CURRENT COMMENT.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 June 1930, Page 17 (Supplement)

CURRENT COMMENT.

OTHER POINTS OF VIEW

(By

M.O.S.)

Why be b.illious? aska an advertisement in a city .‘newspaper, " Exactly. • Why hot-be simply bilious. ■' . ■■ * s#. ■ * • $ .

■Biliousness leads to spleen and, after ■ all, it. might ;'hiive been. Only a ruffled - digestion’ which caused Mr. Baxter, the • manager of. the British Rugby team, to - call , the New : Zealand wing-forward a : cheat. Nevertheless the affair is rapid-ly-becoming an affair of national -importance.. In‘thoughtful political circles , it is even felt that Mr. Forbes A grave risk in revealing, the sad state of, the finances of the country when it was reeling under the shock of one national disaster already,

- . Gallantly pouring buckets of, oil on - the raging waters, Mr. J. McLeod, chair-. • man of the Taranaki Rugby Union, said the whole thing was just a storm in a . teacup. Mr. McLeod’s teacup theory has, after ' serious ; consideration, been rejected. The man in the street knows : too'much about football dinners to • swallow that. • * . * * In fact, at Auckland, the president of ; the .Auckland Rugby. Union (Mr. J. ■ Arneil), reproached M r - Baxter very ’ bitterly for what he had said about. the ■ wing-forward, but Mr. Baxter, when he was shown the remarks of Mr. Arneil, pierely 'declared: “I am not interested. Who is this man?” A very palpable ' ftit and one only regrets that Mr. Baxter did not go a little further and-add: “What is this Auckland?” .'#■ # # # Auckland is very upset “"about the whole thing, the general feeling, being that Mr. Baxter, having come out to New Zealand as. a great forger of the bonds'of Empire, should now be charged with travelling under false pro- - .fences.- •• ; * * # * - geeking for one little ray of light amidst the universal gloom, however, it .ia comforting to remember that, the whole . trouble-.-should have started in Taranaki. This is the sort of thing to put" us on the map. It Ls now considered fairly certain that ■ mapmakers in future will be particularly careful to mark off a decently sized portion round <Jape .Egmont and that, underneath geographiste will write: Taranaki, a,,fertile ( Baxter '•-'Said the wing-forward in New Zealand was a cheat and where_ one little hen laid an average of T. 0005 eggs per day for 365 days. # # * * With regard to the latter, it is distressing to read that Mr. . Fawcett, Government economist, considers the present, unsatisfactory position of the poultry industry in New Zealand to-day Is due largely to over-production. Someone—and admittedly it is an unpleasant task but it must .be faced—someone ' must .let the little hen know about it. •#. * * * Altogether, the feminine sex is coming In for a good deal of criticism in these, days. People are constantly being fed with aimless- rubbish from all quarters' pf the wlobeon'. subjects such as “Have Knees Aesthetic Value” or “High Waists qwd Low Tastes” or “A Clergyman's Views on Legs” until, truth to tell, it becomes a trifle difficult to stomach. 1 for one have become so, surfeited. that now I positively revel in a pithy three Column article on, say, “The Effects on Egyptian Civilisation of the Salt Tax Instituted by 'Ramesee HL” c Economic Value of the Tin Mines of Cornwall, A Study based on the Statistics of the past Fifty Years. And sometimes one even yearns for the deal, dead days of the nineties, when people Vised to ' talk, about the soul instead of the body. » « * * Even anatomical disquisitions are better than' the particularly valueless contribution to knowledge of the National Association of Schoolmasters in England. These wiseacres, according to a cable from overseas, met at Manchester for the annual conference, and ■unanimously deplored “the influence of Women teachers.” It was argued, the cable stated, “that a boy under the influence of a woman teacher would not become a 100 per cent, he-man and that, if the teaching of boys remained feminised the whole nation would become feminised and dnk below other nations.” Eor the sake of their intellects, even at the expense of their integrity, one can hope that these grave gentlemen of England were looking at the matter with a purely commercial' eye.

The Dunedin Education Board for ■whom there is no such excuse, took the matter up and discussed it seriously. .And few would be surprised if these honest but humourless gentlemen were Shortly to bring down a long report stating that, though the employment of ■women teachers in New Zealand schools aid not appear to have any undue influence over the male pupils, there weie strong grounds for believing that it was inclined 3 to make the female pupils Effeminate. ■*# * * As for breeding one hundred per cent, he-man, the fewer the better. We know —thanks to the enlightening influence of the cinema—we know our hemen well. They eat peas with a knife, ihey are rude to their parents, they fluster, swagger and rant and, in Britain, they probably play wing-forward. .’# # * * Meanwhile, in the interests of imperial Welfare, one can only hope that no innocent old gentlemen, travelling on the Eame train as the British team, will, be (jo careless as to stand on the station platform outside Mr. Baxter’s window cpd call in a loud, offensive .voice: p ‘