PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 14441, 6 February 1909, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Anent (tic movement for helping llic British unemployed, t-lio Inborn 1 unions of Wellington aro not prccievly of one heart and soul with the Inborn- unions of Otago. V.liile recognising the good work that was being done by the Labour officials and Labour organisations in Dunediu in connection with the Children's Bread Fund, in Wellington Hie feeling was that only too soon would they bp called upon to dole out charity to their own members; and. in view of that, anticipation, the Trades Council and almost all ot the unionists had decided r.ct to make any response to the appeal of the " Clarionets" on behalf of the wives and children of the unemployed in England. if there was any surplus cash it

was certain that it would be required

in Wellington next winter. In other words our ease is as bad as theirs, Whence it follows that their case is no, worse th.'iii ours. The truth of any proposition implies tho truth of its converse. Thai, is logic, and logic from which tliero is 110 logical escape. For reasons to be mentioned presently I incline to the Wellington view. Let mo remark in the meantime, however, that the Wellington view goes very well with tho charity that both begins at home and stays there. Xote the contemptuous trrm "Clarionets." The proposal to collrct money in the- colonies for the British unemployed originated with the Socialist newspaper Clarion, and its appeal, lightly dismissed, is " the appeal of the 'Clarionets.'" That is significant. Xote in addition that this Wellington viewis associated with the doctrine that. New Zealand is over-populated, and that immigration ought to lie stopped.

The doctrine that New Zealand is overpopulated and that immigration ought to he stopped bases itself on the fact that in Wellington and elsewhere there arc "unemployed." But always there have been unemployed. There were unemployed when tho population was half what 1 it is now; there will lie when it is double. Old Victorians will tell you that in the best times, when alluvial gold digging was at Mw height, of its development, meetings of unemployed wore held every Sunday afternoon on the bank of the Yam and were harangued by demagogues abusing the Government. In Great Britain, which is an old country, and in America, which is a. now country, the same phenomena are constant. And in both countries the unemployed are to a large extent the unemplovable. If you ask the reason why, you had better go back ;i step and ask the •reason why the loafer prefers the town to tho country and the public-house to any place where work if done. The unemployable make worse the caw of the casual out-of-work who would work if he could. For the last, 12 months Uiitish trade has suffered a. serious decline, whatever the reasons, and it follows that the out-of-works are multiplied. But, after all, England is tho richest country in the world and abundantly capable of providing for its own poor. It suits the Clarion's policy, I fancy, lo get English distress relieved from the colonies as a slap in the face to the English capitalist system which the Clarion would discredit and destroy.

Be tbat .is it may. Iho claim of charitv once madfc is not to be lightly sot aside, and (lie Daily Times, as in duly hound, give; it editorial backing. But when wo go lo the Diniedin Presbytery, lank-a-mussoy, what things do we hear! England ill the throe* of a " frightful crisis," suffering a calamity " worse than the earthquake," sunk in miseries that appal by their "apparent- hopelessness." The Presbytery in fact had completely Inst its head. Exaggeration, the vice of the pulpit, reigned rampant. I have just been looking through the English papers by the mail, which, ::s it chances, cover Christmas week,—The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Xews, .Spectator, iSntunby fievicw, \V<>stmm3lcr Gazette, Pall Mail GajsUe. Not wis of them seems in the least, aware of the facts that appal the Dnnedin Presbytery. If England is at the bottom of an "abyss, these'papers don't know it. In soma of lliem, in The Times for one, tin; editorial columns on Christinns morning (lisroiitse of a Merrv Christ - mils. lVnce and Goodwill. Some of them are lotting up their customary Christmas Wnehelions;—the Westminster Gazette, for example, distributes this year in Christ - iiias week ovrr .£IOOO. Much is said of the brave show made by the provision straps, and of the ero-ivaV, of luisy ]>ni'chasers; it is even mentioned that turkeys and other Christmas rates are fetching higher prices than usual, lint of starving millions not one word: of calami!v worse than earthquake no trace whatever. ]n short the imaginings of the Dnnedin Presbytery arc out of seals and lack perspective.

Whilst I have the Presbytery before thn court, 1 may (junto to its'address a . paragraph from that ihiclkil longeal>lt> Presbyterian authority the Outlook ,—a paragraph not. precisely relevant, perhaps, but good ill itself. There is an ineffective sorl of preachin£ which may best, be likened to the sortings out of a rag-and-hnnc picker's bug—what Cnriyb says and what Tennyson. Bmcrson, and many other writers and thinkers say on the subject. It is an immensely laborious way o( niakin» a sermon; but it is not effective. Why? Because it hasn't passed through the preacher's own soul! tt is an imposition. I ilo not mean an impreturc; 1 mean an imposition as opposed to an exposition. It is a fea* ot memory to preach such a sermon. Generally they have to be read; or the proaehci has to 1)0 assisted by copious notes. Yes, we know the kind. The sermon all through is a performance in hop skip and jump from quotation to quotation. Nowadays it seems to be thought an added grace if the authority is named straight, out—"As the poet Jones savs"; "as f| 1(1 celebrated Smith remarks to quote the eloquent Tomkins," —inid so on. There is a story which implies thai in earlier limes each purple patch was prigged without neknmvledgment. "That's Chalmers," nodded to himself the experienced t*Tmo'utaster sitting under the pulpit;—" that's Ceird " ; —" thal's .M'Chevne." But when the preacher, letting himself go, perorated in a transport: "1 foe! my^brethren on this great- subject if I attempted to express my feelings t feel I could not tell you wiiat I feel came the comment, "That's his own." '

Disliking some remarks of mine on the German Kaiser, correspondent of Ihe Daily Times attempts to give mo what he calls "a. severe rap across the knuckles." lint his aim is had. He contrives only to rap the table viciously.

I " Cms " dorcctuls !a the lowestdeplhs 1 of journalism when hp dishes up a disI credited tissue of Yankee 1 ascribed to the Kaiser, am! (Jion calmly tells us tluit it docs not matter whethor it is (<l]c truth or <i lie. as " everybody believed he might have said them."' What I am said to have "dished up" is something t'iinti L o,iio(«l, b\it " dished up " stives to explain t-liiit the writer is out of temper. 1 quoted ;i smnnuuT of the

" interview" which the (Jcnnan Government suppressed at the cost of cancellinp 150.000 copies of an American illustrated magazine. It was not. however, from any •American sonree that I quoted, but from ail English nugnzinc of the first, rank, the Xa'.ional Review, in wiiicli good reason is shown for believing the summary r.uthcn|je., I might " dish up " the lvhole story, ji it were not over long for this column. The Gorman Government's " dementi," or official repudiation, says the National Review, " is not worth the in!: with which it is written, or the paper it is written on." Anyhow my remark of last week Irakis good, though it is a remark to which my friend the knuckle-rapper particularlv object.': These things are in print; and whether the Kaiser said them or not,' they are sueli things as everybody .lulicvcs ho might, have raid, So he lias all the crecit of them.

Wo are to remember (bat there is against him » long catalogue of previous indiscretions. One, man ma.y steal a horse when another man may not look over the liccW. flio Kaiser is the man who may jiot look over the hedge. IJiit f;ir be it from me to vox the soul of this great am! beneficent ruler m»w in retreat, or to imperil the peace of Europe. By way of amends 1 bring tiv latest German story illustrating the Kaiser's greatness. A 'German was driving an Knglish friend en the road between Frankfort- and Jlomburg, when a motor car passol st a terrific pac«, raising

n- cloud of <Hist. "All!" said the Gorman, " tliero goes our Emperor." "How* do Vou know?" inquired the Englishman. " Do rnu suppose anybody else could raise a dust like that?" was the reply.

Examination "howlers" are published becaiiso they amuse, But lliey art capable of a higher nse.. Pedagogues in council assembled, the Educational Institute for example, should he set to consider wherein why and how the teaching failed of which the howler is the product. In a batch recentjy given to tho English press wo may read that. "Virgil was a man who used to clean up churches." Which means that Virgil was a. verger. "John Bright is famous for an incurable disease." Well, there is a "Bright's disease why may it not have beoJt John Bright's? " Doomsday Book is another name for Paradise Lost." This is very deep. A Milton expert might undertake to justify it. On the other "hand, this is easy: "A ruminating animal is one that chews its cubs." Bad teaching must here hear the blame, as also in the next two: " Chivalry is when you feel cold " ; and " To kill n butterfly, you pinch its borax," Shoddy teaching leaves th© possibility of ' confusing "chivalry" with "shivering," and "thorax" with "borax." In the next, the examinee appears to be simply poking fun at the examiner:

Oliver Cromwell's home policy was that of being a gotxl husband nnd a kind father; his foreign policy was to walk abroad in a big slouch hat and a very large red nose. And the next has almost the merit of an epigram: The Oordian knot was untied by Lord Kitchener when he tool; Khartoum and cleared up the tangle into which we had got. over General Gordon. The examiner who gives this as a howler ought himself to be examined. A correspondent- sends mo a Sydney Smith story which he says 's " new." Then it cannot be a Sydney Smith. However, waiving that I accept the story. It is an example of the retort courteous. Monckton Millies, when a very young man, was dining in company with Sydney .Smith. He was going to dine next day with Archbishop Ilewlev, and took carc to proclaim the fact. A little later he leant across the cable and, in f loud voice, said to Smith. " Smith, a glass of wine with you." Smith, much amazed, said nothing, and took his wine. Soon after there came a panss, and then Smith said—the whole tabic listening.— "I think, Mr Milnes, you said you were going to (fine with the Archbishop ot Canterbury to-morrow." "I urn." Then if you want (o hike wine with tho Arch bishop, I advise you not to say across the tab.e, ' Ilowley, a glass of wine,' becausc ho's rnuoh older than jou are, and. having a particular dislike to being so addressed, would bo sure not to |.»ko it." As a pendant, to this I give what was new to me when I came across it the other day, Sydney Smith's definition of a bore: " A bore is a man who insists on talking about- himself when you want tc talk about yourself." Cms.