PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

You have but to stand on Piccadilly Circus long enough, and you will meet any man in the British Empire whom you desire to see. Such an eventual meeting-place for our New Zealand population mignt be a corner on Lambton quay in Wellington or the Octagon in Dunedin. On the same principle, it has long been quite certain that, in the course of time, some writer of eminence would take up the pen to extol the merits of the despised and execrated Treaty of Versailles. For years it has been the fashion to assert without fear of contradiction that the Peace of Versailles was no peace; that since it did those things it ought not have done, and left undone those things it ought to have done, there never has been any health in it. As a voice crying in the wilderness, Mr Lloyd George has of course stood by his own child. But, in general, the Versailles Treaty, like a modest man, has been dumb on its own merits. In a London journal Miss Rebecca West has sprung to the help of Mr Lloyd George, who does not need it, and to the Versailles Treaty, which does:

At the present it is the fashion to denounce the Treaty of Versailles and the other peace treaties Everybody does it, whether they have ever laid eyes on the documents or not. That such denunciafions are the result of the following of fashion is shown by their universality. The whole of the treaties are abused. But while the economic provisions were amateurish, and were drafted in defiance of expert opinion, the ethical and political provisions followed t the best advice that could be obtained at the time, and they have on the whole worked well. The political problems which the treaty failed to solve were insoluble -—age-old tangles of racial intermigration and centuries of national antipathies. No human or even archangelical hand could have constructed a frontier between modern Germans and Poles, Germans and Slavs, Slavs and Magyars. Just as difficult would it be to draw a geographical line of demarcation between the Scottish majority in Dunedin and the English, Welsh, and Irish minorities —should the latter ever become troublesome and demand a measure of autonomy. By the space at her disposal Miss Rebecca West' was limited to one example, personally known to her. But she invites the co-operation of other pens to add to it. Her example is not really one, but a group of many—the many oppressed minorities of the ramshackle empire of Austro-Hungary. “Jugoslavia is a State that has had a bad press. It started handicapped with two Irelands in the form of Croatia and Macedonia, where the great Powers had long fomented disorder between the different kinds of Slavs.’’ I am aware that many Englishmen travelled in Bosnia during that period, stayed with AustroHungarian functionaries, had good shooting, and departed pronouncing that all was well. But the fact remains that every Bosnian is overjoyed at his independence, and speaks of his days of subjection to the Austrian as a shame and a

humiliation. Other “Irelands” had the AustroHungarian Empire. The restless Czechs from Bohemia vented their discontent in frequent disturbances in the Austrian Diet. Writes a standard authority on pre-war Austro-Hungary: In the Dual Monarchy there are eleven millions of Germans, nine millions of Magyars, twenty-one millions of Slavs, three of Roumans, one of Italians, two of Jews; and each of these races hates and distrusts the other. . . . Each stock has a special affinity for a foreign power; the Germans for Germany, the Czechs for Russia, the Southern Slavs for Serbia, the Roumains for Roumania. Twenty years of peace between these warring factions must be laid to the credit account of the Treaty of Versailles. The solution should be studied side by side with the prewar problem, especially at this time “ when a curious wave of blankness is passing over historical memories.” When the town clerk, acting as returning officer, made his inspection tour to the polling booths in Dunedin on Wednesday morning, “ everything was working smoothly,” quietly and naturally, and, as to, the manner born, electors were exercising their divine right. “Democracy’s ceremonial,’ says H. G. Wells, “ its feast, its great function, is the election.” Crosses were going down in scores in their appointed places to crown the triumph of this candidate or that. And, of course, no cross, no crown. Holy ground, therefore, is the polling booth, with: The freeman casting with unpurchased hand Tlie vote that shakes the turrets of the land. Nevertheless, even in these quiet hours of the morning, dark deeds were afoot. Dunedin electors were exercising their ancient custom of stealing the election pencils A well-known custom it must be, for accompanying the returning officer were bundles of pencils to replace those which, as he knew quite well, were certain to be stolen. Are we a kleptomaniacal community? Is it a case of theft'' No. Says Shakespeare. “ Convey, the wise it call. Steal? Foh, a fico for the phrase.” As C. H Spurgeon once said, “ Exchange is no robbery.” No voter votes for nothing. Some find their recompense in a sense of duty well done; others, having not this, need nust seek elsewhere the exchange. Like the cricketer who pockets the ball that has “ outed ” Bradman, like the diner who has pocketed a spoon or a salt-cellar to remind him of a famous occasion, so your election-booth-pencil-purloiner needs his pencil to remind him that once upon a lime he voted Never does an old age cross the line of four score years, or four score and ten, or five score, but reasons are assigned for the unusual longevity Britain’s oldest woman, Mrs Ann Stansal, celebrated last week her 108th birthday by giving a party, surrounded by her whitehaired children —her “chicks,” she called them Thus did she face the sunset with a smile.

“Work is my hobby,’ she said. “ Working at something yon like is the secret of happiness I went out to service when I was 10. I did not have much schooling, so 1 cannot read or write, but my days of service were like heaven to me” To these combined circumstances of work and happiness and illiteracy she now seems to attribute her length of life. Work brings happiness, and ” in much learning there is grief.” Nonagenarians and centenarians before this have jumped carelessly from effect to cause. Says one of them, “ I have a glass of beer when I like, and it never does me no harm.” That, is, '' post hock, ergo propter hock.” This is the method of argument used also by those who claim to have grown old on lea, m tobacco on high diet and on low Were parents all they should bo. the supreme cause of longevity might be that which is laid clown m (he Fifth Commandment. But how

many children or parents in these days know what the Fifth Commandment is? The present attitude of children to parents and of parents to children is described by Stephen Leacock: “ The parent who could see his boy as he really is would shake his head and say, ‘ Willie is no good, I’ll sell him.’ ”

Full-length reports of the recent “Storm in the Commons,” when a member crossed the floor and struck Commander Bower an open-handed smack on the cheek, leave but a vague and confused impression of frayed tempers. The blow resounded like a clapping of the hand in the gallery. The offending member was Mr Shinwell, Socialist member for Seaham, famous for his defeat of Mr Ramsay MacDonald. Equally famous was the offended member as a six-foot boxing champion, who, had he responded in kind, could have struck the striker into a cloud of dust. It was fortunate for Mr Shinwell that Commander Bower kept his temper and his seat, and did not accept the Socialist’s invitation to continue the incident outside the Chamber.

But, emerging from the incident is the growing world-wide restiveness under counter-argument. Not in politics only is this the case, but in conversation. Distaste for counter-argument does not make for good companionship. It generally produces brilliant conversationalists, but not an even flow of conversation. Conversation in these circumstances is as much a conversation as a school-flogging is a fight. “ The reciprocity is all on one side." George Meredith could talk brilliantly, but if a lady ventured to interject a remark he would turn to her with a witheringly ironical, “ Madame.” Which would be as crushing as any blow on the face.

A similar distaste for contradiction distinguished the ex-Kaiser of Germany. One day. when visiting the atelier of a Berlin sculptor, he found fault with the angle of the ann of a statue. The sculptor mildly ventured to remark that its position was anatomically correct. Whereupon the Kaiser drew his sword, struck off the arm, and said; “ Now you’ll alter it.” So the story runs. This method of discussion has all the gentle persuasiveness of the knock-down argument of Peter in Swift’s “Tale of a Tub.” Look ye, gentlemen, to convince you what a couple of blind, positive, ignorant, wilful puppies ye are. I will use but this plain argument, that G will confound you both eternally if you offer to

believe otherwise. It is a common failing with men who have been long in the limelight to regard the rest of mankind as unnecessary excrescences. One day at the Bodleian Library Charles Reade, finding someone in occupation of the seat he was accustomed to occupy, flew in a rage to the librarian, crying: “ Do you know who I am? lam Charles Reade. Is this fellow such a man as Charles Reade? ” On the other hand, there are situations trying to anyone but a humorist, in which the boot is on the other foot:

Thackeray, having ■to deliver a lecture on George IV at Oxford, called on the vice-chancellor to ask permission. He presented his card, saying: “ I’m Thackeray.” expecting an effusive reception. The vice-chancellor looked blankly at the card and at the man. Thackeray stammered, “The novelist, you know.” “ Sir, I cannot recollect your name. Are you a member of the University? ” Thackeray: “ ‘ Vanity Fair,’ you know. Vice-chancellor: “ Oh. yes; I have heard of vanity fair; it is mentioned in ‘ Pilgrim’s Progress. Soon the old Irish problem will be no more. In Mr Malcolm MacDonald’s fine phrase, “the .two mother countries of the Empire— Great Britain and Ireland”—may soon be amicable and sympathetic neighbours. But when one Irish problem is removed another takes its place. And a new problem now presents itself in certain Irish pronunciations. A time there was when the name of Mr de Valera caused many a debate, till Punch s line, “ The better part of de Valera is discretion,” seemed to fix the accent on the “ val.” Then arose the pronunciation of “ Cobh ” for Queenstown. This we learnt in the course of time to be “Cove. The most recent Irish problem has been the pronunciation of “ Eire.’ Air and “ Ire ” have hitherto been in common use. Mr Malcolm MacDonald in the House of Commons recently announced that it was the intention of the Govern'ment henceforth to refer to the Irish Free State as “ Eire ” (pronounced by him as “Airy”). In Dublin Mr de Valera, the real and final authority, gives the pronunciation as “Air-ah. But doubt may still be felt whether the final syllable is really “ah that is, whether “ah ” is an accurate English representation of what # the sound should be. Civis,