RANDOM NOTES

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 68, 13 December 1933, Page 8

RANDOM NOTES

Sidelights on Current Events LOCAL AND GENERAL (By Kickshaws.) Corporations, it is revealed, are to run Italy. Does Mussolini suggest that running Italy is a job fop any Body? * * * If we understand the impressions of a visitor just back from Germany, things are going so well with Hitler that there is not the slightest hope of Germany paying her debts. . • • »■ News from China Indicates that it is uncertain whether forces massing in the provinces are for the purpose of aiding or attacking the enemy. It is pleasing to see that things have once again slipped back to normal in China. . ■ • » • •

Concerning “Up, Guards, and at them,” mentioned in this column yesterday, a reader says that he has a copy of a book published in 1816 and written by Gifford giving details of Waterloo. In this book the Duke of Wellington is stated to have made his famous remark to the 42nd .Foot Guards. This would indicate that the 52nd Light Infanty mentioned in these notes yesterday were not involved. Admittedly there is some controversy on the subject. - Eminent professors, nevertheless, who have devoted some considerable time to the study of the matter, such as Professors Gardiner and Ransome, and Dr. Brewer (in “Phrase and Fable”) have discarded the tradition. In the “Daily Telegraph" of July 30, 1906, there is a leading article in which it Is pointed out that the Iron Duke’s voice was heard to ring out' above the battle, with the words “Stand.up, Guards,” addressed to the Scots Guards. Sir Hubert Maxwell, in his “Life of Wellington,” says that “Stand up, Guards," was addressed to “Maitland’s Brigade.” If the truth be known, probably not even the Iron Duke himself, after the battle, knew what he actually did say and to whom he said it.—Kickshaws.

The visitor from California who complained that New Zealanders cannot make good coffee was probably not very far from the truth. New Zealanders are not unique in this respect. Some of the very worst coffee it is possible to sample is served in New York restaurants with an international reputation.: England is, if anything, worse than New Zealand in the matter of coffee-making. The fact is that if you want good, coffee you must go for it tp Paris, or for that matter any out-of-the-way nook in France. England has rested content on the fame that hex roast beef has given, and Italy is always coupled with, ice creams and macaroni. The art of making ice creams has now penetrated all over the world, but the art of making macaroni is as little known as the art of eating it It is too much to expect that every country shall be expert at the other countries’ dishes. Even , the .eating of them is filled with problems. One has only to see an Englishman eating macaroni side by side with an Italian eating asparagus.

As a matter of fact, despite the fact that New Zealand ships vast supplies of food'beyond her shores, there is not one single dish, except “colonial goose,” that can be classed as something essentially New Zealand. We have become proficient in the art of because for every cup of tea 'That an Italian drinks. we drink 2000 cups. But we have not produced a special method of brewing tea that could go round the world as New Zealand brew, on a par, say, with Cornish pasties or Yorkshire pudding. There is nothing we eat in New Zealand comparable in reputation with the fame of England’s roast beef. Every country, except some of the younger ones, has made a gustatory name for Itself. The French, if we. are to believe popular opinion, live on salads. The Germans demand solidity in their eating, and every mountain, top is provided with facilities for the sale of several varieties of sausage. Holland glories in her milk,- and her milk shops are becoming world famed. Finland for .fruit is a slogan that New Zealand might easily copy. Sweden’s “butter goose,” and Denmark’s sandwiches have all made their mark. Scotland, incidentally,, makes quite the best buns at 3d. each in the whole world.

The statement by the Lausanne Refugee’s Commission that Europe is saturated with Jewish exiles from Germany .raises a very delicate problem regarding responsibility for exiles. The fault in this case is Germany’s, but the responsibility falls on other countries. The recent antl-Jewish campaign in Germany means that: accommodation has to be found elsewhere for over half a million people. Britain has taken some of them. France has 30,000 of them, 8000 v have . gone to Holland, and 3000 to Czechoslovakia. Several thousands have found their way to Switzerland. Palestine - is full up and the problem still remains what can be done with some 200,000 Jews. It is Indeed a curious fact that Germany, the country most interested in the matter, is the only country which accepts no responsibility. So frequent have these eruptions of human beings become that the matter is fast becoming an international problem of the first order. The problem of the exiled Jews of Germany is accentuated by the fact that the world has not yet pjoperly digested the three million Russians who were flung, out of Russia during the revolution. So great was the strain imposed on the rest of the world that some 100,000 of these exiles are said to have penetrated as far even as Japan. Europe absorbed a million or so, America and the rest of the world absorbed the remainder. But by -far the greatest number took sanctuary in France. One may still have the honour of being served at some French hotels by exiled scions of a grand duke’s family. Even London can boast eight or ten aristocratic Russian chauffeurs. Indeed, so shattering was the result of the revolution in Russia and so gracious the hospitality offered in England that at least one well-known professor of economics helped to solve the problem by marrying a Russian ballet dancer. At least two Russian princesses run a millinery shop in London, and four ex-officers of the Russian .Guard have amalgamated into a musical quartet that plays in Soho restaurants.

“Alingham,” says a reader, “wrote one of the briefest and most perfect lyrics in the English language, viz,:— Four ducks on a pond, A grass bank beyond, A blue sky of spring. White clouds on the wing: What a little thing To remember. for years, To remember with tears. . *