THE COMMON ROUND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21601, 23 March 1932, Page 2

THE COMMON ROUND

By Wayfarer.

An English newspaper which makes a habit of remembering such things recently marked on its calendar the 130th birthday of a famous epigram:—

True patriots we, for, be It understood. We left our country for our country’s good.

The circumstances of the delivery of the epigram are interesting. It was manufactured by a curious fellow, George Barrington, who combined with a flair for acting a positive genius for picking pockets, among his hauls being a £30,000 snuff box belonging to Prince Orloff. Barrington left his country, even as modestly stated in his couplet, for Botany Bay. By denouncing a mutiny on board ship he gained his freedom. When the Playhouse was opened in Sydney 20 years after Cook’s landing, a play was produced with an all-convict cast. Barrington presented the prologue containing the two lines which have secured him 'immortality. There would be little purpose in recalling the bon mot, were it not for the cynical promptings of some imp (from whom we entirely dissociate ourself), who suggests that the quite different circumstances to-day call for some modernisation of the epigram. For now, this sprite whispers, it is the duty and pleasure of those who incur public disfavour that they should steadfastly remain in their country, no matter how vehemently the people may be wishing them elsewhere. Hence comes the thought of a rhymed sentence for delivery by those doubtless honest, practical, levelheaded, but scarcely generous and genial fellows at Wellington who are presently administering to New Zealand the physic prescribed for Budgetary instability: —- Like leeches we, for, be It understood. We bleed our country for our country’s good.

These reflections bring us naturally to rapt consideration of the lineaments and limitations of politicians as a body. One conclusion which we might draw, particularly from a perusal of the remarks made in criticism of the arbitration amendment, measure, is that the only dumb politician is the dead politician. The great thing seems to be to get to one’s feet and attack the Bill from a certain angle until one is corrected on a point of fact, and then to shoot for another angle until one is again pulled up and the facts displayed. Ignorance of the aims and object and extent of the arbitration measure are obviously no bar to long-winded and fundamentallyerroncous criticisms of it; and the realisation of this excuses us for the reprimand addressed to the Prime Minister regarding his leniency towards those who are daily wasting his time and our money in profitless, not to say pointless, altercation instead of finding out what the legislation really is:—

They roar their empty thunder, Their mouths grow wider as the errors creep Along their tongues; they bellow and they . blunder, Around the facts, and then they fall asleep, From doing no good. O, Forbes! If men would speak a little clearer, Or speak less often when they cannot see The simplest truth, we'd bo a little nearer The session’s end: and that would be For N.Z.’s good.

Which observations might, as we anticipated, lead the hasty reader to conclude that the only dumb politician is a dead politician. This, however, is far from the truth. There are, alas, too many politicians who are dead (from the neck up), but far from dumb, and there is an equal number which is entirely dumb but by no means speechless. ■ •

Last week, if we could not all be merry and drinking sherry, for it was St. Patrick’s Day in the morning, we could at least discover, and marvel at, the number of the Irish who have settled .in the shadow of a city famed for its Burns, its Cargills, its' Stuarts and its Presbyterianism, and named for the most unIrish of Scottish strongholds. And if we could not all by right affix a shamrock or a green ribbon in our buttonholes, we could still claim some share in the personage whose day it was. For the Welshman, St, Patrick is a native of Glamorgan; for the Scot he hails from Dumbarton way; the Englishman claims for him a genesis in Daventry; the Gau! knows that he sprang from the soil of Northern France; while your true Irishman would not deign to argue such a point, for St. Patrick is undoubtedly ns Irish as Bally-lig-patrick itself. Such universality is a very brave attribute in a saint, for it gives us all a t share in him and a pride in his achievements: — ... he founded 365 churches and baptised with his own hand 12,000 persons. He . . . consecrated 450 bishops, ordained a vast number of priests, and blessed very many monks and nuns. For all these things we must respect his industry, and it matters little whether they took him 88 years, as some say, or merely 74 years, as others assert, or again 120 years, as Dr J. H. Todd estimates. And in New Zealand, let us recall, we owe a special debt to St. Patrick, for was it not the end of his staff which, penetrating to the Antipodes, cleared all the snakes away, sparing no dangerous vermin but the katipo?

Glass, china, wood, coconut shells, nails, nitric acid, and a snake’s head were swallowed by a Hindu ascetic in a demonstration before the British Franchise Committee. It is stated that though he suffered no ill-effects lie dined sparingly that evening, consuming merely a galvanised iron tank, a dozen crow bars, three cows, an enamel bath, and a pukka sahib, washed down with a gallon of nitro glycerin. .

Some day, it is to be hoped, a benefactor will provide a fund which will endow. an Institute for the Correction of Crooked Thinking. Every day the newspapers and the conversations in the tram cars yield examples of the perverted truths, the twisted thoughts, the misapprehensions which pass for intelligent reasoning in a civilised community. Almost at random vve select a sincere, highsonnding fallacy for brief consideration. It is the condemnation by a minister of religion of a state lottery on the score that such gambles are harmful because they, encourage the people to desire to obtain money without working for it. Now, the evils or benefits of lotteries do not enter into our calculations. The point we would make is the illogical attitude of the speaker. There is not, as he believes or declares, anything in the least discreditable in the wish to got money for nothing. We do not revile the person who is made, unexpectedly, the inheritor of the wealth of a deceased uncle of whom he had never heard; we do not pour contempt upon the family which becomes wealthy overnight because oil has been discovered on their property; the man who comes on hidden treasure when he is digging potatoes earns not our shocked disgust, but our congratulations. In each case, and in a thousand thousand less clear-cut cases which occur in business every day. people are getting money for nothing, or in return for so little that it amounts to nothing. They are lucky; very naturally and healthily we envy them; very pardonably we hope the same fortune will some day come to us. Whether sweepstakes and art unions are morally and economically wrong we must leave to the moralists and economists to decide; but we must protest when a divine seeks to characterise as sin a perfectly normal human desire that is as harmless in the breast of the anti-gambling cleric as that of the plain man-in-thc-street — and is common to both.

From a magazine article on the cooking of vegetables: “If, when the cauliflower is first brought to boil, it is immediately transferred to the second saucepan . . no indigestion will result from the eating of this vegetable (brmpf).” We agree. I am aware, writes a correspondent to a contemporary, that, besides the news of the day . . . other articles must be inserted to fill up each issue of the resentday newspaper.—This sort of comment would make any self-respecting paper resentful.