PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3205, 18 August 1915, Page 6

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday’s Daily Times.) Somewhere about midway in the American Civil War —a four years’ struggle — policy and strategy were summed up for President Lincoln in “pegging away.” it was a miserable phrase, and his own. No deep-laid combinations, no wide sweeping movements, nothing beyond the deadly dull and “pegging away.” To this .ignominy the British have been reduced for months past. If we, the irresponsibles, are impatient, much more the men at the head of affairs. The new National Ministry, the War Office, the Admiralty, are they able to sleep of nights ? What of Kitchener and French? The great military chiefs are not at a stand-still because they like it. And in that assurance there is a kind of comfort. Things are as they are because they can’t be otherwise. In a general way we know the reason, and the world at large knows it. Thus the American Collier’s of .Inly 3 has got the' hang of the situation quite accurately : The collapse of Britain’s spring campaign, after the sacrifice of tens of thousands of ,mon for slight gains at Neuvo Chapel le and elsewhere, v.as due to a lack of high explosives. The British could not tear up the German trenches with shrapnel, and heavy blasting shells, the kind the Germans

have used in all their successful fighting, were unavailable. Russia lost in Galicia because her ammunition ran low, and she cannot replenish in the near future. The French, with their famous 3ih guns, have done much good fighting, but their artillery is not yet equal to the task of driving out the German invaders. Only Germany and Italy arc well supplied with war materials. The reeult of the struggle seems to hinge on gunpowder, not men. Things are as they are. but they are not going to stay as they are. German hilarity just now is the crackling of thorns under a pot. They laugh best who laugh last. “ We can see in the fall of Warsaw a significant step- on the road along which the Almighty, by His grace, has led us.” Thus the Kaiser; —who else? Early in the war the Kaiser Avas summed up by the American press as “ a pious humbug.” But ays are long past that. “Blaspheming murderer” is the Avorkl’s verdict today. Doubting Thomases, if there are any, may be commended to the report of the Bryce Commission. “It is proA'ed— That there Avere in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically-organised massacres of the civil population . , . that innocent civilians, both men and Avomen, were murdered in large numbers, Avomen A’iolated, and children murdered . . that looting, house-burning, and the Avanton destruction of property Avere ordered and countenanced by the officers of the German army . . . that elaborate provision had been made for systematic incendiarism at the very outbreak of the war . . . that, in short, murder, lust, and pillage preAmiled over many parts of Belgium on a scale unparalleled in any war between civilised nations during the last three centuries.” The eAndence is given; reading it you ask —Can such devils exist? Compared Avith things done in Belgium and the North of France, the Lusitania affair is a triviality. No one suggests that these things Avere hid from the Kaiser, or that they lacked the Kaiser’s sanction and approval. Through this avenue of crime the Almighty by His grace has led him —says the “ pious humbug.” But let us have done Avith epithets; they all come short. The Avord “Kaiser” itself is getting to be the supreme infamy. The psychology of shirking and the shirker is not difficult. A latent streak of meanness lurks in the best of us—just enough to interpret the meanness of other people. No need to deny it. Was not St. Paul the “chief of sinners”? And is there not a. story of the most noted eighteenth-century evangelist exclaiming as the hangman’s cart on its Avay to Tyburn passed him —“ But for the mercy of heaven there goes John Wesley”? Such excess of frankness is beyond us; but avo may confess to a bit of the shirker as the shirker is judged from the firingline. I copy his picture by the author of “The Green Curve,” a volume of war sketches painful and powerful. He's one of the sort the thoughts of which arc breaking us up. Ho could and should hq ’ore with us. D’ye know what he’ll likely be doing now? He’ll

’ave knocked off work, probably ’ave got my job now —he’ll ’ave knocked off work, perhaps watched some football, and had his tea—high tea, — and will bo going off to a musichall. At the hall he’ll sing patriotic songs with the best of them, and then the National Anthem. That’s my brother —God bless ’im!—and that’s what he’s doing for his country. He could have come. He has no wife or kids, and has money saved; but he isn’t such a fool, he says, as' to waste time and money in training or to fight for other people who stay behind and get all the pickings. That’s the sort of fat loafer with the thousands of others that wo are fighting for, as well as tirewomen and the kids and the Old Country, mind you. . . . I’m sorry, mate, to give you all this; but all the time when I’m not actually in the thick of it, the thought of him' and his likes is a canker in my mind. I can’t get quit of it, and it’s" always before we go into action, just before the whistle goes, that it gets me worst. Supplement this by. the shirker’s own soliloquy as versified in one of the Lqlrdon papers; THE LAND OF THE BRAVE AND THE FREE. (By One of the Latter.) Old England glories in her Volunteers ; ’Tis splendid! Let the other follow go, While I remain—a prey to poignant fears Lost ho should suffer harm. He’s dead? Ah, woe! Resignedly I check the rising sob, Then hurry out to try and get his job. “ National Service?” Would you have us slaves? Free I was born and free rny friend shall die. It is because he likes it that he braves Thirst, hunger, cold, fatigue, and agony. And if he die, what matter? I foresee Another England bred from men like ME. A poor lookout from the eugenics point of view. Dear “Givis,” —It is one of those funny things which you sometimes see in print, that, while you arc poking fun at the Boor exaggeration of 400,000 bayonets, you tumble into a lovely hole yourself by exaggerating the size of Gorman South-west Africa by about SCO per cent, as the whole territory is not nearly as big as Germany and AustriaHungary once over! Di.d I say that German South-west Africa was as big as Germany and Aus-tria-Hungary five times over? Perhaps some one will kindly explain for me, and explain it away. I was descanting on exaggeration, observe. To console for this exposure, the same correspondent sends me a periscopic view of New Zealand affairs as seen from Berlin : Berlin, July 10, 1915. The Central Espionage Bureau in Now Zealand reports that an open revolt is in progress. Political power being dominated by women, the King lias been denounced, and a number of rival queens have been proclaimed by

tho Natives. Collisions between the supporters of tho various queens are getting more frequent and fierce everyday, and as one has already been crowned in Wellington, it is certain that tho two islands will become separate States. Tho Government is quite helpless, because tho whole military force has been sent to an unknown destination. Even at a nearer view the Germans would fail to understand our Queen Carnival paroxysm, and small blame to them. I don’t understand it myself. Up and down the country we are raising money by harlequin methods —hundreds of thousands of pounds—“ for the wounded, 5 ’ yet for the same wounded are at the same time •providing pensions on a scale more liberal than any other in the world. It would have been better for the Empire, for the country, for the wounded themselves, if we had put cur votive thousands into machine guns’ and hastened the ending of the war. But let that pass. At the rate we are going the war will give ns all the time we want for adding machine guns, and the end will come quite soon enough for our comfort—if we may believe the latest assurances from Berlin. Everything is arranged—so many thousand millions indemnity from the Allies ; the German redistribution of Europe, Egypt, India, and the colonies; the “austerely virtuous army’ 5 to enforce “ kultur’’ on the British and the French as originally on the Belgians: and for “every male of military age compulsory military service.” As I have always told him, the New Zealand shirker is saving himself up for the German drill-sergeant. From correspondents who look upon “Givis” as an edition of “luqnire Within upon Everything ” : Dear “Givis,” —Here is a City Council advertisement about the Town Clock: — “The public is hereby notified that in consequence of repairs being carried out to the striking- gear of the Town Hall clock, the striking will be irregular a,s from Thursday next, the sth hist., until about the end of the current month. 5 ’ Can “the public is hereby notified” be right? Should -it not be “the public arc . . . ”? , Official grammar is a law unto itself. It is strange to read of repairs that are being “ carried out to the striking gear,” and of irregularities that are to begin “as from Thursday,” What is the “as” doing in it? “ The public are ” reads better than “the public is.” Usage limits the rule that the verb with a noun of multitude may be either singular or plural. “The House is of opinion,” not “the House are . . .” But “ the people are ot opinion,” not “the people is . . Substitute “public” for “people,” and you seem still to need the plural verb. Dear “X'ivis,” —Mrs Partington, with her mop doing battle with the Atlantic Ocean, is a familiar figure, the literary property, as most people understand, of Sydney Smith. But is she parable or history? Was there ever a Mrs Partington in the flesh? Perhaps you can say. Such references in books as I have seen throw no light on tho point. The Rev. Sydney Smith, more a politician than a parson, and more a wit than either, was no doubt capable of inventing Mrs Partington. But if an invention, she is clothed with a good deal of verisimilitude. As the passage is a locus classicus, let us turn it up. Smith was speaking it Taunton during the agitation over the Reform Bill of 1832: I do not mean to bo disrespectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop tho progress of reform reminds mo very forcibly of the groat storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs Partington on that occasion. In tho winter of 1824 there set in a great flood upon that town; tho tide rose to an incredible height—the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In tho midst of this sublime and terrible storm Dame Partington, who lived upon tho beach, was seen at tho door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out tho sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic wasroused; Mrs Partington’s spirit was up; ' but I need not toll you that tho contest was unequal. Tho Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest. _ Gentlemen, be at your case —be quiet and steady. You will beat Mrs Partington. As platform rhetoric Mrs Partington cannot be beat. Yet in these same Taunton speeches (there are three) she is run hard for first place. It was argued that, while cherishum rotten boroughs, the country had grown rich;—then why abolish them? There happens, gentlemen, to live near my parsonage a labouring man of very superior character and understanding,' who has made such good use of that superiority that he has saved what is (for his station in life) a considerable sum of money, and if his existence is extended to the common period he will die rich. It happens, however, that he is (and long has been) troubled with violent stomachic pains, for which ho has hitherto obtained no relief, and which really arc the bane and torment of his life. Now, if ray excellent neighbour were to send for a physician, and to consult him respecting this malady, would it not be very singular language if our doctor wore to say to him, “My good friend, you surely will not be so rash as to attempt to get rid of these pains in your stomach? Have you not grown rich with these pains in your stomach? Have you not risen under them from poverty to prosperity? Has not your situation, since you were first attacked, been improving every year? You surely will not bc°so foolish and indiscreet as to part ■with tho pains in your stomach?” — Why, what would be the answer of_ tho rustic to this nonsensical monition? “Monster of Rhubarb!” he would say, “ I’m not rich in consequence of the pains in my stomach, but in spite of the pains in my stomach, and I should have been ten times richer, and fifty times happier, if I had never had any pains in niy stomach at all.” Gentlemen, these

rotten boroughs are your pains in the stomach. It matters nothing that both Mrs Partington and the man with pains in his stomach may be puppets of Sydney Smith’s creating. Would that puppets as vivacious and entertaining peopled the dreary wastes of Hansard ! Dear “Civis,” —No doubt with others vou have been puzzled to know just in what way the Germans approached Warsaw. The enclosed editorial will perhaps enlighten you: —“According to the latest reports, Warsaw, like a heavy object enmeshed in a. drag-net, is outflanked, and must be given up. Hie Germans, apparently in considerable force, are forty miles oast of Warsaw sixty miles above the city, and sixty miles east of Warsaw eighty miles below the city. Prom a country newspaper this gem, of course. Let no one despise the country newspaper, still less the Jack-of-all-trades pioneer of civilisation who, poetically > is said to occupy the country newspaper s editorial chair. This “ editorial chair,’ maybe, is a printer’s one-legged stool, perched and poised on which the editor composes (in the strict sense “ composes ) his editorial, picking it up letter by letter from the cases of type before him, and correcting it by reading the matter in his composing stick. manuscript, no supererogatory ‘‘ proof. And, all things considered, his subscribers get their full pennyworth. Civis.