ODD PAPERS

Southland Times, Issue 19172, 16 February 1924, Page 9

ODD PAPERS

EXIT THE BOSS,

(By

“R.R.”)

I noticed in the cables the other day that Mr Bevan, the dockers’ M.P., speaking at a Labour meeting, said that the term “master” must be expunged from the dictionary. That was a brave word, bravely spoken, and I wish him joy, with all my heart. Of course, I can see difficulties, both in the dictionary and out of it. But if the odds are great, why, the greater the joy of battle, and always there is the ecstasy and urge of a brilliant and attractive objective. In the first place I agree heartily with the impetuous docker that Britons never should be slaves. It ought to be true, as he says, that the slave days have passed, with the other barbaric institutions, into the crab ’ holes of Lethe. He goes on to say that the only slavery which exists is that of the human will, which accepts the preposterous position, and that the modern timeserving bondage is the very antithesis of equality and the brotherhood of man. He is eager to be delivered from this bondage of corruption into a glorious liberty. I confess there are many occasions when my heart beats in tune to this ideal. There are moods and periods when my whole spirit rises in revolt against all control and over-lording, and I feel as wildly rebellious as a horde of barbaric savages. At those times 1 would willingly consign every niaster, official, leader, potentate and boss to the agonies of Tophet. Fortunately, for society or for myself, the mood does not last long. The reckless mood gives place to the romantic, and I am fain to content myself with things as they are. Indeed, I am told that this alternating of comfortable and compelling moods is not peculiar, but is the very soul and splendour of successful living, and of human solidness and sodality.

. To eliminate the word “master” from our vocabulary would be a fairly lengthy and difficult process. Moreover, it is not the word that is so much wrong, as the way it is sometimes used. At the best it is but a convenient label to brand certain qualities of excellence or incompetence. If we banished this term, we should have to find an''‘•her, and I think the old English words are as short and simple as any we can find. Nevertheless, I am openly in revolt against these modern days of senseless and suffocating servility, and the flaccid fawning and worship of wealth that everywhere abounds. The monarchy of the millionaires is a nuisance. Whether we are pagans or puritans, stoics or sensualists by nature, the modern fetish of slavery has its hold upon us. From babyhood upward we are, most of us, taught to be tractable, docile; we are the people who do as we are told.

But if the masters were done away with, what a halcyon time it would be. Think, for instance, if there were no schoolmasters, grim spectres, standing with ready cane and severe aspect, to strike terror into the breasts of young barbarians. What heavenly times for these same youngsters schooldays would be, without the irksomeness of dogmatic discipline. They could notch the desks, and ink their neighbours, and dogear their books, and make flying arrows of the pens to their hearts’ content. There would be no one to administer the “cuts” or detention if one were a few minutes late, and fond and foolish mammas would have no didactic tyrant to complain of for their darlings’ harsh and cruel sufferings. Of course, it will be argued by some short-sighted people that the schoolmaster is a necessity, or no lessons would be learned. But those ideas are oldfashioned and fossilised. The newer aim of teaching is not to instruct, to impose fresh knowledge on the youthful brain, but to lead out and encourage the hidden virtues that already lie there dormant. We must enable the child to realise himself and assert his own individuality. Ergo, exit the schoolmaster; a school companion is the latest educational ideal.

And I have the same feeling in regard to many other conditions of life. Our modem existence is hedged up and cramped with notice boards to “keep off the grass.” In nearly every avenue we tread, there are irksome restraints and conditions, and officials and authorities who bar our progress, and flaunt their officious red tape of duty with a thoroughness that rouses our righteous indignation; until I have been ready to become a howling Labourite and shout, “Down with the bosses.” But, of course, there are others who exercise control with courtesy, and combine sanity with their strength. I have sometimes wished there were no stationmasters. But that was only a passing mood. In my heart I idolise them. They and their accomplices, the guards, will have much to answer for “when the Judgment books are opened, and the thoughts of men are read.” One cannot go on a railway journey, without being pestered by officials, added to the discomforts of travelling. If we could only step on the train, and go wearily away on our journey, without any of the attendant nuisances of getting ticket and reserving seats, and labelling and consigning luggage, one might put up with it. But we are jarred by banging doors and harsh clanging bells, and strident whistles, we are hustled for tickets, and consigned to cramped and inadequate space. We are hedged in by rules and conditions. We are pulled up at every little inconsequent station by petty officials, and kept wearily waiting over some trifle an unconscionable time before we can start again. I have often vowed I will travel no more by rail; I would rather walk, or even bicycle. But the stationmaster always wins my heart. To see these magnates of the railroad, burnished and resplendent in all the glory of gilt braid, and flaunting their proud command in full view of the public, is to me a thrilling sight. If some of our masters must go, pray leave me the kindly stationmaster.

And, would it not be a distinct calamity were we to lose our postmasters. Here is another realm of mastery I would fain keep. These modern “masters of letters” are the true representatives of democracy. They represent the* miracle of a penny. They are the trusted messengers of those that handle the pen of the writer. They bring the world to our doors, and convey the most secret and sacred messages of family relationship. The postmaster is a genial and popular favourite. He is a master only in name. I verily believe he is more of a slave than a master, cooped and penned in by public barricades and the red tape of officialdom. The wildest demagogue would scarcely be willing to dismiss the postmaster.

There is yet another of the “bosses” whom I would not like to lose, viz., the leader at our social functions. The M.C. at a dance, for instance, the master of the ball, performs a real and valuable office. Think of the horrible and frightful results were there no master of movements and manners on these occasions. Not only would the dancers jostle and tread on one another’s toes, but the whole spectacle would end in a mad melee of chaotic and calamitous confusion.

But for the rest, probably we could let the rank and file of our masters go into the limbo of oblivion. Our Worshipful Masters, and Masters of Chancery, master printers and master bakers, and the whole list of them, we could get on very well

without. And even our Masters of Arts, —have I not spent a whole long evening with one of these miracles of modem learning, without discovering one artistic faculty in all the dreary jargon of academic scholarship. For pure Art the little masters of sixteenth century Germany were bigger than they, and to-day I think I would as lief talk with my choirmaster.