WAR AND WOOLGATHERING.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 January 1934, Page 9

WAR AND WOOLGATHERING.

(To the Editor.) ' Sir,—H.M.S. Pinafore having emerged in full battle order to discharge a broad-j side of sour-grape-shot, Sir Cavalcade deserts discretion and points his peashooter at the portly galleon. Now, war is all very well if done in the spirit of football matches (some football matches), or even of the more gentlemanly type of wrestling contests. If it were merely a question of rubbing the armour with a little emery paper, of giving the gaily-caparisoned charger a dose of fire-breathing powder, of yelling, “Gadzooks, varlet, have at thee!” and of proceeding harmlessly till a stirrup broke under the weight of the all-metal chassis to deposit the tin god upon the terrain; and for the ladye fayre (there is always a ladye fayre in these stories) to disinter him with a tin-opener and live happily ever after, war would then be a pleasant holiday. We could call up our Athletic Club Javelin Corps, hurl a few disci, draw a bow or two peradventure, and discontinue the jousting on the mead in favour of the roistering with the mead. But, can anyone imagine a Japanese knight in armour, wearing a gas mask and hurling a hand grenade from a tank, while the bewhiskered Rushin’ Cassocks (or are they Cossacks) kept up a steady jazz band effect with machine-gun bullets on his Dutch courage. A suit of armour is hardly the soft answer that turneth away a shell. Were i| liquid fire, too, the man inside the armour would glow’ with the heat of battle. No. Warfare is no longer a game, old Pinafore; it has no longer any fine spirit or grandeur; it merely breeds listlessness and hate and destruction and oblivion—ask the “generation of the broken-hearted” who were unlucky enough to survive the last war. As for Colonel Bouquet, the old rascal thought better of the hornets’ nest-egg he had left behind and sent the following roisterous pearl of' wisdom from Bungo Channel, Japan, where he is apparently continuing his metallurgic and textile investigations: “Developments still developing (hie) absence still unavoidable (hie! stop) if t there's going to be another war (heck! stop) eat,, drink (don’t stop) and be merry (bravo!) for to-morrow you die! (bad luck!).—Signed Colonel Boke, Bungo Channel, Japan.”— I am, etc., CAVALCADE. Stratford, Jan. 26. / [lt is obvious that no useful purpose can be served by further pursuit of the already much-discussed subject of “War, Wool and Japan.”—Ed., News.]