PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17104, 8 September 1917, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Tho success of the Great liberty Loan has set us all cock-a-hoop and, in the opinion of Sir Joseph Ward's immediate friends, has merited him another step in the peerage. He asked us for twelve millions, and we gave him sixteen. Somehow the praise for this generosity seems his, not ours. To him go the honour and the glory. That is nothing. Tho whole business of this Great Liberty Loan is stuck through and through with paradoxes. To begin with, we are both borrower and lender; though, of course, and I admit it, the same tiling holds of all similar operations in domestic finance. Wo borrow from ourselves and we lend to ourselves. To ourselves is the interest paid, and we tax ourselves to pay it. Apparently we go round and round in a children's game tho term and goal of which is "As yon were." But thore again things are not what they seem. All these millions will be spent in war, and war is waste. Two nations that spend money in shooting at each other might as profitably burn the money or sink it in the sea. On the other hand, our millions go to redeem New Zealand from tho Germans. Along with all else of the Empire, New Zealand is staked in tho war, and with blood and treasure we buy it back. Hence in every million spent, as in every life laid down, we are both the richer and the poorer,—the richer by saving the country, the poorer because wo ought not to have needed to save it. To end this budget of paradoxes, the Great Liberty Loan is a voluntary loan, and we volunteer at the point of the bayonet. Sir Joseph Ward graciously promises that he will not "chase" anybody with his lethal weapon ; —why should he when we give him more than he asks? But none the less has he and feinted with it.

Whilst Russian affairs go steadily from bad to worse, it is poor consolation that we might have foreseen it. Revolution in war time, swapping horses in mid-stream, — what could follow irat a general overturn? Let us assume, as wo may, that everywhere amongst the Allies responsible men did foresee it and applied themselves to meet it as best they knew. To the rest of us it was left to be fascinated by the magnificent uprising of a multitudinous democracy to efface, abolish, and destroy the single-handed tyranny of an autocrat. We have gloated and gushed over that. And now, when we see multitudinous folly and frenzy ruining everything, it remains to us to wish the single-handed autocrat back again. He will not come as he went — a shy, hesitating, vacillating sentimentalist. Ho will come, if at all, as a soldier, and the historic "whiff of grape shot" will not be wanting. With suspicion! of this, the fools and knaves that make government impossible are diligent in combing out every conspicuous soldier. The Grand Duke Michael — whose Grand Dukery would be fatal in any case—where is he?' For General Brusiloff and others that have left a Tiame you watch the cables in vain! General Korniloff still lives and moves, but with fanatics on his track to hunt him down. We may, say with .King Harry in the play— ThoTe i≤ some sonl of goodness in things evil, Would m«n observingly distil it out, but it takes a valiant optimist to believe it. And in Russia the alembic for this distillation threatens to bo counter-revolution and civil war.

"No Death Penalty!" the Petrograd election cry, will carry all before it, doubtless. Nothing could be more popular. Men deserting the trenches to set up the Russian New Jerusalem and bring in a lubber-land millennium don't want to be shot before entering into possession. Tin's is a point of coincidence—one of many— with the French Revolution. Active French patriots, famous in their later time for the cutting off of heads, began as opponents of tne death penalty. Robespierre himself first came into notice as an extreme humanitarian. At Arras, holding an appointment as judge, he faithfully did justice to the people, says Carlyle, " till behold, one day, a culprit comes whose crime merits hanging; and the strictminded Robespierre must abdicate, for his conscience will not permit the dooming of any son of Adam to die." Apropos of this, one of Robespierre's French biographers recalls the tenderness of another extreme humanitarian —Nero, to wit, who, in his early time, being required to sign a death warrant, wished that he had never learned to write! It is to be hoped that M. Kerensky will not make a third to this pair. An anti-death-penalty man he certainly is or. has been. The same may be said of his colleagues: We know this type of revolutionist. They begin by .voting down the death penalty and end by setting up the guillotine.

The Kaiser and Czar conspiracy against Britain in 1904 (records unearthed in Petrograd): — Next day the Kaiser sent a telegram: "No time to lose. Not a third party must hear even a whisper of our intentions, otherwise the consequences would be most, dangrrous." The Csar replied, agreeing that tho German and Russian Governmente must come to a permanent understanding. The Kaiser's telegrams were signed " Willy Nilly." To which the obvious and inevitable rhyme ia " Silly Billy." At the date of these telegrams Russia was at war with Japan, and in no small risk of having Britain on her hands as well. There was the Dogger Bank affair, when, the blundering Russian fleet fired into and sank British trawlers. The "'Czar's willingness to secure himself against Britain is intelligible. But what was Silly Billy doing in that galley? Why should he interfere? Conspiring with one neighbour against the life and goods of another, all the time professing friendship,—this is German honour, as we since have had abundant reason to know. But why, oh why, leave this compromising record, certain of leaping to light at some time soon or late? Had Silly Billy no cipher at command? Did it ne-ver occur to him to stipulate " Burn this as soon as read"? Pouring contempt upon him now —British contempt—is pouring water on a drowned rat. "Willy Nilly" or " Billy." he is mainly for us a tragic figure of fun. What Frenchman of the Revolution time it was who said that if God did not exist it would be necessary to invent Him, I do not remember. Mr H. G. Wells might stand as his representative to-day. With the God of Christianity Mr Wells will have nothing to do. He denies and defies Him. Worse, —in relation to that God he compares himself to a missionary smashing " some Polynesian divinity of sharks' teeth and oyster shells." But he has invented a God of his own and with this H. 6. Wells God he will make us all acquaint in due time. Meanwhile we may judge the Wells theology by the Wells politics. Kings are to disappear. A king at best is an " effigy," by which word I take Mr Welle to mean a scarecrow, a king of shreds and patches. Our own King is an effigy, he says, and an alien effigy to boot. Both of which things axe untrue. The King is the King because the b-'.ood representative of the Sruarts, the Tudors, and the Plantagenete;— not much of the " alien" about that. In what degree the people think him an " effigy" may be seen in an incident at Glasgow. Mr Lloyd - George, speaking in St. Andrew's Hall on his being presented with tho freedom of tho city"— "There is one man who is working as hard as any man in this country, and ho is the Sovereign of this Realm." (At this point the vast audience cheered and cheered again vociferously. They roec, and, led by the playing of tlio organ, sang with gnsto tho National Anthem, afterwards oh'nering again.) Mr Lloyd George, proceeding, said: " I am quite sure his Majesty tho King will appreciate the fact that the citizens of Glasgow realise the contribution he is making to the work of the nation under these trying conditions."—(Cbcers.) Glasgow and the Clyde havo had a bad name of late for labour troubles. All the more significance in this spontaneous outburst of fooling. Mr Welte hae posed much as a prophet of the future; but it looks as though he didn't understand his own time the least little bit. ,

The conscientious objector in a new phase,—defendant in a breach of promise suit. Hβ was a Christchurch draper of mature ago (57) and he had courted for years and years a -widow somewhat younger. There had been chaste embraces and a good deal of kissing, joy rides, junketing trips (to Lake Wakatipu, for example), and the widow's children had been 'permitted, to call him "Father." The- Kev. Mr North, Baptist minister, whom at times they "sat under," onco addressed the pair as man and wife; whereupon " a slight and simultaneous confusion was apparent in both " ; and he, the minister, as an experienced observer, concluded that " if not married they were engaged." Not so, however. The draper had scruples of conscience. According to tho Swedenborgian doctrine marriage is eternal—6ne man to one woman, world without end. Hence the widow was uo widow. Still bound to her husband " gone aloft," she might be courted and kissed; but married?—no. And so the draper,, professing himself a disciple of Swodenborg, went away under stress of conscience and married another.

Swedenborg's doctrine was that there was but ono union of souls so far as marriage was concerned. True conjugal love was the union of only two souls— the one, Man, representing . Truth, and the other, Woman, representing Love. This could not exist in any second marriage. That was what he said in the witness box. But to the widow—who had often demanded marriage, had once locked him up in a room to bring him to reason, and was always "upset" when marriage conversations took place, tending on these occasions to become " cataleptic,"—he had held a very different discourse. " Defendant invariably kissed her, comforted her, and assured her that all would be right." The jury, taking a severe view of these proceedings and making light of the draper's conscience, brought in a swingeing verdict:—Damages £500 with costs. Swedenborg had proved an expensive luxury.

In last week's Notes, having mentioned nettle soup as an English war time delicacy, 1 remarked unguardedly that except perhaps in Mr Tannock's Shakespeare garden there were no nettles in this country. To show how little I knew about it a correspondent sends me a box containing specimens of New Zealand nettle and a card: "Dear ' Civis,' —Should you care to make soup thore is plenty more of the enclosed, not in Mr Tannoef's garden either." With submission I also make room for the testimony of " Margaret, aged nine years," dated with commendable formality "Alexandra, Central Otago, September 2nd, 1917 " :— Dear Mr " Civis," —Mother says yon said in yesterday's Passing Notes that there are no nettles in this country;

but excuse me, please., Mr " Civis," I think there are some, because when I was playing by the river hero the other day I got my hands pricked with them, and they are not better yet. Shall I send you some nettles? Thanks, no, it is unnecessary. But in gratitude for the offer I will give a euro for nettle-stinging. Did Margaret ever hear the old proverb, "In nettle, out dock " ? (It is as old as Chaucer, though Margaret need not know that: —

Nettle in,'dock out, now this, now that, Pandare?) \

In English rustic belief rubbing with a dock leaf cured the sting of the nettle— "In nettle, out dock." If there are nettles in Central Otago there are also docks. Like the rat and the rabbit, both " follow man in his migrations," say the botany books, —doubtless in fulfilment of the primal curse. ■

But I have still some cleaning up to do. Last Saturday, referring to something said by Mr G. K. Chesterton, I described him as " chanting paßons " —not pseans, which would be right, but preons! With this crumpled rose-leaf under me I have had no .rest all the week. ISext, treating of the word "sabotage," and noting that it is not in the Oxford Dictionary—which has been more than 30 years in process of publication and is still incomplete, but has got beyond the letter S—l quoted a French definition from the " Petit Larousse," 1914. Whereupon three kindly correspondents hasten to my assistance— M.K., Outram, with Chambers' 20th Century Dictionary; J. P. T., Napier, with the British Empire Universities Modern Dictionary, 20s, 1916; and T. B. M'N., Hastings, with Addenda to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1914; from which last concise definition may be quoted: "Doing of damage to plant, etc., by workmen on bad terms with their employers." The " sabot " at the back of the word appears to be not the French wooden shoe thus called but the iron shoe (sabot) or cushion (cousrinet) by which the metals of a railway line are attached to the sleepers. Sabotage began on the French railways. Finally, for this time, a correspondent confronts me with a paragraph —copied, and copied too faithfully, by the Daily Times from a northern paper—describing injuries suffered by a war victim at the front:—

A shell completely blew in the trench in which he was standing, and buried h ; rn to the chin in the earth and debris. When he was dug out his ribs were found to bo broken, and one of his left legs was fractured in two places. His leg is still giving him trouble, but his general health and spirits are excellent. "An extra leg or two would be useful to soldiers," says my correspondent. May be. But there is another view. We are told first of the victim's ribs; at that point in the story both legs are left. Consider the remarkable fact that in putting on your stockings, begin where you will, it is always with the left leg you end.