By the Way

Evening Star, Issue 23451, 16 December 1939, Page 3

By the Way

(By XY )

VERSAILLES AND ALL THAT. If the Russian swipes the Finn, Blame the Treaty; If he doe* the Polak in, Blame the Treaty; If the little Baltic States Have to open all their, gates At the Soviet’s dictates, 1 It’s the Treaty. , ■What made,Franco rise in Spain? Just the Treaty. Why on earth was Dolfuss slain ? ' , ' ’Twas the Treaty. / Why did Hitler, prone toi vex, Plant his foot upon the necks Of the Austrians and Czechs? Well—the. Treaty. Ton must not blame anything But the Treaty. When the world’s a-simmering. It’s the Treaty. ■ If the Eskimo and Lapp "Were to stage a vicious scrap For the top end bf the map— Knock the Treaty. If there’s riot in Peru, Smell the Treaty; Or a strike at Timbuctoo 5 ; (Drat the Treaty!) If the folk of Bucharest Cock a snook at Budapest, Or Benito thumps his chest— There’s your Treaty! For the causes of the slump, •- ■ See the Treaty. For -that'chronic Irish hump, Search the Treaty. For the'twentieth century Blues . And the troubles. of the Jews, You’ve the easiest of clues In the Treaty. If a single thing goes wrong .It’s the Treaty. If my fork should break a prong, • . . , Why—the Treaty! , If my collar stud should burst Or another, horse come first, There is nothing to be cursed But the Treaty. Oh, a lamentable crime Was the Treaty. We have spent a rotten time , . Since the Treaty. For‘a score of years till now There’s beem nothing but a row, With' its why and where and how, In the Treaty.; Yet, perhaps, it is a shame, Re this Treaty, To be laying'all the blame On the Treaty. For, when nations play the deuce, It distinctly has its use. It’s a glorious excuse, - Is the Treaty! * ' * , • . ♦ It 'cannot yet be said for certain whether Mr H. M., Bateman has begun work on a comic page 'entitled • The Man Who Was Too Thorough.’ The model himself has suggested sundry poses. No. 1- is ‘ With Pick Shovel.’ In those salad days there were neither bulldozers nor even motor lorries. Therefore a patient horse submits to. a shower of spoil over his rump, and as far forward, as his saddle, which the shuttle-emulating shovel, of the energetic ball of 'muscle 'distributes impartially aloft. The horse is too astute to ‘protest. If a sense of proportion and of direction guided and restrained this, human, geyser the dray would be ■filled in two minutes instead ot the customary twelve, . meaning _ for the Least of burden far too brief spells between haulage effort along the friendly road to the dump. In the middle distance is an offsider from the smithv ‘ with a dozen pick heads threaded oh a- handler-enough to last the b.o.m. until crib time. _ Pose No. 2,is ‘ The Axeman. .The top-hamper of , a noble tree is describing its quivering quadrant-from vertical to horizontal about the pivotal, butt, though‘not before the ringing axe blade has bitten a deep scarf out of the trunk of another monarch of the glen. The b.0.m.. has the forest to himselt. The standing-chop champions of Tasmania. Daylesford, the West Coast,.and Southland have alj taken cover _ from the hail ,of flying chips, big as billets, which radiate from this. super-heated machine gun. Demolition gangs ot feathered songsters, are tearing nests to pieces for immediate transport to trees in some other watershed, for there is no knowing whether there •will be time to lay another egg, let along hatch it, ere it is pulp for the gratified palates of ground vermin. On the horizon" a Crown lands ranger departs with trepidation arid precipitancy for Wellington to urge the Forestry Department to treble the royalties on timbergetting and reinforce tenfold the gangs engaged in tree planting, lest New Zealand he entirely denuded of any plant life except' the detested second growth.'”' Had Mr Nash then been in office the alarmed Civil servant would also have implored him to extend the hardware embargo to edged tool*.

On the same Sunday' evening, with tut a twist of the dial, we listened hlso' to the man who was afraid that he had! not been thorough 'enough. Like Prosperity, lurking so long just round _ the last Government’s, corner, Utopia is disinclined to come out into the open on tie'; coaxing of this ■ present Government. It cannot be said to be skulking; round .the . corner;, but there are machines' about, and it has a rooted aversion to machinery (including Mr Semple’s collection P). Mr Savage says that, if machines butt in and lower the standard of living after the Government has sown broadcast, raised wages, and shortened the hours of work, then the Government must again pensions and wages and further reduce the hours of work. There is nothing like being thorough. It requires: pertinacity, which some people call obstinacy. If from that fount of: bitter beer, Burton-on-Trent —whither the clearing house of the English banks has been transferred for the duration T-renewed hints should come that Mr Savage should drop some of his Utopian schemes, he has his answer ready: “More of them, and bigger onesstill.” The only alternative appears to be a machinery-wreck-ing crusade,'and no one knows where, once started, it will stop. It mightembrace broadcasting studios as well as newspaper offices, N.Z.R. locomotives as well as express companies’ trucks, clicking machines for running shoes as well as for bluchers, stopping only at the foot of the throne of “ The Machine ” itself. For if there were no Tote to make the odds, bur “ boobies ” would be all at sea. The Hundred Days already has its place in history. The unknowns on whose behalf the German Freedom Radio station operates want to usurp the title with their ultimatum to iVdolph the ascetic, who at the moment seems to be what retired publicans call “ living privately.” It is one thing to unleash the dogs of war; it is^quite

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, u To talfc of many things

a specified time. What would Hermann have to say about it, especially the clause demanding the surrender of Germany to the Germans? Designated next, Fuhrer in succession, he would stand to gain by the exit of Hitler, but would stand to lose everything under clause 2. When Gilbert conceived Pooh Bah he probably imagined that the long bow could be no further stretched in the matter of lucrative sinecures, but he reckoned without Goering. Nazidom, the world’s greatest tragedy, is in one aspect more comic than comic opera. There is, for example, the compulsion put on Krupps and on Skoda (“ under entirely new management ”) by the new monopolistic newspaper barons of the, Reich to advertise their patent medicines for the rejuvenation of mankind, full page the minimum space order.

After considerable ransacking of brain there is only one more appointment that “ X.Y.” can think of to round off Goering’s comprehensive list; and it has unfortunately an international flavour. It is a seat _on . the ■directorate of the Suez Canal, the lordly remuneration without compensatory duties should appeal to Hermann, while the consideration that the canal, ' from its financial aspect, “may register the high-water mark of robbery within the law ’’ (to quote an opinion from a most reputable source) should prove no deterrent whatever. Such an announcement would appropriately mark, the seventieth anniversary of the opening Of . the canal, which dell in the present year of -grace. Its history extends oyer dar mbre than the thousand years, which the Nazis promise a sceptical world for their regime. Seti the First began work on ft about 1500 b.c. The Pharaoh of the Bible spent 120,000 men’s lives on ’it and only desisted . when the oracles claimed that it wpuhh endanger the State bv allowing the . Barbarians access. Napoleon did considerable survey work upon it. Glamour, enough, surely, to warrant the devising of .a new uniform, or at'least a livery, dor the periodical attendance to draw the honorarium—once the appointment is ratified! # # , # ■

I am a common citizen,Obscure—you see—and hurablei But none the less—just now and then— I love my little grumble. • When Seddoh ruled in olden days I grumbled at. his ways. . I registered some discontent At Ward’s succeeding Government, And Massey’s, after him. n j When Forbes and Coates controlled the House I had my customary grouse. _ I do the same for Michael Joe, . Dan, Peter, Walter, Tim, and to., And even- Uncle Sorim.

Don’t think , from these remarks I’ve made - ' . (By way of explanation, _ , ' That growling is the stock in trade Of all my conversation. I never shall become, I hope, • A surly, sulky-misanthrope; , And, customarily, I wear A tolerably cheerfulair — Not peevish or malign. Some people’s countenances are ' tike lemon 1 juipe or vinegar;, 1 Some people’s characters recall , Quinine —or Epsom salts—or gall; But certainly, not mine. But I possess this, liberty, However mean my station—, _■ To grumble at the Powers that Be In public conversation. ; ~,! I heed not, when I speak my mind. Block up the keyhole, draw the blind, Turn out the children, sack the maid, Because I’m very much afraid Of anybody squealing. 0.g.p.u., s;S;, s.A. Arc somewhere else, and, far away; And, consequently, such as I And you, .are free to gratify Our Democratic feeling.

We growl at this, we growl at that; Yet, none the less, the fact is That every holiest Democrat Enjoys this cheerful practice ' Of chipping at the Men in Power; But when the inky storm clouds lower* '7. When catastrophic threats arc hurled Around an apprehensive world, And guns begin to rumble ; . When hordes of Yes-men, Brown or Red, , Are hailing some fantastic Head, , The worried Democrat will curse ; His rulers—and—for fear of-worse— Defend his right to grumble ! ’ • • • • Sporadic evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, doctors can be companionable fellows when they leave, the consulting room, move about,: and occasionally descend to political discussion. Sir Wilfred Grenfell, of Labrador, is one of them. He visited the .Orient and wrote a book about it. He met Gandhi and liked and respected him. But this is what he wrote:— He (Gandhi) deplores scientific advances and mechanical achievement. . . . It (‘Swaraj’); had no reference,to the balancing of India’s revenue and experiditure, or he would have offered some constructive suggestion as to how the self-government ,of which he speaks could be profitably carried out, before venturing on the removal of .the structure on which it all rests at present. . . . To many of, the ignorant, however,. it has come to mean that all India, needs in. order to reach her millennium is immediately to turn out the English, and then Mr Gandhi’s ‘Raj’ is synonymous with “food without work, rest without intermission, and the right to your rich neighbour’s property.’’ Gandhi’s methods have had several years of trial . . .. but the proof of the pudding is after all in the eating. Murders, strikes, riots, fanatical religious barbarities, misery, suffering, and setbacks, to education and general prosperity, all have been direct outcomes of the methods of propagandists using Mr Gandhi’s name. The above quotation has no-bearing on any of the other paragraphs in this week’s column. It has been introduced in a humble effort to remedy a deficiency recently complained of, by a visitor from India, who found the newspapers of New Zealand to be somewhat starved of information concerning the brightest jewel in the Imperial British Crown. t # t

At ' the time of writing rain threatens. May it come before the holidays, avoiding the excesses reported from the Hutt Valley and the Wairau Valiev. For it is badly needed, both bv stock and by households whose roofs are “ dual purpose ’’—shelter and catchment. Statistics show that though we are halfway through the last month of the. year, the rainfall

our annual average. Why, then, does the soil remain so moist below the dusty, cloddy surface? Possibly because of the big snowfall last winter. Apparently the rain gauges ignore snow. It was paradoxical that when it was snowing intermittently day and night the weather columns in the papers nonchalantly recorded: “RamiaHduring,hoHM, f$* L