PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3244, 17 May 1916, Page 5

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

The British genius for "muddling through" is not limited to operations of -war. It is equally conspicuous in politics. On the compulsion question Mr Asquith and his colleagues have conjugated the verb "to muddle" through all its moods and tenses : —Active voice : I muddle, thou muddiest, he muddles, we muddle, you muddle, they muddle ;—Passive : I am muddled, thou art muddled, he is muddled, we—you —they are muddled. WAIT AND SEE! We have waited and have seen—from the time when Lord Roberts and his doctrine of national service were anathema down to the present when the same doctrine is proclaimed our only hope of salvation—and what we have seen resembles what Bunyan beheld in vision : Now I saw In my dream that they drew nigh to a very miry slough that was in the midst of the plain, and they being heedless did both fall suddenly into the bog. Here therefore they wallowed for a time, being grievously bedaubed by the dirt. Then said Pliable: "Ah! neighbour Christian, where are you now?" and with that he gave a desperate struggle or two and got out of the mire on that side of the slough which was noxt to his own house. Wherefore Christian was left to tumble in the slough alone; but still he endeavoured to struggle towards that side of the slough which was furthest from his own house. And from the City of Destruction whither Pliable —whose name may have been Simon —had gone back. Another fellowpilgrim, one Obstinate, had broken off earlier. "I will go back to my place," said he, "and will be no companion of such misled fantastical fellows." But Christian, persisting, got into and out of the hog and at last on to the King's Highway. In short he muddled through. This being our traditionary method we ere exhorted by onlookers —who usually see'"most of the game —not to worry. Whatever we possess the wide world over, whatever of things material and immaterial are ours—wealth, power, authority, influence, —we have got it all by "muddling through." Personally I don't believe that. Speaking for myself, I have a hankering after efficiency. But this is the tone and drift of a lively American writer in Collier's, Mr Frederick Palmer. " With more than a million of men oversea, three millions more ready to go in, and the sea secure, England reviles her slackers in tones heard over the world and taken by those who don't know these stubborn islanders as proof of their failure out of their own mouths." You havo heard of the lady who "enjoyed ill-health." The British for the last eight months since they realised the enormity of the task before them have been enjoying the pessimism which they call " grousing." Let them win the war and they will etill keep on complaining about their " muddlers." It is a national habit. When the Welsh coal strike was on the British Navy had a year's supply of coal in reserve, but you must not mention that. Finally camo conscription. Then we heard tales of labour unions whioh would refuse to obey; of the promise of riots. But the riots did not come. Britain has "muddled" in this war. She has in every war. And as the English say, " wo are going to muddlo through." Very well j let him have it so. It is a. oomforting doctrine that cannot at this stage do us much harm. The sting of necessity is too keen. The Spectator, professing itself "sick of the chatter about saving-—chatter which results in little or no action, and will make U 3 the laughing-stock of the world" —propounds a quaint scheme of its own : Monday, no drinks. Tuesday, no tobacco. Wednesday, no sugar. Thursday, no tea, cocoa, or coffee. Friday, no meat, The daily drink bill Is half a million sterling, tho daily butcher's bill a million. Tea, sugar, tobacco, mean other millions. Thu 3 we get an Alnashcar vision of wealth awaiting us and easy won. No compul-

sion. The King on advice of Parliament is to issue a proclamation "requiring" these abstinences. Moral force will do the rest. Let him believe it who can. Saving may be an imperious and imperial necessity, but the elementary idea of saving as a duty has yet to be got into the minds of the people. The other day might be seen on the Wellington wharf at one time £QO,OCO worth of motor cars, mostly for luxury. So I hear. The same number of the Spectator gibbets an advertisement taken from "a leading daily paper"— Footman, first of two (under butler) J ago 25-30; ineligible for army, or older man, not necessarily in livery; family 2; 18 indoor servants; good plate cleaner, waiter." A family of two employing in war time 18 indoor servants, besides outdoor servants unnamed ! It's a long way to Tipperary. Letters on Irish affairs reach me —letters from Irishmen, loyalists all, good men .and true, worthy of better accommodation than this column affords. Just a sentence or two, and then clip in "the abhorred shears." Thus it happens to "An Ulsterite" : Dear " Civis," —I cannot refrain from expressing my pleasure on reading your notes on the rebellion in Ireland. You seem to know the whole state of affairs in Ireland as well as if you were a constant reader of the Belfast Weekly News. You say truly that Mr Birrell has seen the trouble brewing for many months past, has looked down serenely and dono nothing. Not only Mr Birrell but the Government. It is well that the rebels are directing their energy against the Government instead of the loyal men of Ulster. Ulster's turn would have come next. As for Mr Birrell, now in eclipse, his sin in respect of Ireland was the Government's sin in respect of Germany. In each case there was menace; in each case the menace was ignored. Peace was the official motto —peace and party politics; and for the sake of peace (in our time) they perilled the national existence. Slow-pao-ing Nemesis has been able to overtake Mr Birrell because his tolerated—not to say petted—Sinn Feiners, blundering, broke away. In the other case, judgment deferred. Wait till the end of the war. Wait and see. Raro antecedentcm scelestum Desoruit pedo poena clauclo. Which is to say that Justice, though lame and limping (claudus altero pede), usually contrives to catch up at last. Dear " Civis," —The Irish rebels may be divided into knaves and fools. So the newspapers say. But the classification is unsound. It is a police opinion that every knave is a fool, and high authorities in ethics say the same thing. The knave thinks himself cleverer than the police, cleverer than the_ law, cleverer than all the world beside, hence able to live at the world's expense. Which of course is to say that a knave is a fool. The Dublin Sinn Feiners expected Germany to come to their help, and now complain that Germany sold them. Plainly those knaves were fools. Plainly they were. Reliance on Germany and defiance of England were follies that matched each other. The Sinn Feiners might in safety have gone on playing at rebellion —arming, drilling, rehearsing attacks on Dublin Castle; —the Irish Government winked at them. But the moment the Sinn Feiners began to shoot they brought upon themselves the British army that could shoot faster, and all was up. Fools! Mr Ginnell, Irish M.P., who shouts "Huns!" when the House is informed that the rebel leaders haA r e been shot, and does it, he says, to " call attention to the slaughter of innocent men by a Hunnisb Government," is a fool of the first i*ank: Take an illustrative incident: Mr Ginnell asked Lord Robert Cecil if ho would state the special terms subject to which the Italian Government gave its adhesion to tho agreement among the allied Governments not to make separate peace. , Lord Robert Cecil: Tho answer is in the negative. Mr Ginnell: Negative to what? Mr Watt: To your own question, you silly ass ! —(Laughter.) It is doubtful whether to this hour Mr Ginnell sees the point. A way they have in the army. (Corporal giving instruction in bayonet fighting. From Professor Morgan's "Leaves from a Field Note-Book.") " Now I'm going to givo you the butt exorcises"; they brightened visibly. "I am pointing—so!—and 'avo been parried. I bring the butt round on 'is shoulder, using my weight on it. I bring my left leg behind 'is left leg. I throw 'im over. Then I give tho beggar what for. So!" The words were hardly out of his mouth before he had thrown himself upon the nearest private and laid him prostrate. Tho others smiled faintly as No. 98678 picked himself up and nonchalantly returned to hia old position as if this were a banal compliment. "Now then. First butt exercise." Ono rank advanced upon the other, and the two ranks were locked in a close embrace. They remained thus with muscles strung like bowstrings, immobile as a group of statuary. "That'll do. Now I'll give you the second butt exercise. You bring the butt round on 'is jaw—sol —and then kick 'im in the guts with your knee." Perhaps tho section, which stood like a wall of masonry, looked surprised; more probably the surprise was mino. But the corporal explained. " Don't think you're Tottenham Hotspur in tho Cup Final. Never mind giving 'im a foul. You've got to 'urt 'im or 'e'll 'urt you." The British non-com., backbone of tho army, is there anywhere anything like him? Dear "Civis," —The word "ghoul" : English so far aa I have been able to examine them, give the pronunciation "gool"; but almost everybody who has occasion to use the_ word sounds it "goal." Of course, the dictionaries must bo right, but it is curious

that there should be a general tendency to mispronounce We may lay the blame on Edgar Allan Poe : They are neither man nor woman— They are neither brute nor human — They are Ghouls: And their king it is who tolls; And he rolls, rolls, rolls, A paean from the bells. This is from Poe's "Bells," in which piece, as we see, he rhymes "ghoul" with "toll" and "roll." On points of this kind the authority of a popular poet is mighty. All the same, the true doctrine rhyme's the word with "cool" and "tool." It is a transfer from Arabic, almost unaltered—" ghul," a spirit preying on corpses. Another correspondent, returning to the name "Augustine," which, as I have said, has in English use the accent on the penult, gives m© a Longfellow line with accent on the ante-penult : Saint Augustine, well hast thou said But in these matters America, even literary America, is a law unto itself. On the vexed question, Should women smoke? "you say," writes a correspondent, that "a woman may smoke if she is willing to pay the price," which price is "that her lips should lo?e their sweetness, her breath its native fragrance." But a man who smokes would not detect that loss. The defence against the smell of onions in another person's breath is to eat onions yourself. (Phew !) In any case, a real smoker puts the pipe first, other delights second. On this point I can givo you a verse from the poets : Strange ! that this gently breathed cloud So far, far sweeter seems to mo Than all that this green earth enshroud, Or float above the sea. My meershaum, when thy mouth I greet No lady's lips seem half so sweet. After his malodorous comparison this devotee of the weed might be adjudged out of court. But since he has appealed to " the poets" to " the poets" he shall go : How doth the nasty, dirty man Go smoking every hour, And spends his money wastefully On Old Nick's favourite- flower. How wistfully he seeks his pipe, How glad he doth it light; And smokes the foul thing all the day, And feels quite ill at night. Etc., etc. ; —there is more of it, but this will do. The fact that a woman smokes is no proof that she really likes it. I i-e----call the comment of Albert Edward Prince of Wales on the ma<rriage, at a mature age, of the Baroness Coutts : " It couldn't have been love; it couldn't have been money; it must have been curiosity." Civis.