PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3714, 19 May 1925, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Otago Daily Times). Mark the body of Caesar to a turbulent Roman crowd that didn’t know its own mind— I come to bury Cscsar, not to praise him. But not to praise him was impossible, and further from Antony’s thought. We have buried Mr Massey with an Empire’s lamentation and with testimony to Ilia merit from every part of it. He was our Chief Citizen and Prime Minister; but we are a small people and gemote; nevertheless his sound had gone out into all lands and his words unto the ends of the world. Mark Antony won upon the doubtful feelings of his Roman crowd by reminding them that Ctesar was 44 not ambitious ” You all did see that on tho Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrico refuee. Was this ambition ? Mr Massey remained 44 Mr Massey,” a plain man, just one of ourselves, tnough titles and honours were not only within his reach but pressed upon him. Not on that account will his memory be the less dear to us. Now all is over and done. In every quarter and through all the organs of public utterance tilings worthy of the man wo have lost ana of our sorrow in losing him havo been said. Yet it remains for me, it seems, to revive verses (hat might have boen written In prophecy

of Mr Massey's career. I have not seen them anywhere quoted: Dost thou look back on what hath been, As some divinely gifted man, AVhose life in low estate began And on a simple village green; Who breaks his birth’s invidious bar. And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance, And grapples with his evil star; Who makes by force his merit known. And lives to clutch the golden keys, To mould a mighty State’s decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne? “Parvis oomponcre magna,’’ of course; or—the other way about—“ parva componere magnis.” But, the necessary corrections made, and they are not many, this is the story of William Ferguson Massey. From Mr Lloyd George: “ I deeply regret Mr Massey’s death. He was a fine Imperial patriot. I shall never forget the support of his unflinching comradeship in the War Cabinet in the days of the Empire’s greatest trial.” Possibly Mr Lloyd George had in mind an incident at a meeting of what he calls the “War Cabinet” when lie, being in the chair as Prime Minister, a delegate at. the table propounded the preposterous heresy that Great Britain at war did not mean the Empire at war, any dominion that chose might “ stand out.” “Rubbish!”—exclaimed Mr Massey; “England at war and the dominions not at war! We’re all in the same boat! ” He wasn’t going to sit there listening to roctrines that would wreck the Empire; and starting from his seat he made for the door, —happily intercepted by Lloyd George, who also had started from his seat, and who with persuasive words brought the indignant New Zealander back to the table. Not from Mr Massey himself did I get this story, but from one of his Ministerial colleagues. You may take it as a fact. How much the Empire “in the days of its greatest trial ” was indebted to the sober-minded steadfastness of Mr Massey not all the Empire knows. “ The King is dead; —Long live the King!” An ancient formula, necessary, inevitable. Through all the chances and changes of mortal tenure the State remains in continuance. And the State must have a head, —the King’s Government must be carried on, as the Duke of Wellington said at a moment of crisis, uttering a commonplace which somehow has become classical. Who is to be Mr Massey’s successor? I picture the political situation after the approaching General Election, not as it is to-day. But how do I know who will be elected? I don’t know in the least. But this I know, that the House will contain Reformers, so called, Liberals, so called, and a Labour Party, so called; and that—as the chances look—no one of the three groups will overtop the other two. Result, —stalemate, paralysis, futility ; —the King’s Government cannot be carried on. Then will come the true patriot’s opportunity. The true patriot!—we shall know him when we see him. He will be for dropping party names and catchwords, personal animosities, personal ambitions, and for joining hands in self-renunciation with any man of any political name or colour who will help to save the country from red ruin. Mr Massey’s successor, — shall I name him? 1 could an if I w’ould. But I won’t. There are readers of thia column who would rise up and stone me. None the less do I see him distinctly—ln my mind’s oye, Horatio. As a conjectural figure only. The condition precedent is that certain old and hardened Parliamentarians show themselves patriots. From the Christchurch Press I learn with interest, if not with unhallowed delight, that in America “two Yale professors and the Y.M.C.A.” have evolved a Pussyfoot Bible j or, as the Press puts it, “ have edited a Bible in which every reference to wine suffers a sea change into something rich and strange.” “A cake of raisins” or some similar phrase is the equivalent of a word that is as old as civilisation itself. Thus the world is to be gravely informed that

“he dealt to every one of Israel, both man and woman,” not “ a flagon of wine,” but “ a cake of raisins.” This blessed transformation is the work of “ two Yale professors ” —what they “ profess ” not stated—with the assistance of the Y.M.C.A. They might also have sought the assistance of Dr Moffatt—supposing Dr Moffatt to have Pussyfoot leanings. It is Dr Moffatt who, as we know, has reduced Noah’s Ark to a “ barge,” ' and Noah himself by consequence to a bargee, and whose equivalent for the Biblical command “Depart!” is “ Off with you! ” —and so throughout, condescending as he fondly imagines to llie intelligence and taste of “ the man in the street.” In my imagining or as I dimly suspect, the man in the street feels in no wise flattered. The Manchester Guardian also has discovered the American Pussyfoot Bible, and has a gleeful time over it. Will readers find, to their justified perplexity, that raisin cake is a mocker and plum-duff is raging? Will Proverbs gravely counsel thorn to look not upon the cake when it is rich? Will Isaiah be saddled with the responsibility for asserting that even “ the priest and the prophet have erred through strong raisiti cake, they are swallowed up of sultanas, they are out of the way through inordinate helpings of jam”? I recall another Pussyfoot reviser of the Bible, a Dunedin man of long ago, a “Reverend” to boot, who announced, in letters to the paper that the Bible wines were varieties of vinegar, a light and agreeable drink in a warn) climate, but still really vinegar. So that we ought to read: Vinegar that maketh glad the heart <f Be not drunk with vinegar, wherein is excxfls. Take a little vinegar for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities. . . . The Pussyfoot of to-day doesn’t make a full use of his resources. From New York The two principal items in the newspapers of to-day of interest to New Yorkers are Prohibition (or the lack of Prohibition) and the movement to clean up tho stage. You will no doubt agree that something should be done along tlie line of cleaning up if the titles of plays have any significance. For instance :—“ Ladies of the Evening,” “Hell’s Bells,” “Desire Under the Elm,” “White Cargo,” “They Knew What They Wanted,” “Tho Good Bad Woman,” etc., etc., ad lib. Thus writes an expatriated Dunedin man. I supplement his dramatic intelligence by an item over which the English papers are making merry, the production in New York of a “ Jazz OneTa ” on a Scripture subject, Daniel in the Lions’ Den. The libretto runs thus: Daniel waa the chief hired man of tho land. ne stirred up the jazz in the palace band. He whitewashed the cellar, he shovelled in tho coal: And Daniel kept a-praying, “Lord, save my fioul.” Daniol was the butler, swagger, and swell. He ran up stairs, he answered the boll. . . . Daniel offends his master Darius, who thereupon casts him into the lions* den, exhorting the lions in a florid tenor solo— Bite Daniel. Bite Daniel. Bite bim. bite him, bite himt And the lions roar in response— We want Daniel. Daniol, Daniel, We want Daniel. Daniel, Daniel, Grrrrrrr. • • . • Grrrrrrr. .... All this to fine effect. 'The orchestra is jazz* Darius, the tenor robusto, is jazz; the lions too. though their part is mainly roaring, tho lions also are jazz. American art is making strides. From " Erewhon H (somewhere down South) — Dear " Civil,”—l wonder could you assist to unravel the question, m knotty

one, as to the moaning of “ Mavcra ” and the language the word belongs to. Tho spelling is not Maori, is it? The word sounds like Samoan, or Irish Gaelic, or Western Highland. It is the name, of course, of a small lake in Southland near To Anau. The Maori, unless caught young and taught English at school, is unable to sound the labials “f” and “ v,” or the liquid “ 1 ”—spite of “ Waihola,” which should bo “ Waihora,”—or the sibilant “s.” The name “Mavora” cannot be Maori. It suggests the Celtic term of endearment “ mavourneen ” in the good old song “ Kathleen Mavourneen,” now too seldom heard. I would go out of my way to hear a tuneful tenor sing “.Kathleen „ Mavourneen.” But, failing better information from some other correspondent, I take “ Mavora ” to be an invented name meant to sound well,—which it does. Simply that. Civis.