The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 1925. THE JINGO DANGER

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12095, 24 March 1925, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 1925. THE JINGO DANGER

If the Jingo were only a nuisance he would he negligible as well as contemptible. But as he is an actual danger to the peace of the world, it' is matter of deep regret that there is no international machinery for his suppression. With impunity the Jingo stalks abroad, carrying a flaring torch into all the powder magazines of the world. While the best men in the world are striving with might and main to forward the cause of unbreakable peace, the Jingo keeps the dogs of war awake and barking. He is at his worst when he assumes the role of fanatic busybody, and Tries to break the records of provocation. Such a Jingo is Sir Charles Higham, the tea merchant who is perambulating the United States with a packet of tea in one hand he wants to sell,, and a bomb in the other ready to explode, and his flaming torch set firmly in the fool’s cap which is the eloquent sign of his character. What a huckster of trade can have to do with the higher politics of the porld is not to he guessed, except under the supposition that his primary object is advertisement. He advertises himself as. a political seer, and the folk buy his wares. The cost to the world of this advertising may be large and hideous. But if a body can sell two packets of tea where only one was sold before, what has he to do with the other consequences of his fanatical propaganda? The thing is to make the American people drink his tea. If the world sinks in pieces under the impact of another war, that is the world’s affair, not his. The world is his oyster.

With , the callousnees bred of such fanatical selfishness, our Jingo develops a great mass of detail in his propaganda. He depicts the Japanese slavering their lips with toothsome morsels which broke up the United States of America. He depicts the fearful play of their air bomba on the Panama Canal and the great cities of the Union. He stops to expound strategy after the manner of Homer Lee, who once made a sensation in the world as a scaremonger. He is very proud of hie little self, and his vast knowledge of the world’s affairs. The hitter insult of his every word to one race, and the incentive to madness of the same to another raco, are to him pleasant incidents in his journey over the broken records of folly and futility. The only lesson he has gained from the 'Great War is the delusion that everyone wants another and a greater war. Therefore, he sets to work doing his utmost to provoke all who hear him. This kind of person was in a former age called a “quidnunc.” He . frequented coffee-houses, and discussed statesmen, warriors, and Power balances. But his audience was strictly limited, ,No newspapers worthy the name, no telegraphs, no mails, in fact —such was the publicity situation of his day. The quidnunc had his feeble crow in his coffee-house, and subsided after the usual intellectual drubbing into his native complacency. But .today his lightest word is promptly dispatched to the end of the earth. For the coffee-house corner, where a handful of contemptuous people heard him with favour, he has substituted a newspaper corner where the whole world hears him, and half the world, knowing no 'better, beholds in him a wonder. If his corner could, he changed to the corner of a gaol where hard labour takes the place of selling tea and other commodities, it would be a good thing. But the world, while busy about many things, cannot perform this useful, necessary act. We, therefore, hare to suffer the quidnunc fool as we have to suffer other fools.

Another specimen of the genus Is the military specimen. He is malicious as well as foolish. One of this sort has been lecturing the world, also from a newspaper corner. This soldier—a Frenchman—has been holding forth on what the French military—airmen and long-range gunners—are prepared to do with “Perfide Albion” in the event of war—an event he devoutly hopes for, of course. His offence is even more flagrant than the offence of the tea-selling busybody. At the moment, when the hopes of all right-thinking mer. centre on the continuance of the good understanding between Britain and France, this quidnunc sails into a French magazine, and tells the people across the Channel what is going to bo

done presently to them when he and such as he get their way. Reading his horrible warnings, one feels impelled to “be thankful for the League of Nations, which is gradually having so good an effect on the opinions of mankind. The League men can counteract the irresponsible folly of these Jingoes. We can only hope that when the League comes into its own it will have a very warm corner set up in the gaols of the world for these featherbrained, fanatical forerunners of the dogs of war.