AMONG THE BYGONES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19833, 31 December 1927, Page 11

AMONG THE BYGONES.

YEAR'S GREAT CRISES,,

REFLECTIONS OF BROWN,

MUCH MORE THAN $ JIIUCE.

."Where are the snows of yesteryear,'' thought Brawn, as ho lookecl through his newspaper without finding anything to suggest that calamity was about to descend upon this young nation. He had in mind politics—recent politics. The House has risen, cakes are rising and spirits will be rising if they have not already done so. So you see why political controversy has been rdegated to oblivion. Political controversy is something like what the poet said in regard to masculine love—it is a thing apart. For the last few months the country, judging by fact, opinion and prejudice expressed by the populace, has been leaping from crisis to crisis after the manner of the young lady who crossed the r:ver on floating fragments of ice fioe. : The Income Tax. There was the scandalous matter of the income-tax, but of that Brown is inclined to make an exception. He does not put it with the bygones. He cannot. Tho Income Tax Department, displaying an utter lack of sense of tho fitness of things, has just forwarded him his assessment. The fact that he does not have to pay it immediately does not soften, the blow very much. The horrible thing has revealed itself in larger form. It is the skeleton at the feast grinning in a most repulsive fashion through the holly or pohutukawa or - whatever is hung up to express goodwill and brotherly love. Brown feels no goodwill toward the Income Tax Department—none whatever—and does not mind if Mr. Downia Stewart knows it. What The Eye Doesn't See. However, the survey of the newspaper certainly prompts the query about the snows of yesteryear. It would ueem that in politics, as in cooking, "what , the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve about." As long as Parliament is in session there is the goad, almost the daily goad, for those many good folk who have the gift of enthusiasm for the things of the moment and an infinite capacity for judging each major operation in Statecraft as the last throw in the game of civilisation. How they fret and fume! How they rejoice and despair I How they bravely bid goodbye to hope and shout glad welcome to it! They get a lot out of life. Brown often envies them. He would like at times to feel the thrill of swinging a blade in the great (and changing) cause. He would not mind if, for a bit, he could really hate his political opponents. But Nature withheld the capacity to live such moments. She made him just plain Biown who can liken on a generation to tho brief flutter of a butterfly's career and can have faith that the human race is taking more steps upward than slips backward. Ho Political Mourning. But to return to the newspaper, Brown misses the Parliamentary reporis and the intense feeling therein expressed. Even if he has occasionally felt that intensity has been toe keen to be quite true, he has read it with aviaity and has noted its inflammatory effect upon the public mind. There was a sense of calamity a few weeks ago when the Licensing Bill was done to death after a series of major operations. " Now," • says Brown, " how many people spoilt their Christmas by mourning for that bill. I don't doubt their sincerity at all, but judging by the intensity of the campaign it is remarkable that in so short a time the voice of anger and regret should have died clown. It will arise again, of course, but what seams surprising is that the most keenly disappointed are prepared to be happy in the interval." So with dozens of other political controversies. Each lot of defeated "Noes" is the spear-hea,d of a body of disappointed opinion in the country and each of these bodies has its hour of public clamour that ranges from resolutions that r:< view with alarm" to declarations of "'never again." But somehow the Christmas season brings a goodly measure of philosophic reflection, a better sense of proportion and the will to wish all men Well and see the other fellow's point of view, Even the knight errant of the inky way relaxes his vigilance and putting aside his vulcanite lance may possibly remark that this is not a bad little country the fools of which are well-meaning enough, and entitled to a little peace at this time. Desperate ills of the morrow may need desperate remedies, but the morrow is not yet. Imaginary Ills. Brown is inclined to think that if Parliament met just once bet-ween each election the country would be saved a great deal of torment,. much of which is not worth while. He would give a couple of good Ministers a dozen good secretaries and tell them to carry on for the next three years. Neither, cf course, would ever get another chance—that would be too much to expect—but there would always be plenty of vc.'imteers for the posts. By this means the country would find it difficult to learn how bad a state it was in and to realise the number of, appalling dangers (hat were besetting it. Then the truce of the Christmas season, which is much more than ft truce, might go on for so long that people would get the idea that " urgent legislation" was not a necessity every season,. To return to the subject, the season of goodwill is here and it is very hard to start a row upon the "vital issues" of yesterday. They seem to be forgotten with the long rain of the winter,'' the resolutions of last Christmas, and the indigestion of last week.