LOCAL GOSSIP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21326, 29 October 1932, Page 1 (Supplement)

LOCAL GOSSIP

BY MERCUTIO

This country is getting on in years; fcentenary' celebrations are beginning to increase in number. In a week or so it be 100 years since the arrival of the first missionary at Kaitaia, and naturally they propose to mark the occasion fittingly up there. It is quite right that this should be done. To go in 1832 to Kaitaia us a missionary, was an adventure of courage and zeal that demands recognition; though the northern Maori of those rough times piled up a wonderful record for his treatment of the missionary—even that desperate savage Hongi Hika cast the mantle of his protection over them —accidents were liable to happen in the best managed of tribes. !Apart from the aspect of the affair personal to the missionaries, it is well to recognise how the country is growing up, end to remember again, even in these days of depression, that the centenary of British Sovereignty falls in 1840 —less than eight years hence now.

In a year 206 calls were made over the radio telephone system connecting New Zealand conversationally with the great world. It is not a huge total, but the business is in its infant stages, and there has to be a beginning somehow. If you care to look up the scale of charges, you will find one very good reason for the jidmirable restraint. Talk about speech being silvern and silence golden; in overseas radio telephony speech is bankruptcy end silence, if not necessarily solvency, is at least the avoidance of immediate bankruptcy. Of the 206 calls 123 were inward arid 83 outward, which means that the overseas folk wanting to talk to New Zealand were roughly one-half more than the New Zealanders who wanted to have their voices heard overseas. Quite right, too. If the world wants to talk to us, let fhe world pay. The suggestion has come from Northcote that the term ratepayer, used with the significance it once had, can be singularly misleading nowadays. The distinction can perhaps be put thus: Original definition, ratepayer, one who pays rates. Present-day definition, one who is liable for rates. There have, of course, always Keen a certain number of folk who have not deserved to be called ratepayers, ■whatever their property qualifications or their liabilities. At one time the default, for which a property was occasionally sold by the local authority, could be attributed to carelessness or embarrassment following on speculation, or something like that. Nowadays it can be explained in come of. the most prudent, steady-going people to an ailment that is, alas, all too common—lack of needful cash.. Meanwhile, another organisation accustomed to receive payments on account of property, the State Advances Department, has arranged that mortgagors may pay .weekly instead of twice a year. It has doubtless been done with the very best of intentions, but as an example of kindness to mortgagors it is irresistibly reminiscent of the ancient hoary story of the man who, requiring to remove a dog's tail, tqofc off a joint at a time so that-4hß_poor creature should grow accustomed to the loss of it. The department says its change of system is intended to assist mortgagors. It may have that kindly intention, of course, but it looks rather like the department determining to have a bit of what's going before' it is all gone. It may be that certain remarks by a member of Parliament about using the word Home to denote the British Isles have been taken rather more seriously ;than they deserve. After all, a member has to speak, or his constituents may forget he is there; having to speak, he must say something, and that necessity helps, perhaps, to explain a good many speeches, which would otherwise be inexplicable. But as to persuading people not to uSe the word " Home " in the cense that seems to make this particular member's gorge rise, let who will attempt it, and it will make little difference. It's no use suggesting that the conditions their forbears left when migrating, or the circumstances of their departure from their homes, make any difference. Remember those Scottish exiles who. ■violently evicted from their Highland homes and shipped overseas, as they travelled turned their faces toward Scotland and sang " Lochaber no more " with the tears streaming from their eyes. They had cause for bitterness, but are they likely to have transmitted to their descendants a spirit of resentment toward the country which meant that much to them ?

It may be noticed that the repeal of tlie Noxious Weeds Act has been suggested. If the Act is to disappear from the Statute Book, it will be a distinct loss for 'at least one reason. If you read its provisions diligently, you will sooner or later stumble on the following clause: " All unoccupied Crown lands shall from time to, time be cleared, as required by Section 11, by the Minister, or under Jiis authority." From the harsh things neighbouring landowners have said about the'spread of noxious weeds from unoccupied Crown lands, where they are alleged to breed and seed with great vigour, it would be a pity if this demand in the Jaw were to go* by the board. Even if it has no effect, it is nice to think of it being there. Besides, the images it conjures up in the imaginative mind are too precious to be missed. Think of a Minister of Lands, finding time hanging heavy 011 his hands in these dull days, sallying forth to clear all unoccupied Crown lands of noxious weeds. It is not realised, perhaps, that ability with the bill-hook is a recommendation for at least one seat in the Cabinet. By all mean? let the law stand as it is. A certain amount of entertainment- is being derived from the witness who stated in Court''the other day that during an incipient riot he saw a lady break a window. This has recalled another witness who, after describing the manner in which he had been knocked down and robbed, said two gentlemen, then in Court, had done it. The classic of all these stories, of course, is that of the patient who appeared at one of the London hospitals to be treated for rather a nasty bite. The medico remarked on the curious nature of the wound and asked what kind of a dog had been responsible. "Oh," said the patient, "it wasn't a dog. It was another lydy." But while it is all very well to laugh about such palpable misuse of common terms, it is a fact tjiat we all misapply them if the strict historical sense is regarded. Lady, for instance, would be nominated by most people as the feminine of gentleman. Which it is not, etymologically, or logically if it comes to that. Gentleman, gentlewoman—what's wrong with that from every aspect, consistency In particular? Lady, of course, is the feminine of lord. Both words, incidentally, if you dig far enbugh into the history oi th© language, derive in a curious way fiom the Anglo-Saxon word for loaf. So the cynical believer in a degenerate aristocracy may assert with some show of Reason that there is a direct relationship between lord and loafer. That just shows "What a dangerous pastime delving into the history of language can be.