PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21940, 29 April 1933, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Said Bishop Berkeley two centuries ago, “ Westward the course of empire takes its way.” Had he not for the moment been concentrating on America and the development of its learning, this philosophic bishop might well have added that the same westerly course marks also the great tide of human migration almost since the world began. And among his theories of vision he might have hinted an explanation while mankind in its tidal movements has followed the beckoning hands of sun and moon. Even the Morning Post gives us no help in its recent statement: —

If we were so fortunate as to be gifted with infinite vision, and could see the present as well as the past in what is called nowadays a “ timespace continuum,” we should be able to perceive humanity like a stream flowing generally westward round the earth.

But even this “ time-space continuum ” -—whatever be its meaning—affords no reasonable explanation of this great trend to the west, or of the superior attraction of the setting sun to the rising. Why should mankind, equipped and ready for the road, turn its back on the glow ing gleams of dawn? Nature, we know, abhors a vacuum, and generally institutes a movement from centres of high pressure to centres of low. But the waste and empty places of the NewWorld lay just as near to the Mongolians and to the old Siberians as to the peoples of Western Europe. The islands of the Behring Straits should have afforded stepping stones that would have antiei pated by untold ages the voyage of Columbus. If. as is likely, the ancestors of Columbus sprang from somewhere in Asia, why did they set out for America by this round-about route through Europe?

When Nature, in her abhorrence of n vacuum, set the ancient Huns in motion to centres of lower pressure—that is, where food was more easily procured, and better —these Mongolians went not East but West. They made for the Ural Mountains, clashed with the Ostrogoths and Visigoths and Alans, and started the whole turbulent tide of Germanic migration in successive waves towards Western Europe. The Atlantic Ocean and the British Channel stopped them for a time. They soon over-ran the Bri tish Isles. The British Empire migration continued the stream to the west, during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries —not as a restless, marauding invasion, but silently,—such a tide as moving seemed asleep. It settled North America. Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. To the British race it gave extraordinary buoyancy. The surplus population of the crowded Homeland flowed outward, leaving no stagnant pools of unemployed and unemploy!,able behind them. Economic depressions had little effect on this migratory tide. They merely slowed it down. And now this mighty westerly tide of the centuries has stopped. It has not only stopped—it has begun its backflow. Said Mr Dominion Secretary *J. H. Thomas in the House of Commons the other day: In 1922, there left these shores for Canada 75,866 people; but last year, instead of that number going to Canada, the figures were against us, and 10.244 left Canada for Britain. In 1922, 31,500 people left these shores for Australia, but last year— I am taking the net figure in each ease—72,Bßß returned from Australia. In 1922, 71,888 people left this country for New Zealand, and last year 1357 returned from New Zealand. It Is almost a cosmic phenomenon. As well might the sun reverse its course iu the heavens as might this steady movement of the ages turn and go back.

Each recurrence of our cumbrous biennial municipal elections. makes it more clear than ever that on such occasions election obscures selection. In fact the whole system is doomed soon to break down beneath its own unwieldy weight. Quite simple and manageable would be the mayoral election by itself. To select one aspiring mayor out of five perspiring for office is as easy as shelling peas. There is no embarrassment of choice. But what selection is possible when the man in the street and the woman in the kitchen—those elements that make up our infallible democracy —are plunged into a quadruple election, are faced with an auctioneer’s list of three score names, and are called upon to choose the 25 wisest and' best? In this heterogeneous collection of luggage labels, who can detect the happy conjunction of the man seeking the office and Uie office seeking the man? This candidate has honey on his lips and a buzzing bee in his bonnet. That candidate puts forth a municipal platform of which every plank is merely bark. Some are destined to be sleepers in thgir municipal berths. More than one, with an eye to the women’s vote, endeavours to make a hit with every miss —and never misses. And one and all strive to calculate the incalculable —the silent vote, and the women’s. In spite of Solomon, in the multitude of budding counsellors and councillors there is neither safety nor wisdom.

In municipal and political elections the women’s vote is a stabilising influence. The Germans have discovered and proved it. Said the Berlin correspondent of the New York Times not very long ago: A recent computation of women’s votes in Germany shows that, true to their tradition, wives tend to vote as do their husbands. It shows at the same time that the moderate parties would be considerably weaker and the extremes! parties considerably stronger without the women’s votes. It is -estimated that the moderate Centre Party, without the women’s vote,' would lose 14 out of their 69 seats. The Communists, on the other hand, could add 14 to their present 77 seats if women did not vote, despite the fact that the Communists are always vigorous proponents of women’s rights. The National Socialists (Nazis) could add nine seats if women absented themselves from the ballot boxes. Alas, this computation was made before the Nazi triumph of the latest German elections. What was it that kept the women away from the polling booths and gave the Nazis their victory? The blame for Germany’s momentary lapse from her usual sanity must lie heavily on the feminine head. The German computation may have something in it. Women are, of course, more mature than men. Woman’s sphere is no longer flattened at the polls And long past is the day when women could not vote in certain States—women can now vote no matter in what state they are in. Let our women next week show to the men of Dunedin that the female of the species is more dependable than the male. My friend who is my agent for The Wine Trade Review—he passes it on to me at too rare intervals —sends me part of a February edition. I learn therefrom that Algerian wines are “ steady,” that the quality is eminently satisfactory, and that the quantity is advancing. The proprietors are confident of effervescent prices in the near future. Information is given of the “sparkling wine trade ” of Britain—presumably moaning the trade in sparkling wines. This sparkling wine trade is flat. Imports, alas, have fallen by two-thirds in three years. My friend has marked for me a speech by Lady Astor given at the Institute of Gas Engineers, in which she said: > I am not a fanatic, and 1 am not a Prohibitionist, because I do not think that England wants Prohibition. That is where I disagree with Lord Astor.

No annotation tells us with which of her three statements Lord Astor disagrees, But let the Astors settle their matrimonial differences in their own •way. The report continues: Lady Astor said her fight against drink was not on the ground that it was a sin to drink. it was not for any of them to say what sin was. What might be a ein for one person might not be a sin to another. What Lady Astor really means in this address to children is that human nature cannot be altered by being haltered, that hard times do not necessarily call foi soft drinks, and nevertheless that a straight life is better than a corkscrew. I agree. As used to be said in school geometry, an axiom has more sense in it than a postulate, i i A correspondent sends me a political parody of the 23rd Psalm. I quote with reluctance the first line—as a sample of the rest; “Old Coates is my shepherd, [am in want.” My objection is double. Parodying of the Bible is in questionable taste, and is at the same time too easy. In order to be good, a parody must be very good. A similar parody of the same Psalm was in circulation a few years ago, as n “ Ford joke ” —“ The Ford is my motor, I shall not want —another,” With the whole of English poetical literature at their command why do local parodists choose this? Of brilliant parodies—pointed, smart, graceful-—we have no lack. Daniel O’Connell in the House of Commons, having noticed that the speaker to whom he was to reply had his speech written out in his hat. immediately likened him to Goldsmith’s village schoolmaster; And still they gazed, and stilt the wonder grew, That one small hat could carry all he know, A newly appointed Solicitor-general, Sir David Dundas,' declining an invitation to dinner because he had another dinner engagement the same evening with seven peers, received the following couplets by post next morning: Seven thriving cities light for Homer : dead Through which the living Homer begged his bread. Seven noble Lords asked Davie to break bread a Who wouldn't care a damn were Davie dead.

No poem in the wide world has been more frequently parodied than Macaulay’s “ Lay of Horatius.” And one of the best parodies of it ever written was That of an Oxford student’s heroic fight against his ruthless examiners: Adolphus Smalls, ol Boniface. By all the powers he swore, That though he had been ploughed three times He would- be ploughed no more. His struggle was as fierce as that of Horatius on the old Tiber Bridge: but he won through. And still they tell his story: And In each Oxford College In dim November days. When undergraduates fresh from ball Are gathering round the blaze . . . With laughing and with chaffing. The story they renew, How Smalls of Boniface went In And actually got through. In the eighties of last century appeared at Oxford the first number of a magazine entitled the Dark Blue. Its aim was to express the inner thought and life of Young Oxford, and the poetry was ultra serious, and, of course, ultra modern. This first number contained one poem occult in its ideas and mystic in its expression,—like the best “ modern ” poetry: Yet all your song Is —“ Ding, doqg. Summer Is dead, Spring Is dead — 0 my heart, and O my head Go a-singing a silly song All wrong. For all Is dead. Ding Dong And I am dead - Dong 1 ” The reply of Cambridge was a similar magazine, named The Light Green, and devoted to the task of parodying its Dark Blue rival. Ding dong, 4ling dong There goes the gong; Dick, come along, It is time tor dinner. Wash your taco. Take your place, Where’s your grace You little sinner? Baby cry. Wipe his eye. Baby good. Give him food. Baby-sleepy. Go to bed. Baby naughty. Smack his,head. Cms.