WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 35, 4 November 1922, Page 4

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

The South African Labour Party has deleted Socialism from its objective.—• In Australia tho Labour Ministries just let it fade out of their programmes. A motto for Mr. Wilford: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our ‘Stars,’ ‘Posts,’ ‘Heralds,’ and ‘Dominions,’ but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” It must be by inadvertence that tho Opposition candidates have omitted so far to blame Mr. Massey for starting the war. I overheard Major Fitzurso and Dr. Bumpus discussing the Labour platform yesterday. The Major said it was wonderful to him how the Labour Party was able to think of all these things that wanted doing, right around from indentured labour in Samoa to free lessons in brotherhood and love in the primary schools. Thg Major particularly liked the idea of lessons in love. It was a very attractive subject, and he felt the world would be a happier place if young people were shown by practical example how to lead up to the various stages in a courtship. The home is the foundation of society, and successful courting is the foundation of the home, and the Major feels the Labour Party is to be commended for taking up the question of. Igssons in free love, or free lessons in love, or whatever it is exactly. So many desirable matches have gone awry through the young people being ignorant of the moves in the game/

There was one matter which is a little puzzling to the Major in the Labour Party’s, plans. Taking all the money off the rich people is a very good plan for a start, but when wc have got it all what would the Labour Government run the country on, or would we all have to give up our. Government jobs and start work again? Dr. Bumpus at. this stage explained that it was precisely this need which made it so necessary for the LabourSocialist movement to be international in character. Lenin had made a great advance in Russia, but hg was crippled because of the incomplete organisation of Socialism internationally. He had got all the money off the Russian rich people some time ago, and now the success of his remarkably fine Socialistic organisation was threatened because he had no means of forcing the rich men in other countries to give him money to keep it going. xOur own Labour Partv, no doubt in consequence of the fewness of millionaires in New Zealand, foresaw the. need for this international organisation and was very strong on it. The Major said the Doctor s explanation certainly put the matter, in a new light, and it was fine to think Socialism would make the Comrades in other countries so anxious for the common good that they would not mind us' having all the money off their millionaires after we had got through with our own. “The success of our movement, observed the Doctor, “naturally presupposes a high ethical standard abroad.”

Tho Irish rebels have forbidden the newspapers to use inverted commas when referring to the rank of. their officers.—lt is when you refer to any Irish “Government” that inverted commas are really needed.

A pioneer in flying who has had no (recognition from historians was a French lady who expounded her plans in a little pamphlet, printed by Ridgway and Sons, Piccadilly, in 1834. A reader has sent me a copv of this pamphlet which is a really original document. The plan was to construct a car to be drawn through the air by tagles. “All golden eagles,” she wrote, “are between five and six feet in length, and more in breadth; those here intended will go a milg a minute: they can with ease bear the weight or forty pounds each, and will (at a flight) go, over several hundred miles, in” a direct line of flight, and soar above the reach of a cannon ball. With six "eagles the inventress reckoned to lift a wire and brass car weighing with its occupants not more than two hundred pounds. If a greater lift was required more eagles would only hav£> to be added. Tho eagles would be attached to the top of tho car on pivots which could be turned so as to direct their flight in any given direction ‘ The eagles, it was pointed out, could be purchased from mountaineers for a mere trifle, and could be trained to rise at the sound of a trumpet.

This French inventress, who remained anonymous, had thought out the details with great care. The eagles beaks and claws could be filed so that the timid need have no fear. Further: “The ascension would be effected by putting the chariot, on an elevated receding scaffold, made, in some degree, approaching to the construction of an ironing board.” One can imagine the inventress erecting a model of the whole affair with a flat-iron and an ironing board in the leading roles. “Napoleon,” she observes, ‘would soon have found out the, use or way to put this new discovery in execution, ns the appreciation of it does not belong to a common mind.” The real secret —which the authoress declined to ■ give away for nothing was . the knowledge of the descent,” that is to say, how you got the eagles to let you down without a bump. This could only be disclosed for a “proper remuneration.” It was possibly a relation of this lady who induced the Admiralty during the war to experiment off the Isle of Wight with sea-lions for catching German submarines. It is said that no British statesman has a finer memory than Mr. Bonar Law. After Great Britain had annexed most of the German colonies he got up in the House and made a speech for fiftv-five minutes without any notes whatever, giving the whole history of these colonies, dates, facts and figures, keeping his sequences perfectly clear, and then sat down. “I say. Law,” said a friend to him afterwards, how on earth did you manage it ? It is not the slightest trouble.” he replied. “I look up the facts and figures very carefully, and -once having got them into my head they stop there. In America the term “flapper” is said to be definitely out. of date. The modern maids of to-day are now known as< “Easter eggs,” because they are hand-painted on the outside and hard boiled inside. A prominent business man received a letter which highly displeased him. His replv ran: “Dear Sir, —I am in receipt of your letter of yesterday b date. My typist, being a lady, cannot take down what I would wish to say to you. I, being a gentleman, must not say it. You, being neither the ono nor the other, will probably realise what I mean.” We call English our mother-tongue because father never gets a chance to use it. PORTRAIT OF A LADY. From the great deep to the great deep she goes; Her well of small talk never docs run dry; Sho giggles, smirks, nor pauses for reply. Perhaps she chatters so (because she knows She must be very silent by and by. —Christopher Braithwaite.