NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18292, 8 January 1923, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

J LABOUR AND POLITICS. { The Parliamentary Labour Party ought ; to call themselves openly the Socialist ' [ Party, says the London Daily Telegraph. [ | They are not the Labour Party, If they J i were they would be in a Parliamentary ! majority, for practically every Conserva- ' ! five member is returned in the main by 1 I Labour or working-class votes. They are 1 I Socialists, every one of them, pledged i ' f to a policy from which the mass of work-ing-class electors in the vast majority of constituencies have just turned away in abhorrence. They are Socialists of various shades and liues, committed to different solutions o'f the same problem, but they all have their eyes on the same goal, which is the downfall of capitalism, on . which the industrial system of title country is founded, and which cannot be changed without a cataclysm. It- is absurd • to style them " Labour." They are Socialists of any colour you like, with robust and unsatisfied appetites and great expeci tations, and we commend to them Lenin's latest utterance that they are '" fools," ' and more than fools, if they believe, or > pretend i'o believe, that Communists— j , who say they are the only true Socialists | —have changed their creed because they ! ■ ; are obliged to make some temporary con- . ! cessions' to capitalism. The Opposition in I Parliament is a Socialist Opposition. i PARLIAMENTS SPEAKER. j The first duty of the new Parliament, j ' i when it meets next month, will be to elect I i \ a Speaker. That the choice should be . j carefully considered is apparent from the I statement of the qualities that should be ' J possessed by the holders of the office, set- " j for by Mr." T. P. O'Connor in proposing [ i ! the re-election of Mr. J. H. Whitley, when - i the British , Parliament met after the ' 1 general election. Mr. O'Connor has sat j : ' i in the Commons for 42 years, and is the j ; \ " father " of the House. In choosing the ' j Speaker, he said, they should look for . ' I first, spotless integrity'and truthfulness — i - i a man who has regard for his convictions, [ whose word is his bond, and is thus a " • high model for those who come after ' | him. He must be firm, for individual - ' peculiarities in the heat of party passions | sometimes raise storms with which only ' ! a strong man can deal. He must also be J gentle.*"Members of the House of Com- " ! mans are independent men. with whose " i liberties and privileges it is not safe to i I trifle. He must have control of his tem- » i per. A Speaker in a temper is an almost ' i unimaginable and incredible offence " ! against the traditions of the Chair. He > ' must have good humour, and humour. * i Good humour is a great quality of the i I British people, whose wise philosophy is i to take all serious things seriously but 5 1 never tragically. The House of Commons ' I requires a Speaker with some humour, 5 1 because sometimes it is subject to gusts of i ; passion. Sometimes it is like a boys" I school, and sometimes like a girls' school, ' l but it can always be brought back to selfl I control by a kindly appeal to its always v I present sense of humour. I have seen [ \ many occasions when even passions, al- ' i most tragic in their intensity, have been " j brought back to reason by a timelv word ) ? of humour from the Chair. The Speaker i j must have a full sense of his responsibili--5 I ties. He must be assiduous. He roust | have, necessarily, the qualities that make f j a peace-maker. r : 'j THE MODERN" GIRL. ' J Commenting on a denunciation by a 3 woman doctor of the " vices and stupidi- '"' j ties " of the modern girl, the London - 1 Daily Telegraph agrees that there may -! be some prematurely aged products of - I society life" already, before the age of - ! 20, as worn out and nerve-tired as if they s j were 40 " —but declares it would certainly ] I be unfair to pretend that they are a ehar- | acteristic type of the girlhood and young I womanhood of our day. Some " society " I I girls, no doubt, are "■ ruining their diges- ' ! tion and impairing their livers " by too r | much smoking, too many cocktails, and { possibly even too much whisky. But the { average observer encounters few signs of II j the withered beauty that is the penalty of a ! these ill-habits. Middb-aged people complain sometimes of the hardness, the lack ! of sentiment, and the selfishness of the I girls who have become young women since j the war. "The young men of their own generation are also critical, but that is j because young people nowadays are more j sincere than their parents were, make [_ I few pretences about tha things that matu. I ter, though many about the things that do I not. Similarly, the forebodings for the cj future of the race may seem, to those who . j indulge them, the soberest deductions I from the facts. Unfortunately they have e I been made often before. Fifty years ago ;, [ the public was invited to believe that it j , J was witnessing '* the last phase of the I | gracious womanhood of England, that c j womanhood which once stood as the synii | bol of all home virtues, all sweet servirsei ableness, all tenderness of love and ■fc ! loyalty and dntv." Jezebel was declared ,_ Jto be queen. But she lived to be a de- , 1 Hghtfal grandmother, and though her " daughter, as described in the " Ninen teenth Century " of 25 years later, was " painted, dyed, and powdered according to the mode, her lips red with wine and 0 "moist with liqueur." and her granddaughter is, according to Dr. Savill, precipitating *' the downfall of modern civili- )- sation," our flesh refuses to creep. Youth a ; has a way of becoming middle-aged. In i its turn, it sets an example to the young. K | and in its turn is flouted. Should the day , s | come when youth makes age its leader, ! then, and not till then, may be despair. l " That will be "the day when our race is [c j ended—the zest of life gone, and no quest , j remaining for vouth. Jt | * * | WOMEN IN POLITICS. " • The failure of women candidates in the l British electionsonly Lady Astor - and " ! Mrs. Wintringham were re-elected—was d ! reproduced in the American elections. Of p. | the large number who offered for national j offices only one was elected. The excep- ! tion wes Florence E. Allen, now Judge j in an Ohio county Court, who was elected l " jto the Supreme Court Bench of that e j State, the first woman to gain that office 6i in any American State. But the Columit j bus Dispatch in Ohio, noting Judge n ! Allen's " legal learning, her judicial tem- | perament," insists that " the Court will __ __ | gain by her membership, cot because she cs | will bring an infusion of peculiarly fern- - i inine qualities into it, but because of her rj_ \ possession of just those qualities which , j | will make a good judge without regard {to sex." Thirty-three women running for a j Congressional and legislative seats in New >*e j York State went down to defeat. Three women candidates for the United States u I Senate were 311 defeated. Illinois elected 1 I Mrs. Winifred Mason Huck to sit in Cony ! gress for the unexpired term of her late <n j father, but as Miss Robertson, of Oklahoma, ■cs - was not re-elected, there will be no woman c _ jin the next Congress. Outside of the Con- { gressional field, two women were ejected * j to the Massachusetts Legislature for the -ft I first time, and three returned to the New at I Jersey Assembly. Six Ohio women were „ . j elected to the General Assembly, two to , 1 the Senate and four to the House. In ia j contrast with the success of Judge Allen. ?G j Miss Ruth Taylor failed to win the posits- (tion of judge in a new children's Court , r |in Westchester County, New York, for I, i which several New York papers considered "**"* 5 her extremely well qualified. The New ( -'f j York Times is inclined to attribute her tit j defeat at least in part to the following irs i political phenomenon: " When women ran ' for office they promptly discover on the I]~ I part of most politicians and of many ii '"» i not most men voters a nearly complete 03 I lack of that special consideration which rfj. lis commonly supposed and usually ad- | mitted to be their due, merely because °1 j they are women. Instead of deriving, in ot this particular activity, en advantage from ch s their sex, find it ■to a considerable he' ) extent detrimental, and not in the way to which they always have been accus- "'" tomed, for it" is not related to the pos an session of less jihysical strength than men. ve They encounter as women an actual antag jfs onism, sometimes veiled znd .sometime a j not. and this is especially true if they an j seeking an office with a salary big enougt a to make it seem highly desirable, to mas j culine candidates,"