GLEANINGS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 59, Issue 4187, 18 September 1939, Page 5

GLEANINGS

FROM HERE AND THERE. NOT A SOUND WAS HEARD. (By Ploughman). In the city of Auckland, a huge Government building is—or, I should say, was—-in course of construction. It has The makings, but only the makings, of a magnificent structure. Great and costly steel beams and glirders of the kind that only Governments can use, rise some seven storeys into the sky. But for months —or is it years—not a hammer has teen heard, not a bolt has been driven home. I was in town the other day, and while walking past this “silent tomb,” I noticed a young fellow with his ear jammed up tight against a h le in the wooden fence in front of the building. “Here,” he called to me, as 1 passed; “Listen here for a minute.” I did. “I can’t hear a sound,” I said. “I know,” he replied; “It’s been like that for weeks.” And, grinning broadly, he walked off, leaving me wondering a little.

MILITARY PAY. No one could describe our old soldiers as “war-profiteers.” I discovered the other day that a French soldier is giving his all to pierce the Siegfried line for the princely reward of lid per day. The Russian soldier is sitting on his non-aggression pacts for a little less than 3d a day, and ■enjoying it. The Nazi followers of Herr Hitler are delighted to march through Poland “taking no prisoners” all for 10id a day. In Britain the rate is Is 6d, in New Zealand 7s, and in Australia, 8s per day. But the Public Works men who build the camps where the soldiers learn how to fight—what do they get? Of course, some of them work very late at night. It’s a funny world. Our isense of values plays curious tricks. We pay normal wages to men to build military camps; and then we pay rather less to the men who are to use the camps in order to fit themselves to defend us and ours. And we sometimes even grudge them their pensions!

CUTTING IT DOWN! In his most interesting book entitled “Inside Asia,” Mr John Gunther tells us that, in Japan, matches have been reduced in length by .029 of an inch,—that is, by about l-30th of an inch. This little economy results in a saving of just about £60,000 in the value of timber used, Marvellous, isn’t it? But why stop at matches? What about applying a similar process to the speeches of members of Parliament? After all, our New Zealand legeslative machine costs us all just about £lOOO per day! Take five minutes off each and every speech, and what would we lose? Or, should I say, what would we gain ? My notebook reveals the fact that the phrase “getting on with the job” has been used 117 times in the pase felw years, and I don’t always listen-in to the speeches in the House. It is just possible that I might have missed a few! And as for the phrases “soup-kitchens,” “slavecamps” and “gangster-financiers,” well, we just had to send those note books to the destructor. And Japan can save £60,000 a year just by shortening a match!

HOW VOTES ARE BOUGHT. If a candidate for election to Parliament were to be so unwise as to invite his friends and supporters to be his guests at a “strawberries and cream” party, it is possible that the election sould be declared null and void in the law courts of the country. If, however, he offered them National Insurance For All Without Payment, the election could not invalidated. But why not? Apparently, the law describes one as “Bribery at an Election.” The other is quite innocent and is not frowned upon by the law. The essential difference seems to be that in one case the candidate made use of his own money; in the other case he was hoping to charge his promise to the Consolidated Fund, that is, the electors themselves w v ould pay for their own fun. A very well-known Australian politician told his electors that, if his Party were returned to office, the wheat-growers would have £15,000,000 provided for them. Will he win? He should. Electors like that kind of stuff. Yet in that type of electioneering lie the seeds of the end of democracy. Carry this method to its logical extreme and democracy must bankrupt itself. And. then what ?

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF. In “The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page” by B. J. Hendrick, there appears on page 328 the following most interesting passage: “The danger, of course, is that the Kaiser, after a local Victory—'especially if he should yet take Pa,ris —will propose peace, saying that he dreads the very sight of blood—propose peace in time, as he will hope, to save his throne, his dynasty, his system. That will be a dangerous day. The horror of war will have a tendency to make many persons in the countries of the Allies accept it. All the peace folk in the world will say “accept it!” But if he and his throne and his dynasty, and his system be saved in 25 years the whole job must be done iover again.” Tha,t passage was written in a letter to Colonel House, dated the 22nd September 1914. If we substitute “Hitler” for “Kaiser,” and “Warsaw” for “Paris,” how very closely the paragraph would fit the conditions which exist to-day.