PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26748, 17 April 1948, Page 2

PASSING NOTES

She yet shall flourish fair and free. —Thomson: Masque of Alfred. How delightful to listen to a man who can speak! Those who heard Lord Beveridge on Tuesday night had that delight. An ancient orator thought he had summed up the whole doctrine of public speaking in four words: Tene rem; verba sequentur (grasp the subject; words will follow). But there is far more than that—good diction, logical arrangement, good voice, humour, and a dozen other ingredients, not least among them that melodic quality which Homer spoke of, “ From his lips, sweeter than honey flowed the stream of speech.” No doubt the audience were more inten/ on the substance of Lord Beveridges address than on its art, and natur/ly so. The kernel of his speech was that a nation may be for the time internally prosperous, with no unemployment and good wages, and yet may be a few months off the gravest economic crisis in her history. The American loan, when it comes, will give only a temporary alleviation. A population of nearly 50,000,000, has grown up largely on the returns from overseas exports. Great Britain led in industrial advance. Now other nations have caught up, and even the dominions by a natural development of industry have unintentionally become competitors of the Old Country. It is likely that emigration will increase unless some entirely unforeseen emergence of new wealthproducing agencies occurs. Meantime all must feel grateful to the United States for what Sir Oliver Stanley a few days ago described as their “ magnificent generosity.” And locally those who heard Lord Beveridge heard a masterly presentation of Great Britain’s economic difficulties.

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men.—Plato.

In the preceding paragraph I have cited the Latin dictum, Tene r6m> verba sequentur,” and mentioned a classical example of how to speak. There are other ways, not so classical, yet forcible enough, and in this case, the speaker being our Minister of Works, Mr Robert Semple, exemplifying also the Roman principle of grasping the matter and trusting to the words to follow. Mr Semple has certainly grasped what he calls “these reptiles crawling around,” but when he adds, "Like wounded worms with poison pots in their hands,” his hearers must have called up a picture of a new species of worms, bi-manual and dactylic, bearing envenomed chalices. This is as picturesque as Sir Boyle Roche’s metaphorical melange: “ I smell a rat; I see him in the air; we must nip him in the bud.” But Mr Semple’s grasp of the matter, with words sequacious thereupon, led bim on to declaim against these vermiform, bi-handed and 10-fingered poison-bearers as not having “ enough strength to protect a currant bun from a blowfly.” Marry! This is in the Ercles vein! In my ignorance I thought blowflies had a predilection for animal matter. A gorgeous utterance! Cato the Roman, who laid down the orator’s golden role, “Tene rem,” and trusted words would follow, would tremble even on the Elysian fields to hear how his doctrine worked out. All the same, Mr Semple won over his hearers, and that pre-eminently is the art and goal of political speaking. As Artemus Ward says, “Knock ’em.”

He hath awakened from the dream called life.—Shelley: Adonais.

Several correspondents have expressed interest in my recent remarks on superstition and hallucination. It may be that all our perceptions are hallucinations, for we have no means of making a final test except by what is generally agreed upon as an experience seen, heard, felt, perceived. What most agree on must be right. Yet, the messages that go up through the eye to the brain are physical, and no picture goes up, only waves or currents. Through the ear, too, go up currents to the brain. In both cases the currents are physical, caused by external stimuli. What reaches the hearing centre in the brain becomes a sound, but the great mystery grows greater. I hear certain sounds, I recognise them as words, I give these words meaning; and meaning is not physical, it is something added by the mind. Even so, the physical disturbances along the optic nerve are given a meaning. In both cases the meaning assigned by the mind through brain may be partially at least hallucinatory. We imagine, again, that physical objects are necessary to the production of sight and sound. How, then, do we see and hear in dreams? In what'were almost his last words Shakespeare tells us that we are such stuff as dreams are made on. I give it up. With all the genius, knowledge, research, thought and imagination of man since Adam first looked on Paradise no one has thrown the faintest glimmer of light upon the mystery how a physical something is transmuted into a non-physical something with meaning and human value to it. Caliban when he woke cried to dream again—his dream hallucinations were more precious to him than the sensations of his waking hours.

Quackery gives birth to nothing.— Carlyle: Past and Present.

The decisive rejection of Mr Braund’s cancer-curing claims comes as no great surprise. The general public hoped, naturally; but did not expect. The committee set up in Sydney leaves it in no doubt that the claims were baseless. And further, the chairman said Braund was a fraud and a charlatan. At present it seems that nothing can be done to prevent quacks from trading upon the credulity and the desperation of sufferers—a very sick man will try any remedy when regular medical treatment fails. The New South Wales Government is likely to take action to protect the public against quacks. Braund was probably self-deceived, and made public his imagined cures in good faith. This is all the more probable 'because he gave relief in a case which was later proved to have been the subject of faulty diagnosis by doctors. > Some other cases were of doubtful diagnosis. There is a growing feeling amongst the lay public that doctors are tending to label as malignant all tumours and growths of all sorts, especially in women. Faulty diagnosis gives the quack a golden opportunity—golden in two senses. Modern surgery within its own field seems to be more trustworthy than diagnostic capacity. Perhaps diagnosticians, like poets, are born, not made.. While results are so uncertain, it is plain there is scope for an improved technique or improved training, or, better, more research m diagnostics. Complaints amongst the public are common.

Life is a series of surprises.—Emerson: Circles.

Several expeditions seeking scientific data are going forth in Australia. One, a combined force of Australian and American experts, is to seek in the little-known habitat of the aborogines for anthropological light on palaeolithic man. Not a money-making expedition this, and, in the eyes of some quite useless. Others regard it as of absorbing interest—the proper study of mankind is man, they say. And who knows —some part of the cloud hanging over the early aeons of homo sapiens, if not homo arboreus, may be swept away. The other expedition is not troubled about early man. It seeks the stuff that man of to-day wants—oil. This is the oil-age, and if this petroleum quest is successful it may open up undreamed-of possibilities for Australia and for the British Empire. It may be remembered that about 20 years ago President Coolidge said, “ It is even probable that the supremacy of nations may be determined by the possession of available petroleum and its products.” At that time there was a keen rivalry between England and America. It was a bloodless war, and it has not ended, but now Russia is a third world competitor. The oil centres are mainly in the Middle East and in Caribbean countries. The United States, of course, has great oilfields, but she now has world-wide responsibilities, and needs new supply bases. A rich new oilfield in the south might alter the balance of world powei\ Civis.