PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3414, 20 August 1919, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(ffxoa Satarday"* Daily Times.) " The tug- of Avar ends; now comes the tug. of peace"—-wrote Sir lan Hamilton on the morrow of the armistice. By the way, I do not remember seeing Sir lan Hamilton's name in the honours list, nor General Townshend's, nor General Gough's. 'Tis not in mortals to command success; but that these three conspicuous leaders deserved it, a generous _ spirit would concede. It is a mean thing to ignore their desert. Coming back, however, to lan Hamilton's "tug. of peace," I suppose we may include under that term the half dozen wars —with accompaniments of riot and massacre—now smouldering or blazing across two continents, from the Arctic Circle to the Black Sea, from Petrograd to Vladivostock. Tho British Empire has just finished celebrating peace; hardly yet have we finished clearing away our spectacular apparatus and paying the bills. Yet this morning a British army announces a British victory from the banks of the Dwina, —six Bolshevist battalions annihilated, 1000 prisoners, and 12 captured guns. The British victory is all right; quite in order also are the annihilating and the captures. But it is uncomfortably surprising that at a moment of profound peace a British army should be operating, successfully or unsuccessfully, on the banks of the Dwina. A paradoxical thing, this " tug of peace." Its real stress will not be on the banks of the Dwina; —on the banks of the Thames and the Clyde, rather. are Bodies and Bolsheviks of British domicile, of British name, and—l was going to say, of British blood. But no, —it is a muddy and alien ichor that fills their veins. Whether in the British Isles, in Australia, in New Zealand, the "tug of peace" will oome to arbitrament by shot and shell, no man knows. But it befits every honest man to order himself by Cromwell's advice : Trust in God and keep your powder dry. " For even when too were with you this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat." —St. Paul to tho Thessalonians. To enforce this cruelty against strikes and strikers—says a plaintive objector in Monday's Daily Times—would be to " put the- clock back for 50 years or 50 centuries." Too vague, that. It would put the clock- back to century I, a.d., when, at Salonica—a place well known to us of late—Paul the Apostle was dealing with

strikes; probably to good effect if he stopped the striker's food supplies. Recurrence to this ancient and apostolic method of strike-breaking was no suggestion of mine. I borrowed it from the Spectator and quoted the Spectator doctrine at some length. Cruelty do you say? What about the coal famine and the plight of our railways? Is there no cruelty in afflicting a whole community with creeping paralysis? Listen to one voice out of a thousand : - Dear " Civis," —I had just arrived at Wellington after tearing along tho North Lino at the rate of about 4- to 6 minutes per mile, and was on my way to an hotel when I noticed a poster on tho window of tho Government Tourist Department, in Willis street:—"Stop Travelling for pleasure." Fancy anyone travelling for pleasure when it takes two days to cover a distance of about 279 miles. The Government notice should have ended in Artemus Ward fashion: '' This is writ sarkastic." T " In the same number of the Daily Times, Monday's, Minister Myers recited a few facts explanatory of our creeping paralysis. The Waitomo, for Newcastle, whence to bring 6000 tons of coal, held up for want of a crew. Also held up, six other coal-carriers; —he'named them. The Waipori, with 5000 tons of coal on board for New Zealand, had lain helpless in Newcastle harbour for two months; the Inga, with 900 tons, in Wanganui River for nearly as long. No Wanganui watersider would touch this coal or allow anybody else to touch it. Sympathetic with these absurdities was a Lyttelton incident of last week. The train with passengers from Christchurch and the South came alongside the ferry steamer. But two of the ferry steamer's crew had a "bad cold;" wherefore the rest, brave men all, refused to face the 12 hours' run to Wellington. Train and passengers return to Christchurch. How long is a sane community to put up with these Bedlamite pranks? Seamen's grievances, if grievances there be, are redressible by arbitration. But the striker's idea pf arbitration is "Heads, I win; tails, you lose." Arbitration on any other terms is a capitalistic invention, a delusion and a snare.

The projected operations of the Dunedin City Council are varied and enterprising, not to say hazardous. Either way they are interesting. The other night, at a grand parade and general review of schemes, plots, plans, and projects, one councillor declared for a crematorium, also for a destructor, —two machines when one would serve. Where is our regard for economy? From a crematorium, modified by the addition of a vowel into creamatorium, tho transition is easy to a "municipal dairy,"—good lack! Councillors would supply the citizens with their matutinal milk. I prefer milk from tho cow myself. Next "in importance to a " municipal dairy," a dream as yet but a pleasant dream, is a " municipal bank." which institution, we may suppose, would issue paper money on- security of bullion deposits in tho Town Hall cellars, and save rates by earning interest on its own overdraft. The suggestion of " a universal market," in the Octagon maybe, and as adjunct to the " municipal bank," elicited from one councillor the sage but chilling remark, " then the cost of living will go up." Passing to (esthetics, tho Council found that " more public conveniences should be constructed, especially for females." Remembering that the Cargill monument and the Chapman monument are utilised as beacons and signal posts for these unspeakable institutions, one wonders doubtfully where the Council will go next. Not that in civic high places there is no feeling for the "beautiful. " Regarding the hanging out of sheep's heads in the streets —said one councillor—"he did not think there was a sight in civilisation so utterly deplorable." Gracious!— and to think that these gory objects have never fixed my observation ! • But, if there is truth in the rumour of a distributing butchery to be set up in the Octagon, we may yet see legs of mutton hanging about the neck of tho Burns Statue. Quid

plura. If only the Council would scrape the mud from their streets and remove from their prindpal thoroughfare the centre line of obstruction posts, they and we might slumber together in peace. " Secxtndo Cubo" Again. From the groves of Academe:— Dear "Civis," —Interested in tho discussion about our lamp-posts, I hare made a serious excursion for the purpose of oxamining the akashio records—the sensitive plate of the Cosmos, on which even the triviallest matter is inscribed, much | more a great affair like this. The result of my investigations I offer you in verso, which really seems the more suitable medium for matter* of this recondite kind. —Youra, LayChela. NATIVE GENIUS, Declared the City Father a: "Lo! Our town no more at night Shall dwell in darkness; every street Shall have its lamps for erring feet, Shall beam with beacons bright!" Designs were made, and all waa well, As well as well could be-, When Miller gaspt, "Hold on a spell; Upon this blank space, now, hew well A motto'd look!" said he. " Consider; men are selfish allYes, even I and you; Wo must confess when all is done We only care for Number One; Damps care for Number Two. "If one could have thai-neatly put In Latin—tare and ages! I'll dlo the blessed trick myself." He pulled a primer off the shelf, And, conned its tattered pages. " Cure," I care, he quickly found, And heaved a happy sigh; O'er Number Two he heni'd and) lia'd ■» And ah'd and oh'd and piah'd and pshaw'dl Till hope was like to die < Then came the happiest of thoughts (May that not so be reckoned Wnich even yet gives joy to mien?) "If Number One's the first, why then, See, Number Two's the second!" " Seoundus" found, the worthy man, Continuing his search, Saw "Dative, for"; rejoiced aloud; Changed "us" to " o," and felt as proud As peacock on his perch. That "euro" had its little ways; That Roman murmured rather, "Aliia curae sum "-r-besido The question, motes like these; with pride Swelled visibly each Father. With words inscribed, design approved!, Do, darkness' reign was o'er; The lamps shone oW the sun-reft earth, The motto gave heart-easing mirth— And will for decades more. Were I the King, an 0.8. E. Should Miller's aspirations Acknowledge gracefully—his right Whoso increaseth by his mite The gaiety of Nations. "Aliis curae sum," "I am for a care to others"—which is a'tipsy way, but the Roman way, of saying "Other people, are taking care of me '' —would have floored Miller P.S.A. beyond a doubt. Nor will this . double-dative idiom be pellucid to every honest reader of this column. No matter! We are talking High School — Sixth Form—the Groves of Academe, and all is well. Not the less, however, am I myself stuck up by " akashic"—" the akashic records. We cannot even say, as the provincial mayor said to the eminent statesman, "Aha, sir! that's more than you or me knows; —that's Latin!" "Akashic" isn't Latin.

It remains to touch off two or three importunates, each of them with a grievance. A Jew (in the Daily Times of Tuesday) thinks it unfair to say, as I said last week, that " there is no enemy of the modern State more deadly, more bent on mischief, than the Continental Jew who— • as the Jew Heine phrased it—' carries in his breast the martyrdom endured for eighteen centuries by a whole tortured people.'" The Jew who carries that hi his breast, and is himself exposed to " pogroms " and other varieties of official massacre, may very naturally be a malcontent, and dangerous. I wasn't impeaching the whole of Jewry. Gracious! No. J have Jew friends of my own, and excellent people they are. On the continent of Europe, not only in Slav countries but, in the West, the Jews are still a persecuted race. Even in Paris, a city of light and leading in Western civilisation, at the time of the Dreyfu3 excitement, processions marched up and down the boulevards shouting "Death to the Jews!" Small blame to the Continental Jew who, in face of his Gentile persecutor, learns to say with Shylock " The villainy you teach mo I will execute; and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction." Next a lady, apparently a Buddhist of sorts, would correct my notion of Nirvana. " the Buddhist ultimate goal, which Is bo often described as Nothingness." A prominent Buddhist has defined Nirvana as " a condition of Peace ana Blessedness so high above our present state that it Is impossible for uo to understand it." That, I believo, is as near a simple definition as we can get, and Jt am sure you will agree with mo that it doesn't soundi much like annihila* tion. Noj t|j Bounds 'mora like Mrs Hemanss;

Eye hatli not Been it, my gentle boy I Ear hath not heard its deep sounds of joy; Dreams cannot picture a -world eo fair—> Etc, Etc. We needn't go to Buddhism for that* What a "prominent Buddhist" may have said counts for not much. There is no Buddhist more prominent than Buddha; himself; and Buddha's own words—if Wfc, may txtust Edwin Arnold and " The Light of Asia " —are: If 'any, teach Nirvana is to cense, Say unto euch they lie. If any teach Nirvana ie to liv*, Say unto euch they err. What then? Thisi The dewdrop elips into the shining sea,—• and there an end. The predicates "to cease " and "to live" are both excluded; nevertheless the dewdrop as a dewdrop has dropped into nothingness. Even that would 'be preferable to the "Heaven" of the Hon. Q. W. Russell, Minister for the Interior—a heaven evolved out of his own interior. As the newspapers describo it, Mr Russell's Heaven is a modernised Bartlemy Fair. Last, a correspondent who would re«vive, or get me to revive, the prohibition controversy. Not yet; not at all, if w« can escape it. In view of an election at hand, the prohibitionists are busy subterraneously no doubt; but they make no showing in the public prints. Had enough of it last time! We need not trouble about their sapping and mining. It will not and it cannot come to good. I admit that in. public debate with prohibitionists there are lots of fun; and of that I have had my full share. But, in the last analysis, I am a moderate man;, and the moderate man, as soon as known, is beaten about the head by both sides. For the extremes between which the moderate man stands,; I quote Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch in an' obiter dictum of his from the Chair of English Literature, Cambridge: "Drunkenness" is a purely relative term. When is a man drunk"? On the one hand we have the fanatic teetotaller who cannot speak of a; glass, of claret save as " alcohol " or " intoxicating liquor " ; and so he darkens counsel. At the other end of the critical scale we have the indignant -witness upon oath: "What? Bill' Drunk? Why, I seen him close, as the Police was carryin' him past on the stretcher, and he distinctly .opened an eye!" The moderate man would buy out_ the liquor sellers and vest tho whole business in local Boards- of Control, which is an' actually existing and rapidly developing British system. Proposing it, the moderate man hears it furiously inveighed; against as J' State Control," and forthwith is himselfbeaten about the head by fanatics right and left. CIVM.'