WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 181, 28 April 1922, Page 4

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

France appears to think that what the Bolsheviks really need is Bolsheviction. It may be true that Germany faces ruin, but then it has been proved that Germany has two faces. One of the few things that can be raised on the farm at a profit just now is the price. The fact that divorces are practically unknown in Sweden may be attributed to the fact that it is the land of safety matches: Some men have a profession at their finger-tips—pianists, for example. The path to international unity is not easy. There is a “bloc” at almost every step. It has been said of their respective attitudes towards each other that the American affects to despise the Englishman while he secretly envies Him, and that the Englishman doesn’t care one way or tne other what the American thinks of him. The fact remains that a distinguished citizen of the United Kingdom can always be sure of an audience in the United States. Having duly read, marked, and inwardly digested this established fact, certain celebrities of British femininity have adventured across the Atlantic and joined in what the New York “Tribune” described as “tho great winterrush of British lecturers.” The American people, by the way, are amazingly fond of lectures. Lady Astor went over, and, we are informed, was doing very well till she advized the Roman Catholic Church to keep out of politics, and to remember the fact that America’s foundation was Protestant—a very daring thing to say. Even Lord Northcliffe, at the risk of sacrificing', a “Daily Mail” sensation, would have shrunk from such utterances.

Mrs. Asquith—“Margot”—was much more adroit on her recent lecturing trip. She found tlic_ President ®‘easy to talk to,” the American men “charming and courteous,” and so forth. But as a lecturer she was rather a “dud.” She had a tremendous flow of ideas, but they flowed out in a small rivulet of a voice that carried no further than the tenth row back. That didn’t suit at least one American lady. ‘TVe can’t hear a word,” she expostulated from the gallery, “and you've got our money for nothing—good-bye!” To her * eternal credit, “Margot’s” wit did not fail her. “You are not missing much,” she retorted. But good Americana like Mr. Charles Hanson Towne, of the New York “Tribune,” are growing restive over this lionising of British celebrities. To signify his opinion of tho matter, Mr. Towne takes a literary club and most nngallantly belabours poor “Margot” in this wise:

“How pleasant it must be to liv« in England, writing penny-dreadfuls or unliterary memoirs in a hushed garden and somei fine morning have one’s shabby servant emerge from _ one’s cottage with a cablegram begging one to come to America for a prolonged • tour. Pack one’s Gladstone with a sheaf of unsold essays,- arrive in New York, be interviewed, stop at the smartest hotel, stop upon a stage, and in tho strictest confidence mumhle something about anything, or, better still, nothing about everything, taxi back to one’s hostelry with a fat cheque in one’s handbag or pocket, be taken up socially and go home to write at leisure, in that same hushed garden, a tome on their American ‘impressions.’ ”

Mrs. Asquith certainly has the gift —a somewhat embarrassing gift it has proved to her acquaintances—of candour. She quite frankly told one American interviewer that she had gone lecturing to America because she needed the money. But was it really necessary to go _into such details as these: —“You see, after I had married Mr. Asquith, and when he had become Prime Minister, we weren’t exactly what you would call wealthy. To be perfectly truthful, my husbavd hadn’t a sou in the world, not a sou, with tho exception of the 5000 pounds he received as salary. Of course, he had owned stock and things of that sort, but when he became Prime Minister he turned in every single share of stock, just as a matter of principle which could have been possibly touched by the Government.”

It certainly lifts a load from one s mind to learn that Mrs. Asquith “had 5000 pounds of mv own a year, and this revenue, together with my husband’s salary, was what we had to live on. Anyone can tell you that living at Nu. HO Downifig Street is rather expensive, to say the least. Of course, we spent twice as much as we possessed. We had to! I have always loved to have as many of .my friends around me as I could possibly gather, and my husband is. a very popular man also.” Well, it would seem that the ex-Prime Minister pays pretty largely for his popularity. The average number of guests entertained at the Asquith domicile is put down at from 150 to 200 a week, which in tnese hard times looks like “going the pace” all right. Dr. Bumpus expressed the opinion that some of Mrs. Asquith’s guests who figured in her books of reminiscences must have felt that they paid pretty dearly for their ehtortainifier.t. Somebody has remarked, apropos of the lamentable tragedy that overtook poor Ross Smith on the day of his trial trip in the big world-touring Viniy, that aviation has given us very little poetry. I don’t know so much about that. Some excellent verse came from voting airmen during the war—wonderful verse, breathing the spirit of the airman as he sped through ‘the corridors of cloudland.” And there is a very fine “Hymn for Aviators,’ wntteir by Mary C. D. Hamilton, and set to music by C. Hubert larry, which is worth a place in the hymnaries besides the celebrated hymn for those at sea, “Eternal Father, Strong to Save It runs: Lord, guard and guide our- men who fly Through the great spaces of the sky; Bo with them traversing the air In dark’ning storm or sunshine fair. Thou Who dost keep with fender might , . , The balanced birds in all their flight, Thou of the tempered winds, bo near, That, having Thee,' they know no feart Control their minds with instinct fit, What time, adventuring, they quit The firm security of land; Grant steadfast eye and skilful hand. Aloft, ip. solitudes of space, Uphold them with Thy saving grace; O God, protect our men who fly Through lonely ways beneath the sky.