PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3385, 29 January 1919, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

CFxotß Saturday's Dailj Tuna*.) Not without miraclg could harmony rule at the Peace Congress. And the age of miracles is past. Under pressure of direst necessity the League of Nations that humbled Germany was steady to one purpose. But the pressure is off, and pur-poses-may now be as many as the nations assembled to debate them. Nevertheless we are entitled to look for an essential reasonableness all round. Statesmanship is familiar with give and take; the idealist—even the American idealist when, in the queer slang of his country, brought down to brass tacks—becomes practical. President Wilson says nothing ahout the freedom of the seas, —one of his own sea officers has said all that is necessary: —

Admiral Sims, addressing American editors: —Perhaps they would like him to explain what was meant by the freedom of the seas. —(Laughter.) So far as ho had been able to find, nobody on this side or in correspondence with those on the other side had the remotest idea of what was meant. —(Laughter.) So far as history recorded, the power of Great Britain had permitted absolute freedom of the seas to everybody. Any vessel could go into any British port on the same conditions as a British ship.

The much-preached League of Nations, when cleared of the nebulous, will be found of modest proportions, I fancy. No Government will put its office into commission; no nation will entrust its international relations to an outside committee. It is amusing that all enemy parties and persons—Dr Solf, Herr Ebert, the Bolshevists even —should look to President Wilson and his 14 points. But the President may be trusted. It is not his cue to be outvoted in the Council. If he is to be outvoted —a personage of such dignity—better had he stayed at home.

"Hooligan" and "larrikin," iligant words, are both, of Irish origin. " Hooligan " declares itself at sight j " larrikin," according to amateur etymologists in Australia, derives from the Melbourne police sergeant who testified of mischief done in Collingwood, Richmond, Prahran, and other Melbourne suburbs " by mobs of lar-r-kin' boys, your Worship.' For Sinn Fein's latest exploit both words come in aptly. A mob of political hooligans col-

lected in Dublin have proclaimed an Irish republic, and are demanding that " the British garrison evacuate Ireland." By way of a lar-r-k, all this; —larrikins and hooligans the perpetrators assuredly are. Just now republics are in the air. Ten mushroom growths of that name are reported from Germany; in Russia there must be half as many more. In South Africa the Cape Dutch are talking republic, true to their national character as diagnosed of old:

The fault of the Dutch Is giving too little and asking too much

The Irish republic will last whilst the contemptuous indifference of the police lasts; but if there is one Irish republic there ought to be two. Belfast is the true capital of Ireland. In population and in rateable value .it surpasses Dublin; its shipping entries are more than those of all other Irish ports put together. " Selfdetermination," blessed doctrine! should be applicable here as elsewhere, surely. It is and it will be; —in resolute selfdetermination Belfast stands by the old flag.

Sinn Fein is hot Ireland, be it remembered, and Ireland is not Sinn Fein. To Sinn Fein the German collapse brought a sitting among the ashes and a scraping with potsherds. Job on his dung heap was not more miserably bereft. Then was the time to curse God and die. In proclaiming an Irish republic Sinn Fein lias taken a circuitous road to the same end. By the people of Ireland the German collapse was welcomed with tabret and nipe. You didn't know it? —'then you know it now. Peace rejoicings in Ireland were as spontaneous and genuine as in any part of the Empire. East and West, from Drogheda to Limerick, joy bells rang and the Union Jack flew high. And in Dublin: In Dublin all business was abandoned, and scenes of groat enthusiasm were witnessed in the gaily-decorated streets. In Central Dublin motor cars and motor

cycles, military waggons, and all sorts of horsed vehicles carrying cheering and flag-waving soldiers and civilians, moved through the densely-packed streets, which were all ablaze with the colours

of the Union Jack, the Stars and Stripes, and the French tricolour. Such frantic jubilation was never before witnessed in Dublin.

" Englishmen who have been accustomed to believe that Ireland has 'done nothing in the war,' and is sullenly hostile to the Allied cause, will rub their eyes on reading of the scenes of enthusiasm reported from Dublin and many other parts of Ireland yesterday," says a London editor. All told, not less than half a million Irishmen have fought for Britain in the war, he reckons. And, as everybody knows, Irish soldiers fight well, none better. John O'Keefe, the Irish poet I quoted the other day, sings true —Sinn Fein is not Ireland: Ye say ye are Irish through and through;— Not till Iscariot's Irish too, Sinn Feinl

From Auckland: Dear " Civi3," —To me, a quondam Otagan, though now in these more northern latitudes, the Witness comes regularly, and Passing Notes are always very welcome Might one submit for the co-ordination of your . versatile pen the following:—The cables inform us that Chancellor Ebert is, or was, a master tailor. In G. H. Lewes's "Life of Goethe" it is written: "There is a peculiar and indelible ridicule attached to the idea of a tailor in Germany, which often prevents people of more humble pretensions than Goethe from whispering their connection with such a tra;le. ..." * The grandfather of Goetho was a- tailor, and he married the daughter of a tailor. It 'is true, as Lewes points out, that in his autobiographical Goethe does not mention the fact. But why should he? There is no need that autobiography should go back to grandfathers. Least of all in this instance. A a senti-

mentalist, the pet of dukes and duchesses, the slave of fugitive amours, Goethe absolved himself from remembering that ho had a grandfather at all. But to resume:

Th-s cables also inform us that the Kaiser had 598 suits of uniform, some of them possibly tho handiwork of Herr Ebert Anyhow, thero is grim irony in a master tailor being now master of Germany. . . .

But at this point I interpose "th' abhorred shears." My Auckland friend's "meandering lucubrations," as he confesses them, meander through pages. He writes "under a summer sky and the shade of a pohutukawa tree in full scarlet blossom." I can't help that. Read beneath the sky of an ambiguous Otago summer, when the rain it raineth every day, meandering lucubrations have to be cut short. That the Kaiser was largely tailor-made —which seems the drift of these meander - ings—l agree. Subtract the five hundred and odd uniforms, —how much Kaiser is left? As much as we see in Holland at the present time. If ever this wretched simulacrum is brought to the bar- as a criminal he will have a chance of acquittal as a lunatic. Only a steeple-jack can keep his head at giddy heights. Most of the Roman Caesars went mad. The New York Times, hunting among the Kaiser's earlier insanities, picks out this as fairly typical,— date, December, 1914 Remember that ycu are the chosen . people I The spirit of the Lord is descended upon me because I am the Emperor of the Germans 1 I am the instrument of the Almighty I I am His sword, His representative ! Disaster and death to all those who resist my will I Disaster death to all -those who resist my mission ! Disaster and death to cowards. May all the enemies of the German people perish! God orders their destruction and God commands you through my mouth to do His will. WILLIAM H. Mad as a hatter, the Kaiser tuned the pulpits to his own mood, also the universities. A professor incense-burning before the Kaiser is a sight for men and angels. Professor Adolf Lasson, of the University of Berlin, expresses himself thus: Wilhelm II deliciae generis humani ("darling of the human race") has always protected peace, right, and honour, although it would have been possible for him by his power to annihilate everything. The greater his success, the more modest ho has become. Next the great German people; and now the professor is able to use the inclusive pronoun: Wo are morally and intellectually superior to all: without peers. It is the same with our organisations and our institutions. Wo wish to be able to pursue our work of civilisation. We shall leave nothing to be explained or excused. We are not a violent people. We threaten no one so long as ho does not attack us. We do good to everybody. We are truthful, our characteristics are humanity, gentleness, conscience, the virtues of Christ. In a world of wickedness, we- represent love, ' and God is with us ! The pastors, needless to say, were in no whit behind the professors,—rather the other way. Ponder these evangelical utterances by Pastor D. Baumgarten, of Berlin, —subject, the Sermon on' the Mount:

Whoever cannot prevail upon himself to approve from tho bottom, of his heart the sinking of the Lusitania —whoever cannot conquer his sense of the gigantic cruelty of unnumbered perfectly innocent victims . . . and give himself to honest delight at this victorious exploit of . German defensive power—

him we judge to be no true German. At this time of day, weary of these sickening imbecilities now finally put to shame by events, why need we recall them? Because of President Wilson's tenderness in that quarter. In to-day's cables he is " quite disinclined to punish Germany." It must be that he thinks the Germans fools, not criminals—from the Kaiser down, merely fools; and that he hopes to get them off on the plea of non compos mentis.

Scratch a Russian and under his skin you find a Tartar. Scratch a Dunedin City Councillor and what do you find? For answer to this conundrum peruse an extract from City Council proceedings: Councillor Kellett had had the pleasure of attending the dinner to the French Mission. A number of councillors were there, and he had asked the town clerk where they (the councillors) were to sit. The town clerk replied that thero were seats all round. Tho Town Clerk: You were the hosts. Cr Kellett: We were the hosts! We were the d fools, that's what we were. Of course, the reporters will take no notice of that! Cr Scott: If you didn't like_ it, why didn't you get to h out of it T These are the City Fathers, observe. And this is the example they set the city children. In Councillor Kellett's case I admit

the provocation,—no special seat for him at the dinner, no name on hi 3 plate—» " other guests had names on their plates;'* —" he saw the town clerk sitting at the head of a table" whilst "councillors were sitting round in holes and corners," —most lamentable 1 He (Councillor Kellett) had heard that a councillor was turned off tho railway station by the military authorities in possession; "the sergeant said he did not care who he (the councillor) was—he had not a ticket." As if there were nob ticket enough in a Dunedin councillor's official 'majesty, his port and mien, his look and bearing— Hyperion's curls; the front of Jovo himself; An eye like Mars to threaten and command. ... . '„ But all this was wasted on the sergeant. At intervals in years past I have ventured to indict these dignitaries for faults in their official administration ; e.g.— The council is content that its main street —which is a narrow street —should be spoiled by a lino of iron posts down the middle for carrying tram wires (even the suburbs have got rid of these embarrassments) ; it leaves its fences in disarray; its principal bridge over tho Leith, the bridge by which traffic goes to the Northern Cemetery, has for years been officially discredited by a warning notice board : Dunedin City Coar-OBATiox. Notice. This Bridge is Unsafe. Live Loads over Two Tons Gross Weight are Forbidden to Cross. Vehicles must Cross at a Walking Pace. By Order. Live loads beyond the limit are forbidden to cross; dead loads—corpses presumably—may cross if they oan; if they fall into the Leith it doesn't inattar. But these things, though true to-day, are trivialities. Without rebuke a councillor may squander the rates, crowd the tram cam, leave essential crossings deep in mud, etc., etc., provided he move amongst us apparelled in something, of the divinity, that doth hedge a king—his seat at a banquet secure, his exits and his entrance!, unchallenged. Even with the Wise Mei, of Gotham we could be happy, if onlj, their dignity suffer no WTong. Civis.