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Otago Daily Times, Issue 18720, 25 November 1922, Page 6

The place which photography takes as a fine art is almost sufficiently indicated in a display such i as that which constitutes part of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery Society’s present exhibition. Much of this photographic work is undeniably beautiful, and the results achieved go to show how, apart from colour and the methods employed, the artistic photographer and the painter with his brush and palette approach their picture-making in much the same spirit. Broadly speaking, maybe, the camera cannot lie, but its interpretative powers axe a subject for study in themselves, and in inexperienced hands it can achieve results as jangled and out of / tune as those produced by a musical instrument barbarously treated. At the recent annual exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society at Home, Mr Solomon J. Solomon, R.A., oSered some interesting observations on the relationship that exists between artistic photography and the craft of the painter, of which he is himself so skilful an exponent. Like the painter, the artistic photographer must have knowledge and perception of the main elements of art, composition, line, balance of grouping, decorative spacing, and the massing of light and shade. It must be the case, affirmed the distinguished Academician, that the wide popularity of photography tended to raise the general level of taste. By comparing that which Nature had happily arranged for him with his less fortunate efforts, the' beginner trained his artistic faculties. The eye is satisfied only with unity as the ear with harmony in music. “ What has struck me as extraordinary,” said Mr Solomon, “ is that the individuality of the photographer is as marked as that of the. painter. All photographers have the same kind of instrument and means of manipulation, yet the pictures produced are a a varied as those at an exhibition of painters. In certain processes a man can work upon the plate almost like an artist on his canvas. . . . Whatever advanced critics may say, it must be conceded that art is founded upon nature. In these days of alarums and excursions, when it is sometimes forgotten that the mission of art is to grace life, and not to

astonish the native, photography which holds the mirror up to Nature should have a salutary influence.” Optimism characterised tho utterances of hi. Zinovieff, president of the Third International, at the Communist International Congress last week. He described the progress of Communism as world-wide. Fortunately, however, Germany and Austria seem to be the only countries in which “ noteworthy progress ' is claimed. In Great Britain, France, Italy, and America, the position is admitted by M. Zinovieff to be unsatisfactory. Something must bo done to wake np these backward and unprogressive nations. Great Britain is the ‘ worst country.” Tho British are an incorrigibly conservative people. Metaphorically, M. Zinovieff weeps over them, unmoved, as they are, by either unemployment or destitution to follow the new light, to enrol under the glorious banner of Communism. Tho Bolshevist leaders are not quite reasonable. They must expect some little objection on the part of other peoples of the earth to be reduced to the miserable pass to which the Russian people have been brought. In Russia the so-called extremists of the Communist Party have latterly been definitely gaining the upper hand, and M. Zinovieff s specialty seems to lie in the instigation of campaigns against the intellectuals. M. Lenin’s affirmation at the Communist Conference that the prospects for world-wide revolution arc becoming not only good, but brilliant, no doubt breathes more of pious hope than of assurance. There is still some national sanity outside Russia. The ” dictators of the proletariat” cannot conceal the true slatq of affairs in that country, nor can they refute external judgment well condensed in the words cf Lord Sydenham in a letter to Tho Times: There is nothing so certain ns that the application of Marxism to Russia has produced the greatest catastrophe the world has ever known, and that the working classes have been reduced to ruin and slavery. Communism has frequently been tried on a small scale, and it has always ended disastrously. Now it has been applied to the greatest country in tho world, where it has already cost some twenty million lives—mostly those of workers and peasants—and tho end is not yet. Disease and starvation have not completed their deadly task, and civilisation has to be reconstructed if Russia is not to become permanently barbaric. No doubt this week’s demonstration in London by the unemployed, engineered by the organisers of the Communist movement, most of whom are likely to be aliens, might have been attended with serious consequences had it not been checked and kept within orderly limits by the precautionary arrangements made by the authorities. The design of the leaders of those who assembled on the Thames Embankment was evidently to invest Downing Street or other strategic points with the idea of intimidating the Government by a display of recklessness and force. The sinister purposes of tho Communists would go far beyond the asser tion of the claims of the unemployed to be afforded relief, and would include everything .calculated to bring about an interlude of mob rule. Fortunately, the authorities were well posted respecting all the particulars of the “ Red plot,” and were entirely successful in so controlling the situation that the threatening aspects of the demonstration disappeared, and nothing more sensational developed than an orderly march of a few thousand of the unemployed, a mere handful in London’s mighty precincts. Thus another endeavour of the Communists in England to use unemployment as a lover for the upsetting of tho social equilibrium has come to nothing. These gentry, who gather their inspiration and, if they can manage it, their financial backing also, from Moscow, are holder in words than in deeds. They preach violence but are not without some regard for their own personal security. The activity of these agents of Bolshevism has been fairly pronounced of late in England. But though they are able to make their movement a centre of some ferment, and though there is only too much distress in the Old Country through unemployment and industrial depression—notably in Lancashire in the cotton industry—British Labour is not smitten with the Communist idea. There is a robust common-sense about the British working classes which is able to estimate the ravings of the Communists at' their true value. That is not to say that these revolution-mongers do not exer else a mischievous influence and that the - country would not be very well rid of them. A feature worth noting in the Home election results is the apparent non-suc-cess of most of tho literary and philosophical candidates. It has often been observed that political organisations have no love for writers qua writers, though distinction in the sphere of letters may not he regarded as disqualifying an aspirant to parliamentary honours who displays practical ability as a publicist. There is also a popular impression that when an “ intellectual,” pure and simple, docs secure a seat in the Legislature he usually fails to enhance his reputation. John Stuart Mill has often been mentioned as a typical instance of the ineffectiveness of tho philosopher in Parliament, though there is reason to believe that the critics have indulged in some exaggeration. The Speaker of the period has left on record his judgment that Mill’s presence in the House of Commons elevated the tone of debate, though “ viewed as a candidate for Ministerial office ho might be regarded as a failure.” Disraeli won his first fame as a novelist, —a circumstance which may have retarded his advance in serious politics... Macaulay, Bulwcr Lytton, and Viscount Morley form a Trio of Cabinet Ministers who were also eminent men of letters: but it has to be borne in mind that Macaulay and Lytton were trained men of affairs from their youth; while Lord Morley, prior to'his first appearance as a candidate, had displayed powers of searching practical comment in relation to the politic.il matters of the time. Thackeray, as it is interesting to recall, once contested an election at Oxford (the town,' not the university), but probably few of his innumerable admirers have ever been disposed to deplore tho failure of tho rather freakish experiment. The wayward poet Swinburne, strange to say, was pressed on one occasion to allow himself to be nominated ; and in this case it might perhaps be permissible, in a mood of Mephistophelian mischief, to wish that the invitation had been accepted with successful results at the poll. It is safe to say that a vivid tragi-comic chapter would have been added to the history of the Mother of Parliaments. Tjie dames of Mr H. G. Wells, Professor Gilbert Murray, and Mr Norman Angcll—all among the rejected of last week—seem rather colourless in comparison with those we have mentioned. It is true that in the cabled news the announcement of Professor Murray’s defeat was immediately

followed by an. intimation of the success of Mr Shakespeare; but (what’s in a name?) Mr Shakespeare is only one of Mr Lloyd George’s secretaries. The failure of the trio just mentioned may be welcomed or regretted according to taste, opinion, and temperament. Not one of the three is quite free from what Charles Lamb termed “a touch of the motley,” so often incident to the eccentricity of genius; but the election of any one of them, or indeed of all of them, would have been preferable to that of Mr E. D. Morel, founder of the euspect Union of Democratic Control, whoso sinister literary activity, of anti-British trend, appears to have commended him to the electors of Dundee. It may seem curious that the university constituencies have seldom shown a predilection for literary or philosophic candidates. Professional scientists have a rather better chance. The University of London, reputed free from traditional prejudice, has (perhaps sagaciously) chosen a distinguished physician in preference to the prodigiously prolific and versatile author of “ Tono Bungay ” and some half a hundred other publications. In 1918 Mr Sidney Webb, the well-known sociologist, was an unsuccessful candidate for the metropolitan university. He has now found a seat elsewhere and should bo useful iu Parliament. Professor Gilbert Murray has suffered defeat for the second trine at Oxford; bub it may be noted that Professor Oman, Lord Hugh Cecil s colleague in the representation of the university, is an eminent historian.