PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3596, 13 February 1923, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday’* Daily Times.) Those millions that we owe America ! those impossible hundreds of millions! Yes?—what about- them? We’re going to pay, of course. There was never any doubt about it. An Englishman’s word is his bond. “Our privilege is to honour our signature,” says Mr Lloyd George. Exactly; and it is America’s privilege to realise the asset. Shylock could do' no more; no Shylock would do any less. It is useless recalling the occasion of the debt, —that debtor and creditor were partners, that the money was expended for the common benefit of both; —this kind of analysis does no good. There is our signature; it .has to be honoured. But it is interesting to know now, what few knew or noticed at the time, that our borrowing was for the convenience of a third partner, not for our own. Read the following sentence from an article in the Edinburgh Review, last number: The obvious motive of the Americans in claiming from us the repayment of the money which we handed on to France, whilst making no demand against the French, is to make it impossible for us ever to recover the position which we have lost. This may be the most important result of the World War. What is “the position which we have lost?” Supremacy at sea. When Britain went to the Washington Conference she was still mistress of the seas; before the Conference came to an end she had abdi cated. Voluntarily?—Yes; and this is how it strikes an American journalist of distinction, Mr Mark Sullivan:—The one act of the Washington Conference that made it unique in history was that Great Britain gave this possession up —gave it up, not through war or battle, but through processes of peace; not as all act"of surrender but as one of deliberate self-denial; not resentfully to a victorious enemy, but willingly to friends and equals. That Great Britain surrendered a position, a power, and a possession which she has held by force of superior arms for more than two hundred years —it- was this that made the Washington Conference unique in history. The Edinburgh Review writer’s notion is that in exacting the repayment of her millions, America wishes to keep us poor, excluding the possibility of a British navy. Note particularly that the money we are repaying is money that we “ handed on to F ranee.”

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends R-ough-hew them bow we will. I The ends that were being shaped for | Mr C. E. Statham no man foresaw', least jof all Mr Statham himself. Intrinsically j well fitted for the Chair of the House, he could never have got there unless Providence had gone out of its way to be kind. It was necessary that he should be that Parliamentary ne’er-do-weel, an “ Inde pendent,” singing with Burns: I care for na.?body, And naebody cares for me. Rarely does a Parliamentary “Independent” come to good. It was necessary also that parties should be so nicely balanced that neither could afford the loss of a vote by elevating one of its members to the Speakership, and that both parties should close upon the ‘lndependent.'’ The Labour Party put fortli a nominee, but only as a practical joke. It was necessary again that the previous incumbent, Sir Frederick Lang, should have been defeated at the polls. All which necessary things Providence duly attended to. I once knew a pious Mormon from Salt Lake City stranded by mischance in Australia. Wanting to get home, ne shipped as cook in a vessel shortly leaving for San Francisco, but was sent ashore again the next day. He had handed to the captain a schedule of devotional requirements—such and such times in the day for meditation and prayer. But the cook that replaced him, suffering from a fit of d.t.’s, within four and twenty hours committed suicide. Reluctantly the captain fell back on the man dismissed. “I shall have, to take you after all,” he said ; “that other damned fool has hanged himself.” “Ah !” said the Mormon, lifting up his eyes to heaven: “I knew the Lord would open a way!” Much in this fashion, for the nomad of the House, whose wanderings in quest of a party, a policy, and a logical resting place, have rivalled those of Coelebs in Search of a Wife, has a way been opened to that serene coign of vantage the Speaker's chair. I wish him luck, and approve his declared intention of wearing a wig. For this relief much thanks. The general lapse towards savagery permits an American Speaker to preside in his shirt sleeves and chew ’ obacco. If the pestilence spreads, we may arrive at that uttermost bathos imagined by Carlyle—a naked Duke of Windlestraw addressing a naked House of Lords. The editor passes on to me—with his blessing—a hopeless-looking manuscript in which, when deciphered,. I find a patriotic Irishman arguing that the ancient Irish were Scotch, and that Scotland only became Scotland when the ancient Irish conquered it; until then, and down to “the Battle of Bannockburn, 1514,” Scotland was Pictland, or Caledonia. He nas a series of propositions or assertions on each side of which he offers a bet of £1 sterling,—proceeds to go to charity—e.g.. , First: Ireland was called Scotia for centuries before Caledonia adopted the , name. Second : The Scots were the natives of Ireland, who crossed over to ! assimilate, and ultimately conquer the natives of Caledonia; and gave the ; name —the new name —of Scotland to that land. Third: The first King of the Scots was an Irish Prince (Prince Aidan). who was anointed and crowned by Columba. Fourth: Columba and bis Irish teachers at lona converted the pagan people of Pictland to civilisation, Christians, and learners, and founded the first school of learning- in Scotland on the Island of lona. Hence Columba and lona Seminaries (Presbyterian) in New Zealand. To save a riot I -hastily interject that according to authentic books—cyclopaedias and the like—the sixth-century Irish monk Columba on arriving reported himself to a King Conal then reigning in Argyll; which region—and this is the riot-saving fact—was part of “the Christian kingdom of i the Scots.” So the Argyll people were not Piets and were not pagans. From the , islet of lona, granted him as a mission station, Columba set about converting the pagan Piets at that date still lingering. But the pagan Piets inhabited the distant north and east.

It is quite Irish that the affairs of prehistoric Ireland, of which nobody knows anything, should be detailed in wondrous wise by legend, and that the tale should be accepted as history. It is a limbo of confusion and absurdity. A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog Where armies whole have sunk. From parts unknown arrive invading Scots, fifty-five tribes of them, and overrun the country. Fifty-five tribes! This beats the great meeting of Welsh Baptists at which —as his Welsh landlady tola Coleridge when tramping in those parts there were present “a matter of four million.” Scots these invaders may have been, but their behaviour was Irish, — cheerfully cutting each other's throats. As is the Ireland of to-day, and as it is likely to continue till somebody wrings the neck of the rebel half-breed, so was the Ireland of the far past,—a scuffling of kites and crows. We seem to have heard of another Ireland, and a different: With fond affiction And recollection I . often think of Those Shandon bells, Whose sounds so wild would In the days of childhood Fling round my cradle Their magic speMs. On this I ponder Where’er I wander And thus grow fonder Sweet Cork of thee; "With thy bells of Shandon That sound so grand on The pleasant waters / Of the river Lea. This Ireland, the Ireland of Tom Moore, Charles Lever, and Father Prout, did it really exist? If it did, we cannot too soon get back to it.

At one time or other there has been debate on the law maxim, “The exception proves the rule” ; —what does it mean? In what sense can an exception to a rule prove the rule? I remember a Saturday Review article under the heading “Exceptio Probat Regulam”—a long-ago article, possibly by Leslie Stephen—which seemed to leave the matter still dark. The same may be said of a discussion in Boswell : Dr Johnson thought that the evidence •for the migration of woodcocks was as good as can be desired. Someone said that there had been instances of their having been found in summer in Essex, to which Johnson replied, “Sir, that strengthens our argument. Exceptio probat regulam. Some being- found shows that, if all remained, many would be found.’’ How much further does this carry us? The rule is that woodcocks migrate. But some woodcocks stay on. They are the exception, and—here is the crux! —the exception proves the rule. See it ? I doubt whether you do. In deep water the rule is sink or swim ; if you can’t do the one you must do the other. But a miraculous hencoop drifts your way; though no swimmer you contrive to clutch the miraculous hencoop and hold on till rescued. You are an exception, and. again, the exception proves the rule. In one sense only, as I see: —To say of any given fact that it is exceptional is to say that the general run of facts is the other way. To assert an exception is to assert a rule to which it is an exception. Admittedly an exception, it proves, the rule—-proves-that a rale-exists. That is all there is in it, just that much. And that much is not very much after all. “Horas non numero nisi serenas” —’ I mark only the shining hours,”—-a common inscription on sun-dials, is for its purpose one of the best. I have heard of another nearly as good that cost no sweat of brain, the product of mere accident. The Benchers of the Inner Temple, London, decided to set up a sun-dial on then terrace, arranging with the maker that for the inscription he should call at the Temple Library at a time they named. The artist turned up at the library on the appointed day, but found no one there but a testy old gentleman deep in a book. Timidly he attempted to explain his errand, to be cut short by the crusty one with a curt “Begone about your business.” The artist, thinking this to be the motto, departed. And “Begone about your business!" duly appeared on the dial plate; and there it remained, the Benchers agreeing that it was as good as any other. A sane and sound conclusion. How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour! observes the sententious Dr Watts. What better monition can clock or sun give you as each shining hour comes round than “Begone about your business?” A correspondent wants to know wherein a janitor differs from a verger, and wherein an usher differs from either or both. May the names “janitor,” “verger,” “usher,” be used interchangeably ? When questions of this kind reach me I invariably put in a word -for the Concise Oxford. (It is about time the principal book shops offered me a commission on sales.) The Big Oxford, which has been

in course of publication for half a century and is now about complete, runs into big money, and you would need a wheelbarrow to take it away. But, over any Dunedin counter, the Concise Oxford ougnt not to cost more than three' half-crowns; and its quality as a dictionary is of the highest. According to one exaggerative witness in the London Press nqp London journalist sits at work without a Concise Oxford at his elbow. Even t-he veteran journalist may hesitate over a word—doubting whether 'judgment” has two e’s, wheth'er “civilize" has s or z, whether it is “farther” or “further” that he wants, —these with other like questions of moment. Inquiring qf the Concise Oxford we learn that a janitor is an official who keeps the janua, the door: that an usher keeps the ostium, which is another word for door, and as ostisfrius of a court or public hall may show persons to their seats; that a verger is a janitor or usher equipped with a virga, or rod, which in procession lie carries ceremonially before an ecclesiastical dignitary, or wherewith he raps the heads of misbehaving boys in church. .Strictly these things are so. Ahd a story -way tan all. In an English village church the interior of which he wanted to examine, a visitor came :w'U a little dried-up-looking old woman > was busying herself about. “'Excuse me.” he (said, “are you the pew-opener?” “W4ll, sir,” she replied, “the late vicar ’e used to call me that, hut the present incumbrance ’e calls me the virgin.” Civis.