PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3590, 2 January 1923, Page 40

PASSING NOTES.

“Everybody needs a holiday from one year’s end to another, is a howler quoted with pride by the examiners for the London County Council’s scholarship—one of their newest. I don’t see that it is a' howler. The year has two ends—a beginning end and an ending end; it is the ending end of 1922 joined to the beginning end of 1923 that gives us a holiday of space and verge. Our holiday is from “from one year’s end to another,’’' and, as the alleged howler says, we feel that we need it. However light the daily task, it is relief to get the yoke off our neck. The holiday charm is irresponsibility in the matter of time and place. It was the ideal of the Greenwich pensioner home from sea that he should be called at midnight and at 4 a.m.—“Eight bells! Starboard watch ahoy! Show a leg!”—and should be able to answer with defiance and maledictions. Fqw things German move me to admiration i but I except tf.e student’s “wander year’ before he settles down. Often have I seen him, alone or one of a group, on back, alpenstock in band, in his mouth, haply, a crooked wooden pipe. Canal boat—yes, he would take a canal boat when it suited ; the railway, no—or rarely and under stress. After this manner did Herr Diogenes Teufelsdrockh do lihs wandering; and before him our Oliver Goldsmith. There is a suggestion of pose, a touch of make-believe, in Goldsmith's opening of “The Traveller,” a poem dedicated to his brother, the retired Irish parson, whom in the letter of dedication he addresses as ‘ ‘Dear Sir” : Remote, unfriended, melancholy; slow, Or by file lazy Scheldt or wandering Po; Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor Against the houseless strangeT shuts the door: ' Or where Campania’s plain forsaken lies, A weary waste expanding to the skies; Where’er I roam, whatever realms to see, My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee; Still to my brother turns with ceaseless pain, And drags at each remove a lengthening chain. Elsewhere we get a different impression. Goldsmith carried about with him a flute, “and his music made him welcome to the peasants of Flanders and Germany. ‘Whenever I approached a peasant’s house towards nightfall,’ he used to say, ‘I played one of my most merry tunes, and this generally procured me not only a lodging but subsistence for the next day.’ ” Goldsmith’s “wander year” was in the character of a mendicant monk; but there is little doubt that he had a good .time. It was St holiday-maker’s “shack” near the shore on one of the bays north of Dunedin; the occupant, a man of solid make and experienced look, seemed to be occupying it solus, in the manner of a hermit crab. “Pleasant morning,”’ said I, strolling past (my own “shack” was half a mile away); “living alone?” “Yes, said he, “quite alone. You see, I’m studying the Einstein theory—that’s how I take vny holiday. Relativity, you know ; it takes a lot of thinking, and you can’t do it with a lot of people about. You ve not studied Einstein? • No? Wonderful theory ! This planet of ours is in motion and yet stationary ; it moves and at the same time stands still. What is in front is behind, and what is behind is in front. There is no up and no down, no near and no far, no big and no little; nothing is absolute, everything relative. If the whole universe were compressed into the size of an orange we should see no change; tfoe sun would still seem to us ninety millions of miles away. Relativity! Same with time—there is no absolute time; space time both are not real existences hut relations. And so last week is this week and yesterday is to-morrow. Ah!” said he, interrupting himself, “I’ve got a bite!”—he was fishing off a rock. “I’ve got him—a trumpeter, by Jove!— come along, mv beauty!”—hauling in. “You’re fish to day, you’ll be man tomorrow. I’ve got vou, but equally you’ve got me. Same with those giddy bipeds along the beach there,” waving towards some surfing pic-nickers: “Men and women, boys and girls? Not a bit. They are the things thev have eaten. What you see capering about in the surf and on the sand are sheep and oxen, pigs and poultry, wheat and oats, potatoes and cabbage. Wonderful doctrine Relativity!” -—Left cleaning his trumpeter. In “Krewhon,” that wise nonsensebook written by a New Zealand farmer, you come upon a people who treat crime as disease and send the criminal into hospital. This idea, or something like it, seems to have caught on in Italy. A Communist, wherever found, is dosed with castor oil—by authority, " and by means of a horn, as a drench is admistered to a sick cow. T suppose that to be the method, heaving regard to the probable kicking and struggling. A year or two. back the Communists were having it all their own way; in the industrial region of North Italy they had seized the factories, going from strength to strength, the Government, under Signor Nitti, looking on helpless, afraid to move. Then up rose the people, a patriot army 400,000 strong, at their head Signor Mussolini, by trade a blacksmith, now Premier of Italy, in strict speech a Revolutionary Anti-Socialist. The Communists were making a revolution; Signor Mussolini and his following have made a revolution the other way. And now. instead of lining up, the disciples of Karl Marx in front of a firing party, he doses them with castor oil, in each case assisting the drug by thrashing the recipient. For the Mussolini patriots call themselves the “fascismo,” a name recalling the “fasces”— • bundle of rods carried symbolically be-

fore the Roman magistrate, by which rods at his bidding a culprit might be literally cut to pieces. The modem “Fascisti” naturally carry and use the rod. These visible doings in Italy will give our New Zealand Bolshevists in and out of Parliament something to think about. I don’t say that we shall deal with them in the Italian fashion. Or, if we do, we may begin with the milder cathartics—brimstone and treacle, rhubarb and magnesia. If these fail to expel the virus, it will be time for castor oil and calomel. “Virus,” yes;—virus seems the right word. “It is well in their tender years to wean children from the religion, morals, and hypocrisy of the master class,” sal’s the Communist official handbook. “To teach the children the ideal of Revolution —that should be the primary aim of a proletarian school.” “Our songs should be songs breathing the spirit of the revolution.” “Such words as patriotism or love of country will die with the political state.” “A boy and girl should be taught a real live red-hot revolutionary speech, to take about .Iff minutes.” “Then why shotald we say it is love or spirit or souls or God that direct men and women in the light way? Such is not the case. . . . There is no soul or spirit as they (the capitalist- class) conceive it. It docs not exist.” “There is no real God. there is no true God.” “Christ on the Cross dying for sinners is so ridiculous that one despairs of the h.old this has on the w'orking class.” “It only means something to keep you docile. If it had not that effect they would try a machine-giun on you.” If there is any purgative that can expel these ill humours it would be a Christmas charity to use it. F rom Mount Stuart: Dear “Civis,”—With your permission and remarks, will you. kiridly admit in your column the 'enclosed? That is as may be. Correspondents who aspire to a place in this column should know that it is a bed of Procrustes; — I lop them or stretch them as may seem to me good, But this is holiday week, not to mention that the printer’s devil is waiting for copy. Go ahead! I am a Philanthropist-Socialist, reposing all hope and confidence in the Massey-Reform-Labour Adminstration to unravel the political tangled skein. Every political sect hankers for the title “Labour.” I cannot understand why it was forgotten when the Reformers. ehose their title. It is surprising how people are gulled with the title “Labour Party.” It certainly may represent restricted labour, restricted output, dissension, and everything engendering a spirit of revolt, but not the horny-handed, never-complaining, mom till dark workers who made this country. In your last Notes you referred to the lamentable fickleness of , voters. By the sacred privilege of voting granted to all and sundry by our Constitution we are allowed to mould and decide our national destiny. Voters for local bodies are qualified by their tax contribution; not so in the choice of our Parliament. The typist flapper and the warehouse owner are on equal Tooting. Here is a little dialogue heard at an Ashburton political meeting of earlier days. A female voter to her friend: “Oh! I cannot vote for So-and-So; he is too much of a gentle* man” ! The other: “I must vote for dear old Jock! Look at his lovely curly hair !” Jock forsooth was often rebuked by the Speaker for his disturbing snores in the Chamber; also once for taking off his boots and placing them objectionably to brother members. Since those days are we advancing? Cannot say exactly. Wait till the new House meets. Dear “Civis,” —The Christmas Day earthquake at Christchurch may have been well-timed or ill-timed; I should say well-timed, since more people would be likely to be in the open air, and therefore safer, on a holiday than on other days. But it is disgusting to read that “the big crowd at Lancaster Park watching the cricket, match treated the earthquake as a highly humorous diversion” when they saw the big chimneys at the tramways power-house and the gasworks rocking dangerously. More shame to them ! And what does the director of the Magnetic Observatory raean by saying that “further disturbances are imminent”? How can he tell? The director of the Magnetic Observatory has since explained that earthquakes mqy proceed in “an harmonic series,” like the overtones from a musical note. I don’t in the least understand it myself; but the man of science is the man of science, and the unscientific Philistine must humble himself. You will read in the proper books that “to avoid the effects of an earthquake shock nredicted by a madman for the Bth of April, 1750, thousands of persons, particularly those of rank and fortune, passed the night of the 7th in their carriages and in tents in Hyde Park.” Horace Walpole is testimony to the fact that “Earthquake Pills” were on sale in London and found a market. And it is common knowledge that Wesley published a sermon on “The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes.” Civis.

James O’Keefe, 66 years of age. one of the oldest European residents of Rotorua, of over 40 years’ standing, was found unconscious with his face covered with blood at noon on the 25th outside the cottage, where he lived alone. He was removed to the King George Hospital, where he died the same night. At an inquest next afternoon the verdict was death due to cerebral haemorrhage. Deceased was a carpenter, and latterly received remittances from Ireland.

An interesting revolution is taking place in Japan, in regard to diet. The people are becoming meat-eaters, and an important trade with Australia may result. A few days ago this question was discussed by Mr Wearne (New So»th Wales Minister of Lands), the Consul-General for Japan, and Mr Kaikuta, who is officially studying Australian land settlement measures. A visit of inspection was paid to the Homebush, abattoirs, and Mr Wearne states that tlfe*Bis2tors were impressed with the manner in which carcases are prepared for the Eastern market. Mr Kaikuta, on his return to Japan, will advise the authorities of the possibilities. The Consul-General referred to the fact that the Eastern nations have never been great meat-eaters, but a change is taking place. The Japanese especially are beginning to appreciate meat dishes. Mr Cramsie (chairman of the Meat Board) paid that Japan should be able to take all the exportable meat from New South Wales.