"NOT UNDERSTOOD."

Timaru Herald, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 12912, 1 March 1906, Page 7

"NOT UNDERSTOOD."

:UR BALFOUR'S HEAVY CHAFF. In the' course of the preface to a volume of his speeches and pamphlets on fiscal reform, Mr Balfour makes laboured fun of his ciitice:

" One accidental interest tie contents of this volume possess," In writes, "which is fortunately quite independent of their intrinsic value. They are (it seems) above the comprehension of the Radical Party, which I have just described as the partv of laissez faire. but which quite inaccurately describes itself as the party of Free Trade.

"I must own that at first I did not take these surprising confessions of incapacity very seriously. I regarded them as the somewhat rhetorical expressions of an agreeable modesty, whose too literal interpretation would have shocked none more thiir. their authors. But whc-j one distingwisLeJ politician after another announced h:"s lack of comprehension, when on evcrv platform] in the kingdom they proclaimed." with competitive emphr-sis, the depths of their bewilderment, I felt that furrier doubts on the subject would be insulting. " The man who says he understands when he does not may merely be mistaken: but one who says he doer? not understand when he does must be diceiving with intent. It may therefore be taken 'as eertain that the eminent persons to whom I have referred, and their less eminent disciples, are really incapable of comprehending the arguments and conclusions which find expression in-tbe following- circumstance of curious 'and rather pathetic interest.

_ To find a measure of/intelligence readily applicable to large numbers of educated adults who have passed tie age of examination might seem a task of difficultv. We have, apparently, stumbled on one bv accident But though to the historian the results of its application will doubtless be valuable, to us, who do not wish our generation to appear before posterity in too sorry a light, they can hardly be otherwise than disappointing."