PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19952, 20 November 1926, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

There is a deadly uniformity in strikes. Always and everywhere the strike ends worse than it began. The English coal strike has ended or is ending, thanks be! —and all the parties to it are worse off than before. The miners arc poorer, the owners are poorer, the nation is poorer. Mr Cook’s case is different. In stiffening up the strikers Mr Cook has spared no pains, and it would be against reason if his laboured efforts wont unrewarded. “ Thou shaft not muzzle the ox 'that treadeth out the corn.” But, Mr Cook apart, there is general impoverishment. Even the Soviet has lost money on the English strike. There will be no revolution, and Russian contributions toward that end—a last desp iring dole, £05,000, this very week —have been squandered in vain. Picture the witches’ Sabbath of Moscow —their “ Round about the cauldron go! ” —the hell-broth they are brewing, the evil hopes they built on the coal strike. The children born of thee are sword and fire. Red ruin; and the breaking up or laws—said they, glaring expectant. And by the mercy of Heaven their expectation is cut off.

Compared with this mining paralysis in England, the strikes known to us are child’s play. But “ play ” is not the word; there may be sense and skill in play. Say rather, childish folly. What else was the preposterous strike of British seamen when in these waters ? Within the last week or two a strike in some northern freezing works has announced itself; unionist slaughtermen “ went out ”; with little delay free labour went in; and free labour, it seems, could slaughter as effectively and as expeditiously as unionist labour. But the resources of foolishness were not ex--1 nr, 1 ;d. “Workers” in England are to be warred by cable against buying New Zealand frozen mutton; which frozen mutton as now produced is declared BLACK —a word of doom on this side of the world, but, it may be, an excellent advertisement on the other. There ought to be a run on this incriminated mutton. Speaking for myself, if I were offered a choice quarter of lamb that was morally “ black ” because of a labour dispute in another hemisphere, I should buy it on principle.

TJia Imperial. Conference of late lias been a headline in the cables and little more—the little more a guarded hint that all goes well. Members are sworn to secreey; mum’s the word, but —all goes well. By which we arc to understand, let us hope,' that the Empire holds together and will continue so to do. The In and Out doctrine, sheer insanity, could hardly survive a round-table talk among men not themselves insane. The In and Out doctrine is that whilst the Empire is at peace a Dominion remains in ; but if the Empire is at war the Dominion slips out, hoists the No-Liability flag, and makes money by trading impartially with the forsaken Motherland and the public enemy. This Bedlamite absurdity the public enemy with ships and guns would promptly explode, and the Dominion that went out would be out of the frying-pan into the fire. Even General Hertzog, though a Boer in grain, may ho trusted to see this, and Mr Mackenzie King for Canada will not be less astute. About Canada, tbe New York correspondent of a London paper writes satirically : I doubt very much whether Canada will cut the painter. All that has happened is that the painter is now hitched to Wall street. And as England also has'hitched her own painter to the same pavement, the Empire holds together. England owns Canada, and the United States owns both. An allusion to debts and loans. Repaying money borrowed to finance our Allies in the compion interest—America’s included —we are to hand over £IOO,OOO a day for the next sixty years to Uncle Sam. otherwise Uncle Shylock Last week, on a question of usage in English speech, I had the temerity to challenge the chief authority on that subject, Mr H. W." Fowler, author of a Dictionary of Modern English Usage. In reparation, let mo-as a journalist of sorts quote from Mr Fowler a sentence or two in which he is beating journalists about tha head- “ Meticulous.” What is the strange charm that makes this wicked word irresistible to the British journalist? Dees he like its length? does be pity its isolation (for it has no kindred in England) ? .... At any rate, ho must have the word always with him . . . . it means not what the journalist makes it mean .... it was not in the least needed, “scrupulous” and “punctilious” being amply sufficient .... the journalist enjoys a laugh at the man in the street with his “chronic” for serious; but his own “meticulous” for exact lays him open to the same charge of leaving out the essential meaning of a_ word and using it promiscuously whether it is applicable or not. This does not err on the side of mercy, and it is Mr Fowler in his “customary attitude." So far as I may be incriminated I submit myself humbly, and would kiss tha rod. “ Who are the six greatest poets of the world ? ” roundly demands A correspondent of the Witness, as if he were asking for a date in history or for the prices of fat stock at Burnside. “ Opinions differ ” is the only possible answer to a question that would discriminate the greatest poets. One man’s best is another man’s worst, as one man’s meat is another man’s poison. I recall a pious grocer of my acquaintance, a Dunedin grocer, whose son was to “ enter the ministry,” and for preliminary training was sent to the English Literature class of the Otago University. Quite a good idea, you say. Not a bit! Authors profane and worldlv the University class-room, and the boy was hastily withdrawn. Sha-ake-speare! ” exclaimed the grocer, in anger and contempt; “what does a minister of the Gawspcl want with Sha-ake-pnare?” Dr Watts’s Divine and Moral Songs might have contented him, or the Gipsy Smith hymnbook if available. But “ Sha-akespearc ” —no! Not for a minister of the Gawspel. You bring your own weights and measures to literature. In judging, you yourself arc judged. Great and not great, high and low, good and not good, are terms of estimation that take their value from what you arc yourself. For an opinion on books go to a bookish man; what lie thinks about this book or that, tliis author or that, will always be interesting if not decisive. Robertson Nicoll—the Rev. Sir William Robert son Nicoll, to give him his full due — was a bookish man, very bookish. His .average reading was “ two books a day ”; and, being a busy journalist—about the busiest in London —he “ read a' good many more newspapers than books.” In his view “ the next best thing to a good book was a bad book.” About good books, listen to him: “ You cannot have too much of Dickens. I can hardly conceive of a man not liking ‘ Pickwick.’ I don’t think I could speak to him if I know that.” Week-ending at Bournemouth, “ I got through the time reading Dumas.” he says. “ I road the three volumes of ‘ The Three Musketeers,’ the three volumes of ‘ Twenty Years Aftqr,’ the four volumes of ‘ The Vicomto de Bragellone,’ —every word. And if there be better reading in the world I don’t know it.” At a long interval, and with due modest}’, I say ditto to Robertson Nicoll. English stiffness of manner is a proverb with the vivacious French. Our men do not kiss when they meet, nor embrace ; in speaking thev do not always gesticulate. We now hear of “the inexpressive English face” ; not pm-l-aps— Faultily ioily •piendidly null,

but fixed and meaningless. It is tho result of education ; “schoolmasters and mistresses have striven, in obedience to a foolish theory of ‘good form,’ to eliminate all expression from the faces of their pupils.’’ So says a writer in tho London press. Many parents also attempt to repress demonstrative manners in their children. “When a child sees its father approaching, it raises its arms and utters a cry of welcome; but mother stops that at once; the, arms are put down, and she tells the child how rude it is to point.” Sheer rubbish this; no mother is capable of any such silliness. The rudeness of pointing is a school-marm superstition. Stand in the street and persistently point, though at nothing at all, —you would stop the traffic. But in a room there is no reason why you shouldn’t point on due occasion. Of facial expression the English. I should say, command all that they have any use for. We are hidden to think of Mrs Siddous. eighteenth century actress of name and fame, who “had a face sn full of expression that she once threw a linendraper into paroxysms of terror bv the way in which she asked for a spool of thread.’’ Mrs Siddons would be an unpleasant guest at a tea party. I should prefer to encounter someone who. as Tennyson save, would Gforsronise me from heatf to tout With a etony British stare. F'rom Invercargill: Dear “ Civis,” —What is the correct spelling of the name of Leonardo da * inci’s celebrated painting? Is it Mona Lisa or Monna Lisa? 1 always understood that there was only one •' n,” but a friend has corrected me very emphatically by assertin'* that it is “ Monna.” I have < Itcd authorities to the number of five, * and three say “ Mona ” and the remainder “ Monna.” The last time you answered a query for me you finished by saying: “Roma loeuta cst; causa finita est.” May j. he so this time! Neither from the Papal Chair nor from the laurel and tripod of Apollo are my enunciations. I am as little infallible as most people. But I can toll you what is known about the da Vinci picture. It is the portrait of a Milanese (or Neapolitan) lady, Madonna Lisa—Madam Li sa> —wife of a certain Zanohi del Giocondo, the word “Giocondo” meaning pretty nearly “ the Smilcr.” Hence the popular name of the picture, “ La Giocanda,” with punning allusion to the lady’s haunting mysterious smile, about which much has been written. In general usage “ Mad uina ” is a proper name, “Our Lady,” the Virgin Mary; strictly it means Madam or Mistress; and “ Monna ” is a diminutive of “ Madonna.” But the form “ Mona ” is also found. Italian is careless in doubling and undouhling consonants; thus, to cite a single example, “ e pnr,” “ and yet,” may he “ eppur.” Take your choice, Monna Lisa or Mona Lisa; either will moan Dame Lisa and he good Italian. Cms.