PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3519, 23 August 1921, Page 55

PATER’S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

A XEAR AX'D A FAR VIEW. When I talk of a near view, I mean the view taken bv th< jeneralitj of people. How many of ns take the far view/ Young folk especially are Xear Viewers, for how often do we have voung folk looking back. It is the grave and reverend seniors who can take the retrospective views; while young folk are engaged in prospective views. How many of the youngsters in our schools take prospective views? How main- take retrospective views? I sometimes think that it would not be a bad thing to put grave and reverend seniors in charge of our schools occasionally. Supposing T were to take a Sixth Standard for a day or two—not for long—and chat upon reminiscences, and supposing l were to take a panorama of the world at the present time, what should 1 find? Supposing I am talking to boys and gnis, what should the topic be? —Japanese? Chinese? Indians? a British Federation? TIIIXGS JAPAXESF. A few years ago the Japanese were seldom spoken of, and now the newspapers have dailv reference to them. i.eok at to-day's Witness and make a rough guess at the proportion of cables dealing with the Japanese. The teaching in our schools nowadays is different from whit it was in nu- time, but in my school days theie was very little said about the Japanese, more about the Chinese, if anything at. ali about either. The main tiling about the Chinese was, it was the great nation from whom we received tea and Chinese crackers and Chinese lanterns; but nowadays we get tea from the South Seas and Ceylon and the basin the Brahmapootra in the Assam area, but in my time these were not known. That has only come about through opening ui> new areas, the result of bringing capital into communication with natives not thought of when I was ;• boy. Japan produces tea. but I have not seen anv of it, though a Chinese and Japanese commercial traveller tells me that Japanese tea of good qualitv ifi produced. And that reminds me that Japanese silks and Chinese silks are brought into New Zealand in large quantities, but. mainly Japanese for ladies wear. Chinese silks are almost out of date, but in niv dav Chinese silk coats used to be fashionable, and it was only a few years ago when p teacher in Dunedin used to go out with his Chine e silk coat. Japanese and Chinese chinawnre—not known bv fo common a name— before the war was expensive, but the i Unaware nowadays, of Japanese and Chinese, are for com iron use. Toys were of Chinese manufacture, hut the Germans gvaduallv got the hold, and they held it up to the war. When the war broke out the British had a hand in making toys, bpt the Germans and Swiss will soon get it hack again. The Japanese navy we all know about, for we had Japanese men-of-war in Wellington during the war. But what is not of Japanese production? The Chi nese are a coming race, though they are a long time getting ,nto tlieir stride. TIIIXGS CHINESE. If the Japanese are inter-penetrating America and Britain md the East, the Chinese are more adaptable. In British Burma and Singapore the Chinese are the foremen and the clerks. Perhaps I am wrong in saying the foremen, but I am light in saying the clerks. I have been told that they are the most trusted in Japan itself. I have referted to an Englishman who travelled in China and Japan, and opened up with Australasian merchants a really pioneering work—he has now passed away,—and he told me that a Chinese merchant is a gentleman, but the Japanese man is out to make money all the time. I was over in Melbourne lately, and sampled sonic Japanese matches, but they were no better than matc-nes I had sampled in New Zealand some years ago, and were as unsaleable as in Dunedin then. Personally I think that the Japanese are wi.-hing to adapt our Western ways, but only as far as it is possible; but they want to do it because it pays better. They have commercialised themselves so much, but have not yet passed the transition stage between an educated heathen and the educated Christian They have adapted the low Christian style, hut have not yet the higher or ideal Christian spirit. It was only about ;; mn'.ith or so ago that T wrote'a Chat on Chinese politics. A doctor being elected from Southern China in rival to the President in Peking. But has he any chance of being the Chinese President for the whole? We have no opportunity of saying. THINGS AMERICAN. Tt is since I came to Dunedin 43 years ago that America lias come to the front. Some years ago I remember writing a Chat upon what was then a startling proposition. Someone, 1 forget who it was, wrote an article in one of the reviews, saying that the United States were veiled threatening that we should clear out of Jamaica hen -, we should he pushed Out: and at the . .. I ime . eying that 1 he American navy was getting strong enough to l;c'p us out. I forget, what the time was. and ha'-o not kept a copy of the Chat. T have a host of (dints' put bv, and suppose 7 shall never overcome niv arrears. “Things American'’ will do in the meantime. Shire then there has come the Spanish American war--von remember leading about that- ■ and also the United States fleet going round the world. That, was before the Panama Canal was opened. After visiting England— or was it before or after visiting New Zealand and Australia?—the fleet made a visit, to Auckland, then to Australia, then visited Japan and China. Was it then that Japan received the intimation that Japan waa born to the world, and that there had

been born another nation? I wrote a Chat upon the American navy at the time, for 1 remember reading ail article upon the American dialect, and in it I referred to the American twang. In the article I read then the Puritans took the twang with them from England. They were not the only ones to use it at the time, but were using what should be the English! I There used to live near me at the time a seedsman—his daughter Eves near me still—who crossed the Mates before he settled here, there being no railways in his days. Well, there being no railways in liis young manhood days, just think how the United States have expanded since then! He passed away some years ago, but it does not mean that things have come to a standstill ' Pater’s Chats may go on although Pater will be incapacitated or under the sod. i It is over 20 years since the United States put a historical landmark upon Spain's history: hut that Spanish-Ameri-can war was the advent of a New World nation, just as the Great War meant the bursting of another New World nation upon the horizon. The Great War has meant new nations, and has called another j method into being. The old-time world | has given place to the new. I Next week 1 may continue the-e notes. rAi.i, Binirrs Reserved.]