THE BOOKFELLOW.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 9, 10 July 1909, Page 9

THE BOOKFELLOW.

» Written for The Post by A. G. Stephens. {Copyright. — All rights reserved). BALLADE OF QUERIES. Why do the girls always fumßle their backs ? (Since a skirt, can be buttoned, t a blouse caii be holed.) Why haven't authors got money in stacks? But why is hotel hot-water cold? Why does a marriage turn saint into . scold ? j Why ib a Spring when it hasn't been coiled ? And why is a widow so quickly consoled ? But why is restaurant roast-beef boiled? Why does tho Joker take tricks from the Jacks ? * (xVnd the Bills and the Toms) and why did he fold 1 His tent, like tho Arabs whom Longfellow tracks ? But why is hotel hot-water cold? And why is manuscript posted rolled, When an editor's soul is so easily soiled By language the editor cannot hold? But why is restaurant roast-beef boiled ? Why hasn't every one all that he lacks? Why isn't all that is glittering, gold? Whyi isn't everything sealskin that's sacques ? But why is hotel hot-water cold? And why does all beauty return to the mould ? Why is the clover so rare quatrefoilcd ? Why aren't our bankers as soft as of old? But why is restaurant roast-beef boiled? Hint, by way of Message : Robinson ask not, overbold, '"But why is hotel hot-water cold?" Brown and Jones have the answer oiled : "But why is restaurant roast-beef boiled?" YON KOTZE. The death, in his middle forties, of Karl 'Hermann Stephan yon Kotze, which receives a line in English papers, Ls worth a paragraph in Australasian. Yon Kotze wrote passionate rhymes for us before returning in 1900 to Germany, where he acquired some literary celebrity. 'He was son of a noble Graf, and for a German born and bred he made 'English verse remarkably well, with a fuller pulse than many indigenous bards display. Hot blood sent him early roving and husk-eating : he came to North Queensland in search of fortune, and almost before realising that he had arrived "I found myself hoeing cane in a sugar plantation, with a Kanaka on my right hand and a Chinaman on my left." Tho decade during which he drifted about 'New Guinea and 'North Australia did not cool him, and memories of his final departure from Sydney include a red landscape flowing with many rivers. He met others of the bardic sept, and read his own poems in an ecstacy of emotion that prevented utterance. You fcaw lips moving, but no voice is&ued. What astounded him particularly was the ease with which Victor Daley composed "poetry while you wait." "When I write a 'poem," complained Yon Kot/ie, "I lie on a sofa for three days with the rjains of a woman in childbed, and when I get up 1 am as weak as the baby." 1 ■His farewell in the North Queensland Register held real affection for the country wherein he was a sojourner : "What loads of enthusiasm and virility have we not carried out into the West and the North, among the plains and the ranges, and they all lie buried theTe, burnt to cinders under the blazing sun, drowned in the endless swamps of the Gulf rivers. sHeigho ! What's the good of whining! Has not our life been a free one, untrammelled, clear of conventionalities and five-shilling dinners? Have we not tasted the great, the glorious cup of Freedom, that poets sing and patriots die for, to the very dreg 6? "Ah — to the very dregs ! There's the rub ! Are there in all this world 'chains of slavery that chafe the flesh x more cruelly than the invisible prison tethers of loneliness and desolation? We have poured our heart's blood out into the wilderness, and the sand has sucked it up ; we have breathed out our soul into the desert, and it has dissolved in the great stillness around us. And when we return to humanity, we suddenly .realisethat this our soul -has gone, that we are only anaemic wrecks of former manhood, a pale, brow-beaten, miserable band of convicts released from the torture dens of — Liberty. "And 1 60 I return to my refrain: I am out of it! I am out of it! And slowly the coastline is sinking into the sea. There's a bushfire rising behind the brow of the last headland. It seems to me .1 can smell the smoke from here — and it all comes back, the camp, the g-lowing logs, the call of the curlew down the empty river-bed! And once I remember, when we had scrambled up that gully on the ■Northern coastal range and came — but there ! I knew I c<juld smell the smoke! It is biting my eyes, I feel it, for they are full of tears. And • — and — Good-bye ! God bless you, Australia!" ARBITRATION LEGISLATION. A suggestive chapter of Mr. R. B. Wise's book of "The Commonwealth of Australia" (London : Pitman) is that referring to arbitration law and practice. The book itself is. of so miscellaneous a character, and makes so liberal a use of quotations and footnotes, that it has the air of being a composite by several hands; and the commentary often seems curiously out ot date — as if Mr. Wise's knowledge of Australia belonged to the period of his departure for London five years ago. Every sojourner in England can tell how rapidly one loses touch with "Australasia. The English papers contain the barest summary of news, and no matter how industriously one may scan newspaper files, the atmosphere that colours facts is lacking. The word-of -mouth commentary that gives people and incidents their due weight and proportion is lost, and there is nothing to replace it. Mr. Wise seems to have suffered thus. Statement after statement he makes, which might have been held valid five years ago, but which strike a reader to-day as curiously incorrect. There is a primary difficulty, too, which vitiates books about Australia. No single book can efficiently subte»d so vast a subject. Here are seven States, which are virtually seven peoples, each with its own history and its own laws, and often with separate customs and a separate outlook upon life. Because they are under Federal government and form part of the same geographical territory, they connote to British or foreign readers a single entity. For that entity a single book is desired. And, if the writer be conscientious, he finds that, unless for .a small area of his subject, a single book is impossible. For he has either to relate seven separate histories, to describe seven separate individualities, or else to make his general statement subject to five or six modifications • and qualifications. Or else he simply writes of the two or three States he knows most about, and lets the rest comparatively go hang. The last is the method Mr. Wise has chosen. His book is greatly concerned with New So»th Wales, where he has been a Minister of the Crown. The references to the other States, separately considered, are especially statistical, and an Englishman who wants to understand Western Australia, for example, will be misled if he applies the remarks which Mr. Wise makes concerning the East. The book, in fact, though it con-

tains a great deal of interesting and useful material, can give to an alien only i an imperfect and possibly an erroneous view of Australia ; since, in order to j disengage a fairly accurate view, it requires to be read by the light of Australian knowledge. To the chapters dealing with the Commonwealih^as a whole, and to some other chapters, this criticism does not apply. But the author's lack of current knowledge is too often a drawback to the acceptance of his conclusions. If we take as examplary the pages dealing with arbitration law and practice, which are of general interest to Australasian readers, we find such statements as this : "Since the Act" — i.e., since the passage of the Arbitration Act in New South Wales — "the whole influence of trade unionism is thrown into the balance against a strike — a spectacle never before witnessed in any State of the Commonwealth." ' This is printed, althougn, in the case of- the notable strike at Bioken Hill, the whole influence of trade unionism was, as a matter of fact, thrown into the balance in favour of the strike ; and j a subscription for its maintenance was collected from trade unionists throughout Australia. To anyone acquainted with the course of arbitration law in New Zealand, the suggestions of Mr. Wise's commentary must seem often erroneous. Even in ■ New Zealand, which has had the longest , experience of community-enforced arbi tration in industrial disputes, no finalj ity in the adjustment of means to ends i has yet been reached. Yet, after considerable study of the subject, the writer would venture the opinion that some theoretical conclusions have emerged, or are emerging, for general application in practice. Firstly, it may be affirmed, that the sentiment of Australasian communities will not permit the sweating of labour, even should the dubious argument be justified that a continual sacrifice of inferior labour is made necessary by international competition. The minimum wage, if it does imply a loss of industrial power, represents the community's votive offering to a higher standard 'of civilisation. Secondly, the nearer the minimum wage approaches to the point where ' sweating ends and remuneration begins, the safer will be the industrial structure that is reared upon it, and the more permanent will be the industrial concord. Thirdly, the principle of industrial compulsion is sound only as an alternative to industrial conciliation, and the progress of the future will be along the line of bringing a larger and larger number of industrial disputes into the territory of voluntary .agreement— with the court of compulsion held in reserve as a court of last resort — a court in terrorem. Fourthly, the simpler the procedure j that is used to secure voluntary agreement, the better is the chance of agreement, and the more lasting the agrcem/^ is jr kelv . t0 b e. This is the lesson.! ot the Victorian Wages Boards, as well as of the New Zealand Conciliation Boards. The fifty New South Wales \\ages Boards, stiffened by law and surrounded by legal paraphernalia, are virtually fifty industrial courts. These j reach at huge expense, and more pre- ! canously, the same goal that is attained with comparative ease by collecting the disputants informally and making them responsible for a decision — with an independent chairman whose reward has no relation to the length of the proceedings. This is the method v that New Zealand has evolved, and it seems likely to endure. ' Fifthly, the judgments of the Arbitration Court, once given, should be maintained with the whole strength of the community, so that they have the finality of the judgments of any other court. And this is now the point of difficulty, for the way to reach that desirable end is still uncertain. The community must grow gradually towards the light. MELODRAMA. Originally it was merely Me'lodydrama — drama with songs intermixed ; and just how it came to be inferior drama — "a play in which effect is sought in startling, exaggerated, or unnatural sentiments or situations" — would puzzle a Quaker. But is it inferior? In point of art, yes. And in point of life? The' life's the thing : that iq the dogma of the Higher Pragmatism. Pragmatism, as a philosophy recently invented for the purposes of America and Europe (though it was here formally expounded a dozen, years ago), consists in testing -things by the result. If you are clear that an act or an idea profits you, now and permanently, then this act or that idea is good' for you — though the, whole world denounce it. Of course, you must be sure, and not mistake a false appetite for a true satisfaction. Cinquevalli said to me, "I do not eat things because they give me a little pleasure here" — and he put his finger on his mouth — "if I know they will give me a little pain here"— and he put his finger on his good-old-English belly, which is not the "stomach" of vulgarly genteel people, said stomach being a different thing altogether. But what does profit you ? Only that which, now and permanently, gives you keener, fuller life. (Or now "or" permanency, supposing that the now-profit is so great that it exceeds the . loss-permanent — which is another thing that wants watching.) It is no use going to the Dante class or the Shakespeare society it you find yourself bored all through and fatigued at the end. The fault may lie with you, or it may lie with Dante and Shakespeare ; but it is not the fault that matters — it is the fatigue. Instead of giving you life, Dante or Shakespeare has taken life away from •you— and this is the pragmatic test. Now, the great public, the melodramatic public, instinctively pursues the lofty pragmatic path. There is in its practice an opposition that is seeming only. Sometimes the great public will take an absolutely barren book, a clear lifewaster, and delight in it. This means that the pulSlic has so much vitality to spare that it, is able to raise the dead to life, gathering its own flowers of emotion on the desert track. And sometimes the public is jaded, and wants the simulation of vitality carried to excess, with all the situations keyed far above normal pitch, and all the .emotions shrieking. Then it goes to see Bland Holt. But always the secret of melodramatic success remains the real life on the stage, behind the excessive mouthing and posturing. The actors must "carry over the footlights." The Melbourne and Sydney success of Miss Maggie Moore, for example, lies in the personal vitality which she has contrived so wonderfully to maintain, and which shines unfailingly through her adipose mask. It did not matter how ridiculous, from a superior point of view, "The Fatal Wedding" might be : to hear her singing "The Babies on Our Block" in a ring of cheerful children, exhaling the vis vitac of their age, was to be exhilarated, to gain an accession of living strength. Or when H. R. Roberts came back to his home in "Struck Oil," and gave spectators a really fine piece of actinor. it was his own force, his own tension of vitality, that made the dry bones live. Thus we need not debate who invented the philosophy of pragmatism, or how recently. The great public was the first Pragmatist, and once more Instinct takes precedence of lagging Reason.

NOTES. The revival of the " prologue " of " Sweet Kitty Bellairs " reminds us that if that prologue were not absolutely decorous the N.S.W. Colonial Secretary could close Her Majesty's Theatre and invite Miss Marjorie Chard to forfeit £50. That Colonial Secretary can become, when he chooses, a particularly efficient censor of local drama. Section. 9 vjf N.S.W. Public Entertainments Act of 1897 provides that " The Colonial Secretary may, whenever he is of opinion that it is fitting for the preservation of good manners, decorum, or of the public peace so to do, forbid by writing under his hand the acting or representing any public entertainment, or any part thereof, or any prologue or epilogue, or any part thereof, in such theatres or other places for which an authority or license, or general license, may have been granted under the authority of this Act ; and every person who shall for hire act or represent, or cause to be acted or represented, any public entertainment, 'or any part thereof, or any prologue or epilogue, or any part thereof, contraiy to such prohibition as atoresaid, shall for every such offence forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding fifty pounds ,- and every authority or license (in case there be any such) by or under 'which the theatre or other placa was opened in which such offence shall have been committed shall become absolutely void." " Memoir s>i a Person of Quality," by Ashton Hilliers? It has passed down the stream ol books — such a full and hasty current ; yet Memory pauses and recaptures its flag, a gray ensign of good Gtuff, surely. And "As It Happened," by Ashton Hilliers (London : Hutchinton). This is a book so good : it must even be better. An historical novel of, the right sort, when there are so many of the wrong. Poor pretences of ingenuity, like the play of " Kitty Bellairs," they would dazzle us with trappings, and circumvent us with the charm of a romantic age. But of inner pitch and mettle, nothing ! No historical novel can be good that is not a novel in itself, that would not be good whatever the «ige its story were set in, and though all characters wore Quaker drab. .These qafs think to hide their dullness in a costume of masquerade, as if the mind" could not pierce below the eye. "As It Happened" .belongs nominally to the Georgian era, but the wit and worth belong to every era : do not miss it. A.nd it is- so long a book that you read and come again,- yet woven in one piece of the riglil cloth, compactly : half-a-crown is carped. There are lovable characters and gallant adventures, and a Scot's note to gladden the clan Chisliolm and others. To Ashton Hilliers, then, felicity, for his reiterated success, our renewed pleasure '