6 0 6 36 ... 6 30 7 5 ...7.0 8 3 ... 8 0 9 20 ... ' 9 20 10 29 ... 10 30 There is another gross blunder made in laying out the double line, or rather in locating tho crossing places from ono line of raik to the other;' exactly opposite the centre of tho Hutt and Petone railway, stations. / The result is that if two trains arrive at nearly the same time from opposite directions neither of tho trains stop opposite the covered-in part of the platform; so that each train runs on and delivers its passengers about a hundred yards past the sheltered part, and, of course, this is very pleasant, on a dark night in a heavy rain. You would have thought it would not tako much brains to arrange that one at least of the arriving traius could pull up where the passengers could have some benefit of the roof over the platform ■ ■' ■ At the city station tho same pleasant procedure is followed. No matter how wet the night is, when certain trains depart tho guard shouts out "Hutt passengers get away forrard!" just like a shepherd sending his dog after the eheep. And, off we go into the rain like a, lot of silly sheep.—l am, etc., . ■/".•■•■ •■ ■•'-■ LOWER HUTT.. March' 23/ .' ' ",' /■' POETRY IN NAMES. "J.Q.X." IN REPLY. Sir, —"X.Y.Z." says he disagrees with one sentence in my article ion "Place Names." What he really disagrees with is something which 'he supposes that particular sentence to "mean or imply." Ho has, in fact, invented and attributed to me the rather absurd theory "that a name is without ipoeitical charm until it is , 'looked up , in a dictionary." Of course, I agree with nearly, everything: whioh "X.Y.Z." has so delightfully, written in the quite, unnecessary refutation of a .theory which probably never occured to anybody but himself. If we must have a theory, I would suggest' something like this: Poetical charm in names involves an appeal to tho intellect and also to the sense of beauty in sound. In other words a name, to be in any high degree poetical, must sound beautiful and. must also have a beautiful meaning or convey a beautiful suggestion. I think all the poetical words instanced by "X.Y.Z." are true illustrations of this theory—-notwithstanding the fact that he gives them as examples of names which are poetical merely by virtue of their sounds, quite independently of. their meanings, associations or suggestions. He loved tie word "Vallombrosa" when he was a boy, not only because it was a "long luxurious vocable," but also, I think, because it meant (to him) "a city in the kingdom of dreams." Ho loves it now, partly for its sound, and partly (this he admits) for its meaning—"Shadow Valley." Take another of his instances: "Everybody's sensation of depth and immeasurable power and of a great • wave bursting, when they speak of 'the Pacific'," is surely due at least as much to what they know or imagine of tit© ocean itself as to their appreciation of tlhe , vowels and consonants that make up its name. Surely even the stately.platitudes beloved of Sir Joseph Ward (though, these are scarcely poetry) mean something—at least to Sir Joseph. And so I might go on through nearly all "X.Y.Z.V supposed "disproofs" of my supposed theory. I agree wifh "X.Y.Z." "that words oan be magnificent of themselves, without any reference to their meaning"— magnificent, but not poetical. Wordmusic alone is not poetry. If it were, there could be such, a thing as meaningless poetry.

Of course, I do not need a gazetteer or a dictionary to appreciate the three glorious passages which "X.Y.Z." quotes from "Paradise lost," but if I have neither knowledge, nor supposition; nor imagination about "Babba" and "Hesebon, and "Aepramont", and the rest, ray appreciation of those names is merely musical, and that is but one-half (if as much as half) of poetical. . ' .

I think "X.Y.Z." is not far from the right track when he sayst "My theory is that when I thrill at a beautiful name some savage ancestor of mine who 'felt good' in his dim Neanderthal fashion at the whistle of a bird or the tinkle of a stream, or the crashing diminuendo of the thunder, has turned iu his sleep in mo." But I don't think we are so close to our savage ancestors as that amounts to. There are ages and ages of myths, legends, histories, poems, philosophies, between them and us, so that when we thrill to the' sound of a name it is more likely our later ancestors of the days of Samuel Johnson, of Shakespeare, of Piers Plowman, of Alfred, or our culture-ancestors of Greece, Italy, and Palestine that are stirring m us. And the thrill (even on the musical side) may really owe much more to 'education than to heredity; The names that have eomn down to us from our ancestors, physical, intellec-, tual, and mir&wJj e».- for -that- -yexj i

reason more beautiful and more suggestive to us than any set of alien names, taken as a class, can he. That is why Maori names are not poetical to us. They are, as I havo said, poetical' to those who know the languago—in other words, to those who have become possessed of some of the culture-heritage of Maoridom. They are being adopted into nakeha speech, and will, after tho lapse of I know not how many years, become (in more or less Anglicised form) poetical to New Zealanders. In the meantime, "most of the Maori names," as I said, "have poetical meanings, but they require translation." "X.Y.Z." seems to think I meant that the translation confers poetical charm on the original. That would bo nonsense. No'reading of Cary's "Dante" will make the "Divina Cornmedia" in the original poetry to me. I did not say the Maori names were poetical- to those who knew the translation. I said they were poetical to those who knew the language. The theory which was meant or implied not only in the sentence which "X.Y.Z." thought he disagreed with, but all through my article, is that one condition of poetical charm in a name is that it must be both familiar and unfamiliar. A few Maori names fulfil this condition. Most of them (so far, as the pakeha is concerned) do not. More of them will by and by.—l am, etc., J.Q.X. THE OPPOSITION, Sir,—The interesting contribution of Oppositionist" ' and "A ' Looker-on" contain much truth; but probably Mr. Massey has no colleague who would have had greater success as Leader. Mr. Massey has not had enough help from his party; indeed, except when Parliament is sitting, the assistance given, him has been ludicrously inadequate. When Parliament is out of session the Opposition should commence a vigorous campaign in ever,y constituency, holding public meetings everywhere, and distributing literature. This might go on - for at least two months before the assembling of Parliament. In the Old Country the Opposition , Leader is always helped by his party in this way, and- without such help he would havo little if any chance of success. Another serious deficiency ■ has been lack of a definite policy designed to reduco the very high cost of living; and make employment plentiful. Now, it is well known that, tlie farmers, almost to a man, want Free-trade. In tho towns the minority in favour of a Freetrade policy is so . large that a few months of general discussion of this policy might convert the minority into , a majority, for the Free-trade facts and arguments are overwhelming. , \ ''Here, then, is a policy for.Mr. Massey:—Freetrade, a popular land.policy, destruction, of ..Tammanyism, and 'economical and honest administration. Loss of revenue by tho adoption of Free-trade might be mot by higher duties on the larger estates, but chiefly by a special tax on urban land values, which would be very popular in town and country. Mr. Massey would lose a few supporters by adopting this policy, but for .every one he lost he would gain many newsupporters. A successful political leader never allows individuals to stand in the way, and prevent him achieving a great victory for his party. Mr. Massey has political friends inside and outside Parliament, who have ever been the, chief obstacles to his success as a party leader.—l am, etc., . EDWARD T. EVANS. : " Lower Hutt, March 22, 1910.