POSTSCRIPTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 31, 5 August 1940, Page 6

POSTSCRIPTS

Chronicle and Comment

BY PERCY FLAGE

News note: The Nazis are requisitioning pigs in Denmark for their own use. The swine! * * * ■ Mussolini's warriors certainly do • stand to their guns • . . when the - other fellow is unarmed. * ■ * * : Harihaha: Thinking over the news that comes from and about the Vichy Government suggests something about ; the word vitiated. * * * Fun in the news (provincial news- ■ peper)1. "He (Guy Menzies) was sent . to watch Haile Selassie, who gave him to his wife." GUNNER. * ♦ • . SHIPS IN WARTIME. Smoke-stacks red and smoke-stacki white, Smoke-stacks buff or blue, Upper works all shining bright, ; Flags of varied hue; 3 So our ships came into port, such, ft r brave display; - So our ships sailed out again, proud I and big and gay. Now in rusty black or brown, or grey of dingy tone, Do our ships slip in and out, unheralded, unknown; But brave as ever are our ships, though gone their gay display, While those who sail aboard them are as staunch and true as they. C.E.N. * ♦ • ♦ OH, YEAH! The food shortage on the Continent is reaching serious proportions. In Germany there is such a scarcity of bread that they have to butter it on both sides to make it cut into presentable slices. Wholemeal bread is to 5 be replaced by hole-meal bread. i In Italy, it is said, Mussolini has is- - sued a' decree calling in all the exist* ; ing stocks of macaroni for the purpose ) of having them rebored to a larger ; diameter. All new macaroni is to 3 be manufactured with a larger bore than hitherto, to economise in raw i materials. Owing to the scarcity of » proper machines the wood boring grub 1 (equivalent to the New Zealand uhu) i is to be utilised for this purpose. J HUGH MERUS. (But is not macaroni sold by weight? P.F.) (It was formerly, but now it is sold by the "wait." —H.M.) * * ♦ WEEK'S WAILING. Dear Mr. Flage,—What's the world coming to? Once upon a time there was a still, small voice crying in the wilderness—today there are many voices, but they avail nothing. Germany protests against Britain defending herself. France protests against Britain dumping waste-paper in—what is left of France. • > Britain protests' against Rumania doing something she didn't orter. Some Dutch soldiers are alleged to , f have got haurangi and to have xxxfiffzzWzjmbjavashwho'osh inpology —well, can't a soldier have a long beer without someone protesting? Lord Perth resigned as a protest, because he "worked for his life" and the Ministry of Information didn't know it. : '■■' '" -r^i--The Manawatu referees have protested because M.R.U. wouldn't, take their word for it. • City residents protest against someone tomahawking trees at Wadestown. (Can't blame George this time!) . . . R. TAL * * . * BRAIN-TEASERS. On Saturday we asked our clients for a free evening for the nonce, since we had a home rendezvous with this and that. Only two overlooked the request. Others waited until Sunday morning and late' afternoon to ring their solutions. However, everything went smoothly; several Postscripters who had an idea that Sunday would find us heavy with a "hangover" were relieved to know that we were gardening like anything from 7 a.m. on the Sabbath. Stoney and Wise Guy, the Saturday culprits, had both solutions pat. The next day Mrs. Harriet of Hataitai, Amos Minus Andy, Annie (Taita), R.J.W., Efpee, Diana, M., Mornington, K.G., and Just Me rang up both answers. Silva and Teaser found No. 2 easy but No. 1 not so easy. However, there is always tomorrow. No. 1 was one we put over this burg some years ago, and it went like a prairie fire; more about that event later on. * . ♦ • • - . "WOODMAN, SPARE THAT TREBP Stately queens of the woodland, Tall, strong mother-trees, With your fair seedling-children Crowding close round"your kneesGive now of your offspring To the children of men, To transplant them and tend them In garden and glen— That the free gift of Nature, The rich native wood, Be yet dear to the land Where the grand forest stood,— Ere the lust to destroy, Ere the folly of man, Had ravaged our hills, As but humankind can. Let youth's eager hand. Work now to replace Those lords of the forest, In their glory and grace; And the work shall give joy, From beginning to end— For each tree that he rears Is a man's faithful friend. A* "My father was a huge man fof planting—it was like a merrymaking to him to get a cart full of young trees." —Mr. Tulliver in "The Mill oa the Floss." * * * PREMIERS WHO ARE 1 NOT PRIME. Tell M.: Why do speakers and writers continue the error and (worse offence still) sub-editors permit the mistake to pass them into print of calling ordinary Premiers by the dignified title of Prime Ministers? Every time Lord Craigavon is mentioned the filler-in of the cable dubs him Prime Minister. In recent broadcasts and issues of our newspapers the Premiers of the Balkan States who went to Berlin at the whistle of the Master of the Hounds were titled Prime Ministers. They are not. The title Prime Minister is due only to statesmen in control of nations that have overseas possessions. Mr. Fraser is Ifrime Minister because New Zealand has territory in the Pacific. Ulster has no territory outside Northern Ireland,, therefore Lord Craigavon is not a Prime Minister. Even A. G. MacDonnell, broadcasting from the 8.8.C.. gave Yugoslavia, Rumania, and Bulgaria Prime Ministers! You may not be right The "Statesi man's Year Book," which is a fairly authoritative publication, uses the term Prime M/.iister in almost every ft* stance, including all those you mention except Bulgaria. The' Oxford dt«* tionary makes no such distinction *• [you set out.