PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3523, 20 September 1921, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

{From Saturday' 3 Daily Time*.} Nothing doing at this end in Irish affairs-just now. “Whisht!” is the word, and we move about on tiptoe. It is a whispering time; —post-haste came to Inverness and Mr Lloyd George the ])e Valera delegates (“34 hours without sleep’’); post-haste sped they back again; at any moment we may hear of “whispering I will ne’er consent, consented.” We wait in pleasurable suspense; a harsh utterance, a hasty word, might break the spell. And so I am not for handing out a rope to the Tablet editor —a rope with a noose at the end of it; nor for suggesting to him as a motto or a nrayer “May the divil admire me.” The correspondent (backblocks) who would have me do these things quotes the Tablet paragraph about “the little Welsh upstart who has ruined England and will go down to history as a liar and an unprincipled adventurer,” —a paragraph that has already been gibbetted in the correspondence columns of the Daily Times. The writer of it may be left to grovel in his own mud. Nor do I pay heed to the mill-wheel clack of maundering tongues that argue the Sinn Fein case with endless repetitions,— Ireland’s wrongs, England’s infamy, that blessed word “selfdetermination,” —and the rest. Let them rave. It is rather a nuisance, but we cease to notice even as we grow happily deaf to the clatter of a noisy street. As I write the omens change. Friday morning’s cables are ambiguous at the best; taken at the worst, they suggest Sinn Fein wrong-headedness and obstinacy. I no longer persuade myself that suspense is pleasurable; and the heading “ Irish Self-Determination ” above a letter on a page following the cables is nauseating. An Irishman’s letter, —tho signature P. MTlrov, whom I don’t know from Adam. But not all Irishmen are the same Irishmen; this Irishman wears liis rue with a difference. * As a Catholic, with my fellows I have received, through the Church, quite a budget of pamphlets in reference to self-determination for Ireland. Now, what in the world have wo Catholics to do with “self-determination”? The truth is that everything is determined for us —our life actions, our literature, and our final destiny. If we are in lovo with a girl we have to obtain the approval of the priest. If the girl belongs to a Protestant Church, and unfortunately marries a Catholic young man, the priest won’t! torment the soul out of him, telling him that ho was living in sin. Fortunately the llar-

riage Act has altered that. As for death, Mr M’Swiney, who deliberately committed suicide, was claimed as a holy martyr, and goes as a saint to heaven. On the other hand, after Cardinal Moran died mass was said for the rest of his soul for a considerable time. There is something wrong in a system that teaches this when it allows an innocent and highly-respected cardinal to go to purgatory. Which tone is an agreeable surprise. And when in immediate sequence we are reminded that the Vatican idea of Irish seifdetermination was to hand over Ireland to England by Papal Bull (Pope Adrian IV. year 1175) it becomes matter of regret that P. M'llroy has no say m the fateful deliberations at Dublin. Some gloomy patriot whose name escapes me has been lamenting in the English press the invention of moving pictures. The kinematograph. he says, has proved a curse. Tts popularity is ruinous. Another Jeremiah adduces in corroboration the catastrophe of ancient Rome. The empire of the Caesars perished of sports and shows. Much in the same vein talks one of the Canadian delegates to the Imperial Conference : We are no Puritans, but this Byzantine levity that we see all around us here, in the theatres, in the streets, in the mad frenzy over prize-fights and cricket matches, tennis championships, and golf championships, racing, and all the things that don’t matter, while your house is burning over your ears, and your trade is paralysed, and 20 per cent, of your people are workless and being kept quiet by doles, and your finance 1: s collapsed—ah this leaves us dumb and amazed. Are we mad, or are you? A rhetorical question, needing no answer. But events have supplied one. As it chances, the grand pantaloon of the “movies,” chief mummer of the film world, Charley Chaplin, has just come over from America. The manifestations and demonstrations that met him prove conclusively that the British people are mad, — some of them, —mad outright. On this painful subject accept the following rhyming effort—Meditations by our senior printer’s devil : “My countrymen are thirty millions—mostly fools.” —Carlyle. In England, Scotland, Wales, Where British law avails, And a census tells its tales, Leaving lawless Ireland out, The millions now are forty, thereabout. Our bigness has increased ; Our wisdom?—not the least." Still must our British tribe Digest the bitter gibe Of T. Carlyle, deceased. 'Twas “mostly fools” he said; And were he not now dead — If he could read in this week’s papers The story of our Charley Chaplin capera, Carlyle once more would smite us on the lira cl. “Forty millions at this hour?—• Then all there is to say is That their foolishness to-day i 3 A foolishness of forty-million power!” The Charley Chaplin cables have told us much, but not all. They have told us what the Mayor of Southampton said at the civic reception ; they have not told us what Charley Chaplin said in reply, or rather what he did; for Charley Chaplin is a dumb-show comedian, his sayings on toe film are always doings. We have not been told that”at Southampton he replied to his Worship by a series of facial con tortions that convulsed the assembly; next by a high kick displacing the Town Clerk's official "wig; then by a double somersault across tbe Town Hall table ; finally, when about to escape with a hop-skip-end-jump, by succumbing to an onrush of women fighting with each other for first kiss. Whereupon, enter the police. Dear “Civis,” —In “Passing Notes’’ ol Saturday last you refer to the revival of “English Folk Dancing.” Perhaps it may be of interest to you to know that these dances are already acclimatised in and becoming deservedly popular in Scottish Dunedin. The Mothers’ and Fathers’ Clubs of the Reynolds Kindergarten, Macandrew road, have a flourishing class in operation under the tutelage of that enthusiastic kinder-

gartener, Miss Ruby Darling, and wo give Mrs “Civis” and yourself a cordial invitation on any Saturday evening from 7.30 to 11. Come and look on or take part in the “Glorious Sellingers Round,” Rufty-tuftv. 11 uniclow House, Sweet Kate, Old Aide, etc., etc., and if you can induce some of the rev. fathers and brethren (and sisters) of tho Dunedin Presbytery to come also, so much the better. It is pleasant to hear of “(Mothers’ and Fathers’ Clubs,” and to picture the staid and sober seniors footing it to “Ruftytufty,” “Sweet Kate,” “Old Mole,” and the rest —English Folk-dances, some of which, according to the London Times, are of earlier date than the builders of Stonehenge. The only fault discernible in the “Mothers’ and Fathers’ Clubs” is that they hide themselves away in a distant suburb. “ Immigrants—Good and Bad—The Passing of the Natives —Men, Plants, and Birds,” is the heading of a highly meritorious paper by bred. Waite in the Daily Times of Tuesday. “ Everything native is fast losing ground before things introduced from the Northern Hemisphere,”— that is the doctrine of the paper. The invaders themselves are changing. For one thing, the New' Zealander is developing a dialect, The folk in the O’d World could readily distinguish— bv our speech almost as mickly as bv our clothes— New Zealanders from the Australians and Canadians. We undoubtedly have ■developed an accent; and, however difficult it is to detect, it is nevertheless there. It is there light enough if you listen to the children in any school playground or to the barrackers at "any football match. The difficulty is not to ’detect a dialect; the difficulty- is to know what they are saying. Isolation promotes the growth of dialect, and nowhere on the planet is there a British community in geographical isolation equal to ours. Yet most of us speak the King’s English indifferently well. A New Zealand farmer, merchant, professional man, would not necessarily be picked out bv his speech if domiciled in England. But a generation hence he might be. Tho schools by that time will have done their wo-rk. Mv impression is—and I am prepared to be beaten about the bead for saying it—that the schools are developing an English of their own. If, drunk with sight of power, we loose Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe. Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law'— Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, Lest we forget—lest we forget! Tho other week I had a correspondent who cited this verse from the “ Recessional ” to ask: “Is Kipling a Jew and writing from a Jewish point of view?’ He now professes himself dissatisfied with my reply, which ran thus: If a British poet chooses to elevate his countrymen into the Chosen People, making the rest of mankind “ Gentiles and lesser breeds without the Law,” no one may say him nay. And if for this purpose he assumes the mantle of an ancient Jewish psalmist, tho vocabulary and the stylo, he need hardly explain to dullards that he himself is not a Jew. Kipling’s “ Recessional” is poetry. Even so-—answers the objector ;- —but the plea of “ poetry ” does not justify such contemptuous expressions as “ breeds ” and “ Gentiles.” Kipling’s words come perilously near the prayer of the Pharisee. The verse containing these two lines— Such boastings as the Gentiles use, Or lesser breeds without the Law, —should be expunged even if the “poetic” flight is thereby brought down. Here truly is a Daniel come to judgment. He reminds me of the narrow Christians who during the war scrupled about singing the National Anthem. Conscience in them permitted the killing of Germans by shot and shell, but not the. confounding of German politics and the frustrating, of German knavish tricks. As literary criticism, my correspondent’s remarks need not be characterised. Even in .prose I may talk of a Daniel come to judgment, of a Saul among the prophets, of an apostle of anarchy, of the Gospel of Karl Marx, without being committed to tbe exact denotation of anv one of these Bible words and phrases. Even in prose. And Kipling’s ‘'Recessional,’ as I ventured to point out above, is poetry. At the City Police Court this week a man charged with drunkenness “ said he was the father of nineteen children and was sorry for what be had done.” Over this ambiguous plea the worthy beak may have mused for a moment; —nineteen children, and he was sorrv for what he had done! But the stroke fell all the same :—fined 10s, in default twenty-four hours.—At Gore recentlv the local Debating Society held a “ Curio Night.” Among the New Zealand curios was a splendid geological specimen from the Hokonuis, and in this section a member capped the night by produc-

ing a specimen of “Passing Notes” from a recent issue of the Otago Daily Times. I am complimented by tho classification. Gems of tile mine, the diamond included, naturally fall within the geological section.—A specimen of pawky “ Scottish humour may close this paragraph of odda and ends. S. R. Crockett, favourably known as a novelist, was a poor hand at lecturing. It was after one of the few public lectures he ever delivered. A heavy, solemn-faced Scot came round after the tragedy and shook him by the hand in a melancholy manner. “ I hae read a’ your buiks,” he said; and, after a pause, “ up to this.” Crockett. e.vnressed his thanks. The man was silent awhile, and tried again. “ You dinna do this for a livelihood? ’ he asked, referring to tho recent lecture. “ No,” meekly replied Crockett. “ I was thinking th-it..” said Crockett’s critic with still deeper solemnity. It speaks for the novelist’s own sense of humour that he tells this story against himself. CTvts.