PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18465, 28 January 1922, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Public references to the death of the Pope are all of one tone, a tone indicating that Tros and Tyrian in presence of the event forget their controversies. The one reported utterdnce of the Protestant pulpit—if the Protestant pulpit is represented by Westminster Abbey—is not only in good taste and good feeling but reveals a commendable softening of manors, ecclesiastical manners. More than St. Paul’s on Ludgate Hill or the arebiepiscopal cathedral at Canterbury, Westminster Abbey is the central shrine of Anglicanism; speaking in his own church the Dean of Westminster speaks with, a peculiar authority. Although there were great differences between the Church of England and the Church of Rome, ho said, —and the “ although ” clausa was a necessary preface,—yet—yet—what is it they say in Glasgow?—“ We’re a’ John Tamson’a bairns?”—the Dean did not use those words, but that was what he meant. And he wound up with sympathy and condolences. There are seas and mountains between us, but we may follow his example. With an R.C. priest who is a good priest even an Orangeman might be at peace. The strain begins when the good priest is a malcontent politician. after the manner of his newspaper the Tablet. But the time has come ior letting bygones bo bygones. To put everything quite straight between Tros_and Tyrian, let the Rev. Howard Elliot 'preach for the departed Pope a funeral sermon in the spirit of the Dean of Westminster’s charity. English newspapers by this week’s mail, reporting excitedly the settlement reached at last upon Sinn Fein, enable .us to see what ‘‘ a near-run thing " —to borrow the Duka of Wellington’s summing-up of Waterloo—the final struggle was. Here is the Spectator's account: Ob Monday afternoon the representatives of the Government and of Sinn Fein sat for four and o-half hours without coming within sight of an agreement. Tim deadlock was as complete os any that tod been known during the last throe Just before the adjournment for dinner, however, the Prime Minister made a final appeal, pointing out that-the draft then-before the conference was the last concession which any British Government could make. The issue waa a grim choice between acceptance or immediate war. The Sinn Fciners then agreed to con- , sider the situation among themselves and to return to Downing street at 10 pan. for a last meeting. The time withi in which the Government had to let • Ulster have a definite proposal was running out and a special train was in waiting at Euston and a destroyer at Holyhead. At 10 o’clock the Sinn Fein representatives bad not returned. At IL2O pan., however, they arrived and found Mr Lloyd George, Mr Chamberlain, Lord Birkenhead, and Mr Churchill still waiting for them. Three hours of dialectical wrestling followed. The BLnn Fein representatives had .been much impressed by the dire alternative of peace or war, and their attitude after dinner was sensibly different from what it had been before. At last the agreement was signed . and the Sinn Feinera left the Conference at 2.15 a.m. on Tuesday morning. Yes, a near-run thing. The Duke of Wellington's exact phrase—and we may as well take it aal—was, I believe, “ a damned near thing, the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life.” Writing from the “Parsonage, Balclutha,” the Rev. C. B. Jordan, in a lengthy letter to the Daily Times, announces pontifically that “the days 'of the wages system are numbered,” The only reason ho seems to assign is that “our little systems have their day, they have their day and cease to be’’; but why the wages system should be am of these transitory ‘Tittle systems” he neglects to tell us. The Book which should be Mr Jordan’s chief authority has something to say against employers who oppress the hireling in his wages, but it has nothing to say against the wages system. The householder who goes out to hire labourers for work in his vineyard engages to pay and does pay them wages. And if I—stretching a point in these hard times—engage an “unemployed” to work in my vineyard, eradicating docks and eliminating thistles, how shall I discharge my obligation but by paying him wages?—fourteen shillings a day, and no less. It would be useless offering him in reward the product of his labour, the eliminated docks and thistles. I must pay wages. Possibly, however, Mr Jordan is Socialist, Anarchist, Bolshevist—what not? and thinks that the vineyard belongs as much to the dogk-and-thistle man as to me. But ho won’t find warrant for that in the Book. Nor warrant for the labourunion notion of “Capital” as a bloodsucking vampire, which notion seems his own. In our modest community every cottage proprietor is Capital, every George street shopkeeper, every Savings Bank depositor. The trading companies figuring each monjing in the Daily Times Stock Exchange list aerive from a hundred thousand shareholders far and wideand every shareholder is Capital. In the communities known to us Capital is not an unproductive plutocrat battening on the labour and sweat of his fellow mortals-Capital is every other man you meet. As an uninvited counsellor breaking in upon us, Mr Jordan means well, but he does not know. The authors of that formidable book “The King’s English”—the perusal of which made Andrew Lang “afraid to put pen to paper”—prejjace their 20-page treatment of “shall ana will” by this warning : , , It is unfortunate that' the idiomatio - use (of “shall” and “will”) while it comes by nature _ to southern Englishmen, is so complicated that those who are not to the manner bom can hardly acquire it. Let this bo preface, first, to a summarised correspondence between Mr T. A. Paterson, Orient Co., Melbourne, and the Registrar of the Melbourne University. Mr Paterson asks for an academical ruling on “a question that is dividing this office at present,” namely, which is right— I note your instructions of 20th inst,, and 1 shall arrange with the P. and O. Company as suggested. Or—• I note your instructions of 20th inst., and I will arrange with the.P. and 0, Company as suggested. To this the Registrar, Mr Bainbridge, replies that he has sent on the question exercising the Orient Co. officials to Professor Wallace, who, “although a Scotchman, is onr Professor of English,” and, ha hints, a very good man for the job. Next follows the Professor’s reply—of a length that precludes comment, hut, fortunately, of a quality that makes comment unnecessary. With confidence I present it simpliciter: Dear Bainbridge,— Once upon a time there was fought a battle called Hodden Held, in which the Scots, strange to say, were defeated by the rascally English, The Soots meditated revenge in battle, but fighting went out of fashion. Accordingly, they sought to accomplish by peaceful moans v/hat they could not perform by war, and sent out their emissaries to become the Prime Ministers, the Generals, Bankers, and the Merchant Princes of England; they even gave England their King. But their revenge took a more subtle form. They set up as Teachers of English, grimly determined that, if they might no longer murder Englishmen, they would at any rate murder their language. Mr Paterson, therefore, need not • trouble himself unduly over “shall” ami “will.” Let him remember that, like myself, ho is a link in a long lino of •. revenge. We do not set fire to Customs Houses, nor do wo stab in the dark. Wo are a far-seeing nation and content ourselves with making the Sassenach’s “shall” and “will” look silly. Hence the saying “Peace hath her Victories no less renowned than war.’’ The Sassenach, being a politer person (presumably) than bis red-haired, perfervid brother from the North, uses “I shall,” “we shall” (but “he, you, they will”)-when the reference is merely to sornelbmg that will occur in the future. “I shall do,” you will note, means “I am under an obligation to do,” which is a polite way of putting it. “You will do” means “it is your pleasure or desire to dp”—also ppUto. Accordingly

the Orient Office (noted for its politeness) writes thus to the P. and O. Office; “I note your etc,, . . . and I shall arrange . . The variant form “1 note your etc., . . . and I will arrange . . . ” is as much ns to say “It is my pleasure to arrange and oo damned to you.” I do not suggest that the form “I will” in this context is not sometimes justifiable. “Should” and “would,” sprung of the noble stock of “shall” and “will,” follow their parents’ example, as is fit and proper. Mr Paterson’s “I would be glad” should run. therefore, “I should be glad.” And now let the Orient Steam Navigation Company take note that for this lucid explanation I expect, at least, a return fare at the ftorico of a single fare, when it pleases mo to take a trip home—i.e., to Scotland, whore the well of English still springs updofiled. And let Mr Paterson take note that he will deserve well of humanity if he institutes “A Free Passage for Penniless Professors” ; the a|iteration ought to commend the proposal to any wellmeaning bouL I am. Yours most Soottiahly, and therefore most grammatically, (Signed) R. S. Wallace. Note by A. W. Johnson (Sassenach), Orient Company’s Melbourne manager: “I will arise and go to _my Father” rather suggests that this particular Scotsman is not infallible, unless _ he considers that the prodigal son desired to be blasphemous. The allusion is to a remark above —that “I will arrange . . . ” is as much as to say “It is my pleasure to arrange, and be damned to you.” But here the Sassenach is wrong. “I willj arise’* expresses determination, and is precisely the form needed. “I shall arise” would he merely the future of the verb. Scotland for ever! **l look forward to the time—it may be somewhat distant—when our books will bo printed in shorthand type.”—■ Mr Maloolm (Clutha) on the Education Amendment BILL Hansard report. With equal hope Mr Malcolm may look forward to the , Greek Kalends. A page of printed English, given good paper and .good type, is a thing of beauty; the eye ranges it with pleasure. A page of shorthand is a ballet-dance of pothooks and hangers gone demented; in comparison the Morse code looks simpler, a long-tailed algebra sum more prepossessing, the child’s game of noughts and crosses more intellectual. Nevertheless, in this script, proper only to reporters, books have been printed—books from the Bible downwards, Bat it has never caught on. Nor will it ever catch on. “I think the time has arrived when shorthand should be taught in our schools,” said Mr Malcolm. Not for the purpose' of training press repeaters and the like, but with a view to scrapping the English alphabet and the whole body of English literature, and reducing all writing and all printing to' - pothooks and hangers. Is that conceivable? Mr Malcolm thinks it is." I must set my think antithetical to Mr Malcolm’s think. Conceivable, forsooth ! —I don’t think. What is the motive of this monstrous substitution? Spelling reform, so-called. “I would be glad" to see our spelling of a more phonetic style,” continued Mr Malcolm. Well, it is true that English, with a literature going back to the Middle Ages, has kept some anomalies. “Plough” does not rhyme with “cough,” nor “tough” with either, and- “dough” Vepudiates all three. The theory is that if we had been taught to spell “plough” p-l-o-w, and “cough” c-o-double f, and “tough” t-u----donble f, and “dough” d-o; if we had been allowed to drop the 'otiose n in “hymn,” and spell “physio” f-iz-i-c, our intellectual growth might have gone at a greater rate. Consider, 0 consider, the time wasted in learning to spell 1 Agreed, —let us consider it; the result in my judgment is to ask, Why should there be any learning to spell at all? Teach children to read, hang the walls of the infant room with reading sheets; —spSling will coma without any spelling-book agonies. It is a long stretch of years since Do Quincey, in his paper on “Orthographic Mutineers,” satirised the spelling reform cranks of his day. Nearly as car back appeared the “Fonetic Nuz,” a journal spelt throughout as the cranks would have it. How much headway has “spelling reform” made since then? Thanks to' the common sense of the English none at all. He Quincey himself never learned spelling as spelling. “I took one lesson in this infernal art,” he says, ■ “and then declined ever to take a second; and in fact I never did. for all that, I spell as well as my neighbours.” To what degree of infatuation the craze for tinkering might go he cited the proposal of a Mr Pinkerton to add at discretion “a” and “o,” “ino” and "ano,” to the end of English words, giving thus to our rough tongue the grace and melody of the Romance languages. As a specimen, ; Mr Pinkerton favoured us.- with hisv own version of a famous passage in Addison —viz., “The Vision of Mirza,"—the passage which begins thus, “As I sat on the top of; a rock,” being translated into “As I satto on the toppino of a rocko,” etc. “But”—says De Quincey—“luckilissime this proposalio of the absnrdissimo Pinkertohio was not adoptado by anybodyini whatevenmo.” Grm.