BY THE WAY

Evening Star, Issue 25324, 4 November 1944, Page 10

BY THE WAY

(Written by " X.Y.," for the ' Evening Star.') JUNK. The Poles have captured Predappio, Mussolini's birthplace.—Cable. The Poles are in Predappio, Where Mussolini saw the light. Perhaps they found his childhood's home. An entertaining sight. Perhaps they merely plodded on, Through wind and slush and rain, Just took an eyeful as they passed, And never looked again.

Which shows (I. grow sententious) The Hollowness of Human Fame; for Musso., once upon a time. Filled headlines with his name. Folk talked of him with bated breath, Discussing World Affairs, But what he's doing now—who knows? And who the dickens cares?

They've sentenced Greasy Pierre to death And justifiably, no doubt; He passed that sentence on de Gaulle (It's turn and turn about). But what's tho odds? if previous form Is any certain guide, He'll slither through their fingers by Committing suicide.

A plague on all excrescences! I care not where they first draw breath, Or how their latest puff's curtailed, By slow or sudden death. It really doesn't matter much Where Quisling lived when young Or whether Antonescu's shot, Beheaded, bombed, or hung.

While human kind is bad enough To bring such specimens to birth, They'll rise from corners, here and there, To vex poor Mother Earth. The Poles have seized Predappio; Take note and pass it by. That's where Benito lived at first. What does it signify? • • * «

However, it is the height of indecorum to permit symptoms of domestic differences to ipenetrate from the kitchen to the reception room where distinguished company is being entertained. This week Mr Forde and Dr Eva'tt are paying a return call to take up the threads of the Canberra Conference of fragrant memory. .They represent an Administration which also has its tribulations at the hands of maliciously frivolous trade unions, and has also recently had a rebuff at voters' hands. When the Commonwealth Government sought greater powers, the electors became staunch upholders of State Rights, and declared " No " at the (Referendum. Undeterred by this pointed reminder of an uuexalted estimation of its conduct of affairs, the Federal Government harbours ambitions for. extended scope. ]£it is a fact that Australia, with its seven two-chambered Parliaments, is over-engined for its beam, one obvious remedy is to increase the beam. Mr Forde thinks Australia should support a thirty-mil-lion population, and advocates building up to that figure with immigrants, beginning with' orphans.

Poor waifs! Especially if their first introduction is to the mother State and its strikingly arresting Capital. Even discounting, on the ground of the traditional Sydney-Melbourne animosity, the John Bunyan-esque diatribe of the moralising journalist the Melbourne ' Herald ' sent to Sydney to get the inside story of the newspaper strike, nobody can doubt that Sydney has many pitfalls for unsophisticated, youth, and even ambushes for wary elders. Mr Forde speaks of his country and ours having recently been oir the verge of disaster, having nearly been overrun by a ruthless enemy. Almost at the same moment in Sydney, Mr Fletcher, secretary of the National Union of Railwaymen, said at its annual meeting that the succession of " small, petty, useless strikes that could not, and were never intended to assist the workers " were the preliminary to open rebellion, and the disintegration of Australian Democracy in accordance with a Communist" plot. And he is corroborated by a .number of other social philosophers.

Mr Fraser has outlined the agenda of the Wellington talks—security, aviation, money, food production and distribution, etc. As New Zealand is exhibiting an industrial rash similar- to that which is tormenting New South Wales, it might be as well to discuss one more item, viz., the proper place of the trade union in the political Labour movement. It has been largely through manipulation of the trade unions—or, more euphemistically, through the utilisation of union organi-. sation —that Labour-has achieved office in both Australia and New Zealand. Now the bill has been presented, and a peculiarly obnoxious and unscrupulous concern has arrogated to itself the function of a debt-collecting agency on behalf of the reputed creditor. It is an old, old story, repeated from the beginnings of civilisation. A harassed' country invites a third party to come over and help to eject an invader; the call is answered; and, when the job is done, the ex-ally becomes the dominant power and remains indefinitely in occupation. It is not, however, on these grounds that one feels only lukewarm about a .project for the assisted immigration of orphans. The main point is whether \\-e could accommodate them, and give them a fair start in life, not by adding to the congestion of our cities—Auckland, for example—

Appendicitis ranks fourth highest in fatal diseases (on recent American figures) in the 5 to 14 (school child) age group. The highest cause of fatality in this class in a normal year was motor vehicle accidents. On those figures the acute respiratory and abdominal diseases are our greatest enemies up to 24 years of age. After that, and up to the middle forties, tuberculosis contests the leading position with heart disease. After the middle forties heart arterial disease and cancer leap ahead of all contestants. Friday, November 3. Practical points from this week's reading:— Treating a Cold.—" The time-hon-oured treatment of rest at home during the first day of a cold is still the most effective way known to medical science of shortening the duration of a cokl and of preventing complications. If there is fever, rest in bed is imperative, for The cold may be the first stage of a more serious infection." Sleepy Children.—" It is obvious that a child or adolescent who must be wakened has not had his fill of sleep and should go earlier to bed." Parent-lore.—" An over-anxious parent makes a problem out of a normal child. .Most parents caused their parents as much concern as their children cause them." Names in this diary fictitious. (Copyright.)

hut by decentralisation, hy opening up the country in the full, genuine sense of the term. A redistribution of population is as much needed as a redistribution of wealth. The two should go well in double harness.

Meanwhile the Japs, in nearest geographical proximity are turning their SAVords into ploughshares. Australia's Intelligence Department reports that tho by-passed garrisons at Rabaul, and elsewhere adjacent to Now Guinea, are busily engaged in farm work. Cut off from sea-borne supplies, they must keep the wolf from the door. No doubt they have not entirely abandoned the hope that; their temporary occupation will ultimately merge into permanency. Such hope would be_ only natural, for behind Japan's vision of a " NewOrder " was the insistent pressure of a hundred million population existing, miserably., for the most part, under " standing room only " conditions. Her problem is the inverse of Australia's and ours, and her defeat would still leave it unsolved. In view of America's peppery reaction to the Canberra deliberations it might be injudicious if Pacific affairs such as this were treated in anything but a very tentative fashion at the Wellington talks. Contenting ourselves with the interim report that "substantial progress was made on all points," and expressing the pious hope that such a concentration of wise heads will " find a formula," we observe in passing that Mr Barclay (of "Rats, Rabbits, ;and Ragwort " celebrity) is temporarily with us again, scouring the Country for maize and other stock fodder. If he can wait he might retrieve long-stored biscuits from dumping, or he might try getting into touch with Rabaul for its export surplus.

About five years ago a book appeared giving character sketches of a dozen or more potential vanquishers of the German army, navy, and Luftwaffe. So far as one of our Allies was concerned the selection of heroes was most unfortunate. They all disappeared from the scene pi'ematurely. Some have long since paid the penalty; others are on the " wanted " list. Presumably the author was unaware that, even as he was writing his "boost" biographies, in the Government offices in Paris some of the subjects of his pen were organising France's betrayal. To him the debunking must have been a painful spectacle. Weeding out has since been continued mostly by Hitler; but the most recent expbsure of the feet of clay has been on the Allied side. It makes one wonder whether, in due time, when she has finished in the West, Russia will turn East and complete a job she began long ago. It .now seems an accepted fact that in the summer of 1939 an undeclared war was fought between major forces of the Soviet Eastern Siberian army and the Japanese Manchurian army, along the MongolianManchurian frontier, its culmination being at Khalin-gol, where the Japanese suffered total defeat. Strategists tell us that Japan's vulnerable spot is at her back-door'on the Asiatic mainland. Already Russia has pencilled in a post-war date with Persia, concerning oil optidns, and she may keep a shot in the locker for the other purpose above mentioned.

What is there about politics which breeds in its high priests such a sublime self-confidence? Mr Peter Fraser's comments on the Awarua poll oozed complacency. No Nationalist expected Ministers to gnash their teeth or tremble at the knees because the turnover of a seat could not be announced at Winton by the returning officer; but the easy unconcern with which a really significant affair was by-passed extorts the admiration of all beholders. Towing a string of dubious achievements, in which some recently-disclosed costly failures figure prominently, the head of the Government assures all and sundry of its intention and competence to carry on the good work and to continue to merit the overwhelming confidence reposed in it by the people. And sometimes, with Mr Fraser, performance (follows fast oil the heels of promise.

For, to all appearance, no 60oner liad a conscientious reporter, burdened with the by-election song of near-victory, been shown the Ministerial door, than the clerk of the Executive Council was summoned, and yet one more Order in Council was drafted. It was gazetted promptly. Its subject was overtime rates of pay—reinstation of the "treble" scale. Labour Day had just passed, but not all workers went to the races or took the day off to attend those rendezvous where win-and-piaco degrees are conferred iu absentia. They must be reimbursed. Thus the new Order in Council bore the authentic stamp of the pet design of the master artificer: It was retrospective in its operation. The combination of these two instruments of law-making is as devastating as that of. dive-bombers and tanks in the 1940 European blitzkrieg. The Auckland Harbour Board thus finds that it owes its employees £2,325 for overtime accrued in the 18 months period ended in June last.

The Government prolfesses its total immersion in post-war rehabilitation. Some impatient returned soldiers are inclined to agree. When the first effusive gestures of welcome have died down they become apprehensive lest they slip, via " directed " casual employment here, there, and anywhere, into a position of mere vagrancy. (Already in Britain there are reports of ex-servicemen roaming the country without health, clothes, or jobs.) ]f total immersion be too prolonged, drastic treatment is necessary to produce signs of returning animation. This week some was resorted to. At Newton, Auckland, the premises in which disabled ex-servicemen were being trained in handicrafts were exposed to public view as a prime sample (jf a constituent item of an insanitary slum. The alacrity with which the august patient recovered consciousness and got busy was the choicest sample of a bustled bureaucracy yet seen here.

Has it ever occurred to our self-satis-fied rulers that, as part of their much advertised, and very necessary, task, they might seek to rehabilitate themselves in the esteem of the employing classes in the community? At present these hardly know where they stand, as can easily be imagined ifrom the retrospective wages bills with which they are liable to be presented. On the other hand, the Government leaves unturned no stone to ascertain precisely where every employer stands, and the employers contribute both directly and indirectly to the cost involved. Office staffs comprise employees exclusively engaged iu satisfying officialdom's insatiable thirst for intimate detail. That is a direct 'charge. As taxpayers the employers pay indirectly to maintain the Civil servants who assimilate and tabulate all this information. _ That it may, later on be used to facilitate the running of their " acquired " business when the State Socialism programme is launched in earnest does not sweeten the present strained relationship.