PASSING NOTES.

Huntly Press and District Gazette, Volume XV, 24 July 1931, Page 1

PASSING NOTES.

“There’s a ehiel amang ye takin notes} T faith he’ll prent it.”

By

“THE CHIEL.”

Good pro and con arguments regarding protection may be got from the experience of North America. The U.S.A., wanting to keep its home ft res buring, erected a skyscraper tariff. This hit Canada, her best customer, very hard. Then Canada erected a skyscraper tariff and kept out Uncle Sam’s notions, giving him a nasty wallop. His capitalists opened branches in Canada, where things at present are not so black as in the greatest nation on earth. Americans say, “See what the tariff has cost us, shifting our factories over the line;” while Canadians will say, “See what it has done for us, giving us all those new factories,” Now from the above experience, you can argue both ways, for and against protection. Mr. Poison’s idea of running New Zealand as a sort of co-operative concern with everyone pulling his weight would be a good subject for a debating society; but hardly seems to come within the range of practical politics. So far as I can see, disunion instead of co-operation is spreading through the community; every one is feeling the pinch; and every section of the community is earnestly calling upon other sections to save the country; the farmers blame the manufacturers and protection; the workers blame the capitalists; the capitalists blame the workers, and everybody blames the Government. The welding of these discordant factions into one harmonious whole is too big a job for anyone but a Mussolini—and we can’t find a Mussolini. The question whether a book which is a best seller is also a longest liver, seems to call generally for a negative answer. To-day Edgar Wallace turns out best sellers by the dozen; so did Charles Garvice, Pierce Egan, and others, absolutely unknown to-day. Dickens and Scott were best sellers, and will live long; but there was not such a voracious market in their day. Of course the two best sellers in the world are the Bible and the Koran, the former with a long lead; and they promise to be eternal. Among the books upon which I browsed as a boy and youth was a first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, dated 1770, or 17S6— somewhere about the time America and Britain separated. It had all the science of the day, but quite different science from to-day’s. There was no ether; heat and light were small particles thrown off at inconceivable speeds by hot and luminous bodies, and so on. In 150 years our science will be as much out of date as that of 1776. This should be a lesson to those who talk as if our science had settled things for ever. The story of Robinson Crusoe and the Spanish galleon is a good example of the value of money. Crusoe found on the wreck chests of ducats, doubloons, pearls, and gems—the whole caboodle of Spanish treasure. After looking at it, he said he would have gladly swapped the lot for a pair of spatterdashes—a kind of shoe popular in his day. Value depends upon desire and need. You get some wonderful information from the correspondence columns of a newspaper where I read the other day that there is a man in Auckland who would have every one in New 7 Zealand hard at work in six months if only he got the job of Prime Minister. One alw'ays hears a lot about the winners at the races; but little about the thousands of losers. This oneeyed view of things runs through life. Many people fancy that if only the big salaries and incomes were cut dow r n to Jack Lang’s £SOO a year, everyone would strike a huge divvy. Nothing of the sort! If all the surplus income above £SOO a year earned in New Zealand was whacked up amongst the workers, and poor cockies, it would take it all its time to give them a couple of quid a year each. The Rainbow End, called the Standard of Living, varies greatly in different places and climes. I have heard a missionary say that he had seen an African buried with all his wealth, a bowl, a spoon, a fishing net, a spear; and he was a bit of an aristocrat among his people. There is a Latin story about Balbus, the epicure, who committed suicide when his steward told him there was only £BO,OOO of his fortune left. When the nephew who was his heir, heard of the fortune left him. he died of joy. The story is probably ben trovato; but it has a moral. Providence always provides a compensation. Australia in the dumps has Jack Lang given to *it to amuse it. A University professor whose researches carried him into the compensation question, was once riding in an Irish jaunting car, and explained the compensation theory at length to the jarvey. “Begob; you’re roight, (

sorr!” said Pat, “I never saw a man with one leg shorter than the other, but the other wasn’t longer to make up for it.” So the headmaster of Rugby complains of the low intelligence of the British people and hints that education and intelligence are not synonymous. Although Nature provides the human at birth with a fixed quantum of brain, the amount of work to be got out of that quantum depends on many things; but most of all upon use. Modern conditions are checking the use of intellect; intellectual slop suits are handed down for next to nothing; and one covers one’s intellectual nudity with little effort. In a generation or two the world will be full of a well-educated but stupid people. One has only to read the abbreviated reports of the desultory debate at present boring Parliament to perceive the truth of the old saying: “As many men, so many opinions.” One man wants the unemployed put on irrigation works and land development; another thinks they should be put in secondary industries, and so on. It will be with the unemployed as with a sick man; while the doctors consult, nature cures the disease or kills the patient. According to Thackeray in his celebrated novel, “Vanity Fair,” the Rawdon Crawleys solved the problem of how to live well on nothing a year. Of course it was a dishonest living; but Rawdon kept out of gaol. We want a few Rawdon Crawleys to teach us how to do it. Addison, the celebrated author of Queen Anne’s reign, was also a member of the government. In those days party warfare was bitter. Addison deprecated this, and proposed, in his Spectator, that the honest men of both parties form themselves into an association to check party rancour. This is his proposed Articles of Association:— “We whose names are hereunto subscribed do solemnly declare: That vve do in our consciences believe that two and two make four; and that we shall judge any man an enemy who endeavours to make us believe the contrary. We are likewise ready to maintain that six is less than seven at all times, a*id that ten will be ten three years hence. It is our resolution as long as we live to call black, black, and white, white; always opposing such persons as call black white, and white black.” Politics don’t change much.