PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3889, 25 September 1928, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

'.(From Saturday’s Otago Daily Times.) Coelebs in Search of a Wife and Japhet in Search of a Father, with the United Party in Search of a Leader added, make a classic trio. Only with the last of the three have we any immediate concern. A leader has been found, a leader who by the happiest chance was in search of a party —Sir Joseph Ward, the Last of the Liberals, a lonely derelict. Their coming together was the most natural thing in the world. At first, and on both sides, a little coyness and hesitation, perhaps. But a meeting dissolved all that, and we see them .rushing into each other’s arfns, — Joseph, fell upon Benjamin’s neck an® Benjamin fell upon his neck, which is a Scriptural hexameter, and comes in handy.

The analogy of Joseph and his Brethren is tempting, but a glance at peculiarities in the new leade~'s position will be more to the purpose. There were

other aspirants, and for these there are consolation prizes—one member of the party to be deputy-leader for the North Island, another to be deputy-leader for the South Island, a third to be " president of the executive ” —president or chairman, one or the other. Gorgeous! A Lord High Executioner might follow, and a Head Cook and Bottle-washer. The sum of which is that the leader will lead a party that is all officers and no privates, or pretty nearly that. Candidates are to come forward at the general election; but you don’t count your eggs before they are laid, nor your chickens before they are hatched. Then there is the question of name. Sir Joseph has borne without abuse the grand old name of Liberal, defamed by every charlatan and soiled by all ignoble use What is he now ? A “ United ” ?—leader of the “ United Party ” ? The name tells of nothing distinctive. Every party is united or it wouldn’t be a party. The Coates following is a United Party; much more the Holland following—a baker’s dozen voting as one man. The community of an ant-hill is a United Party; so also a rabbit warren. Poor Sir Joseph! “ I know what I was,” he exclaims, “ but what am I now ? ”

The Premier’s Licensing Bill—a tragicomedy. Having been so transmogrified in its passage through the House that its parent disavowed it and helped to kill it, a single vote turning the scale, the Licensing Bill descends to the wastepaper basket and we revert to—As you were. The Third Issue, which at the outset the Premier flung to the wolves, miraculously comes back. Next time, as last time, the voting paper will give us a choice between three. Pussyfoot was for two issues only—the whole hog or none. Shut up to two issues, we should have known what to do. Most of us would have gone to the poll in the mood and mind of a correspondent who writes to me from Hampden in halting rhymes:— Because some tipple, must we all abstain? Absurd ! —you might as well maintain That if some glutton seated at the feast Gorges himself like any ravenous beast And harms his tummy,—simple bread and meat No other man shall be allowed to eat! Doubtful logic perhaps, but for many thousands it will serve. And now, except for wobblers and waverers who may vote either way and up to the last moment don’t know their own minds—but for those we might let the liquor question rest. Till the lists are set an ! the battle is joined! Of course one cannot answer for Pussyfoot. For the moment my last word to Pussyfoot is, Now let tlm heathen rage!

Although our own election fit is coming on and presently we shall be in the throes of choosing a new Parliament, a thought may be spared for the more agonising spasms of America in choosing a new President. The choice lies between two, a Democrat and a Republican, as these party names are understood in America, —the one a “ wet,” the other a “ dry.” The choosing of a Moderator in the Dunedin Presbytery couldn’t be simpler; y«t all America goes into epileptic convulsions over it. A fact the more remarkable since the President need be little else than a lay figure. Mr Calvin Coolidge, that “ chill and desiccated little man,” gets along comfortably though “ aloof and friendless, walking the streets of Washington alone, a pathetic figure, shadowed always by a secret service agent; when he is travelling by train other politicians may approach and ask a question; rarely does anyonezsit beside him to have a chat.” If a man of the Coolidge, type contents the Americans, why this universal uproar

when electing his successor? Some remarks by Mr Walter H. Page, American Ambassador in London during the war period, may throw light: —

We are in danger of being feminised and fool-ridden—grape juice (water’s good, enough, . why grape juice?)-; pensions; Christian Science; peace cranks; efficiency - correspondence • schools; aid-your-memory; women’s clubs; co-this and co-t’other and coddling in general; Billy Sunday; petticoats where breeches ought to be and breeches where petticoats ought to be; white livers and soft heads and milk and water —O Lord, give us back-, bone! Again, on “ the danger of having anything to do with cranks ” — A certain orderliness of mind and conduct seems essential for safety in this short life. Spiritualists, bonerubbers, anti-vivisectionists, all sorts of anti’s in fact, those who have fads about education or fads against it, Perfectionists, Daughters of the Dove of Peace, Sons of the Roaring Torrent, itinerant peace-mongers—all these may have a real genius amorg them once in forty years; but to look for an exception to the common run of yellow dogs and damfools among them is like opening oysters with the hope of finding pearls. It’s the common man we want and the tincommon common man when we can find him —never the crank. Page, be it observed, was a high official, a patriot, and—as he himself would have said—a 100 per cent. American.

The extent to which in act and fact his country ,would be “feminized and fool-ridden ” was mercifully hidden from this 100 per cent. American. He did not foresee Pussyfoot and the hypocritical lawlessness which along with Pussyfoot would come in as a flood. Lunatic excitements in a Presidential election were no novelty; but he had never imagined such Bedlamite proceedings as are reported in the Daily Times of Friday, last week.—proceedings at a Democratic National Convention which professed amongst other things to affirm and strengthen the “dry” plank in its party platform. Delegations eanie from all quarters, most of them prepared to vote “dry” between drinks; many of them bringing their own supply of liquor and setting up on arrival “a wellequipped bar ” for dispensing it. Or the individual delegate was introduced to an “official bootlegger;—anything from one bottle to 100 cases promptly delivered, all first-class goods direct from the Bahamas.”

. There was no secret about the tippling going on at this—convention for more than a week. Through the open doors of hundreds of hotel rooms these sweltering nights you heard the hilarious laughter of bibulous gatherings. Tipsy delegates wobbled from room to room, glass in hand, affectionately greeting strangers and offering hospitality. Hypocrites all. They did much the same in former years, but without the trouble of pretence and make-believe. Hypocrisy came in with Pussyfoot. It is common knowledge that the Exile of Doorn was for a time the Widower of Doorn,' but that he has taken to himself a second wife, thereby shocking German sentiment, it is said. The Germans would rather think him as Prometheus Vinctus impaled on the rock, than as a doting Benedict, lapped,in domestic ease. The Exile of St. Helena—much in the admiring thought of his opposite number at Doorn—left his wife behind him, held by the superior attractions of Europe. With her and her doings European gossip was busy for many a year. But, coming to the lady of Doorn, —“Imperial Highness ” perhaps her husband calls her—rl. wanted to mention that she

has written a book telling amongst other things of privations endured by the German people in the war time. The naval blockade maintained by the Allies cut off food supplies from "over sea, and in the later stage of the war the people were reduced to eating turnips—morning, noon, and night, nothing but turnips. “How we loathed them! ” she exclaims. “I he thought is nauseating still. Such were the sufferings inflicted by our cruel enemies.” “And yet they call us Huns.” Yes, Huns; —remembering Louvain, the Lusitania, Nurse Cavell, we still think of them as Huns. They were reduced to eating turnips;— I am _glad to hear it. They made an unavailing attempt to starve the British Isles, sinking food ships and incidentally drowning thousands of noncombatants. In 1870, besieging Paris, they reduced the Parisians to eating rats and mice and such small deer, a less inviting diet than turnips. It was mere reciprocity when to the Germans was administered a dose of their own medicine.

The “ Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes ” at the Henderson Christian Church, in lowa, hereafter will consist, at the suggestion of the Rev. G. D. Noland, oi overalls for men and similar modest attire for the women. (I am quoting from an Australian paper.) “The pastor objects to the church l>ein ,r ma.de a place for dress and states that riiany men absent themselves from services because thev feel they cannot dress up to the occasion. The pastor himself plans to wear overalls.” What are overalls? Must we think of the blue dungaree garm®pt in which a plumber invests himself when about to grope amongst drain pipes? A congregation in overalls would K>ok hke a congregation of jail-birds. The lovva pastor is contradicting a deepseated instinct of human nature. If only to look at a football match a man puts on a street coat; and the “ pictures, where you sit in the dark, demand a decent apparel. There is a Melbourne story- of a sailor who ran awav fiom his ship in Hobson’s Bav, went to the diggings, struck it rich,’and eanie to town to have a good time—Billv aiton, a name still remembered in theatrical circles. It happened that Jenny Lind, the Swedish Nightingale, paid a visit to Melbourne, and Billy went to a theatrical agent and booked a seat in the dress circle. When the house yas full, Billy marched to his seat ” ls mll ’ers rig-out, the old slouch hat, moleskin trousers, coarse chequered coat, and hobnail boots all covered with clay just as he.left the ruine. re " as Quite a commotion y.uen Billy- sat down amongst some of the most fashionable people in Melbourne’ who were all in evening clothes. The manager of the theatre appeared on the scene and tried to persuade Bjlly to leave the circle, but he stoutly refused, stating that he had paid for his seat and there he „ was going to remain? To get even with the theatre-going people he went to the theatrical agent next day and bought the whole dress circle out for £3OO, and sat there by himself in his mining rig-out. Billy- was wrong. Our social pleasures depend upon our observance of social conventions. For this turn up any philosophical treatise on manners and customs, and when found make a note of. Civis.