PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18896, 23 June 1923, Page 4

PASSING NOTES.

Is Saul also among the prophets? Ido not remember that Bishop Cleary, ot Auckland, was ever an ecclesiastical Thersites, —far from it; nevertheless one wouldn’t expect to hear a member of the Roman Catholic episcopal bench praising the secular press, or to see him holding out the hand of fellowship to the “clergy of other faiths.” With the Bishop Liston episode in mind we find Bishop Cleary’s tone a pleasant surprise. Many of those men (the “clergy of other faiths”) had given him the prized advantage of their friendship, expressed at times in striking and generous ways. Ho bore willing testimony to their high character, freedom from sectarian bitterness, and the handsome manner in which they had recognised, as well as proved, that men may carry on a keen discussion and yet bo gentlemen. Quite so, —“and yet bo gentlemen.” On that basis I congratulate Bishop Cleary on his recovered health, and pray that his spirit and temper may spread, commending it all round —equally to the New Zealand Tablet and to the Rev. Mr Elliot and his P.P.A. Apropos, I note that the Director of Publicity to the Irish Free State renorts “a cablegram signed by the Rev. J. Kelly, editor of the New Zealand Tablet: ‘Strong condemnation here; all parties, all creeds, report numerous unquestionable sources maltreatment torture of prisoners . . .’ ” Credulity and incredulity—if ■wo would find these extremes united as happy yoke-fellows we know where to look. President Cosgrave replied from Dublin:— Reports maltreatment prisoners utterly unfounded. Do not depend on propagandist statements. Men interned, although guilty of more bloodshed and destruction than Black-and-Tans, actually receiving treatment equal prisoners of war. Later he wrote:— In spite of the terrible crime against the nation of which these men were guilty, the prisoners have been accorded exceptional treatment. The extracts from prisoners’ letters enclosed will give you some confirmation of this statement. He added that the Free State was facing a. debt of a hundred million pounds “for destruction of railways and homesteads by the Irregulars.” Not long ago, in the Dail (Irish Free State Parliament), Mr Cathal Shannon was lifting up his testimony in these terms—and no wonder : “Wait till you hear the cry that will go up from the streets of Dublin and in the homes of the twenty-six counties; ‘Ah, if only the British would come back!’ ” Since the Labour Party in the British House of Commons is now the official Opposition, it is unfortunate that the sympathy of its members with rebels of any Kind and rebellion anywhere shoulcT be so manifest and so prompt. Sympathy witn the Devil’s Delight established in Russia wo might expect; but why should rebellion against the Irish Free State find favour? The other day when someone on the opposite side pf the House was detailing an Irish outrage.—his story corroborated by the Bishop of Down—ho was answered by shouts of “Liar!” from the Labour benches. Of the facts the Labour benches probably knew nothing at all; it was enough that Do Valera's murderous hooligans were being impeached. When an Indemnity Bill was made necessary by the mistake of the Government in deporting without legal authority Irish rebels who were plotting riot and murder in London, the Labour Party fought it tooth and nail. • To end a useless wrangle, Lord Robert Cecil moved and carried the Closure; where-, upon the Labour members howled the American Hymn of the Republic, “Glory, glory, hallelujah !’’ and “We’ll bang Bob Cecil on a sour apple tree.” These are the men that their scandalised and protesting leader, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, thinks may yet rule the country. It will be a blessed time. At present their behaviour is that of a pack of children.

Mr J. IT. Thomas, British Labour leader, speaking at Derby, said that “Labour would not be a party to a bloody upheaval or revolution.” Our Mr Munr’o (Dunedin North), speaking at vVellington on Saturday last, said the same thing. They all say it, and are always saying it. As in “Hamlet” The lady doth protest too much, methinks, so with these protesting Socialists; it is a weak virtue that needs such constant asserting. Why any mention at all of “bloody revolution?” Who is it thinks of such a thing—who but they? Revolution is their aim, and the maxim holds— Who wills the end wills the means. Abolition of that hollow bugbear “capitalism” is the end, incidentally the abolition of the capitalist. And who is the capitalist? The big man. you say—the merchant, the banker; yes, and also the farmer, the shopkeeper, with everyone who holds a share in a joint-stock company. How are you going to abolish the capitalist bnt 'by knocking him on the head ? When Dick Turpin on Hounslow Heath comes upon the bishop's coach with a fat bishop inside, and the bishop says: “Sure as eggs is eggs, this here’s the bold Turpin’ : Says Turpin, “You shall eat your words With a sarsa of leaden bullet”; So ho puts a pistol to his mouth, And he fires it down his _ gullet. The coachman, ho not likin’ the job, Set off at a full gal-lop, But Dick put a couple of balls in his nob, And porwailed on him to stop. The wayfarer with empty pockets may whistle crossing Hounslow Heath: — Cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator. I don’t say that the vacuus viator may not be found in New Zealand. But Ido say that every other man you meet is a capitalist, and that if you attempt to take the money out of his pocket he will show fight. Some time ago I gave an account of Owen Wister’s book “A Straight Deal,” Owen Wistcr being an American impatient of bis countrymen’s misconceptions about the British, in particular about British sacrifices in the war. A correspondent asks if I can give him Wister’s translation of some lines on the theme “Don’t Worry” as current in the French trenches. Well' yes; but it is not in “A Straight Deal” that these lines are given; they are to bo found in another book of Wister’s, “Neighbours Henceforth”: —

With the "poilu” everything might bo worse. Of two things one is certain— Either you're mobilised or you’re not mobilised. H you’re not mobilised there's no need to worry; If you’re mobilised, one of two things is certain— Either you’re at the front or behind the lilies. If you’re behind the lines there’s no need to worry; If you’re at the front one of two things is certain — Either you’re in a safe place or you’re exposed to danger. If you’re exposed to danger, one of two things is certain— Either you're wounded or you’re not wounded. If you're wounded, one of two tilings ifl certain— Either you recover or you die. If you recover, there's no need to worry, It you die, you can’t worry; so what's the uso? Logical, cold-blooded, irrefutable. But the men who fought did not reason in that wav. Duty it was that carried the soldier through,—duty, and discipline, and companionship, and national feeling.

The same Owen Wister gives an edifying specimen or two of German syntax as the, reflex and natural expression of tho German mind. “The best portrait of tho German mind is the syntax to which it has given birth.” Mark Twain said the same tiling; but Mark Twain’s humorous examples were made to order. These, are authentic. Thus Dr H. U. Schmidt, of the University of Gottingen, justifying the destruction of the cathedral of Bheims, argues that the French were unworthy of possessing such an edifice. Read, and read it with care; do not be discouraged; read to the end: — Ever Ices will henceforth the possibility for the French be to understand what great and genuine in tho

German, yea in the Germanic nature, is. Ever stronger must through this the chasm between Franco and Germany, but also between France and her own pasthood. be. The world story is often symbolic, and the sacrifice of the cathedral of R.heims—since about that is it being dealt —can as symbol of the estrangement of the French people from th»ir own pasthood, how it itself even wider yet with necessity be drawn must, taken be. This is how German kultur expresses itself,—the kultur for lack of which the world was perishing, and which, in the attempt to communicate its blessings to the French, laid in ruins twenty thousand manufactories and five hundred thousand human dwellings. Unhappy France 1 Little wonder that in the Ruhr she is taking German kultur by the throat. Discussion of the New Poetry goes on merrily in some of the London weeklies. Miss Edith Kitwell, herself a New Poet, holds that “a great many people now reading and writing and giving their opinions would be better employed in keeping rabbits.” This in reply to agonised protests that followed the publication of a poem of hers in the [Spectator. I don’t reproduce that poem here; I should be better employed in keeping rabbits. It might have been written in cuneiform; its lucidity, to the normal intelligence, was that of an Egyptian hieroglyph. Mr Alfred Noyes, putting in a word for music in poetry, for rhythm, and for intelligibility, may be quoted. •Mr Noyes, be it remembered, is not unknown to the Muses. He had never been able to understand how anybody could view Tennyson’s work except with affection and a certain amount of reverence. One of the strongest poets in English literature was Rudyard Kipling. He did not know whether Kipling was modern, but ho dealt with tram cars and railways and banshees. Kipling* received a letter from Tennyson in his early days, and replied to it in these words: “When a private in the ranks is praised by the General, ho does not presume to thank him. He fights the bettor the next day.” He wished the

young men and women writing poetry to-day had more of that spirit. The point is that “writing poetry” they don’t write poetry; they write verse — “free verse,’’ often meaningless, and scandalously ragged verse at that.

As we are about to vote for or against a £90,000 civic loan, the money' to go in building a new Town Hall wherein visiting mimes and mummers may—after a Civic Reception—present themselves to advantage, and as we are supposed to be in the mood “Hang the expense,” it might be well to borrow a few more thousands to be expended on the Dunedin streets. Time was when in Princes street a bullock team might sink to the axle, and the imprecating driver lose his boots in the mud. Today Princes street is firm, hard, smooth as a billiard table. Asphalt is the only wear for a city street. But other main streets in this city show pot-holes that would disgrace a country Road Board. Here and there you see men with scrapers mournfully collecting the surface mud into heaps. A palatial Town Hall will go badly with neglected streets, as badly as Semitic jewellery goes with dirty linen. By the way, what is the special duty of .the policeman who stands—a picturesque figure—in the middle of the road at the junction of High street and Princes street? He may have a sharp eye for the morals of motor cars and a ready pencil for an offender’s number; but he winks hard at the loungers and loafers who at that corner stand in the roadway and obstruct the traffic. What are they doing there?—betting, book-making, discussing the latest racing news? It is a mystery. Equally is it a mystery how they contrive to escape the notice of the man in blue. Cms.