CASUAL COMMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 20292, 28 September 1929, Page 2

CASUAL COMMENTS

OLD AHD HEW WAYS [By Leo Fanning.] Witchery waits by the lonely ways With sort-eyed ghosts of other days; And down old paths where young feet went Faith, with her open testament, Walks with Love through the gold and greys Of old-time ways, dear old-time ways, Tho look in his face of long-gone Mays. —Madison Cawein, in ‘ Far Away and Never Near.’

When a man is old enough to remember well the ways of other days, but is not too old for an active interest in the new order, life can have for him a very pleasant richness, oven if his deposits and withdrawals at the bank cause no excitement in financial circles.

When I began this column my pen promised to rush quickly to the end, for no writer could wish for an easier subject than ‘ Old and New Ways.' There was only oho difficulty: the matter was too easy; it had too many lines on which thought could run. Just ponder a few moments on the possibilities—old and new courtship, old and new dances old and new toys, old and new joys, old and new friends, old and new foods, old and now fads, old and new books, old and new philosophies, old and new politics, old and new transport, old and new Saturdays, old and new Sundays. Well, is it not like setting out to write a brief history of humanity P

Of course, those old paths mentioned by Madison Cawein would be bordered with lavender and rosemary, and all about would be a wildness of foliage and_ flowers—tho old-fashioned wildness against which the hand and art of mod ern gardening are sternly set. And what of the lovers in that fragrant garden of other days ? Perhaps shyly holding hands and exchanging glances of an almost timid tenderness. Occasionally there were rapid runs to the altar, but courtship was usually a gradual and sedate process, with much anxiety and anguish in one heart or tho other, or in both, before the “ Mr ” and the “ Miss ” melted under love’s torch into the Christian names.

But to-day things go at a greater gallop. If one can believe the comic papers, a girl may be engaged to Bill ” before she knows his surname. And next day “ Bill ” may be discarded, and the loving heart will be handed to “ Tom.” However, the marriage statistics are much tho same now as they were many years ago.

Some clergy evidently believe that this age is mainly notable for a pleasure craze, but one way and another tho world is working very hard, very keenly, and very importantly to-day. Behind the scenes of jollity and jazz, business is keener than ever. The standards of service are being constantly raised. That unappeasable demon of efficiency is ever prodding humanity for more progress. Things will not stand still. “ On, on—or out,” pitiless Efficiency cries—and so the manufacturer has to put his mind to quality, more quality, and still more quality. It is the same kind of drive in all professions.

Consider the newspapers, for example. Look into an old file dating well back to the horse epoch. It was enough then to put up one colourless heading or two over three or four columns of a solid report—slabs of unfeatured type The public then bad the time and patience for a close reading of long chronicles. There were not so many cheap books and magazines, not many “ shows ” in town, no radio, no motors. A man could settle down with his pipe for a very Jong seance with his newspaper—but things are very different to-day. The journalists have to he as resourceful as the makers of patent medicines and beautifying powders and ! pastes in setting their news before the ! hurry-scurry readers.

Old Saturdays when the city shops had not the half-holiday! I have a very vivid memory of near-by bushy-bearded farmers who came to town early in the morning with cartloads of live poultry or young pigs for the auction yards. They based themselves on cosy inns, which had space for carts and horses. They had some very merry hours in the afternoon and evening, and drove home singing. Those Saturday nights, with the bars open until 11 o’clock, were full of sound, mixed with some fury.

Saturday nowaday is not a very serious working time for thousands of business men. The short morning is a kind of hasty preparation for the week-end. A shrewd person does not try to make business appointments for Saturday morning. In the afternoon the only movement in the city streets is of persons hurrying outward.

In several little towns of the Northland (far beyond Auckland city) and in Dunedin one may still see survivals of the _ old-time Sunday morning—whole families going churchwards. Even in Wellington it is reported that • the churches have fair-sized congregations on Sunday mornings, but the streets have rather the appearance of holidaymaking than church-going. There is a big rush in trams, trains, motors, and steamers to beaches qnd woodlands.

Opportunism has always been a feature of politics, but there is inevitably more of it in modern times. All parties claim that their houses are fixed firmly on deep-sot granite foundations of principle, hut they are all obliged to give heed to changing fancies anci notions of the public. There is a tendency among modern politicians to play on the surface of things and to take short views in national avenues.

A retired editor remarked to me that many years ago, when current affairs did not furnish him with a subject for an easy editorial, ho could always turn to ‘ Hansard.’ ‘ The statesmen in those days,” ho said, “ always dug into their subjects. They read widely and deeply. They marshalled facts and figures from the best sources. * Hansard ’ was a most useful bulwark for the_ journalist.” To-day the journalist is rather the bulwark for ‘ Hansard.’

Old party issues of New Zealand politics have mostly gone. What will be the, new ones? Will the tariff —the question of a strong encouragement of New Zealand manufacturing industries —bo the main dividing line in future? New _ Zealand has reached its present position of development principally on the policy of a maximum export of primary produce. Is that the best policy for the New Zealand of, say, a half-century or a century hence? Must the old way of national living bo modified by a new way? These are hard questions to answer, but they will have to be studied some day.

Some of the new ways in education are not as good as the old ways. The old systems had their defects, of course,

but they gave a good grounding in necessary subjects. To-day some “authorities” have a stupid doctrine against “ learning by rote.” Even the alphabet in some schools is cut out of the rote course. Why? If ever there is a time when it is beneficial for the young folk to learn as much as possible by rote it is in the early years of school life, when the tablets of memory can take a permanent, impress easily. 'Think of soft concrete. It is_ easy to make marks on it with the tip of a feather, hut. the hard stuff calls for_ a chisel. Well, the young human brain is like that soft concrete. That is one reason why various religious bodies are having schools of their own.