PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17729, 13 September 1919, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

In the history of the -world the name .Jellicoe, not in itself imposing, lias a sure place. History will tell of no naval battle greater than the Battlo of Jutland, nor of any naval force greater than the naval force Admiral Jellicoo commanded there. Our British Grand Fleet v.vis, is, and will remain, the mightiest machine over forged by man. The lioets that wangled at Tiafalgar could havo been blown out of i-ho water by a single unit of the Grand Meet. ,41ono the flagship Iron Duke could havo done it, herself scatheless. Admiral Jellicoo at Jutland won the day, and with the day a double victory;—he dispc»ed of the enemy licet, thenceforth to hide itself liko a rat in a hole; and he preserved his own. It would have been possible at Jutland to win the day and lose the war. Had tho Grand Fleet in victorious pursuit rushed upon the enemy minefields, duly fprccl and ready waiting, the Grand I' lect would have gone up in roar and fume like the Hampshire that had Kitchener in its keeping. To lose the fleet was to Jose the war;—and that is a simple theorem which any schoolboy might work out. Yet, apparently, it is too much for some people,—for some people who are in high places. Roberts was Lord Roberts of. Kandahar; Kitchencr was Lord Kitchener of Khartoum; Jellicoe is only Lord Jellicoe of Scapa. Jellicoo of Scapa is good, but Jellicoe of Jutland had been better; and Jellicoe of Jutland it should have been. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his latest volume of the " History of tho War" defends General Gough, Commander of tho Fifth Army, who was sacrificed without inquiry regarding tho forces ho had to face or the method whereby he mitifratrd what might havo been a crushing disaster. Many in tho best position to know affirm that nothing could militarily have been bettered. Ho hid been oornpellrd to extend his front at the express wish of the French. The country owes a debt of gratitude to General Gough. Had ho hesitated to withdraw his army, it might havo been isolated and destroyed, and tho wholo war might well havo taken a sinister turn. It has been left to an irresponsible litterateur to vindicate the military reputation of General Gough. But as irresponsible litterateurs not seldom live -up to their irresponsibility, and the public know it, this belated vindication is insufficent. No one has yet appeared to put in a word for Townshend who surrendered at Kut, or for lan Hamilton who failed atGallipoli. Yet both may have deserved well of their country. Harshness to unsuccessful generals—though bad politics, bad strategy, bai tactics, since it elates your enemies and discourages your friends —is a British tradition. Wellesley, Burrard, and Dalrymple wore tried by courtmartial for concluding the Convention of Cintra, though the Convention of Cintra secured tho French evacuation of Portugal and followed the British victories of Rolica and Vimiero. Said Napoleon: "I was going to send Junot before "a council of

war, when, fortnn;iteJy, the English tried (heiß; generals, and saved me the pain of punishing an - old friend." In Wolfe's lines, "The Burial of Sir John Moore" there is a hint of what Moore might have expected from his countrymen, Lightly they'll speak of his spirit that's gone, And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him, though Moore's campaign was destined to a place arrtong our chief military glories. Republican Rome, far back in civilisation and the ages, had a wiser way of dealing with failures. At Cannae, bad soldiering <and headlong rashness in the consul, Varro, brought a defeat the most ruinous in the history of war—7o,ooo legionaries left on the field, the rest captives to Hannibal. Varro himself escaped, got back to Rome, and was met at the gate by senators with a vote of thanks that he " had not despaired of his country." Had Varro been a Carthaginian general, says Livy, Carthage would have spared him no tortures. And had he been British, he would at least have been left out of the honours list. Bolshevism, more terrible than the French Terror of 1754, is nevertheless no new. thing. The theory of it has been preached for a generation. In Zola's novel, "Germinal," of date 1884-5, the story- of a French colliery strike, there figures a Russian who is Bolshevist through and through, and the devil incarnate,—Souvarine his name. Gentle, softspoken,—liko Byron's pirate, Tho mildest-mannered man That ever scuttled ship or cut a throat, his habit it was in hours of leisure, Bitting silent, the eternal cigarette between his lips, to fondle tenderly a pet rabbit. And yet, a. devil incarnate, Souvarine contrives in the end a devil's deed that brings death and destruction to friend and foe alike. The strike he holds in contempt; Socialist disputations are " all rubbish." Seated with eves half-closed in mystical reverie, "Blood, blood!" he would whisDer, stroking his rabbit,—" Blood, blood! The earth has need of it!" " What is it that you -want?—what your object?" asks someone. "To destroy everything. No moro nations, no more -Government, no more property, no God, no religion." But to what will all this laad?" "To a new primitive community, a new world, tho recommencement of everything'." "And by what means 'do you expect to carry this out?" rr.u' By ■ fire ' by I lcrson > by tho knifo. Iho brigand who acts without any phrases taken from books is tilo only hero. Wo must havo a terrible series of death-blows. All arguments aro criminal, because they prevent destruction pure and simple, and hamper tho progress of tho revolution." I quote from the English version. Whoever would make the acquaintance of a powerful story, and of Bolshevism in the pud, may be commended to Zola's "Germinal,'' English version,—which is the Bowdlerised version to boot. The old House-of-Commons-chaplaincy joke—" Does the chaplain pray for the members?' " No, ho looks at the members, and then prays for the country " would hold good in Wellington if 'the Wellington House of Representatives had a chaplain. It has no chaplain; nevertheless it has prayers; and the official, whoever ho may be, th?„t says those pravers, if he looks on the members will straightway pray for the country. Take the first score of men you meet on the Princes street footpath ;* their facsimile or facsimiles, if you iirefer the plural sit on tho benches" of tne House. By way of relief are certain exceptions— a "figure prim and neat, manicured, shampooed, clipped, trimmed, pared, and polished— quite the manufactured article. A companion figure, of aspect suave, gracious, well-fed, benign, yet not altogether illadapted- for the dispensing of tapes and bobbins across a counter, —reminding yon a littje of another old story. Shop walker to customer: " Who was it served you, madam?—the gentleman with tho iong whiskers?" " No,.the nobleman with the bald head." Then there are returned soldiers of distinction; there are a few old officials who look the mrt: here and there sits a Maori, ill-habited in pakcha dress. But the ruck, —for tho ruck scan the next man who chances to face vou in a tramcar. Not that legislators are to bo judged by their outward appearance,—or how should we find a place for Lloyd George?-—nor sailors and soldiers by their inches. 'Lord Jellicoe does not run to length ; nor did Lord Nelson, nor Lord Roberts, not to mention Napoleon. And Wellington was no ciant. Listen to Dr Watts of the "Divine and Moral Songs," who stood five feet nothing in his stockings: Were I of height to reach tho pole, Or grasp the ocean with a span, I must b? measured bv my soul.— The mind's the standard of tho man. A point well takan. I infer nothing to the discredit of our legislators from their undistinguished forms and phizzes. This is a dcmocra-cy. Tho people rule, and the people it is—the commonplace, everyday people—that sit in the seats of the mighty. Mr Semple, M.P.. boasts himself a devotee of equality. Thus, at a Labour rally in Wellington:—"He believed in the equality of men, and ho would take off his hat to no gilded squib,"— a graceful allusion to his Excellency at <t je opening

of Parliament, when, as in duty bound, his Excellency appeared in full lig. Even Mr iSemple, it may bo presumed, put on his best bib and tucker. But if "gilded squib " may pass, what about "miserable Swab " ? Equality is equality ; let there be equality in slang-whanging as in all else. On our side, however, we should hardly caro to claim it. Let Mr Scmple l»o conceded a monopoly. When he vituperates "the pomp and ceremony, the hypocrisy and piffle, of Parliament," vociferating that " the gold braid, tho bowing and scraping, will have to go," wo leave him to wallow- in congenial mire—his native element. At tho opening of Parliament he had seen a plush carpet laid on top of cocoanut matting up the concrete steps with a roofed tunnel erected bo that no drop of rain might roach tho person of an important personage. While Mr Semple, M.P., was limited to tho exiguous shelter of an umbrella. Where is equality? But, courage!— shortly it will be " dungarees for everybody." So he says;—vet I don't observe thai by way of hastening that happy day Mr Semplo is going about in sheepskins and goatskins. Sunday blacks may not be his wear; but certainly he is known in capitalistic tweeds. Semple is his name; —for Semple read Simple, and for Simple read Simplissimus. Timaru Sinn Fein and the Irish Harp: — Dear " Civis," —It was interesting to read to-day's Passing Notes on the Irish flag. Timaru people havo been discussing tho subject ever since tho Peace « celebrations. Even tho Borough Councillors at a pound a day have spent a lot of their valuable time deliberating over the matter. Some people maintain that tho loyal Irish flag must either : havo the Jack at the top corner, or tho Crown over the harp. It is this omission that is causing the wholo trouble. No exception is taken to the harp. You will notico that ori the coins to which you refer thero is always the Crown over the harp. While writing about flags, I noticcd that at the armistice celebrations here, just about half the Union Jacks were flown upside-down. Some largo homemado flags wero wrongly made. No doubt, a lot of this is done in ignorance, but, it is not always so. If you can throw more light on the above subject I am sure that many readers of Passing Notes will bo pleased. For more than twenty years I have been reading vour column. I havo other Timaru letters on this same

absorbing theme; also a copy of the Timaru Herald in which "Irish Ploughman " lifts up his testimony against me, adding a modest request: " May I ask ' Civis ' to cable home to the resident constable at the little hamlet of Ullara, near Kilkenny, and ask him " —etc., etc., —in short ask bim for a photograph of the original Harp of Erin. To allay anxiety let fhe admit the existence of ancient Irish harps, of ancient Scottish harps, of harps Egyptian, Persian, Chaldean; not forgetting "David's harp of solemn sound." And " when 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyro " he doubtless smote a harp of sorts. None the less is it true that the heraldic Harp of Erin has no material embodiment, nor ever had. The heraldic British lion has no material embodiment; still less the heraldic British unicorn. Dropping this silly subject, I recommend Timaru processionists to drop all symbols that divide us. The one national symbol that unites is the Union Jack with its three crosscs— the cross of St. George, the cross of St. Andrew, the cross of St. Patrick. Chir flag is the Union Jack, —not upside down, not half-mast, but as at Lucknow in time of pain and peril, with the heathen raging round, when Ever upon tile topmost roof our banner of England blew. From a city councillor of taste and feeling comes to this office a hint that " the omission-to offer grace at the municipal dinner to Lord Jellicoe" needs animadversion in Passing Notes. Be it so; I am nothing loth.

It had been arranged that the Primate should bp asked to say grace, but the Mayor, in liis flurry, forgot about it until it was too late. The Moderator of tho Presbyterian General Assembly, wearing his insignia of offioe, and Father Coffey were, along with tho Primate, aocommodatod with seats at the top table. Needless to say, tho Moderator's habiliments out-shone those of both tho Primate and the Administrator of tho-: R.C. diocese. Better to assume that the Mayor " in his flurry foTgot," than to suppose him revolting from the " ten-mile and five-mile graces " —beginning with the Fall of Man—under which some of us groaned in our tender years. Grace before meat is as old as the practice of dining; all nations had it, all ranks and classes of men. To omit it is to lapse out of civilisation. Even Macbeth, hot from a murder, says grace: Now good digestion wait on appetite, And health on both I It is pleasant to think of a Presbyterian Moderator in canonicals at a public dinner, out-dressing and out-shining the episcopals right and left. The dignity of his office asked for nothing less. We are a Presbyterian community, remember, and we are getting on. Caveat emptor. (Law maxim—" Let the buyer beware "). Dear " Civis," —In these days a 8 in others, but particularly in these days when al| men seem_ to bo out against each other for their money or their lives, the buyer must evidently beware. I enoloso a paclast of seeds, tho doublo label on which tells its tale. The label, headed " Packed in season 1919," is pasted over another label headed " Packed in season 1918-19." Hence a horrid doubt. "An aged seed cannot tell its age, but it can disappoint the expectant horticulturist." The seeds are carrot seeds, price 3d. " You can keep the seeds" he kindly says;—"l wonder if you can solve tho mystery." Apparently he expects me to plant them. If I do, and if the carrots come up, they -will be ready for another correspondent whose daily fare is raw vegetables. Dear " Civis," —Did you notico Dr Irwin's address in the Times last week on Health of School Children? Why, she actually rcoomm-ended that they should eat raw vegetables and fruit t.o better ensure having good teeth. In days not long ago when I suggested eating .these for health reasons you ridiculed me (which did not hurt me, however), and were horrified at the idea of eating raw cabbage. Well, you may gee now on professional authority that there is some virtue in doing po. When you wcro a boy. perhaps you ate raw carrots and turnips and so saved your teeth, and now have natural instead of bought onc-s. A wild and baseless supposition. This correspondent may write again when he can tell mo that ho eats straw like an ox. Civis.