THE OPINIONS OF SANDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18553, 10 November 1923, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE OPINIONS OF SANDY.

PROFITEERS AND BOWLERS. BY. KOTARE. .-»*:'£• :, s My friend Sandy has had a bad week. 11 He is very jealous for the national honour, y There * never was a more fervent patriot; if but he places too much value on the d functioning of his own intellectual proy cesses to subscribe easily to the jingois- '• tic slogan, "My country, right or wrong." 6 A. few. days ago he came across Admiral 8 Consett's book on the German blockade. '- Thf! revelations there stirred him to the y depths. > r 'Man," he declared without any pro's liminary, getting as usual into the heart « of his subject, " I was all wrong, in n telling you that England suffered from t softness of heart. It's softn-_$ of head n that's wrong with her. Did you ever i- hear the like of this?". And he reeled , off a string of figures that left rae no ' nearer the heart of the mystery. I pleaded my mental deficiencies, and asked if he would tell me plainly what it was s all about. For .a tolerant man he is >f impatient of dullness. e " It's as plain as a pikestaff. Didn't I ,_ tell you thai England exported 550 tons of cocoa to Scandinavia in 1913? and *» 5000 tons in 1915 Surely you can see 18 where it went to. We were feeding the e Germans. Feeding them, mind you; v giving thorn strength to smite our poor v laddies in the trenches of France and ' Flanders. And all to let a few profiteers ° swell their bank balance. Not,*that the " profiteer made his first appearance in this d war. It is usually the-profiteer of one l- war that is the old aristocrat of the next, loudest in his denunciation of the traitors that dare to play the game which gave y him his start. I'm no clover of your ° aristocracy; I know a little of their oriis gins, you see. Bub doesn't it make your n blood boil to think that it was England i- that fed and armed Germany, and made e the war spin out for more than four years of hell ? We gave them, through the - neutrals, our coal, our fertilisers', our y petrol, our lubricants, our copper and n zinc and tin. It's no sensation-monger >r out for a little cheap notoriety that tells .£ us this; it's the man that had charge of . the blockade, and every accusation as documented. 1' it Helping the Enemy. ■- ir " You'll remember the story they tell J' up and down the country about tho ic Maoris who found the British troops no longer replying to their fire. They sent out a flag of truce and inquired if the soldiers had run out of ammunition offering in that case half their own so that the fight • might go on. I've never been able to n find out whether that is true, but it ought r- to be. The Maori is a gentleman. That v was the sportsmanship of a chivalrous race. But this business of ours!" , I ventured the opinion ' that he was 3 abandoning his usual attitude of hearing i- the other side before expressing his opinr, ion. But he would have none of it. s "Any man that helped to add one hour to the agony of the Great War is a traitor. I never had any patience with e the wild talk about marching to Berlin o and making the Germans feel what they ;- had made Belgium and France suffer. , r As soon as Germany owned she was beaten, we ended the war. A spectacular f victory after the goal of the war was " reached was not worth the sacrifice of i- one British soldier. * The Armistice came >- at the first possible moment; no patriotic 0 statesman could have dreamt of postponing v it for one hour. And we who made the supreme war effort, who poured out blood and treasure without stint to crush Che V enemy on land and sea. were all- the time e making it possible for him to carry on. I always wondered, japw,,,G*sroany managed 6 to hang on go long; it -, was great work - that—one nation against the world. But I understand now." '..':;->. : V> 8 r ..':,-. Concerning a Fence. ; The old man felt the matter so keenly a that I thought if well to divert his atten>f tion to other matters. I tried several d local topics of interest, hut his mind 1 ewung back to the enormity of war profiteering and I was giving it up as a » hopeless business when by a lucky stroke I mentioned the new ; fence round the e Mount Eden Bowling Green. Every day d when it is fine, my old friend walks along u Mount Eden Road., He was a " bowler of parts in his younger days; his rheumatism has made we effort of stoop- '' ing too exacting now he is getting near • his 80th birthday. But he ISad nothing e better than to wa&h the game from the i. footpath. I saw I had, started a ; very 0 serviceable hare. In a moment the fire had died in 1 his eye and he was the calm, n detached ' spectator of life again. y "They have been giving,, the bowlers a e lid time, I see. ' I met a lad the other ; . day who spoke as bitterly about? it as if they had advertised Pale Pills for, Purple People on the tomb of his ancestors". . It's not a matter for indignation, as I see it. *" It's not denunciation they need, these r bowling laddies, it's pity. They can do >- what they like with their own property, t You see, a bowling green's a sort of communal back-yard. You can't have a green on your quarter-acre; I can't have one on '* mine. But a few of us get together and r remedy the disabilities of our suburban - lots by having a green among us. It is ' a sort of extension of our own little 9 bits of lawns.' And I always thought tha£ was how the bowlers regarded it. If * I want to advertise a patent medicine on fc my roof, or a breakfast food on my 3 front door, or something new in feminine " apparel on my front fence, that has noth--3 ing to do with anybody else. And if " the bowlers want to surround (he com--1 munal extension of their bits of lawn 1 with a fence that shall pay for itself, • that's got nothing to do with you or me." ,; ■ , - .- Sorrow not Anger. L I asked him if he liked the choice effect • of this perverse blot on the charming , Mount Eden landscape.J\ ./:.*-.■ . -. i "Losh, man," he said, "when first I . saw the thing I rubbed my eyes, and wiped my spectacles. I thought 1 j must be a done man when my eyes . played me tricks like that. Like it! Have you met anybody that really likes it? But we were not talking about liking it. I was saying when you interrupted me that I felt no but* pity. ' You'll remember what Samuel Butler suggested in his 'Erewhon.' He would • put all sick folk in prison, because 1 sickness is a preventable thing. But ho 1 would treat ail perpetrators of crimes as 1 invalids, surround them with sympathy 1 and care. And if yon's not a crime, will ! you please tell roe what it >*•.''*"' ' ' "You see, as my old friend Bagshot says ' Twelve wise • men often add up to one ass.' That is the trouble, no doubt. ; Men do in groups what they -wouldn't do as individuals. A committee is,often 1 less wise than each separate member of 1 it. Here you have 250 bowlers who stand 1 back to admire their handiwork. In the 1 mass they are controlled by a sort of mob i psychology. I can't think.many of them can really approve—when they get away ; from the crowd I mean.'! ... Where does tho pity come in ? Well, 1 it's like this. You can't prove to a man that he has committed an error of taste. • He either sees a thing is an offence or he doesn't. No amount of. arguing can i have anv effect on the aesthetic judg- > ments. You and I and most of Auckland may see that a breach o* taste has been committed. The bowlers feel that they have saved their pockets and added an ' ornament to . the city. There is no > way-out. A Philistine is a man that re- > members Leonardo da Vinci invented the wheelbarrow and forgets the " ' Monna ' Lisa.' It is simply a case of personal preference. It will be a great day when the public will feel instinctively that an act like this is sheer Philistinism and j barbarism. It is a good sign that so many I have been moved to wrath. The bowlers have at least done this—»they have shown ius that a feeling for beauty really i does exist in our city. And for that at least they deserve thanks.