THE COMMON ROUND.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19532, 15 July 1925, Page 7

THE COMMON ROUND.

By Wayfarer. Sydney, July 13. The usual week-end motoring holocaust took place. Presumably, the ignition was at fault. Fusion is “off’’ for the time being. The Labourites will be mightily pleased, despite their asseverations to the contrary. It is all to their good. And it will be highly diverting to them if the Reformers and Liberals, after all their cooing and wooing, are at it hammer and tongs for the rest of the session and during the elections. The business people of Sydney anticipate that they will reap a rich harvest out of the pockets of the crews of the American fleet. So it is cabled, and so it will have been wirelessed to the fleet. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. Besides we have already heard that the American papers have been ridiculing the Australian expectations that the crews will be lavish in their expenditure, the reason being that they will not have much to spend. The gold—two million dollars of it—conveyed under special escort from the United States to defray the expenses of the cruise will mainly be spent in the purchase of supplies for consumption on the vessels comprising the fleets As for the crews, well, we have some information from Honolulu : Even the officers say they are dying to see what th© trolley-cars and crowded streets are like. Men of modest tastes, you see. “Trolleycars” may be an expression unfamiliar to us, but it_ is the American for tramcars. And in Dunedin we can at least exhibit a spectacle of a kind that the Americans will never have dreamt of witnessing—the spectacle of the Roslyn car leaving the Rattray street terminus at rudh hours. Nothing like it anywhere else in the world. And, mark you, it is some achievement to provide a spectacle that cannot be matched anywhere in the United States. By chance has come my way a little folder, printed in Baltimore, upon “ The Wonderful Progress of the United States as compared with the Rest of the World.” Not, it will be observed, as compared with any other country in the world, but “as compared with the rest of the world.’ America contra mundum! In the matter of motor vehicles, particularly, the rest of the world is very small potatoes along side the United States, for it has only 12 per cent, of the total number of motor vehicles while America has 88 per cent. Furthermore, the leaflet asserts: The United States is producing: 55 per cent of the world’s iron ore; 61 per cent, of the world’s pig iron; 65 per cent, of the world’s steel, 61 per cent, of the world’s copper; 62 per cent, of the world’s petroleum; 43 per cent, of the world’s coal; 52 per cent, of the world's timber output; 65 per cent, of the world’s naval stores, 42 per cent, of the world’s phosphate, 80 per cent, of the world’s sulphur, 63 per cent, of the world’s mica, 62 per cent, of the world’s lead; 64 per cent, of the world’s zino: 60 per cent, of the world’s talc and soapstone ; 45 per cent, of the world’s barytes; 63 per cent, of the world’s cotton. Gee. The catalogue is not exhaustive. It might be extended to include' figures relating to crime, divorce, and so on, but modesty forbids. Another extract from this priceless folder may bo permitted me: WeT have entered upon a new era in our material, moral, and spiritual progress. Wo are leading the world to a higher life. Yes, do not we humbly perceive the evidences of it? Witness the operations of the home-staying American fleet against the rum squadron, the unexampled proceedings this week way down in Tennessee, and so on and so on. In Tennessee the verdict of a jury is to decide whether Christianity is to stand or not. This, no less, according to William Jennings Bryan (I omit the prefix “Mr” so as to conform with American custom) is the issue, upon which a jury of men off the street is to pronounce judgment. Probably in their coat sleeves, as William Jennings Bryan was here in the pulpit last Sunday. No frills about the Americans. Even they are amused over the Tennessee proceedings, however sensible they may be of “the supremo opportunity and tho supremo duty” to which they are called that their country mayyes, one more extract. — may stand out before tho world os tho one supremo achievement in tho odvancoment of mankind and a beacon to light the pathway by which other nations, following our footsteps, will attain unto even greater prosperity for thoir people than we have yet achieved. ‘They are content that I should live on a more pittance of £7OO a year. If they would only find mo some suitable occupation, such as a directorship, I would bo only too happy.”—Lord Strathspey. Pity the misfortunes of a peer condemned to live on £7OO a year without any apparent means of supplementing bis mere pittance—and, not having been dismissed from any employment, not eligible for the dole! It’s a hard world and a joyless one, in which, on the one hand, a national strike of coal-miners in the Old Country is being threatened in opposition to a reduction in wages and, on the other hand, over a million people, including Lord Strathspey, are out of work. But that is a bright idea of his about a directorship being a suitable form of occupation. It appeals to me, as long as no special qualifications for the job are required. Lord Strathspey implies that that is a minor consideration. His title is his passport. Alas, a common wayfarer can produce no such recommendation. “When one is kicked, lied about, and slandered for what one has not been able to do, by those who have prevented him, that is when it hurts.” Thus spoke the other night a retired public servant, whose grievance may bo supposed to have been of a private character since nobody outside the service seems to have heard about it. Reading the obituary notices of the Earl of Ypres in the English paper one is prompted to think that he was, while Commander-in-Chief of the British Army in the Great War, sometimes subjected to the wrong of being blamed for what he would have avoided if he had been backed up by the War Office in the way he had a right to expect. Colonel Repington, whose own death occurred only a few days after that of Lord Ypres, pictured the “killing worries” that Sir John French (as he then was) had to endure. “When, as happened on several occasions, some dilatory and unsympathetic message reached him from the War Office, he broke out and stormed like a trooper for all to hear.” There is high authority as to the value of pungent language in certain circumstances. It acts as a safety valve. A story about the Earl of Ypres, when he became Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland after his recall from the Western front —a case almost of translation from the frying pan into the fire —may here be introduced; After the truce, when Michael Collins and the others were in London negotiating, someone arranged that Lord Ypres should meet the so-much-wanted man. “I never saw you before, Mr Collins,” was his observation, “but I expect you’ve seen me.’’ “I have, General.” And then Lord French was asked to recall a day when he had (in defiance of exhortation) ridden alone in the Phcenix Park through one of its outlying dells. “We were there, General,” said Collins, significantly. “Why did you not do what you were there for?’’ “We did not expect you to bo by yourself, and wo thought it very bravo of you,” was the answer.