"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3398, 30 April 1919, Page 51

"ALIEN'S" LETTER FROM ENGLAND.

(Specially Written for the Ladies' Page.) OUR FEBRUARY FACE. With every recurring February I note that England is " going to the dogs." We are " under the weather." Our spirits are at zero. Things essentially are not much worse than usual, but they seem so, for the long months of cloudiness have depressed us mentally anek physically, ana the storm and frost and?* snow, reaching its climax, finds us indi-. vidually and collectively with a February face and a February mind. For Brown* ing says that souil helps body not more than body helps soul. And so we are pinched and peevish and frostbitten, and! kick against the pricks. Our national and private maladies are exaggerated, and we want to know what the world is coining/ to? To : day, personally, I feel like demanding the reason why I was not bora wfth a silver spoon in my mouth? Why I , couldn't have stayed in bed all day thi» ~ bitter day with hot-water bottle's instead of getting up to work? Why— But,;. there! the editor doesn't know, and .there will be no answers to my queries, and as the mail has taken to closing on Tuesday evenings, via Liverpool, if I spend the first day of the week on strike "why"-ing my letter will be unwritten, li one once begins to fret about "why," we should get no further. There are so many why's. Why had American to come into the war? for instance, and President Wilson so gain the power to veto the just demand of the dominions to the German colonies? Why Mr Lloyd •' George, who won the war with the nation at his back in full support, is causing uneasiness concerning the peace? The dictionary meaning of "why" is "for what reason," and so sfiall w© continue . to question everything that is and hae ■ been, while we exist and our knowledge i* imperfecta and there still exists upon the earth a diversity of conditions, a diversity of development, a diversity of opinion and \ sentiment, and a diversity of climate. , Can you ima'gine any state of existence so tame and monotonous as equality?', Equality of mind and estate, when "every little boy and gal that's born into; the world alive "is not " either... a little Radical or else a little Conservative," but a Utopian? No more hopes, no longer fears; ourselves, our circumstances, _pur; condition complete ? What then ? . What next. It will be the last day for this world. There will be no longer any vital meaning for human existence, the real life of which is struggle, combat, emulation, achievement.

Mean-while it is February, 1919, in the arniistice months of the World War, with the great Goliath fallen at the Allies' feet, and while yet our heroes are still on their crutches, our pessimists are be* wailing the evils to come. We certainly, were going to the dogs' in the decay of energy in 1914, but we are awake now, surely? Awake, watchful, and perhaps suspicious. We are questioning the peace as we questioned the war, Everywhere, except in the countries of the Allied occupation, anarchy holds sway. But the' unrest of the United Kingdom must not. be mistaken for anarchy. The mass of j the British people at heart are sound, aa witness their conduct of the war, during which they betrayed their true character, and the Labour, party as a whole are nos social revolutionaries. These consist of a comparatively few fanatics, says an expert on the Labour question, and a larger company of mere criminals who long for any opportunity of plunder and rapine, and whom the "Labour and union leaders disown. The fictitious prosperity of the war workers gavo to the ignorant an inflated idea of the value of their work. They have not reasoned that the high wage was war wage, that urgent necessity . assessed the value of their performance, ' and that the necessity was of the moment, not for all time. The millennium has not come in with the armistice. And the charge is made that the elder statesmen of all the nations, instead of grappling with facts of reconstruction, are idling with ideas of the New Jerusalem. There will be no future peace unless the immediate practical problems are solved, and a cure found for "that discontent which is* moral indigestion and goes to make strikes, and to conscript wealth, and to level everybody." For, as I have remarked before, if everything was eaually shared out on the first day of the week, Saturday night would see some people back in the gutter. The problems are many and difficult, but not too many or too difficult to solve, if all classes would!

join in mutual trust and good will. But J of all intolerance the intolerance of ignorance and prejudice is the most intolerant, j and the shouts of the malcontents who ■want to "down" everything drown the voice of reason. Does anvone believe that the disgraceful proceedings on the Clyde this week •will benefit the workers of the country.' The lawlessness and looting in Glasgow will not further the public good; but it is a skit on the Peace Conference, where abstract resolutions have been passed for the peace of the whole world. If every countrv would get on with its own job of reconstruction and fasten down to its immediate tasks- of the present the millennium would be nearer in a hundred years from now than it will be by settlmg up the future first and leaving the present unformulated. Extremists are making the trouble all the world over, small coteries trying to dominate the trade unions and terrorise the community and overthrow authority. Many apparently think that the armistice should put a stop to all need for work. And one of the reasons given for the discontent on the Clyde is the control of the liquor traffic and the high price of beer. In the raid for hottles the other day the raiders first drank the contents of the bottles before throwing them at the heads of the police. The eve of Parliament assembling is usually the occasion of "official" dinners, ■where leaders of the Opposition meet and discuss the political, outlook. But this Parliament there is no Liberal Opposition. The Frees. Liberals are, however, to have their, functions, Mrs J. M. Hogge, wife <jf their leader, being their hostess. The King and Queen will, of course, come up to London for the opening of Parliament, ' but it is thought, will return to Sandringham immediately afterwards. But, disinclined they may feel, the Affairs of State call them from retirement. It is understood that their Majesties will make a short stay at Windsor Castle for Easter, where the State and private apartments have been restored to their pre-war order. Many valuable works of art and of historic interest have been put into places of safety during the air raids, although no bombs were dropped in the vicinity of. Windsor. Since the beginning of the war there have been no Royal shooting parties or other festivities there or at the other Royal palaces, but gradually Court entertainment will be resumed when the period of mourning is over for little Prinoe John. The gloom of the London winter street in the vicinity of the Brompton Oratory wa6 enlivened the other day by the marriage of Miss Violet de Trafford to Captain Rupert Keppel. It was the most important society wedding that has been celebrated with old-time ceremony since the war, and not only did the invited guests but many other people take an interest in the proceedings. There was an immense congregation at the church to witness the ceremony. Captain Keppel, of the Coldstream Guards, was a tall, handsome bridegroom, and the bride, who was given away by her father, looked very handsome in a gown' of cloth of silver, with long, tight-fitting sleeves, and train lineal with tulle and edged with silver, a girdle of pearl and silver depending from the waist. The veil was held , by. a wreath of silver leaves and orange Viossoms, and 6he carried a sheaf of lilies a/id orange blossom tied with, silver rib-

ban: Captain Evelyn Gibbs was best man, and Father Bernard Vaughan officiated, Dean Kavagh assisting. Following the bride came first three young girls, then 12 grown-up bridesmaids, their dresses of orchid mauve chiffon, with a panel back and front of silver, and from a wreath of silver leaves fell a mauve tulle veil covering the dress, with exceedingly pretty effect. , Among the congregation were many ladies, whose names we have not seen mentioned for four years, except in connection with Red Cross work and other war work. Whether it is the result of the cold and enow, or that the holidays are over, the departure of hundreds of thousands of our overseas soldiers, the strikes, and scarcity of women owing to the demobilisation of men and women, or all combined, there has been such a sudden thinning of theatre that managers who had

prepared for the crowded houses of the last few months continuing all the winter. are getting worried. It is probably the cold and the difficulties of transit that wake people who have reached home reluctant to turn out again and wait and scramble to £et a seat in a train or bus. The " white world " of which the poets talk is not very visible in the metropolis 8-ftflr the early morning, the countless feet and ceaseless traffic churning the snow to slush : but on the height* of Hampstead and Putnev Heath and Wimbledon Common the hillocks and woodlands make nicfiVres dotted with red holly and robin redbreasts in true Christmas-rard fashion. The week-end has been ideal for toboggannists. Skating and tobogganing were in full swing in many places. Here opposite the Goodwins the winter brings e-veiting laxmches of the lifeboat. In a thick snowstorm the other evening the brave men put off to the rescue of the American ship Piave. which was wrecked upon the sands. It was night, and snowing hard, when the signals of distress were heard, and the lifeboat was soon off, and remained near the steamer all night. Ineffectual attempts were made to tow her off. She was a new shin, and it is said here that her captain had made the attempt to bring her up the Channel without a pilot. The work of rescue was most difficult. The decks were" covered with snow, and the Piave's own lifeboats had got entangled, and the electric light cut off. so that the scene was one of confusion. The ship went to pieces the evening after she struck, with sounds like thunderclaps. The lifeboat men worked with marvellous quickness, rescuing the men cast into "the sea; patrols and tugboats were also alongside. The lifeboat came in at night with 30 men, and 29 were landed at Dover; but from the narratives of the Burvlvora It seems certain •hut some of the American officers and

men on board were lost. Thirty were unaccounted for, but it is hoped that a number of these have been picked up and taken to the surrounding ports. ' Two thousand returning soldiers from France -were on board the troopship Narragansett, -which a night or two afterwards struck the Isle of Wight rocks in the darkness of the blizzard, but the S.O.S. was speedily answered by the local lifeboatmen, and destroyers joined in the rescue, so that, happily, not one of the shipwrecked men were lost. This was an American troopship (with about 60 Americans on board) from Havre to Southampton, carrying 2000 men for demobilisation. It was a bitterly cold night, and snowing heavily: but, fortunately, the sea was oalm, and although many of the men, wakened suddenly when the ship struck, suffered from cold while waiting for rescue, no lives were lost, and there were no casualties. A rough welcome home! The doubling of the pay of soldiers for all our armies of occupation, by means of a bonus of Is 6d a day, has greatly increased recruiting, especially among the unmarried men. The bonus began on Saturday, and is to continue until the reconstruction of the permanent army. Soldiers returning from the front are enthusiastic about the necessity of main-; taining a large anny of occupation until peace is an accomplished fact. I have just 'read that Brigadier-general G. S. Richardson in circulating hints to New Zealand soldiers urges them to think twice before taking their discharge in England. "To return now will cost nothing, but if you take your discharge in the United Kingdom and afterwards want to return you will have to pay your own passage," he points out, and concludes, "Are you sure that you will not crave for the blue skies and sun and freedom of New Zealand?" But very many of the men, now that they are here or so near, are desirous of becoming better acquainted with England before their return home.