"THE GRINNING GODS."

Observer, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4, 5 October 1912, Page 3

"THE GRINNING GODS."

•Canon Garland's Trumpet Call

IT is perhaps unfair to take the emotional utterances of an orator down, reduce them to cold print, ■examine them word by word, and then pass judgment. Oratory is not nowadays fashionable, mainly because in these business-like times, plain cold statements of facts are most useful. Oratory may stir men to action without appealing to their reasons—by the mere music of sound, the whipping of emotions, the rush of words. Canon Garland, who incidentally has been trying to introduce the Bible into New Zealand day schools, is, it appears, also an Imperialistic orator, and although he only infers it, he bids us jump to arms to stem the inrush of the yellow hordes over the hills of Auckland.

The orator, standing forth invigorated by the heat of his message and the burning desire to say something uncommon, remarks : " Two paths are open, one is Imperial consolidation by federation ; the other despair, disarmament, and disintegration if Britain and the Dominions insist on isolated grandeur, and the adherence to parish pump views, whilst the grinning gods of the Orient crawl from the teeming and gluttonous East with the knife of rapine, death, and desolation between their teeth. . I would not unduly stir the slumbers of Australasia, but I must—as all Imperialists must—sound the gong of warning/

You see orators are not in the least specific. Canon Garland says " federate"—he doesn't say how. He may mean a commercial federation by Imperial free trade. He may mean something about Sir Joseph Ward's Imperial Parliament of Defence. He may mean that we should order a navy of our own at once, or he may mean merely a federation by oratory. He says the alternative to this more or less vague confederation (which no statesman has yet defined) is disarmament and disintegration " if we insist on isolated grandeur." The Canon may have noticed that Britain has not reclaimed the North Sea and therefore still unfortunately remains insular, or, of course, he may mean that the Empire should fraternise with other nations and swap colonies with them. He may also mean that we should dilute our isolation by inviting the yellow man to Australia and New Zealand, Canada, and the other bits of the "isolated" Empire, and then again he may mean the isolation of oratory. * * *

The Canon is rather annoyed with Britain and the Dominions for . their "parish pump views/ but unfortunately he states no views of his own— for there is nothing constructive or indicative in the above excerpt. He doesn't show the poor old Empire how it is to be saved. He only tells it that if it isn't pretty sharp it will lose itself. But perhaps the Canon is at his top notch when he alludes to the supposition that "the grinning gods of the Orient" may " crawl from the teeming and gluttonous East with.the knife of rapine." Sounds dreadtul, doesn't it ? The " grinning gods _at the moment are clearing up after two or three typhoons, which have swept off several times the population of New

Zealand. The other section of grinning gods (why "gods," by the way ?) are still worrying about the Mikado's demise. There is no indication of that knife—haven't even seen a distant flash of it. They haven't been knifing anybody lately, and never did knife anybody half so effectively as Canon Garland's own race bayonetted folks in several places in our "isolated " Empire. In fact the Canon isn't quite fair to the Chinaman or our little brown brother—and between us, not at all conclusive, authoritative or likely to guide us out of the dreadful tangle he foresees.

" I would not unduly stir the slumbers of Australasia,' he exclaims. That's it ! Now we know why the Canon spoke. We're all asleep. Nobody sees anything, knows anything, feels anything—except our distinguished visitor. "I must sound the gong of warning." That's it again ! Nobody ever noticed anything before, and he has called.our attention to it. It seems rather a waste of precious time banging a gong in a tiny little country like this. The Canon should pull John Bull's ear and point to the North Sea. No one has ever done it before—not even Roberts or Beresford. But after all, the Canon may be merely an orator and not an emancipator, and oratory is interesting if not constructive. He probably does not mean that he is the only person on earth who has heard of the menace of the East. He merely oratorically infers it, and he is not necessarily capable , of clothing his speech with sound advice that will show us how to keep the grinning gods at bay. For that wouldn't be oratory.