PASSING NOTES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21242, 24 January 1931, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

It may not perhaps be gainsaid that the llight Hon. George Forbes, though going forth from our shores bearing precious seed, unlike the reaper of the Psalmist, has not come again with rejoicing, bearing his sheaves with him. The Prime Minister has petitioned for the succour of our industries, in some peril and jeopardy, but no ukase, fiat or decree in our aid has emanated from the Court or St. James; and the dove returns to the ark with olive branch in its mouth, having found no abiding place overseas. Other accredited envoys from sister dominions have likewise failed to exorcise the potent spirit of Frcetrade. Imperial spirit by the imperial pint has been offered to our lips, says Mr Snowden, but we have our own measures for the reception of this precious fluid. Tariffs may temporarily charm our brothers in the Antipodes, but charity begins at Home. We have rather different ideas on the subject of fostering Imperial amity. So the debate see-saws, Britain for the Briton, Canada for the Canadian, and New Zealand for the New Zealander. It is pretty much a further version of the old adage—“ Everyone for himself and the de’il take the hindmost.” Conferences, notheless, have indirect results, imponderable and uuassessable in terms of the currency. Plenipotentiaries meet and discover they are .men. Shorn of the traditional formula; of official communiques, views are exchanged not altogether beneath a mask of conciliation; bonds of Empire are strengthened through the medium of the courtesies and amenities of our envoys. If preference be at a discount, the produce of our broad acres must not be allowed to grow up like the lilies of the field, but toiling and spinning seems to be the order of the day. No doubt Mr Forbes is now viewing with premeditative eye the appropriation accounts of his several departments, sharpening the while the cleaver of economy.

•At the risk of a lesser degree of lesemajeste, one may here advert to the recent visit of their Excellencies Lord and Lady BledisloC. While testifying the greatest respect for our first citizen and the office which he so worthily upholds, I would not,' for myself, be fain to take in hand the vice-regal reins—they are not, wholly encrusted with gilt. Why should not their Excellencies be untrammelled in their comings and goings, enfranchised from the unvaried necessity of visiting persons and places selected for them? Then, too, they must perforce, to the stage of ennui, listen to addresses from local magnates and dignitaries, and give speeches in return. The number and weight of illuminated addresses, decked out in flamboyant colours, framed and preseuted to his Excellency must conceivably raise a problem in encumbrancesWhat will Lord Blcdisloe do with these insignia of his office? Presumably they will not adorn the ancestral walls of Lydney Park. When their present Majesties, then the Duke and Duchess of York, made their historic tour of the world, their ships of state became freighted with thousands of these impedimenta. They are not now to be found in Buckingham Palace and Windsor, but lie in more appropriate surroundings in the museum at South Kensington-—-a gift to the nation. Among them may be discovered a framed exemplar of this art, presented by the Dunedin City Fathers, and signed by a worthy citizen whose steps still thread the traffic of Princes street and the Octagon. In the good old days, the Governor was wont to hold a levee, and to the uninitiated the pronunciation of this term proved a stumbling block. Lexicons were consulted and other authorities canvassed as 'to whether it should be “ levee ” or “ levay.” The modus operand! of this ceremonial was inquired one day from a certain citizen who had been “ presented.” He stated that the gentlemen had been drawn up, in single file, within the chamber of the Town Hall. As they were presented, their names were proclaimed in due form. The Governor shook hands, he smiled and they, reciprocally, smiled in turn. Thence an ordered retreat to the rear of the hall. My acquaintance was somewhat elated at having been an accessory of this dignified performance, but his self-gratification diminished at my query as to whether he had been of the select number presented privately “by invitation.” It is considered that a substantial service has been rendered his Excellency in thus reducing to a minimum the ceremonial offices he is called upon to perform. The Senate of the University of New Zealand, with its Chancellor, ViceChancellor and Fellows is in plenary session. Inaugural pronouncements, ex cathedra, are uttered to provide food for thought as to the benefits of education, the trend’ of present, dpy ideals, and the numerous practical problems of academic training. Schools and curricula, it has beep said, should ever more be related to actual conditions and needs; and agriculture, being the paramount industry in New Zealand, should have especial attention given it. More education is the slogan or parrot cry of most political parties, a proffered solvent of national and international difficulties. The present occupant of the See of Christchurch, not in rochet and lawn, but addressing a summer school for teachers, where a refresher course is imposed on willing pupils, gives his views; The most valuable capital of a country, it has been stated, was the brains of its able citizens. The thing to aim at in this country was the creation of institutions where the

really able people could develop their special abilities. This may indicate the episcopal belief that the democratisation of learning may be overdone: if the raising of the school age be insisted upon, as a universal condition, the extra year or years thus given to the greater proportion of scholars may in the long run prove a useless legacy, or, indeed, a very real and prejudicial handicap. An edifying illustration of how qualities latent beneath a lack of prominence at school may subsequently burgeon out into dazzling success in after life is fiirnished in the case of Sir Arthur Nicholson, first Lord Carnoek, one of the most eminent of our recent diplomatic servants and a distinguished representative of his Majesty’s Government at nearly every court in Europe. When Arthur Nicholson left Rugby, the Head thus wrote to the future diplomat’s father:— I am sorry to state that your son has proved a failure at Rugby; I can only express the hope that he will be less of a failure in the world. Congratulations, perhaps belated, to Sir Ernest Rutherford, now elevated to the peerage! Many years back there were intra-mural and extra-mural whisperings as to two distinguished undergraduates pursuing their studies at Canterbury University College, Rutherford and M'Callum, the latter at times excelling the former in pride of place when term examinations were concluded. Both men have by this time left their imprint upon the page of science. To approximate their valency in other spheres of activity, New Zealand would have to point to William Marris, William Mellor or John William Salmond. Some would have preferred a territorial title for Lord Rutherford. Professor William Thomson assumed the title of Lord Kelvin, from the name of a small stream that meanders within sight of the University buildings of Glasgow. Doubtless Lord Rutherford gave due consideration to the adoption of a cognomen that might have had some local significance within our sister province, but if an aboriginal river name were to be

chosen, the prefix “ Wai ” would confront the selector with an irritating insistency. During his recent visit to Dunedin Lord Rutherford lectured upon the mighty atom, in itself a microcosm. He threw on the screen photographs showing the extraordinary momentum and qualities of light, a species of “ metaphysics ” that conveyed little, if anything at all, to the unerudite mind of the layman. The physicist is a species of modern thaumaturgist, quietly and obscurely travailing within his laboratories, searching out the inner secrets of Nature and effecting wonderful discoveries that ultimately project themselves, in a materialised and beneficent shape, into the outer world. All honour to the New Zealander whose renown thus rests on a secui'e foundation!

Teuton financiers are casting envious eyes upon the golden profits of the casinos that fringe the Riviera. In this they have been anticipated by the Greek. Emerging from the world war un milliardaire, Zaharoff, the mysterious and elusive personality in European finance, in one sensational coup bought up the gambling saloons of Monte Carlo for a trifling million or two. And the princely houses of Buonaparte and Radziwill thereby relinquished their hold on this lucrative and entertaining industry of “rouge et noir”—and retired from the field, their pockets well lined from the capacious purse of the Hellene. And if legalised gambling, the combination of winter sunshine, the cote d’azur and the spell of the croupier are seemingly irresistible, stolen fruits are sweeter still. For by the same tokens we have a peripatetic argosy, plying the waters of Sydney Harbour, a kind of aquatic haven or Alsatia, admirably securing for its habitues a hitherto safe indulgence in their propensities for illicit gambling. The instincts of gaining something for nothing at the expense of one’s neighbour appears well founded in human nature: even the sober votaries of Hoyle seek to place a silver coin per hundred en jeu, simply, they protest, to curb an irresponsible proclivity for reckless bidding. Our forefathers of the eighteenth century were rabid followers of all manner of games, as witness the realistic pages of Dr Smollett, who gives “ fortune’s fickle wheel ” considerable prominence in his refreshing tales. “Odd’s flesh! When I’m at home, I defy all the devils in hell to fasten my eyelids together, if so be as I’m otherwise inclined. For there’s mother, and sister Nan and brother Numps, and I continue to divert ourselves at all fours, brag, cribbage, tetotum, hussle cap and chuckvarthing and, thof I say it, that shouldn’t say it, I won’t turn my back to e’e and he in England, at any of these pastimes." Is the douce Scot proof against the wiles of gambling? There is a legend of one having played nap at his wife’s funeral. John was being consoled by an old friend after his wife’s funeral. “ It’s been a sad day for you. John.” “Aye it’s been a sad day, Willie.” “It was a lang, cauld hurl tae the cemetery, John.’’ “Aye and it was a lang, cauld, sad hurl back, Willie. I was 4s 6d up on the road oot, but I was 7s 6d doon on the way back.”

In a recently published volume '‘Yesterday in Maonland,” we have a further addition to the library of New Zealand romance. The work deals with the travels through the North and South Island of one Andreas Reischek in the eighties. Reischek was despatched from Vienna to New Zealand under the aegis of Ferdinand Hochstetter, himself the author of a celebrated account of the natural features of this Dominion, to co-operate in the assembly of exhibits of the respective museums of Auckland, Christchurch, and Wanganui. His contacts with various personages celebrated in our history are many and curious. He collaborated with Sir Julius Von Haast, Sir James Hector, Sir Walter Buller, and Professor Hutton, and off Ruapuke Island he despatched a written greeting to his fellow-countryman, the self-ordained hermit missionary of that sanctuary, the Rev. Mr Wohlers. Reischek’s forte was the study of the life habits of birds, and his remarks throughout the book might well be taken as texts by the numerous societies throughout New Zealand, whose object is the maintenance of our forests and birds. The hardships endured by this keen ornithologist, in company with his fathful dog Csesar, amid the solitudes of the West Coast Sounds reveal the spirit of the true explorer. Among the fastnesses of Milford, Breaksea, Chalky, and Doubtful Sounds, was he aware of the ghosts of Cook, Solander, Banks, and Vancouver that haunted those romantic harbours? While recuperating from an illness there, he had to depend on his dog for his meat supply— The first morning I told him to go and catch a bird for his master. The first he brought me was a penguin. I said, “Ugh; that’s no good!" and showed him the skin of a woodhen, and two hours later, sure enough, he brought one back. From then pn he took care of me until I was able to get about again. Cm