PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27057, 16 April 1949, Page 11

PASSING NOTES

I never thought of thinking for myself at all. —W S. Gilbert.” HMS, Pinafore."

A new constitution is now prepared for Western Germany, under which there will be a measure of independence both in the separate States and in the hoped-for Federal parliament. The object is to indoctrinate the Germany, or part of it, with the spirit of the Western democracies, both in their basic concepts and in their present practices. It is safe to prophesy that it will be a long while before "democracy becomes a part of the German mind. Institutions are only stable as long as they are supported by steady ideals. When the latter waver the former totter. It will be remembered how ill fared the Republic established in Germany under the Weimar Constitution at the end of the war of 1914-18. Towards the end of the recent war, when German defeat began to appear as certain, inquiries were made among thousands of German war-prisoners to ascertain what they thought of their country’s future, and it was found that most of them had no idea at all of their political future. The Nazis were mostly fanatical—to them Hitler was invincible. The non-Nazi Germans among the prisoners desired only to return and to see England and America long enough in occupation to keep out the Russians, being themselves indifferent about the Government as long as they were not molested. There seemed to be among them no idea of democracy, only a vague hope for some outstanding man to bring order. The Hitlerites had been rendered incapable of democratic thought by the hypnotic influence of the Fuehrer. It was said in 1944 that most of them believed that Britain and America would fight Russia. Well, this may prove a bad forecast; and the Germans may yet be democratised.

Spell it with a "we,” Sammy. —Mr Weller, Senior.

In the House of Commons a private member’s Bill for spelling reform was defeated in the second reading by three votes. One of the members supporting the Bill was Mr Isaac J. Pitman, a grandson of the inventor pf Pitman’s shorthand. Mr Pitman in the debate read a letter from Mr Bernard Shaw, who wrote, “the Bill with its compulsory and exclusive items is impossible; but it can be made practicable in Committee; and its defeat would be an international calamity.’’ One of Mr Shaw’s strong points emphasised in a letter to The Times is that even the saving of time on one letter of the alphabet omitted would mean the saving of acres of paper and months of time, as there are millions of people writing every day. He describes, as “the champion howler of the debate ” the statement of Sir Alan Herbert, member for Oxford University, when he said that the proposed spelling in a sample word saved only one letter. The Bill did not present a reformed spelling system—that was to be left to a committee, and when it was accepted no film or book could be allowed to break the rules. No wonder the Bill was rejected. In The Times a fine letter appeared from a Spanish scholar, Salvador de Madariga, who pointed out that the chief difficulty of a foreigner lax in the stress or accent of English words, and he suggested en accent as in Spanish. So the muddle remains. One of the chief objections to any reformed spelling lies in the look of it. Mr Shaw suggests an alphabet of 40 letters, as it is impossible to represent our sounds with 26. Foreigners laugh at Englishspeaking peoples in having spening bees, so it is said. But surely the French can’t laugh; their spelling is not a model of simplicity. And so we stick in the old place—and spell and mis-spell in the same old hit-or-miss fashion.

I found this book, Gave a lira for it. eightpence English

just. , , Small, quarto size, part print, part manuscript. ~, —Browning, “ The Ring and the Book . Only those who have practised book-hunting in second-hand book shops and on old stalls know what a fascination there is in it, especially if the guest has a definite end in view. Years ago I turned over some very dirty-looking books on a stall in a market for vegetables and general merchandise. A queer little old man —himself a sort of animated secondhand book—the stall-owner, said to me as I was about to turn away, Don't be in a hurry, sonny, take your time. Through being in a hurry I missed a Kilmarnock Burns on a •threepenny stall in a market; it was afterwards sold for £2000.” Well, despite much hunting and some interesting finds I never had any great good fortune. My best acquisition was purchased in Dunedin through the good offices of a local bibliophile. Thii is a book published at Bologna in 1477, i.e., three years before Caxton printed his first book in England (not his first-printed book, as this was produced on the Continent). Books printed before 1500 are classed among the “incunabula,” i.e. the cradlebooks. Another find was that of a learned friend of mine who found in a second-hand Melbourne shop one of the earliest printed copies of Aristotle. He noticed the owner’s name written, Klimakophoros (i.e., ladderbearer), in Greek characters. By a piece of luck and good scholarship, he saw that, as in Latin “ scala ” was “ladder” and “gero” was “carry, Klimakophoros meant Scaliger—the name of a famous father and son, the former Italian, the latter French. Examination showed that the book must have been stolen from the University Library at Paris in the sixteenth century, and the original stamp had been partly obliterated, but was revealed by photography. Readers of Browning’s “The Ring and the Book ” will remember how he found the story. Good luck to the searchers for tne Kilmarnock Burns! I'd sooner succeed in that than in the art union.

Patmam qui meruit ferat: Let him bear the palm who hath deserved it. —Latin Proverb.

An Otago graduate engaged on historical research in New Zealand sends me an interesting letter. Here are a few extracts: I have been reading the Life of Charles Henry Pearson, Minister of Education in Victoria. In a biography of David Syme, editor and owner of the Melbourne Age, it was claimed that some of the reforms instituted here by Richard John Seddon had been conceived by Syme—the tax to prevent infant industries, women’s franchise, the Land Purchase Act which the State assumed the right to purchase a large estate at the owner’s estimate. But the Life of Pearson discloses that he may have played a major part in formulating the policy of the Victorian Liberal Party. The evidence reveals Pearson as something of a seer and possibly the political genius. He made a pessimistic but logically consistent prediction of the rise of the teeming millions of Southern China—proved true in our time. His uncanny foresight regarding the future of Russia is shown on page 153. He thought British statesmanship (1848) should be influenced by Russia’s growth in order to cement relations with that country and to forbid a possibility he always dreaded —“ a mortal antagonism between the Colossus and Western civilisation.” . . . His conception of education was colossal for his generation. I am sure he was the first educational statesman to see the evils of the industrial school. He therefore advocated boarding out, by which unfortunate . children were placed in good homes. It was in 1904, I think, that the industrial school system was abolished in Dunedin. He conceived also the nucleus of a Child Welfare Department. . . . Scant justice has been done to his memory 'in the southern hemisphere, both Australia and New Zealand to-day owe him an immense debt.

Thanks for the letter. Its hint of the origin of Seddon’s reforms is quite new to me.

Poesy, drawing within its circle all that is glorious and ir&piring, gave itself but little concern as to where its flowers originally grew. —Emerson: Quotation and Originality. To Civis, Dear Sir, —You are probably right about Kipling: at the same time you might be interested in the following, which appeared in Passing Notes of 21/1/1928: . . . An answer may be extracted from Kipling in certain verses on which alone, in the judgment of The Spectator might be staked Kipling’s reputation as a poet: When ’Omer smote ’is bloomin’ lyre He’d ’card men sing by land and sea

An’ what ’e thought ’e might require ’E went an’ took—the same as me! The market-girls an’ fishermen; Tire shepherd an’ the sailors, too. They 'card old songs turn up again, But kep' it quiet—same as you! They knew ’e stole; ’e knew they knowed They didn't tell, nor make a fuss, But winked at ’Omer down the road An’ ’e winked back—the same as us! I am, etc., M, Despite the authority of the Spectator, I adhere to my opinion. And as Homer is mentioned I give a specimen from his Odyssey, where the god Hermes comes to Calypso’s island to demand the release of Ulysses; There dwelt the fair-haired nymph, and her he found Within. Bright flames, that on the hearth did play, Fragrance of burning cedar breathed around. And fume of incense wafted every way. There her melodious voice the livelong day. Timing the golden shuttle rose and fell. And round the cave a leafy wood there lay. Where green trees waved o’er many a shady dell. Alder and poplar black and cypress sweet of smell. Methinks Homer did not borrow that from market girls an’ fishermen, though scholars are of opinion that he strung together many old songs—indeed, his name supports the belief. Civis.