A COMMON BOND

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 265, 5 August 1929, Page 10

A COMMON BOND

LEADERS IN SIDELIGHT MR. SIDEY’S BOOBY TRAP. Mellowness of outlook, even toward contentious affairs of State, was in evidence at the dinner held on Saturday night of the Wellington branch of the Otago High School Old Boys’ Society. Sixty-six years before had the school opened its doors for the first time, and of such a company, both in numbers and in spirit, might the school’s first fiftynine scholars hr.ve been composed, except' that now.. 1 .ting together with comparative youngsters whose fingers were scarcely free from inkstains, were “older boys,” who, with the passage of years, had attained to eminence in their chosen vocations and in the service of their country. To these —and others not present that evening—could the school point as the worthiest offerings from her halls of learning. Altogether those present represented many walks of life and shades of opinion—they even represented generations. Former masters sat with former pupils—some of them masters in turn. But between them was a common tie: the bond of the school. It dismissed disparity of age, degree and title and even relaxed the old tension between teacher and pupil—defined during the evening by the epigrammatic Professor Murphy as “an uneasy familiarity, such as might exist between a habitual criminal and a member of the police force.” The Hon. Sir Charles Statham, Speaker of the House of Representatives, occupied the chair. At one stage he tried unsuccessfully to call the company from animated conversation, and was cheerfully informed later by a speaker that while he might rule the House of Representatives with a rod of iron he could not expect to control the assembly of that evening. He accepted the situation smilingly, , Politicians were present, and politics were spoken—but with mellowmess. The Speaker, from the point of view of the referee in the House, said he wished to express his admiration of the manner in which the late Government accepted its defeat and the manner in which the present Government accepted its victory. There had been no howling on the one hand and no crowing on the other hand. It reminded him of the old days at the School, when everybody took what was coming to them. The speaker touched another note when he said that boys from the Otago High School had helped to mould the destiny of the country. He believed no country could become great which did not reverence its institutions. The Hon. W. D. Stewart, former Minister of Finance, showed that there was no need for the tactful separation at the table of himself and the Hon. T. K. Sldey, Leader of the Legislative Council, for whom he admitted a close personal friendship. Mr. Stewart apologised for his unpreparedness for a speech and then became very amusing. He recalled that he had never been prominent at the school in sports or study. Indeed, the only thing that had really interested him was chemistry, and contrasting that interest with the channels his life had ultimately taken, he viewed with some concern a system which proposed to educate the young along lines of natural inclination. Early inclinations might prove to be only passing hobbies. He was at a loss to know what the educationists would have discovered had they probed his mind. (Laughter.) The school could not, in his days, be accused of having an agricultural bias, as the only agricultural education to be obtained then was in the botany class under the (now) Hon. G. M. Thomson, M.L.C., and that was conducted out of school hours —on a Saturday afternoon. (Laughter.) He went on to say that a consolation to him when the Government was ejected from office was the appointment of the Hon. T. K. Sidey as Leader of the Legislative Council, who was thus granted a well-deserved term of office. However, he did not want Mr. Sldey to become a permanent fixture there. (Laughter.) In the meantime the Reform Party was in opposition and it was a not unpleasant holiday.. Professor Murphy said that as Minister of Finance Mr. Stewart had served his country in an outstanding manner. (Applause.) He was also—it would be news to many to know—an author of no mean merit, being concerned in a book on the economics of New Zealand.

Mr. Sidey quoted from the menu the saying of Publius Syrius: “I have often regretted my speech but never my silence.” “Members of Parliament—at least the older ones—have a similar saying,” said Mr. Sidey. "It is generally understood by members of Parliament that ‘You never get into trouble for what you don’t say.’ That is frequently a very good rule which younger members are sometimes inclined to overlook. It was the fortune of war in politics that I did over 27 years in the House of Representatives without attaining a Ministerial position, just as it is the fortune of war that I am now in office and Mr. Stewart is not. (Laughter.) It is bard to say what another election may bring forth. We have got to take the chances of those things. As for myself, it looks as if I retired from the Lower House at the right time.” (Laughter.) From such a happy beginning the way opened. Anecdote followed anecdote as boyhood experiences were recalled. Mr. .1. Macky, one of the remaining original pupils of the school, told of dark doings with ink and white shoes and with stones in snowballs. Mr. Sidey made a veiled confession to having collaborated with a young man —now a cleric —in precipitating a basket of clothes on to the head of a master in what is commonly known as 'a “booby trap.” Honour and distinction descended on the gentleman present who' was discovered to be the first boy to break a window in the school. Names of old boys of the school who had done worthy things in other directions were recalled,, and among those held up as examples of greatest achievement were Sir Francis Bell and the late Judge, Sir John Salmond, while Mr. Sidey recited impressively some lines of I). W. M. Burn, whose poetry, he considered, would live for ever in the history of literature in this country. Thus common interest and enthusiasm worked its charm with those present, and reached its apex when all rose as one man and sang the swelling chorus of “The School”: — Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty years ahead, When others shall be singing here where once our voices led. Shall Memory rise and call to mind the days that long have sped, As the years go rolling by.