BLUFF.

North Otago Times, 22 May 1909, Page 4 (Supplement)

BLUFF.

"A FAINTED PANORAMA OF PHYSICAL FORCE."

An unchivalrous. nnd even unniilitary idea of bullying,, of using bombastic terrors in order to avoid a conflict, is at this moment the highest turret of the tall hypocrisies- of Europe. Europe is full of the idea of bluff, the idea of cowing the human spirit with a painted panorama of physical force. We see it in the huge armaments which we dare to accumulate, but .should hardly dare to use. We see it in the enormous biological theories which arc not sufficiently proved to convince scientific men, but which arc already used to terrify ordinary men. We see it in the ghastly Barmecide banquet of modem finance; in the Stock Exchange, where men buy and sell, so as to shake .continents, the things that do not even exist. For the soul of all our commerce is that the peasant says (being often a greedy fellow)—"I have grown a turnip; will you give me a shilling?" Whereas the broker says—"lf I had ten thousand turnips, would you borrow ten thousand shillings and buy them ?" It is all the spirit of the bully, of the man who, instead of strengthening himself, labels himself strong.

]n spite of Charles Lamb, the popular phrase is profoundly true, the real bully is always a coward, For the bully is the man who acts on the assumption that he will not havo to fight.—G. K, Chesterton, in th» "Daily News."