PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17504, 21 December 1918, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

President Wilson, we learn, is to visit the waste places of France and Belgium, tracing there the hoof-marks of tho Hun. Ihat is "well: Tho human mind is enlarged by travel. Conceivably the President may spend his time to greater profit in perusing- tho battlefields of tho West, strewn with ruinous heaps and pockmarked by shell holes, than in elaborating counsels of perfection for the Peace Gongrees He would get a bettor idea of how the doctrine "No annexations, no indemnities " presents itself to the peoples of Belgium and France. Also he would be reminded that there was a good deal of serious fighting before tho Americans came m, and that it all counted towards the winning of the war. The Saturdav Review (October 12) complains that the President's Congressional Address and Message ignore certain facts, namely— a

1 hat the peaco now slowly emerging from the smoke of the puns is not tho J resident s peace, a-nd has not been won by the abstract doctrines of democracy, but by tho blood and money of Britain France, and Italy poured out like water i during four terrible years. If through absence of mind or presence of national vanity the President ignores these cardinal facts, his education evidently needs an added touch or two.

. Frankly " —-continues the Saturday Review—-" there is no person of whom we are so much afraid at this hour as President Wilson, and we say it with a profound respect for his high character and station." Dread of a breach in our friendship, of even the tiniest rift within the Into, has rendered the British press softspoken about the President's League of Rations —a scheme carved out of °cloudland—and his " freedom of the seas " though this latter seems to mean by implication the ending of the British navv. On the other hand the President, to his credit be it spoken, in making the world saife for democracy has stopped short of proclaiming the abolition of kings. He has come very near it, but luckily seems to have discovered in time that "there are kings amongst the Allies who not only en joy a popularity equal to his own but are as good democrats as himself. He has other discoveries yet to make, and will go home not- necessarily a sadder man, let us hope, but certainly a wiser.

The Germans lack humour we say, and say it so often that the saying itself becomes a stale jest. Moreover, we are clearly wrong. Read how the homecoming soldiers were received in Berlin. No nation, people, or tongue ever devised a more humorous perform-nee. Song and dance, tabret and pipe, the laurel and the wine cup welcomed back " our unconquered armies." It was a stupendous joke, the Berlines'e all the while with tongue in cheek. Better so to think, and more charitable, than to suppose the humour unconscious and the Berlin people serious. But these drolleries are handsomely outdone by the counter claims with which German financiers propose to meet our bill of indemnities. We are to compensate Germany "for the destruction of oversea trade, colonial interests, and merchant ships seized, the cost of feeding prisoners, compulsory business liquidations, damage to bombed towns, the value of food abandoned in France, and surrendered guns, aeroplanes, warships, and the AlsaceLorraine railways" Items still to add are the four-years' upkeep of Krupps, the cost of munitions, of Zeppelins, of poison gas, etc., etc. It will go hard if these humorists do not bring us in their debtors. When we have done laughing, it may be well to look down our own side of the account as made out by Lord Northcliffe: We must eee to it that Prussia pays town for town, village for village, ship for ship, jewel for jewel, picture for picture, dollar for dollar. That is, she must pay full compensation for all that she has gorged and stolon, sacked and burnt, drunken as she was with lust over her paper victories.

Ireland plays her chosen part as tho Mrs Gummidge of the Empire—"l am a lone, lorn creetur, and everythink goes contrairy with me." —Blackwood's Magazine, July, 1918. ✓

The comparison is unjust to Mts Gummidge. Though lamenting herself as "a lone, lorn creetur," with' whom everything went "contrairy," Mrs Gummidge was never tempted to violence. It is not recorded that she turned against her best friends, tearing Mr Peggotty's hair and trying to scratch his eyes out. Whereas Ireland, —but listen again to Blackwood: Ever since the war began we have fought' Ireland's battle as well as her own, and we have flattered her absurdly for each scrap of grudging help that she has given us. We have protected her with a careful hand against the "" necessary hardships of war. Whilst v.-e in England and Scotland limit our desires cheerfully, Ireland knows no restraint. She fleets the time pleasantly as in a golden age. If she has a fancy for whippet-coursing it isinstantly gratified. Horse-races and cock-fights are provided her to mitigate tho duhjess of life. She knows not tho tedium of rations nor the lack of petrol. Her rebels have been permitted to make then- triumphal progresses in costly motor cars. And hitherto travelling by railway has not been discouraged by the imposition of higher fare.

"What has Ireland given Qs in exchange for _ these many privileges?—rebellion, malice, and murder. England has a short memory, and is too careless to nurse a grievance; but Easter Day is not yet quite forgotten—that day on which the Irish chose to show their' 'power' and ' patriotism' by killing English soldiers in cold blood and by taking pot-shots at harmless citizens." "And yet, according to the 1 hope of a Sinn Fein sympathetic who writes to the' Daily Times from South Dunedin, Ireland as Sirs Gummidge is to sit at the Peace Conference, a lone, lorn creetur, and proclaim herself "beaten plundered, and betrayed." '

After traitorously plotting with Germany and building its hope on German victory, Sinn Fein, being now in tho doleful dumps, is revenging itself at the polls. But Sinn Fein is not Ireland.

Yo say ye are ' Irish through and through;— Not till lscariot's Irish too, Sinn Fein! Thus the Saturday Review, quoting John O'Keefe, ait Irish rhymster in the New York World, "a newspaper which for a generation or more has been Ireland's friend." Preparing . for the murderous orgies of Easter, 1916', Sinn Fein, playing Iscariot, plotted with Herr von Jagow for the landing of arms aud ammunition at Tralee Bay, and with Herr Zimmerman for similar ends and purposes in February, 1917. Sinn Fein has produced its own Hymn of Hate —a poor parody, yet not undeserving of the Kaiser's Iron Cross:—

HYMN OF HATE. God of Mercy, watching' O'er the Irish race, Save the Nation's honour, Keep us from, disgrace. Let thy powerful arm, ■ Right o'erthrowing might, Lead the German Armies In 'this glorious fight. God of Justice, hearken, To our fervent prayers, Strafe accursed England, Bathe her deep in tears, Wither all her children, Blight der fancied fame, Expurge Hell's vomit, God of Justice, hear. God of Goodness, watching O'er the country's iveai, Give all British soldiers Purest Essen Steel; Smite those British bulldogs, Make tho cowards yell, Sond them, God of Vengeance, To their place of Hell. British victory is a bitter blow. It is sad to think of the feelings of Sinn Fein sympathetics at South Dunedin and elsewhere.

Individually tho Dunedin tramway men are doubtless mem of intelligence; they look the part-, and uniform sets them off. Collectively, they are dunderheads. By their " go slow policy ' (*' policy" forsooth ! —foolishness, rather) thev irritate exasperate, alienate tho very people who would wish to help them. The Dunedin tramwajjnen are .-not join^otocfc

company with dividends to make. They are employed by the citizens as a "whole, and the citizens as a whole can not only afford to be just but have the impulse to bo generous. A little patience, and the tramway workers -would get whatever it iis fitting they should get—nothing surer. But it does no good to keep the citizen owner standing at street corners while the tranvcars go slow—three of them trailing together as if on a funeral procession ; it does less than no good to threaten him with a strike. "Go slow" ia robbery; a strike (while it lasts) is confiscation. This it is that sets the owner raving in the newspapers for iustice. " Pay for our tram services whatever we ought to pay," says be, —" but not to these men. Dismiss them and appoint others." From which catastrophe may some lingering remnant of good sense yet save us. For the moment the tramway men have put themselves utterly in the wrong. And this comes of Bolshevist leadership.

For Scottish readers only: — Dear "Oivis," —Thanks for opinion about the passago in tho "Twit Dogs"— "Our whipper-in, wee, blastit wonner, Poor, worthless elf, it eats a dinner." For "whipper-in" I did not suggest "whelpchen" (its you suppose, misreading my script), but "'whotperen." This word was in common use in the West of Scotland in my younoj days, applied to a crossbred, pugnacious, yelping mongrel cur, generally bestowed with a rough curse and the too of a hoot; it was pronounced Whaidpcren, with tho 1 silent as in "psalm." Your guess about "\ykipper-in" is passable, but guessing won't do. I argue that "whipper-in" is wrong, and " whanlperen" is tho nearest approach I can see to rectify it. The guess that "won't do" was "whippet," defined in tbe dictionaries as a crossbred dog, and the line would read:— Our whippet l , eVn, wee, blastit wonner.

But as a mere Southron, pi'etending to no ekill in the matter, I meekly withdraw. One thing is certain —in this community no lightest word, on the subjcct of Burns can be allowed to fall to the ground.

My war time examples of a wholesome lightheadedness in serious-minded newspapers were last week left incomplete. Here is one from the Westminster Gazette: —

The Rev. E. F. Sampson, -whose death, is announced, was a well-known Oxford figure, and for many years tutor and censor of Christ Church. He and his colleague, Dr Strong, were immortalbcd in verso by Bishop Stubbs: 'Be Sampson strong- as Strong can be, And Strong be strong as Sampson;

And may they nover want a rod To drive the idle scamps on!" The intrusive p in Sampson makes pos sible the rhyme. But one doesn't forget that the Bible personage is Samson, — whom, by the way, the Germans call Simson. A fact, —turn up the German Bible if you have one and see for yourself. According to the Germans it was Simson who earned off on his back the gates of Gaza. The Westminster's specimen of episcopal humour at Oxford reminds me of a similar boatade at Cambridge, this time on the subject of swans. To grace an ornamental piece of water at Girton College the'students at St. John's College presented a swan; the students of Emmanuel College presented another. The sex of a swan, I believe, is not a feature that strikes the eye; anyhow the Girton girls in their innocence gave the name John to the swan that came from St. John's; to the swan that came from Emmanuel's they gave the name Emma. Whereupon from Bishop Walsham .Howe— such is the frivolity of bishops—an epigram ending thus: —

A nomencla.tirre fertile in. dilemmas, Far Emma's sex was John's and John's was Emma's. Not always intelligible to the lay mind are the works and ways of bishops. We have just heard of a bishop resigning because of a "no confidence" vote bj his clergy. We should have expected a different attitude: "Dearly beloved brethren, the boot is on the other leg;—it is I who have no confidence in yon. Wherefore, pack your traps and go!" Then we have a Romanist archbishop in Sydney essaying to penetrate a quarantined area and protesting to heaven and earth against the injustice of preventing him. But what his reverence desired vm« not merely liberty to get ill but liberty to get out again. Entrance into an area under quarantine may be easy; exit therefrom at will is impossible. This obvious fact the archiepiscopal mind was apparently unable to assimilate. Civrs.