PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3293, 25 April 1917, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.),

It is with bated breath that we speak of war prospects on' the western front, of war prospects generally. The end is near; . before the end must cpme our climax of effort and sacrifice. Nothing could be of better omen than our offensive begun on the 9th; its story is wonderful—the thousands of prisoners scooped in, the hundreds of guns. But is this the great offensive, or only a push preliminary? Clearly, we are for ever advancing, foot by foot winning back for the French, and the French winning back for themselves, farms, homesteads, villages desecrated and denied by the hoof of the invading Hun. Not in this form, however, nor at this measured pace, can progress continue. We are bound to picture the struggle reaching agony point, a concentrated Armageddon, into which we throw, if"needed, our last man and last gun, -with all that we possess of energy, force, genius, determination. The result?— Decision, the decision that decides everything. This outlook is brightened but not in essentials altered by the coming in of America.

Special significance is attached to Mr Bonar Law's statement in the House of Commons, in which ho said he believed the lonfc night of sorrow and anguish which had desolated the world was drawing to a close. Thus the cable. Our rejoicing is as Mr Bonar Law's; but we rejoice with trembling. The issues at stake in the approaching "decision" are national life or death for evermore.

"A 'hyphenated American' is—what?"—risks a correspondent. The hyphenated American is. an American and something, more or less, which something is linked on by a hyphen. Though a citizen, and doubtless a voter, the hyphenate is an unassimilated and halfdigested foreigner, German-American, Irish-American, or other hybrid as may chance. A " mere polyglot boardinghouse " seems insufficient as a description of the great Western Republic. Yet the phrase is Mr Roosevelt's, corroborated, in part, by his own name. '* Roosevelt " is nlain "Dutch. I forget/ how many

generations it takes to make a gentleman—two perhaps, or say three. It can't take much more to make an American, and the Roosevelt family or clan will doubtless have qualified long ago. But the hyphenated American, German variety, is a matter of moment just now. There are some millions of him; and if the Hun blood still runs strong, if kultur at all shape his thinking, there is no villainy from which he would shrink. This fact is not hidden from the American of full blood, nor left unprovided for. "It has been rumoured," says Mr Buchan, war historian, " that a certain German man told a distinguished American diplomat: 'Remember that there,are half a million Germans of military age in the United States, and that, nearly air have had military training,' and that the Ambassador replied, ' I calculate, sir, that we have more than half a million lampposts.' " Appearances are that the American temper is steadily rising. And the chances are that"''hanky-panky by traitorous hyphenates would conduct straight to Judge Lynch and the nearest lamp-post.

British" hyphenates," here or at Home, have we any? We ljave, but under lock and key. The non-naturalised German whose errand was "peaceful penetration" we intern. It is to be remembered in charity, however, that a German name proves nothing, though often the mere name is fatal. Almost as soon as we were at war Prince Louis of Battenberg ceased to be First Lord of the Admiralty, retiring or gently elbowed out. Prince Louis was', and still is, Personal Aide-de-Camp to the King, as solid a Britisher as any about the Court. But that a Prince of Battenberg, which is a place in Germany, should in Avar time be giving orders to the British Fleet, public feeling could not tolerate. There is another conspicuous example. Last year and earlier the Master-general of the Ordnance was Major-general Sir Stanley Brenton von Donop, C. 8., formerly Professor of Artillery at Woolwich. You don't find him in this year's list. Nobody could feel comfortable with a "'von" at the War Office. It availed nothing that this "von" was a distinguished British soldier, his father a British Admiral and his mother a Church of England parson's daughter. He had to go. Then look at this advertisement from the London Times: Mr Ernest Wilton Schiff, late captain, the Royal Sussex Regt, and his son, Mr A. 8. Borlaso Schiff, the Rifle Brigade, wish definitely to state that they have no relationship or connection with Mr Jacob Schiff, of New York

—Mr Jacob Schiff of New York figuring just then in the newspapers as a German peace propagandist. Why not change the name? Ship is as good as Schiff; and Ship is English.

" Nil Desperandum " —Never Despair—tells the editor that he need not despair though " paper at the present time is scarce and very dear," since it is-always in his power to " cut out Passing Notes," with then- "bald blatancy " and "narrowminded bleating." Nil Desperandum! And for all that paper is so scarce and dear he spoils three pages post, large size, over the projected suppressing of " Civis," —a likely enough thing, in truth, if the West Coast miners, friends of his, are not themselves suppressed. There will be a cutting out of railways, steamships, factories, industries great and small, with newspapers included. These enemies within the walla are wickeder foes, being of our own household, than the Germans who lay siege from without. My offence with their Otago apologist—this Nil Desperand-er"—is that last week I talked of cobbing them, instead of shooting them —recommended'; or allowed a correspondent to recommend, the infliction of dishonouring punishment " aposteriori." Cobbing, though not under that name, is a punishment for schoolboys, much in vogue at Eton and other training institutions for aristocratic youth. Many a

peer's son has been cobbed. If the West Coast/ miners behave as schoolboys, as schoolboys should they be disciplined.

Extending to Christchurch, West Coast Germanism in that City of the Plain takes the form of an attempt to capture municipal institutions. Not upon questions of roading and draining, rates and taxes, gas and water, will the election of Mayor and Councillors turn next Wednesday, but upon the alternatives—Conscription or No Conscription, Win the War or Basely Loso it. That is to be the issue. There as here the retiring mayor, having played the man through stormy times and patriotically upheld the' honour of his city, seeks re-election. At a meeting the other night he put his opponents through their catechism: What had the opponents of tho Military Service Act ever done to assist recruiting? Had they ever gone to the drill shed to say good-bye and good luck to the boys who were going away? Had one of therk. ever gone to Lyttelton to welcome back the boy 3 from the front? Had any ono_ of them ever gone to a public meeting in favour of voluntary enlistment? Or to a meeting in favour of wounded soldiers' funds, Red Cross work, tho Lady Liverpool '' Fund, the Patriotio Fund, the Belgian Fund, or the Naval Fund? Not one of them had done so.

Uproar at the back of the hall. "Had any one of these men"—he continued—" raised a voice in support of Great Britain and her Allies, or uttered any expression of horror at the brutality of the unspeakable Hun?" Same response. And if the same questions were put elsewhere, as they well might be, it would be the same response again, the one and qnly answer indeed:—"Uproar at the back of the hall."

From a Chicago paper sent me by a correspondent I learn that the Rev. J. Q. A. Henry, wandering missioner, who once missioned in Dunedin, has just wandered home to Chicago, his native heath, from Australia, whence he brings a strange story. Taking advantage of the war crisis, the labour,unions and the I.W.W. have brought about a reign of terror, forcing the Government, by threats of burning the cities, to release from the jails members of the I.W.W. bands who have committed treason. The Government at first refused the demands of the I.W.W. leaders, but when houses to' the value of 3,000,000 dollars had been destroyed the Government backed down. The country is in the grip of anarchy. "Following an election which the anticonscriptionists carried they demanded that Premier Hughes demobilise the troops he had called to the colours. Hughes had to yield, and the soldiers so sorely'needed by Great Britain hadto be disarmed and sent home." This]is not history; it may be prophecy. With the licence of a prophetic seer Mr Henry describes things that are-to be as things that are. Poor Australia! There is another point:— , The hatred of Americans in Australia is intense. An Australian, being invited , to attend an evangelical meeting held by an American clergyman, sent back word that he would rather go to hell than experience salvation at the hands of an American. That is intelligible. The American revivalist presentment of salvation failed to appeal. And on the whole, as I should judge, Mr Henry's mission to Australia failed t& succeed. Sir James Allen's patriotic ploughman, in one and the same act holding the baby and driving the plough, is making the round of the Dominion. At a farming township in Central Otago—writes a correspondent—there was a soldier's farewell social from which the chairman of the committee was unexpectedly absent. One of the speakers explainedr You all know that he. is away to nurse his newly-arrived grandson in one arm and drive the ploughing team with the other. A number of people, I know, believe that to be an impossibility ; but we have tho word of tho Right Hon. Sir James Allen that he saw it done, and he said " those were the kind of people ho wished to see stay at home." After an eloquent pause — " That is the reason why our friend Pat is away to try his hand at tho game."—(Great applause.) If a man couldn't do this impossible thing, a woman could, thinks yours faithfully, W. H. Harris, Janitor, University of Otago, ex-man-of-war's man. He is a bit prolix; but, spite of the paper famine, I may let him say his say in his own fashion. It smacks agreeably of the gun-deck. We -were lying in Simon's Bay at the time, and my watch had 48 hours' leave, and another chap called Curly Butler and I wont rambling over tho hills at the back of Simon's Town; and as tho eun was over the foreyard wo thought we would go to a farmhouse that was near us and try to get some refreshments; so we went in and asked for some, and tho farmer went to get it.

I saw a girl sitting at a table in one • cornea: of the room, but I didn't take any notice of -what she was doing till Curly said to me aside, "There's industry for you, Bob." " What is?" says I. " Why," he says, " look at that girl; she is churning butter "with one hand, and rocking the cradle with her feet turn about, and holding her school book in her other hand learning her lessons." So I had a good look at her then. It was an upright churn, and she was working the .plunger with her right hand, and I saw a fine pair j of-babies in the cradle. ' Versatility, dexterity, the knack of run* ' ning three lovers at once, which is about the same as keeping three balls in the air,—these are* the native attributes of ! woman. Nothing is beyond her, if sha sets her mind on it. " What religion 1 did the late Lord Kitchener profess?" asks a correspondent bluntly, as though " Civis" were a- " penny-in-the-slot machine and entitled! . only to penny-in-the-slot courtesies. X i am not in the least able to say whaD religion Lord Kitchener professed. When I in Cairo he seems to have taken the principle that the head of the garrison j was also the head of the Church, like tha • Czar; which Church would necessarily ba J the State Church—the Church of England. Writing about him soon after his death, the incumbent of All Saints', Cairo, sai4 this: So far as his work permitted, Lord Kitchener was regular and punctual in his church attendance, and this at once told beneficially upon the Sunday habits of the oommunity. He was president of All Saints' Church Committee, and I never remember his omitting to take the chair_, even when hard pressed by State business. ... Earl Kitchener was indeed a type of that simple, manly, straightforward Christianity which we associato with the best English laity, which does not trouble itself indeed about subtle questions and controversies,-but restson the broad facts of revelation, and in simplicity practises its tenets. , Which is to say that if interrogated on j the subject Lord Kitchener most likely would have been no more explicit than j Lord Beaconsfield when similarly catechised : '"I am of the religion of aU sensible men." Civts.-,