Evening Post. TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1922. THE VALUE OF HUMOUR

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 13, 17 January 1922, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 1922. THE VALUE OF HUMOUR

In the lectures which he delivered at Yale University in April l?ist on " Some of the Conditions and Responsibilities of Journalism," My._ Richard Hooker, the of the Springfield Republican, entered an interesting plea for the value of humour to the world at all times, but especially in such a period of stress and strife as that through which we are' now passing. As for the newspaper comic, he said, while for some reasons I am inclined to wish that it had never been con-' ceived, I cannot help thinking how much in these days the whole world needs to laugh. In a lecture course founded in memory of a Yale wit and philosopher, Isaac H. Bromley, who has been so well and so affectionately described by another Yale wit and philosopher, Colonel Osborn, it is neither inappropriate nor wholly fanciful to suggest what would be the gain to- humanity if some Prime Minister or President could crack a stupendous, joke, human but not unkind, that should travel round the world and set it laughing for a day.

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Congressman Barksdale, of Mississippi, whose auburn hair, hanging to hvs shoulders in statesmanlike locks, had been the unsuspected-envy and admiration of the House, had been stripped of his glory at the first passage, and stood revealing to his associates a head as bald as a billiard ball, while his wig lay at his feet. Grasping the wig in the frenzy of his . embarrassed exposure, he had clapped it on wrong side foremost, concealing his blushes under the locks that should have been in the rear, and still revealing those less beautiful lines of his skull instead of the mobility of his brow.

It is fortunate that at the Washington Conference passions never ran so high as to demand such a solution as this, but unofficial America has now made a notable contribution towards the relief of the bitter feeling excited by one of its problems along the lines stipulated by Mr. Hooker—viz., by cracking " a stupendous joke, human but not unkind, that should travel round the world and set it laughing for a day." M. Briand's^ attempt to bring humour to bear on the painful position created by his attitude to the naval issue was worse than ti failure. It was an aggravation of the original offence.1 "If Britain must have capital ships to fish for sardines," he said, " France must have submarines to examine the flora at the bottom of the sea." There is no healing in the wings of such a joke as that. Not healing but " rubbing it in," not relief but aggravation, not the laughter ( that conciliates and unites but the sneer that separates and rankles, is the function of humour of this kind. "Men ought," says Bacon, " to find the difference between saltness and bitterness. Certainly he that hath a satirical vein, as he maketh others afraid of his wit, so he had need be afraid of others' memory." Sarcasm is derived from a verb meaning to tear flesh and to gnash the teeth, and international sarcasm is surely the most dangerous species of all.

When Mr. Balfour concluded his reply to an impudent Soviet Note with the remark that "he never for a moment questioned the complete efficacy of Soviet methods for making rich men poor; it is in the more difficult task of making poor men richer that failure is lo be feared," he was gravely taken to task by The Times for "his impropriety. Not on trie Soviet's account, but on /Mr. Balfour's, one may agree with this criticism. There is something to be said for Bacon's desire to exempt all " matters of State " from jesting if the jesting be of this kind. Where Mr. Balfour perhaps sttunfeled and M. Briarid blundered egregjoußly, Mr. : geary, Forg

has scored a brilliant success. Mr. Ford did well six years ago when his Ship of Peace, with its cargo of doves, sailed from New York amid the laughter of the world to coo the Kaiser into reason and persuade him to lay down his arms. But on that occasion there was an undertone of irritation and even execration to mar the chorus which is entirely absent now.

The offer to purchase the French fleet —not the obsolete or obsolescent vessels, but the whole fleet as a going concern—is pure gold. Had. it been tainted with the faintest suspicion of sarcasm or even foolery; it would have been not funny, but impudent. But the proposal is obviously as genuine.as the Ship of Peace and jußt as devoid of humour, except that of the unconscious and therefore most delightful kind. Mr. Ford has no desire to ■ haggle about the price. In 1852 Germany put her fleet up to auction, and got 1,600,000 florins for it. France would doubtless expect a better price to-day, but Mr. Ford, who, without allowing for the immense appreciation of the dollar, put up ten times this amount the other day to save a friend from, bankruptcy, will not worry about the figure as long as France will deliver the goods. His only stipulation is that there shall be no reservations; he must have all the goods or nothing. Here at last we have the joke for which" Mr. Hooker asked—"a stupendous joke,<human but not unkind, that should travel round the world and set ifc laughing for a day."