PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18453, 14 January 1922, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Weeks have passed since we jumped to the conclusion that a political agreement signed by Sinn F'einers at Westminster would hold good for Sinn Feiners in Dublin, and that now the Irish rebel, changed in heart, might be welcomed as a citizen of the Empire, a man and a brother. To that conclusion we jumped, and a jump it was. Simple Simons we! My own immediate impulse was to return thanks at St. Joseph’s; and if anywhere in the precincts 1 had come upon the Reverend Father This or That I was ready to embrace him. Alas for this precipitance!—we were' forgetting the ways of the Irish; events have rebuked us. It has been borne in upon us by e.vents that the stage Irishman, the Irishman of Lever’s novels, is after all the real Irishman, anyhow the political Irishman, a caricature but none the less a portrait—tailed coat, battered hat, shillelagh, ready for either a wake or a wedding and for winding it up in the manner of Donnybrook Fair—wherever you see a head hit it. These are the ways of the Irish as seen in the symposium at Dublin under the name of “ Dail Eireann,” whatever that may mean. Frantic appeals there were, frenzied denunciations, tears, prayers, threats, embraces, sobbings and swoonings—both sides and all parties enjoying themselves thoroughly. As thoroughly as the cats in the sawpit that fought ’all night and left _ only the tips of their tails for the morning. Kilkenny cabs, as the legend goes. And Kilkenny is in Ireland.

On onr side the earliest criticisms and the loudest pronounced the Westminster agreement as an abomination. Ulster raised the cry of “Betrayal!” Lord Carson repeated it with the violence of an epileptic seizure, holding up to our horrified vision the final ruin of the British Empire. The Morning Post and other Diehards pegged away on the theme of “a base surrender to murder-gangs.” All of which might Rave been cunningly contrived for making Sinn Fein content with its bargain. If so, Machiavelli himself couldn’t have done better. But Sinn Fein took no heed. Sinn Fein was listening chiefly to Miss _ M’Swiney, Countess Markievitz, and their like, declaring themselves rebels for ever and ever. Also to the Sinn Fein editor who was telling the neurotic de Valera that ho was a half-breed, and the renegade Childers that he was an Englishman—fatally disqualified, both of them, for making and meddling in Irish affairs. How the half-breed came to be the spectral President of a phantom Irish Republic is no easier explained than bow the Englishman comes to be in the Sinn Fein galley at all. Small pity for him should he come to misfortune. The other we may leave to the tears of the women who wept over his “ breaking down,” and to the consolatory embraces of Mr Michael Collins.

The Washington Conference has been up in the air and down in the sea, all to little profit. The new weapons,of war have defied limitation. To submarines, aircraft, and poison gas belongs the future. The Conference might have said “Wo will have no more of them.” But it dared not. It has passed some pious resolutions as to their use. Humanity will be dulv thankful. The airmen promise that they will soon have the capital ship quite at their mercy. They may yet have the world at their mercy, all the rules of bombardment notwithstanding. If a nation be bent, like Germany, on breaking the rules of warfare, what then ? Take poison gas, that very pleasant weapon introduced by our late enemy. The Conference delegates admit that the Root resolution on the subject does not go to the root of it. It is possible, says M. Sarraut, to exercise supervision over the production of gases. Mr Balfour agrees that the resolution, for all its prohibitory purport, will not remove the preoccupations and anxieties that the possible use of gas will involve. Its importance will lie “in bringing home to the conscience of mankind that the use of gas is intolerable.” Meantime the nations must keep their chemists at work for fear they be caught napping. Moreover, we hear of “the frightful consequences of poisoning if dropped from aeroplanes.” Besides, they talk now of invisible aeroplanes. The Conference is doing its best, but it is up against human nature and the instincts of self-preserva-tion. When killing or being killed is the business in hand, humanity hides her head. Desperation is born of tight cotners. In the future/ may not armies be eliminated altogether and nations fight on quite a new principle? That which could succeed in most quickly destroying the enemy’s country by means of awful things dropped from above would be- the victor. Talk about ultimatums! As a safeguard the conscience of mankind is rather a broken reed.

Apropos this, the War Office is said to have written to the leading students of science at the universities about a year ago and invited them to turn their attention to the invention of a poison gas capable of destroying a whole town in half a minute. They refused to put science to an end so ignoble. No trace has been found of the alleged instruction. But a discovery such as that suggested is the logical outcome of experiment. Perhaps, when the weapons have become too terrible for use, the nations will be afraid to use them. Then they will agree that war is impossible. Most humane individuals can contemplate terrible retaliations. There is nothing new under the sun. In his “ Memories and Notes ”Mr Sidney Colvin recalls a conversation with Victor Hugo shortly after the FrancoPrtiasian War of 1870. Always dramatic in his vision, Hugo then said :

What should have been done was to send up a vast number of captive balloons from the beleaguered city to the greatest height possible above the Prussian linos. Platforms should have been swung in the air from between pairs or groups of such balloons, and from those platforms the best scientific chemists of the city should have poured down deadly corrosive compounds upon the enemy’s lines, which should have caused his hosts to burn up and shrivel

and bo no more. Starvation is a stimulant of ferocity. Mr Alfred Noyes laments that the modern war, fought with chemists’ poison gas, would certainly not bo sung by tho poets, even by Homer. And Homer was not squeamish. The best thing to do with the poison gas is to turn it against the rat. Strongly of that oninion is the founder of the Vermin Repression Society at Home.

The awful results of intemperance! Tipsy legislation is bad enough, but what of the inebriated legislator? A picture of the House of Commons as seen through the spectacles of a Labour M.P., Mr Will John: I should like to take some of the Rhondda minors to witness a debate in the House of Commons, to see the wealthy landlords coming up from their dining rooms three-parts drunk. Somjw of (hern cannot stand, and some there arc who have to hold on to their chairs in order to speak in tho House of Commons. These arc the men who nro advocating emigration for tho cxsoldiors, and ore even against the pro-

posal to give the Is per child unemployment benefit to the working classes. The wonder is that a thousand Welsh miners did not march straightway upon Westminster. Mr Will John, returning alone to tho convivial but distasteful scene, blushed to find himself famous. The report of bis speech engaged the solemn attention of the Commons. “I wish to ask,” inquired a member, “whether such a gross breach of privilege as the making of such scandalous and unauthorised charges against brother members can be permitted to pass unrebuked and unpunished by the Chair?” Tiro Chair agreed that' it was a very grave matter. The sequel was a stammering, halting apology, which ho declared to be sincere, from Mr John. This the House agreed to treat as an unqualified withdrawal, leaving the repentant one to his reflections. They at least would be sober. The offender pleaded that the report did not convoy accurately what was in his mind. X sad but common case! Another guide to Labour carried away by tie exuberance of hie own verbosity I

Mr Will John’s indiscretion shows that where there’s a will there is not always a weigh. Over-indulgence on the part of a member of Parliament is not quite unknown. An ex-Premier of South Australia has publicly recalled an occasion when he had to be in his place from 2 o’clock one afternoon till 10 o’clock the next night, with occasional adjournments for refreshment. There was one member who was in the habit of imbibing freely, and when he said “Mr Speaker, I stand here ” another member added, “with considerable difficulty.” New York’s tale of New Year woe! The hours between midnight and 5 in the morning were marked by unparalleled viciousness and violence in every part of the city. Shootings, stabbings, assaults with fists, revolver butts, and empty whisky bottles, holdups, robberies, and other crimes are reported. A remarkably large number of hoodlums were observed in the early morning hours in important streets, including Fifth Avenue. 'There were continual rackets and disturbances by gangs of young toughs, who rushed into the main avenues from side streets, attacking inoffensive men ana women. Five deaths were reported, and at least 16 stabbings. There were also countless cases of alcohol poisoning. For the alcoholic indulgence there may bo some excuse, since the water system has become infected with a protozoan organism. This gives the water the unpalatable taste of ripe cucumber. Even boiled, this variety of flagellata is unwelcome. The chemists are helpless. “ Holdups, robberies, violent assaults, and killings continue at the rate of five daily.” To add to the excitement ten elders of the Reformed Church at Grand Rapids drink oak-stain varnish in lieu of sacramental wine at the morning service. No good testimonial this, for the quality of the sacramental beverage. As usual America licks creation. Lord Phillimore—a good judge too—thinks prison life too comfortable. A poet takes up the theme— Stone walls do not a prison make. Nor iron ham a cell; It is the muffins, lea, and cake 'Chat make the place as well. In England young thieves are being treated by psycho-therapy, and cured of their criminal tendencies. The Tavistock square clinic for functional nerve cases has the matter in hand. Results are reported to be “ uniformly good.” So all is well. New York should follow suit. But it seems a long time since one half of the world started trying the effects of “‘persuasion, l suggestion, and re-educa-tion ” on the other. “ Manners makyth man.” But who makes the manners? Answer who may. England’s old “ smart set ” so called has made way for a new. So imply the observers of after-war conditions. The New Rich, the product of the war, make themselves manifest. Their manners thus described by Sir Philip Gibbs; They dress loudly and talk in a nasal way. The young men are singularly lacking in good manners. They sprawl in the presence of their womenfolk. Their idea of gallantry is horseplay with pretty girls. They puff cigarette smoke into the faces of their dancing partners, and play the giddy goat in public places. It is they who crowd into public dancing rooms with girls expensively dressed but not expensively educated. . . ._ The girls themselves, in this particular set, are a curious compound of feminine artificiality and tomboy simplicity. They paint their lips, wear hideous little frocks and openwork stockings, but they will drive a motor car through the thickest traffic without turning a hair, and box a boy’s cars if his “cheek” gets too much on their nerves. They are self-possessed, ‘bad mannered, vulgar young people, supremely indifferent to public opinion. ... The modem girl may retort with W. L. George’s latest heroine that she is “in tune with her time.” After all Sir Philip is less severe than some of the critics. The Rev. R. J. Campbell tells how during his recent visit to America, interviewed by pressmen, he was asked casually what he thought of short skirts. Quito jocularly he replied, “ Rather hygienic, aren’t they?” Next morning the Hearst newspapers headed the interview, “ English preacher favours short skirts.” They expanded his remarks to a column in the course of which he was made to say—“ Puritanism wil] never lower the skirts of the English girl one half-inch.” Few of us are invited to lend assistance to our own biographer. Mr Max Beerbohm, essayist and caricaturist, is among the few. He has risen to the occasion. His feelings are expressed in a letter to Mr Bohn Lynch, who very properly puts it in the forefront of his volume. After refusing to vouchsafe the biographer the slightest aid Max continues— I remember several books about men who, not yet dead, had blandly aided and abetted the author; and I remember what, awful asses those men seemed to mo thereby to have made of themselves. Two of them wore rather great, men. They could afford to make awful asses of themselves. I, who am ICO miles away frorn_ being great, cannot afford such luxuries. My gifts are small. I’ve used them very well and discreetly, never straining’ them; and the result is that I’ve made a charming little reputation. But that reputation ’is a frail plant. Don’t over-altend to it, Gardener Lynch! Don’t drench and deluge it! Tho contents of a quite small watering-can will he quite enough. And then comes this cautionary advice: Bo judicial. . . . Don’t, by dithyrambs, hasten the reaction of critics against mo. Tend rather to underrate me—so that, those who don’t care for my work shall not bo incensed, and those who do shall rally round mo. . . . The caricaturist is occasionally too modest to append his signature to his work. London has been enjoying an art-joke exhibition tho perpetrators of which are veiled in mystery. Conscious humour in Blind street is considered rare. But these portraits of “Our Ancestors—Past, Present, and Future” must have repaid inspection. Among the many subjects figure —■ Oavallicro Bernardo Pschawc, with pen and crayons sticking in his beard. Baron Mos Pott—featuring Mr Churchill as a Terbosch. Lord George, who stopped the waste, because, being a Welshman, bo found the leek. Truly clever parody leavens existence. Givis.