PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3674, 12 August 1924, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday’s Daily Times.) Reparations and the Ruhr, Security and the Dawes Repoi’t, whatever that may be, —if Mr Ramsay MacDonald and M. Herriot, together with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, otherwise Dr Marx and his forty German experts, have found a solution of this Sphinx riddle, to them be the praise. Along with most other people I had given it up. Over another riddle Mr MacDonald with his Thomases and Hendersons is still puzzling—small blame to him ! —a riddle passing the wit of man, the Irish Boundary dispute. On the one hand is the Free State, talking Republic and “ British treachery ”; on the other is Ulster, dourly meditating war—a war ‘‘ to the last man and last shilling.” Our local Bolsheviks, sad to say, look on this spectacle with complacency. Thus the Maoriland Worker: If Ireland succeeds in achieving her independence it means the break-up of the Empire. That will be a blessing to the world and an inspiration to the cause of labour. We oppose Empire and Imperialism root and branch. The breaking-up of the Empire means the entire independence of its component States. That is what the break-up of the Empire means to us, and all good unionists should not only hold these views, but do till in their power to give effect to them. Of Ulster’s six counties the Free State, seeking a quarrel, claims three, and would even lay sacrilegious hands on Londonderry itself, the Ulster Ark of the Covenant. If in Ulster there are Roman Catholics and Sinn Feiners, they are balanced by Protestants and loyalists in the Free State, —victims still of murder and arson. The other day in London there happened together at a wedding some Irish loyalists. The bride, a girl from the West of Ireland, was of a family whose house had been burned down one Sunday night after five minutes’ warning to clear out ; they were not allowed to save anything. Among the guests at this wedding were— A peer and his wife whose Irish home had been looted and burned in their absence: a Commander R.N. (brother of the bride), who had been placed against a wall and threatened with death for attempting to save some treasures at the burning of his father’s house; a middle-aged lady whose home (in another county) had been burned and whose husband soon afterwards died from the effects of the shock and exposure; an ex-officer of the R. 1.0. and his wife, whose son, an officer of the R.1.C., had been ambushed and killed with five

constables of his party —like many other victims, this young officer had served in the Army in the Great War; another ex-officer R.I.C. who had some narrow escapes from assassination. If the word is war, Ulster, staking her last man and last shilling, would go through these assassins and incendiaries as a knife goes through butter. The extent to which a man may be an ignoramus and yet get into Parliament is seen in the remark of an hon. member (name of no consequence) that the public services —railways, trams, schools, post and telegraph—are all ‘‘a form of Socialism.” The public services have just as much and just as little to do with Socialism as with Mahometanism or the Ne temere decree. The railway man, the tram conductor, the post office clerk, is paid wages; not uncommonly he complains that he is not p aid wages enough. In the view of Socialism he is a “ wage slave.” Efficiency is expected of him; if inefficient he may he turned out; if insubordinate he may be turned out. Wherein does this differ from employment by a capitalist joint stock company or by a mercantile firm? Barring the civil servant’s privilege of superannuation, difference there is none. But the Socialist, embarrassed by the tragic absurdity of his confession of faith— The nationalising of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, —thinks to put a better face on it by saying that the public services are a form of Socialism. And if—as well Ije may be—he is an ignoramus, he believes what he says. Mr Holland is no ignoramus. He is not in the least befogged about the nature of the “Marxian Socialism” of which he has just made hare-faced and unblushing avowal. Marxian Socialism means that the sheep farmer would lose his sheep, the dairy farmer his dairy cows, the merchant his merchandise, the shopkeeper his shopkeeping. Not only in land and houses would private ownership cease, but in mines, mills, factories, shipping. The Otago Daily Times and the Otago Witness, Siamese twins, would become a pair of Government Gazettes 'edited by the Soviet. What would happen to the churches may be inferred from what has happened where the Marxian gospel has had free course and statues of Karl Marx have been set up. Under strict censorship the First Church, Knox Church, and the Cathedral would be permitted a Marxian service, preceded by the singing of “The Red Flag.” l'or other ecclesiastical buildings a use would be found as barracks and places of detention, for of course the prisons would be full. Personally, the Marxian pirate who is to do these things may be amiable and kindly, the mildest mannered man That ever scuttled ship or out a throat; but do them he will. And he will begin by confiscating property. Apparently Mr Holland dislikes the term and would avoid it. But confiscation by any other name would cut as deep. Tire Workers’ Educational Association (W.E.A. for shortl with economics for its proper calling, is sometimes found flirting with psychology, and even coquetting with psycho-analysis. But as nobody knows where the modern science of economics begins or ends, psychology and psycho-analysis may be within the pale. In the Spectator of June 21 I find a reviewer who talks of “ the borderland between Psychology and Economics.” Exploring in that dim region an American economist had reached some practical results—had discovered, for instance, how many bricks an honest bricklayer could and should lay in a day, this “ by an intimate study of every movement of the bricklayer’s body,, hand and mind.” But if I don’t mistake, Sir Owen Seaman, otherwise Mr Punch, had anticipated him in that department of science. Noticing on the scaffolding of a new building one bricklayer expostulating

with another—"’Ere, stow it! not so fast!” —Mr Punch put in a word: “ Good friend,” I said, in wonder lost, “ I am concerned to know What is the cause why you accost Yon earnest workman so. “ If to he idle were a sin, I naturally ask Why you should want to check him in The middle of his task.” “ Guv’nor,” he said, “ you take my word, It’s time he had a rest; It ain’t no manners in a hird To queer his neighbour’s nest. “If ’e don’t mend ’s ’ll ’ave to quit; I know ’is nawsty tricks; ’E works too rapid; ’e’s a hit Too ’andy with ’is bricks.”’ Mr Punch remonstrates; but no: “ Read what the Union bosses say,” That simple swain replied; “ They lets us lay so much a day, An’ not a brick beside.” That is the true psychology of the bricklaying business, and psycho-analysis could say no other. What did the Union bosses in America say? Here was an insidious attempt to double or perhaps treble the bricklayer’s daily tale of bricks. Taking a surface glance at this device “ for the good of both employer and employee,” they bluntly called it sweating. It worked itself into a furv, even ; especially at the idea that it was scientific. “Psychology in the service of the Devil ” was a phrase that figured in the rencontre. And it registered its sentiments in unmistakable fashion in the American Legislature, by having a law passed in 1915 against the conducting of any such studies in the United States Army workshops. The pathetic part is that these good people thought that their work was all for the welfare of Labour. Some kindly Pussyfoot sends me for my soul’s health "Billy Sunday's Famous Sermon on Booze,” a sizeable pamphlet reprinted in Otago for an Otago public. On the first page there catches my eye this: Then the fellows that kept the hogs went back to town and told the peamitbrained, weasel-eyed, hog-jowled, beetlebrowed, bull-necked lobsters that owned the hogs, that " a long-haired fanatic from Nazareth has driven the devils out of some men and the devils have gone into the hogs, and the hogs into the sea, and the sea. into the hogs, and the whole bunch is dead.” Whereupon I go no further; —thanks, I have had enough. Is there any conceivable good cause that needs this foulmouthed advocacy? If the American saloon was an agency for promoting drunkenness, the abolition of the American saloon would have my vote. But in order to abolish the American saloon was it necessary that one half the community should take the other half by the throat I Was it necessary to pass laws which decent people would break with a good conscience? Here is the latest cable: Washington, August 5. Fifty fashionable resorts and hotel roofs were raided by Prohibition agents and the police in an almost noiseless manner which recently has been adopted. This is the third raid within a few weeks. In Washington, observe, —the legislative headquarters, where law-makers most do congregate. Even in Washington, and after years, Pussyfoot still has his hands full. Dear “ Civis,”—l am taking the liberty of writing you with regard to a certain wreck at Onehunga in 1850, or thereabouts. I am fairly certain that the vessel was a warship named the "Ospreyous,” and that the wreck occurred through the captain’s disregarding the signals of the shore officials, the result being that the ship and all hands were lost in under 30 minutes. A particular friend of mine is positive I am wrong, and that no such wreck occurred. The upshot was a wordy argument, and we parted in silence, after dogmatic assertions had died down. Now, Sir, my friend and self look upon you as an infallible oracle, and if you would be so kind as to mention this wreck in your Notes I should be deeply grateful; more so if you could manage this without revealing that you have been consulted in the matter. My reason for this strange request is that I do not desire my friend to think that I was vindictive enough to consult a competent authority merely to have the satisfaction of proving him in the wrong. You are both' wrong. On the 7th of February, 1863, H.M.S. Orpheus, Commander Burnett, a new vessel of 1700 tons, was wrecked in attempting to enter Manakau Heads, where there is an ugly breadth of bar on which, in the hollows of the swell, coastal steamers sometimes bump, even in calm weather, as I myself have experienced. The story is that one of the quartermasters of the Orpheus, who had previously served on the New Zealand station and knew something about the Manakau entrance, gave the commander a warning which was disregarded. Of the officers and men 70 were

saved and 190 perished. Clearly I could not give these facts, relevant to nothing of to-day, without saying that I gave them “by request.” You cannot have it both ways. The New Poets with their aiders and abettors are surely a’ gone wud, as the Scotch say,—are all mad together. In the Spectator of June 28 I find mention of that masterpiece of brevity, Mr W. N. Ewer’s' poem, " The Chosen People ’’: —■ How odd That God Should choose The Jews. This is in a review article and may be irony. But in its own Poet’s Corner the Spectator seriously propounds under the heading “Poetry” the following conundrum : Creation. Along sleep s edges Along sleep’s edges Take your way. Take your way. Brush the sedges Guard the sedges Where its water Lest you stumble Spreads away. Slip away: From opaque and Slip and eliding Twisted light Find your dreams Bet thought take and Waters’ gliding— Airward usher Maniac mixing Green’s cold night. Of wild gleams: Let no creature All your striving, Thrusting fin Thrusting fin Through the nature ’Gainst the driving Of the. sleep-coil Coil of sleeping Be let in. Strength within. L. Aaronson’. If this is English poetry, all that went before it under that name from Chaucer down is drivel. In New Zealand, before a magistrate and two doctors, it would he accepted as evidence for a committal to Seacliff. Civis.