PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20964, 1 March 1930, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

_ The points of similarity between the Naval Conference and a chameleon may not be apparent to everyone. But they have more than one characteristic in common. Both are remarkable for their inordinately slow movement. Both are capable of sudden and mysterious changes in colour. Both, again, have been the subject of numberless fables, mostly ridiculous. What is more, in both cases the changes in colour arc emotional rather than protective. The particular hue of the conference at the present moment seems to be as diflicult to define at the other end of the cable as at this; and the only movement it appears to be making is the purposeless action of marking time. Away in far Japan they say it is collapsing. The most we can say about it here is that it is heading nowhere, one of the reasons being that the French Premier, M, Tardicu, lost a no-confidence division in the Chambre des Deputes on the taxation of the small shopkeeper. He hastened back to Paris to surrender the keys of his office. A single vote put his Government out—a striking commentary on the world power wielded in a democracy by an otherwise quite undistinguished member of Parliament. Happily, or unhappily, change of government in France means little more than change of cabinet. The new Premier, M. f Chautemps, had a hot time” for a week, bargaining with the baker’s dozen of minority groups that compose the Chamber, collecting a sufficient number of these dissociated sections to give him a majority and to form his cabinet. This new Government lasted till the Chamber met, when it promptly fell—defeated by 15 votes out of 569! France in the past has been the home of revolutions. In New France governmental chaifges are by no means as cataclysmic as they are in Britain. Members of a defeated Government may join the cabinet of its successor, provided their respective groups become its adherents for the moment. Thus, both Tardieu and Briand, his Foreign Minister, were invited to join Chautemps. Tardieu declined for personal, not political, reasons; Briand accepted. In French foreign policy there will be no changes. In domestic policy there may be a franc or two one way or the other in a Taxation Bill. “You Knglish are so changeable,” say the French; “when one of your Governments goes out, everything is reversed; black becomes white. With us there is merely a new cabinet.” To this, more than to anything else, is due the old-time Continental gibe of “ Perfide Albion.”

In New Zealand we have already had glimpses of what this group system of government may become. And not so very long ago. Minority parties differ from minority groups. only ! in size and number. The methods they are compelled to use are much the same. We have seen bargainings, compromises, compulsory modifications and additions in programmes* political flirtations both open and concealed. Necessity becomes the mother of many expedients when a minority Government is faced with the dread spectre of a return to the wilderness after a blissful sojourn in the oasis of office. Such, a Government leaves its imprisoned in the vaults of other men’s minds. It keeps its nose to the ground sniifng the scent other men have laid for it. It lives at the behest of its opponents. It leaps through the ring-master’s hoop, with the sound of his whip in its ears. To conceal the premonitary lethargy of death, it puts forth palliatives lor cures, and pretends to remove diseases by sedatives. Its policy is “ et Circenses,” bread and sport. Bread in abundance is proniall within five weeks. What if the bread is not forthcoming? Has not the Government itself had the sport? Sufficient for the day is the effort, and after us the Deluge.” Its very name is a gratuitous assumption, an unfulfilled promise. Wolsey’s antemortem lament comes to the mind:

r it,- . 1 have ventured, Llfee little wanton boys that swim on bladders.

These many summers on a sea of glory. But far beyond my depth. Better for them had they never governed. In the words of Tacitus, “ Omnium consensu Galba capax imperii, nisi imperasset —everyone would have thought Galba capable of ruling, if only he had never ruled.

The newest war book, “ War is War ” by Ex-private X, which 1 have not yet read, is raising the expected storm. The supply of such books in Europe, and most of all in Germany, has already become a surfeit. The best known are •Journey’s End,” “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “ The Case of Sergeant Gnscha, War,” “ The Path of Glory ” and Schlump.” All of them pride themselves on their realism, on the truth oi their presentation, on their pictures of stark reality. The reading public linds them of absorbing interest. What man would not .who had memory to use and compassion to spare? Mv quarrel with all of them is based on the aes imtic fallacy 0 f t lieil’ metilol J. heir claim to realism is false. Presumably a soldier who fought in the Gieat War would have in his mind many thousand times more facts and details than he could ever include in a single loadable hook. He must therefore select, ile must focus the picture. He will instinctively choose incidents that arc striking put of the common, vivid! colour!ul. His hook must he read, and drill bV l rCad a stra "ffling, humdrum, [f i,! iT omit c °! liis Soi"S here and us e om = there, of his getting up and is sitting down? He eliminates what ouslv rifir “u SO i G judge in a tremend- ! , Ut SUlj J ect . of “rt and taste, deems to be appropriate. Among the and tnn T leS i hG touches «P this he oflVrf i that) tiU the pichire be ofieis to us is not that of the war ft of y™ war as it, but of the war “ erudificd ” ‘by the strong glare of the stage lights. 7 Tim lust small step taken by Hni in selecting Ins material and i n eliminating this or that is his first departure from truth. By emphasising, toning up, and overcolouring he completes the distortion is false ICtU Thc tlll tllG wllole perspective is lalse. The uncritical reader reads How n t 1 rS t » an w SayS) " HOW I How hue! He instinctively generalises, views the incident as diaracteristuoi tjpical, and rises from the hook witli unite out a “ ay r J ° Srotosqne and tilth of «*, focus - ft is t]ie old imti titii of the pseudo-ciiaracteristie ” over which a 20 years’ war was wa~ c ’d Ar, I l ' C ' da l? of tllG 2ola-esqne novel. And now the battle has to be fought 11 over again. The sincerity of the writers is not in question. But sincerity !nd n °lon! k ° tL ° . place ° f fistic genius and long experience. Mawkish sentimentahty would be bad enough. Frothy idealism also. But facile realism masquerading under the guise of truhi and reality is dangerous and sinful.

Should women he hanged’ Sav* •, last week’s cable:— ' ' ‘

Leading feminists bitterly oppose eVSfT th ‘V° men L J u dcman(ll »g sex-equality u t the gallows as well as elsewhere. Uie question should he approached with niC J r f? ty and in all seriousness. As the Welsh juryman said in the murder trial, when rebuking some levity m the jury room: “ Chentlemen, Chentlemen, this is no choking matter.” Wo must ask coldly and dispassionately: . ■women deserve hanging?” Xhe misogynist answers, “Yes, v .by not?” And he trots out the ■well-worn saying: For the woman of the speeches is more deadly than the male.

He further points out that fallen aimels make the worst fiends; that the wicked women of fiction arc eclipsed hv the wicked women of real life, who get worse when they commit matrimony 5 that

woman is a sphinx without a secret; that she is a mere note of interrogation; that when she can’t get her shoes on the reason is that her feet are swelled too. We ask him, “ What about the good women! ” He replies, “ Well, there may be some, but no man wants to marry one. What great writer was it who said of his wife, ‘ She is a good woman, and altogether worthy, but I would she were in Hell’?’ The tender, leaning woman is more dangerous than the Tower of Pisa. Even the sweet woman requires watching. * Isn’t she sweet? ’ remarks one woman to another. ‘ Yes,’ is the reply, ‘I quite agree with you; I don’t like her either.’ When the train conductor addresses a woman as ‘ Fair Lady,’ ho doesn’t mean that at all. Women cut ofl their hair in imitation of the Chinese, and have now lost an easy way to Heaven. The new trouser- j skirt is a mere copy of the male golfer’s I skirt-trousers. Woman is feline: see ! how she purrs through her furs. Is not woman host viewed as a trophy of the chase, to be hung up between two deer heads? It always pays to keep a woman in suspense.” Says a charming, popular novelist, who knows her sex; It is always best to allow a woman to do as she likes. It saves bother. Todiayc what she desires is generally ! an effective punishment. i The ideal of a universal language is an attractive one. The Middle Ages realised it in Latin. Scholars in those days were and there was Freotrade in learning. Erasmus, the Dutchman, was as much at home as secretary to a French bishop, as tutor to the son of the King of Scotland, as professor of Greek and Divinity at Cambridge, and as a D.D. ot Bologna, as in his native city at Rotterdam. His theological controversies with the German Luther were in Latin. But in modern times Latin has fallen from its high estate to be an examination grind. For modern conversational uses it is not adaptable. How express in Latin an " eight-cylinder Rolls-Royce,” or a “ Labour caucus,” or a “ totalisator dividend”? Recent attempts to replace Latin by an auxiliary language have had little or no success. In 1880 appeared Volapuk; in 1887, Esperanto; next an improved Volapuk; next Ido. an improved Esperanto. In 1903 we had a 1 Flexionless Latin—a windfall both for Dominie Jones and Smith Minor. The most recent attempt is Novial, a scholarly invention by Jo'spcrson, a Danish professor who specialises in i English grammar. Novial is the most promising of all. It is the easiest thing . imaginable. My chief objection to Novial j and to all its predecessors is contained • in the following extract in Novial. I quote it as a test of the reader’s ability, education, astuteness, literary taste, common sense, and general power of thought. I read it myself quite easily! Un obj-ectione kel on audi tre ofte fro hnguistes e altres es disi; even si omni teranes vud lerna un sami lingue, li uneso vud bald desapari I e diversi lingues vud existeska, satninam kam li romanali lingnes bud producte per li disfalo di latmum.

Dear Givis, —The Rugby football match between England and Franco was reported by two very meagre cables last week as follows:—On Monday. “Twenty-two barrels of red wine were brought over for the use of the French players. The French pressed m attack in which Samatan, a slimmish youth with a shock of red hair,' shone out, working in conjunction with Serin, who is also red haired, and wonderful at throwing in the ball.” On Tuesday: “The English Rugby victory may be described as a triumph of beer over Bordeaux; fpr each of the French team brought to London a little cask of that wine, gaily painted red, white, and blue, with a Gallic cock at one end.”

My correspondent asks querulously why a cable to a Rugby country such as this should mention the colour of the players’ hair to the elimination of details a hundred times more important. “ Did the reporter see red?” The answer is easy. Thank God for a cable man with a sense of humour and a feeling for the concrete picturesque. This cumulative effect of red is an artistic triumph. We aie not all football lovers. Many of us do not know enough about Rugby football to distinguish between a line umpire and a padded goal post, or a kick from a mark and a mark from a kick. The details of the hooking and hacking, the passing and packing would be as dull in the reading as <v Parliamentary debate. But the cable account grips us. Its rod colouring fires us, “Far flashes the red artillery.” Two crests flame as red “as if dyed in the blood of Prester John.” Macbeth cries to Banquo’s ghost, “Don’t shake your gory locks at me! ” A whole world of history and literature rises up before us. Anyhow, England won. Nothing can stop John Bull if you wave red ra"s before him. Woe to the Toreador!

Before venturing to judge any work of art you should have sure knowledge of two things, what you are talking about, and whom you are talking to. ignorance of this injunction may land you m situations of distressful embarrassment. Lord Leighton tells the following story against himself:— * One day, at a private view at the Academy, Leighton happened to bo standmg m front of the picture, Aud_ the bea Gave up its Dead ” now in the Tate Gallery. A lady ,".i° J us t boon introduced to ' him, and who had expressed admiration of his work, drew his attention the picture by Jen t that a horrid ■i r ® ol ' ry ., you don’t like’it.” sal <; V els , °,n> because it is mine.” I»ve "JflY ‘° ‘ l, “* it “N°,” replied Leighton, “I painted

Oh! gasped the lady, “but you whi A mUStn * r*? 1 " 0 any notice of nri—T sny ’ “i S 1 laiow nothing about art 1 am only repeating what everyone else has been saying.” A second situation, much worse:— A: Who is that hard-faced old horror in the painting? B: That’s my mother. A: I mean there’s a lot of diaraeter there, but the artist seems to i>° a mess of it. B: I painted it myself, extricate A from his embarrassment. I he following suggestions were the best:

J V + Cl1 ’ you’v done justice to either oi you; or A: Ah. well, then, you have made •I much poorer job of your mother than Jour mother made of vou; or A (cheerfully) : Then, old chan 3 ou owe Ji’or an apologv.

Hie last solution received the prize. Civi.s

Richard Reynolds, son of the late tobacco king has arrived home in New \ork from England, after serving a term ot nve months imprisonment on a manslaughter charge. Friends who met him said he looked m better health than he had been lor years past. His arrival in .New \ork passed unnoticed as ho dodged the reporters there by registering Ins name as A. J. Reynolds. He refused to eonimcHt on hi s treatment at the hands of tlie British authorities, but indicated that he was not at all disgruntled