PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MANNERS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1034, 25 January 1911, Page 6

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE MANNERS.

The violent and offensive personal allusions , which disfigured the speeches of some of the principal platform orators during the rcccnt British election campaign drew forth, as we havo already noticed, some dignified protests in the newspapers. Another sequel was curious and rather suggestive. The Times, in its "Woman s Supplement" of December 10, printed in the form of an editorial note a "special appeal to hostesses, and indeed all women," to do something for "decent politics" : So mnny fruitless appeals havo boon iwulo to Alt'. Asquith tliat it is useless to hope any longer for the exertion of his authority to enforce upon liis own colleagues decorum in public, speaking. Society must do its ovu policing, nud decent people must avoid, oven more than they

have done, the demagogues who aro doing their best to degrade" English politics. Women have a power in these matters. They must use it more and more, realising that the very pseudo-republicans who make these sordid attacks are more alive than anyone to social pleasures and social advancement.

Newspapers on the other side quickly pointed out that offences against ''decorum in public speaking'' were not confined to politicians of the Bchool of Mr. Lloyd-Gf.orge and Mr. Winston Churchill. The Westminster Gazette treated it as a matter of course that the proposed social boycott would be applied impartially, and it-affected concern for ''the dinnerless stato of, say, .Me. F. E. Smith and Sir Edward Carson." The Daily A'ews quoted one of Mr. Smith's latest speeches, and asked whether anything like it, outside his own singular' record, had recently disgraced the public platform; "and if not, what sense or honesty is there in the Unionist cry about 'bad language' V' These were fair retorts. The Times certainly left itself open to the charge that what it chiefly desired was not the improvement of politician's' manners, but the punishment of the politicians with wnose views it does not agree. It would have been better to have said so,- for any hostess has a perfect right to choose her guests according to their opinions, if sha cares to. To get up a practice of social' ostracism according to opinions op'-public questions would, however,- be both absurd and tyrannical.

The advice, of the Times to hostesses, however, raises some interesting questions. Are we to look for the same manners in public life as we expect and demand in the social circle? When a politician calls one of his opponents a liar, is it the same thing as if the expression were used in the •smoking room of their club ? There are, wrongly perhaps, different moral standards in different departments of life. Duelling is punishable by law, but nations fight. The individual must not annex his neighbour's umbrella, but a Government may take a niece of its neighbour's land.. Sir Henry'WorroN-was an. upright man, but he had his own diplomatic career in retrospect when he defined an ambassador as oiio sent to life abroad for the ..good of his country/ Perhaps if lie had not been-an ambassador, and : as such susceptible to the coldness of a monarch, lie would not have tried to. explain away his famous epigram by saying that ho meant "lie abroad" in quite another sense thaii that in which it has always been understood. There seems to bo no escape from the popition that publio life has lower moral standards than private life, and certain politicians at Home appear to make a similar distinction between public and private manners. Thus, the Times admits that the "demagogues" can make quite gontlemanly speeches in Parliament. What.we all desire is that actions which are condemned ,in nrivato affairs may be under the like ban in regard to public activities and' national concerns.' Progress in' such matters is slow,'and', what is worse, there-seems to have been of late a backward tendency, 'so "far as platform manners in; British electioneering are'concerned. ■ .