PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26719, 13 March 1948, Page 2

PASSING NOTES

To be weak is miserable, doing or suffering.—Milton: Paradise Lost.

A feeling of surprise and resentment has run through the community at the attitude of aggressiveness recently displayed towards Britain by Chile, Argentina and the mighty State of Guatemala. Mr Churchill says that England was “ cheeked ” by the first, abused by the second, and goaded by the third. No wonder! For last year an Admiralty statement said the Home Fleet comprised one -cruiser and four destroyers—a statement which Mr Churchill in undiluted terms labelled “ senseless and lying.” It indicated a navy smaller than that of Chile, and was, of course, immediately noted and acted upon by the Chileans, thus giving a great shock to the whole free democratic world. This is a hard world; the struggle for survival is not abolished by smooth professions at peace conferences. What is said in “ Romeo and Juliet ” is permanently true of man, “The weakest goes to the wall.” Great Britain will certainly heed the indications and keep a strong fleet. “The reasoning of the strongest is always the better reasoning ” may be a grim saying, but the underlying fact is that any sign of weakness in a nation is always taken advantage of by the envious ones. It is reassuring to hear Mr Churchill’s statement that, actually the British Navy had never had more resources of power in peacetime. “Be strong and very courageous” is as good counsel now as when it was first spoken to Joshua.

Art made tongue-tied by Authority. Shakespeare: Sonnet 66. According to the immortal William, imagination bodies forth the form of things unknown. Not so in the regimented countries—there imagination bodies forth the form of things demanded by the regnant gang or the infallible one. Mussolini laid it down, “ The Duce is always right.” The Russian dictatorship follows his lead in essence, though not in name. The leading Russian composer, Shostakovich, who was recently reprimanded by the Communist Party, made a complete recantation over the Moscow radio: “When our party and the entire people condemn my erroneous, formalistic tendencies, however difficult it is for me to admit it, I see that the party and the people are right.” Alas, for poor Shostakovich—he “ sees ” that the verdict of a herd of fanatics is prepotent over the inspiration that the god of music has vouchsafed to him. I recall Mussolini’s journal “ Gerarchia ’’—now, I suppose, defunct —which, in February, 1939, under the heading Le Lettere e le Arti, called for contributions in art and letters, under the one severe restriction, three times mentioned, that any composition not conforming to Fascist sentiments (sensibilita Fascista), would be regarded as anti-Fascist! The Russian Communists parade their detestation of Fascism. But by their fruits they shall be known. The Duce is always right—the oligarchs of the Kremlin demand music to order. To quote the immortal William once again, “’Fore God, they are both of a tale.”

All human things are subject to decay.—Dryden: “ MacFlecknoe.” There is no perfect form of government —there never has been; there never will be. All government rests ultimately on human nature, but human nature is very complex, differing from individual to individual and from class to class. The permanent substratum seems to be self-preserva-tion, which is merely self-interest. The self-interest of one class is not the self-interest of another—hence clash and strife. And when self the wavering balance shakes ’tis rarely right adjusted. Even within the one personality there is not an identity of interest or, as Shakespeare puts it:

What thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily. Wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win. The social clash of interests is endangering the supremacy of democracy. Ideally (very ideally) in a democracy the elected representatives rule. Yet as a matter of fact the electors are more and more being ruled by the non-elected. The parliament outside the Parliament too often makes the laws or unmakes them. And again the marked tendency everywhere for sectional interests to defy Parliament and to throw society into disorder is only too common—and, unfortunately, not unknown in this land of plenty. A continuation of this state of affairs will doom democracy—will change it into an oligarchy or some form of dictatorship—and then farewell, a long, farewell to liberty!

Thy wish was father, Harry, to that thought.—Shakespeare: "Henry IV,” . Part 2. The human mind is incurably optimistic. Not without reason did the old myth place Hope at the bottom of the Pandora box which let loose all mankind’s troubles into the world. Optimism surmounts all fears. Multitudes thought and still think that the overthrow of Hitler would mean the extinction of the Nazi mind, just as at the end of the 1914-18 war it was commonly believed that Kaiserism was ended by the Weimar Constitution—it was ended truly, but the spirit that gave it birth was still there. Multitudes thought and still think that the overthrow of Japan and the incoming of the Americans under General MacArthur meant the end of Mikado worship and the immediate supremacy of democracy. A change of spirit docs not occur with a change of polity or of policy, as Soviet Russia abundantly proves. It was for long a belief, still lingering, that Christianity abolished paganism in those countries where it was first preached, and in their environing districts. The truth is the old pagan spirit remained underneath the superficial covering. Probably traces of it always will remain. There is truth in the French saying—plus ca chance, plus c’est la meme chose —the more it changes the more it is the same thing. Czaristic Russia was a tyrannous oligarchy; Soviet Russia hafs not abandoned the old arts, but it has adopted a new name —“liquidation ’— and has a new technique, for admitting smaller nations to its glorious freedom. Hope is good, but _is grounded only in desire. Expectation is better —it is grounded on knowledge and preparation.

Are things what they seem?—Bret Harte.

Again a correspondent on this question. I explained to the best of my small knowledge of science how electrons and the relativity theory indicate that things are not what they seem to be. The fact is that the longaccepted explanations of the nature of the physical universe have had to be modified. What is called “classical physics ’’—such as was taught a generation ago—proved to be inadequate when its findings were tested in a world of very small dimensions. What had been shown to be true in reference to the solar system would not hold when applied to the minute world of quanta or parcels of light. As far as I understand the position our senses are given us to enable us to find our way about in the world where we are biological agents. Our senses give us a practical picture of what is about us; but they will never introduce us into that world within the nucleus of the atom; or rather if by their aid plus intelligence and apparatus we do get inside the atom we find that the laws obtaining there are not quite the same as those in the big every-day world of the senses. My correspondent also wanted to know how, if energy is the origin of matter, energy “ got a start,” as he puts it. Well, if I could answer

that, I should not be here writing this. There may be some dim prevision of how things will end, but how they started —well, as Dick Swiveller said of another puzzle, “That’s staggerer number one.” Civis.