PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3115, 26 November 1913, Page 11

PASSING NOTES.

(From Siturdiy's Dill/ Timji.t “ Peaceful persuasion ” —the argument allowed by law to strike pickets —came into play the other afternoon on the Dunedin wharf. A labourer who had been unloading cargo from the Moeraki started for home at the 5 o’clock whistle. As he stepped oft’ the wharf into Rattray street peaceful persuasion began, that is to say he was struck on the cheek. The man, holding his hand to hia face, ran over for the protection of two policemen standing by the old Harbour Board offices, and after leaning up against the railing there for several minutes, under the eye of the police, was surrounded by a number of strikers and made the subject of some rather heated vocal persuasion. Shortly after a loud cheer intimated that the arbitrationist had succumbed to the gentle art of peaceful picketing, and that he did not intend to return to the Mccraki. They raised a sieer, did they?—“Another sinner down! Hallelujah!” —after the manner of an American revival meeting. But there is something wrong in this stoVy, or there must have been something wrong in the two policemen. Unless indeed, as the Saturday Review suggests, “peaceful persuasion ” legally defined means “brutal bullying,* 5 , and the officers of the law so understand it. In that case the Moeraki labourer’s error was in running for protection to the police. He should have jumped into the harbour. Superintendent Dwyer’s ruling on this incident would bo read with interest. The peaceful persuaders keeping guard at the Dunedin waterfront are how many ? At the most a few scores. And the. rest of us, the people of Dunedin and its vicinity, are a few score thousands. The disparity is great —indecently great; it is ridiculous. For we, the multitude, are all alike the subject—or object—of peaceful persuasion. We are peacefully persuaded to allow 7 this handful of watersiders to close the port of Dunedin, so that for the moment we may no longer speak of Dunedin wharf, but of Lethe wharf, and of Dunedin commerce as the ■weed that thereon rots at ease. With some vague idea of avoiding this idiotic situation we have sworn in special constables. But the Dunedin watersider is a thing of nerves; accustomed to the man in blue, ho would kick up like a prairie colt at the sight of a special with baton in holt. So, to oblige him, we keep our specials out of sight, and certain of them who are extra-special, being able to ride, we carefully maroon at Tahuna Park. If, taking heart from our numbers, we would attemjft any work within the purlieus of the peaceful persuaders, wo have to go about it like a thief in the* night, secretly mustering our work-people before daylight, and even then destined to see half of them spirited away by peaceful persuasion, the man in blue looking on. This is the position to-day ; when is it to end? How much longer shall the tail be allowed to wag the dog? As I explained to a correspondent last week, any attempt to deny the vituperative force of “scab!” is vain, and still vainer the desire to make the epithet honorific and complimentary. The correspondent of a V\ ellington paper is on this tack, and would even invent a name of opprobrium for the other side: The new name “cancer” for the Federation of Labour seems a most appropriate one. The word “scab” moans a healing growth formed by Nature to cover and protect a wound. But the dreaded “canoer” is a malignant growth which catb ;nto and destroys the human body. So it may be, and so it is; but you can’t fling about the word “cancer l . 5 ’ as a missile, not to mention that on our side W 0 have no use for missiles. Wo are for law and order; mud-slinging doesn’t lie within, our part. It is enough to note—as in Wellington just now, where the wharves are being worked by a registered union of a thousand members—that a stone when thrown, may bo picked up tyrtd thrown back. The Wellington #,scaba ” are nob the worker# but the shirkers. Only the exuberant genius of Mi Chucks the boatswain could fit them f

out with descriptive epithets: “ Back to your job, you wharf-loafing, pipe-sucking, wife-starving, double-dashed tomfool! Take that—and that—and that—and that ” —plying his rattan. Given Mr Chucks on the Dunedin wharf at the present juncture, we might unswear the invisible specials.

Mr Larkin, of Dublin, talks an infinitude of “rot,” but has said at any rate one good thing. The Government—he told the Dublin mob —made a mistake in sending him to gaol, but made a greater mistake in letting him out again. By this time the Government are probably of the same opinion. The asinine folly of letting him out of gaol is theirs, —Mr Birrell has confessed ; but I doubt whether they originally put him in. It is not the business of a Government to send any man to gaol; it is the business of the law and of the officers of the law. Mr Larkin was sent to gaol as a rioter, not as a striker, — as a rioter and the organiser of riots. Rioting is a crime, and when the police come upon a criminal redhanded it is their duty to arrest him. You can't arrest a mob, but you can arrest the leader of a mob. Let the police do their duty and let the law take its course. What have the Government to say in the matter? — or the Legislature? Just as little as the man in the street. If the Government put James Larkin in gaol, they may fairly be asked why they don't put Sir Edward Carson in gaol. Sedition is as manifest a crime as riot raising; the duty of the police is as plain in the one case as in the other. Does Sir Edward Carson stalk at large because the Government are afraid and the police have got the tip? I decline to believe it. Meddling and muddling in the administration of justice is not the vice of British Governments. Nor is the “gaoling” of certain Wellington rioters and sedition-mongers to he laid at the door of the Massey Government, as some imbeciles are saying. In that case the officers of justice merely performed the duty for which officers of justice exist. Let justice be done though the heavens fall, much more when it is not the heavens that are coming to grief but only a few discredited Red Feds. Until I learned it from a letter in this column last week I was unaware that in the Dunedin Southern Cemetery, marked by “a somewhat obscure and neglected headstone,” was the grave of a Royal Navy man who had won the Victoria Cross. Many other Dunedin people must have shared this ignorance. Biding the epitaph:—“ In memory of Duncan Gordon Boyes, V.C., late H.M.R.N., aged 22 years; 1869”—my correspondent “felt thrilled to think of so young a sailor gaining so marked a distinction.” Who was Duncan Gordon Boyes? Where and how did he gain the Cross marked “For Valour ”? How came it about that in Dunedin of all places, 44 years ago, his brief life-story should have reached its term? On these points 1 was unable to give any information. Bat this week the Honorary Secretary of the Navy League, Otago Branch, comes to the rescue: To “Givis.” —Dear Sir, —In reference to a passing note in to-day’s issue of the Otago Daily Times, the enclosed note may be of interest to you;— A “V.C.” HERO. Forty-five Victoria Crosses have been won l>y the Royal Navy and Royal Marines since its institution. These comprise 16 officers of the Royal Navy, two officers of the Royal Marines, two officers of the Indian Marine, 22 warrant and petty officers and seamen, one stoker, and two marine N.C.O.’s. Midshipman D. G. Boyes heads the list (alphabetically). Ho gained his Cross in Japan in September, 1854, along with two other navy men—viz., Captain of the After-Guard Thomas Pride and Ordinary Sica man William Seeley. All belonged to the Euryalus. Midshipman Boyes was awarded the Cross for gallantry at the attack on the enemy’s main position, during which hp carried the Euryalus’s Union Jack. On the charge sounding, ho dashed forward and pressed on under a heavy fire, keeping up with the leading company and ahead of them. The colour itself was shot through six times. Pride supported Boyes in his gallant rush on the Simonoseki batteries. Ho was shot in the breast, but still pressed on, occasionally turning round to cheer on the men behind. Seeley coolly reconnoitred the enemy’s position under fire, and, though wounded in the arm, afterwards led the men in the close fighting that followed, and guided them to the weak spots in the entrenchments. 'P Duncan Gordon Boyes was 17 years old when he won his V.C. “The history of heroes is the history of youth.” I was ignorant of the fact that Boyes was buried in the Southern Cemetery, and I shall bring the matter under the notice of the Executive of the Navy League with a view to seeing that the reproach of “neglected” will not, in future, apply. Here is another contributor; —the story being good enough to duplicate : The Victoria Cross was awarded to Mr Duncan Gordon Boyes, midshipman of her Majesty’s ship Euryalus, for the conspicuous gallantry which, according to the testimony of Captain Alexander, C. 8., at the time Flag Captain to Viceadmiral Sir Augustus Kuper, K.C.8., Mr Boyes displayed on the occasion of tho capture of the enemy’s stockade. He carried tho colour with tho leading company, kept it in advance of all, in the face of the thickest fire, his coloursergeants having fallen —ono mortally, the other dangerously, wounded; and ho was only detained from proceeding yet further by tho orders of his superior officer The colour he carried was six times pierced by musket balls. I make room for this the more readily because it comes to me from a boy of the Otago Boys’ High °rhonl. an institution in which, it delights mo to think, may be caught something of the true public-school spirit: To set tho cause above .viiown. To love the game beyond the prize. To honour, while you strike him clown, The foe that Comes with fearless eyes;

To count the life of battle good, And dear the land that gave you birth. And dearer yet the brotherhood That binds the brave of all the earth. Wellington’s cryptic saying that Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton may' be explained by reminiscences of his own school days He had been an Eton boy, and he knew. Dear “Civis,” —Lend me your aid. I am warring in our house against the indiscriminate use of the word “nice.” But the ladies say no other word will serve; in fact, they cannot do without it. I think I have a nice discrimination for nice dishes, but I do not appreciate that “it is nice weather”; that “Mrs Jones is nice” ; that “ it is nice that Mrs Jones is nice.” Etc., etc. This is an old story. You will find the misuse of “nice” glanced at in Jane Austen’s novels of more than a century back. Thus, in reply to the remark that “ Udolpho is the nicest book in the world ” : Very true; and this is a very nice day; and we are taking a very nice walk; and you arc two very nice young ladies. Oh, it is a very nice word indeed ! —it does for everything. Originally, perhajis, it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement; people were nice hi their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word If we have advanced since Jane Austen’s day, it is in backing up one slang word with another; e.g.—“ls the pudding nice?” “I think it awfully nice.” People who talk in this way are not necessarily of feeble intellect. They are doing business on too small a capital. In particular, they are trying to be emphatic with a scant vocabulary. Cxvis.