BY THE WAY.

Evening Star, Issue 19002, 25 July 1925, Page 2

BY THE WAY.

[By Q.V.]

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things.”

“ Swift ns a weaver’s shuttle go our years.” Capping Carnival Day has ■ been round again, while the echoes of last year’s revels have scarcely died in : our ears. On this occasion the sun smiled on the proceedings, though in 1 a somewhat thin and watery fashion, | and there was sufficient nip in the air ito make rapid movement joyous. The popularity of the capping . procession is beyond question. To see it matrons i leave their housework; young people ! suspend their vocations, with the tacit I consent of the “boss”j and evep ! grave and reverend seigniors leave for j a few minutes their magical incanta- ; tions, which will later on materialise | in motor cars and fine linen of Egypt i for their families. To the cynical tho : show is mere buffonery, a survival of I the spirit of our ancestors of simian I stock. Some folk are frankly delighted, i and pick out the caricatures of promi- : nent citizens with undisguised glee. . Others are filled with profound sadness | at the sight of these young men front- ! ing the great disillusionment of life !so gallantly; marching so .eagerly to- | wards tho world of maturity in which I so many will find I Neither joy, nor love, nor light, j Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help i from pain, | -And will think mournfully of their own i long deceased youth when they also I were full of the joy of life. Well, well, ! as the wise preacher said: “ There is a ! time for all things,’ ’capping carnivals | included. j** * * j During tho sittings of the University j Commission Professor Lawson tried to j beat tho reporters by referring lightly i to a “ pantosophist professor”; but a j reporter is not easily baffled. Pantoso- | phist is unknown to the smaller Oxi ford Dictionary, but we have a sus- ! picion that, reduced to its lowest com- | mon denominator, and translated, it j means a bloke as knows everything. I One feels some sympathy with tho Commission. Each and every witness, however divergent his or her views on other subjects, wanted something, usually either cash or its equivalent, for i the University. It is somewhat of a 1 surprise to most of us to learn that the | block of grey buildings in the north end costs nearly £60,000 a year to keep j up, and is likely to cost more. Acj cording to the witnesses, it is worth it. IDr Pickerlll unfolded a long list of I more or less eminent people who had j imbibed their learning on the banks of I tho Leith. Unfortunately they flitted to other streams as soon as their wings I were strong enough to carry them, and j considering the inducements ;to remain, one cannot blame them. The Stu- ' dents’ Union put in a diffident plea | for representation on _ the University I Council—the introduction of job coni tml in fact—but it has a lot to learn about tactics. A short course under Professor Tom AValsh, of Sydney, or even his able, if alien,_ itelleaguo, Mr | Johannson, would open its eyes a good deal.

Most of us are not very much interested in rubber. We do not own motor cars, and oly ride in taxis on state occasions, such as weddings and funerals. Possibly we may possess a hot water bag, but quite as likely a clean brick healed in the oven comforts us on frosty nights. So the boom in rubber docs not furnish us with' many thrills. We may, however, feel a mild satisfaction at tlie thought that our aged and impoverished parent, _ John 'Bull, lias at last had a small slice of luck. Father Pull is a great rubber planter, lie and the Dutch practically divide the rubber plantations between them. For many years rubber has been unpayable. Supply exceeded the demand, and the biggest buyer, Uncle Sam, lay back in Ins rocking chair, and laughed at “ the poor Indians whoso untutored minds ” impelled them to raise rubber in order to sell it to him under cost. Restriction _of output was tried, without any _ striking results. Prices, however, did move up a little, and the Dutch hastened to tap all their young trees in order to make hay while the sun shone. The young trees responded to this call on their immature powers by dying in large numbers, and now rubber is soaring. Uncle Sam finds himself obliged to pay the Britisher what the Britisher wants, and he does not like it. So ho asked his Secretary of State to step in and put a stop to a hateful monopoly. (No, not the kerosene and petrol monopoly, which is quite a beneficent affair, but the rubber one.) The Secretary, however, does not feel very hopeful, and the American fleet is in Australia, and if ho does anything drastic the Australians, .who are a turbulent people, may declare the licet black, and refuse to supply it with beer. It is to bo feared that Undo holds a poor hand.

Which side do you favor—the Riffs fighting gallantly lor their native soil and the right to rob and murder anyone who sets a sacrilegious foot on it, or the French, striving to confer on their brownish brothers the gifts of civilisation and the privilege of working in a copper mine for five and a-half paper francs a week? It is a nice point, and one which" "has not engaged the serious attention of the League of Tuitions. To that respected body, the Kills are mere rebels, quite outside argument. (And so they arc while they are the under dogs.) If they get a good leverage, and roll the White hopes underneath, the question of tho self-determination of small nations will immediately arise—and it may arise in any case. As. a parent, did you ever notice that the babe who howls tho loudest and longest gets tho most nourishment? “If at first you don’t succeed, cry, cry, cry again ” should lie tho motto of every self-respecting infant with its way to make in the world. It is the same with nations. The quiet, easy-going tribe that goes to Geneva with a bag full of grievances is patted on the head and given threepence to go borne in the tram,with. Tho small, but noisy and aggressive crowd may not got all it wants, but it will probably get all it hoped for, and perhaps more. Hut to return from this digression, if fate were so unkind as to confront you with the choice of being a Riff or a Frenchman, which would you be? Personally, we like the French, and sympathise with the French, and admire the French, hut in this particular case the Rill’s have it. Bad as they may bo, they staked out their claim first, and they' arc putting up a good fight for it.

In their palmy days the Homans wore a h»'fty folk, not much given to sentiand viewing tho arts with the cold indifference or a Presbyterian elder' reading the racing handicaps. Good fighting mcn,_ their stolid refusal to accept defeat in the end wore out even the brilliant genius of Hannibal. They might have gone on _ enjoying themselves after their fashion til! the present day had they_ not acquired wealth and the tired feeling. Their conquests brought them so many slaves that they abandoned toil and concentrated on amusing themselves. After that their inana departed. One of the first signs of their decay was the gradual disappearance of tho middle classes. A middle class may be stodgv, Philistine, and lacking in manners, but it has a powerful punch in times of trouble. Also it usually has a dim, confused kind of common sense, which mostly turns out to ho right in the long run. Something' of the same sort is happening nowadays. The middle class is being squeezed out of existence between, the

heavy masses of Capital and Labor, 'Capital has at last awakened to tho, fact, that Labor may be a serious dan* ger. It looks at Russia and trembles. Labor.) elated at having’ forced its_ way into prominence, and fully convinces that it has produced all things worth having, from tho Bible to Ford ears, is eager to climb up higher and sc* what the view is from the top. Mcanwliilo the plain person whom .nobod v gives'a thought to sees the handwriting on tho wall, and, though 1 , it is too faint as yot to be clearly distinguishable, he doesn’t like the look of it.