The Waikato Times, THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE, AND KAWHIA ADVOCATE. Established Thirty-Two Years. THE OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE WAIKATO. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY DAILY PAPER SOUTH OF AUCKLAND. THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1904.

Waikato Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6408, 5 May 1904, Page 2

The Waikato Times, THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE, AND KAWHIA ADVOCATE. Established Thirty-Two Years. THE OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE WAIKATO. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY DAILY PAPER SOUTH OF AUCKLAND. THURSDAY, MAY 5, 1904.

PATRIOTISM—SOLID AND GASEOUS. A correspondent, whose letter we published yesterday, takes exception to the tone of the remarks we made in acknowledging receipt of the annual report of the Royal Society of St. George. We said, in Shakespearean metaphor, that some of the rhetoric in the letter which accompanied the report, was " laid on with a trowel," but our correspondent, Mr Crisp, replied that it might have been laid on much thicker, and he proceeded to do so. But, strange to say, his list of English worthies and his praise of them moved us, not to smiles as Mr Ruff's did, but to admiration and sympathy. The one contribution struck us as mere rhetoric, and the other as something much better. The Royal Society of St. George seems to us to encourage the liquid and gaseous patriotism of champagne and postprandial oratory, rather than the solid patriotism of good deeds. Of course a New Zealand or a Waikato branch of the Society might be somewhat more earnest and thoughtful than its parent in London. If it made it a chief part of its aim to keep in remembrance the worthies of England, it would be worthy of the support of every lover of his country or his kind. Of all the influences that may make the life of a community more gracious, dignified, and public-spirited, few are more powerful than the study and recollection of the deeds and sayings of great men. It is deplorable that such a force for good is so little in evidence in this country. The names Mr Crisp mentioned in our columns, are not often mentioned in any colonial newspaper, and they are as little thought of in the daily life of the community. A Wordsworth is needed to proclaim that " great men have been among us," and to urge us to make our public and private actions as dignified as theirs. If, in the lack of a Wordsworth, a St. George's Society can do it, let us have one by all means. Let its temper be " not frothy and loquacious, but operative, unadulterated, and sincere." Let it partake of the spirit of the Dickens Fellowship in England, one of whose objects is "to take such measures as may be expedient to remedy or ameliorate those existing social evils which would have appealed so strongly to the heart of Charles Dickens, and to help in every possible direction the cause of the poor and the oppressed," and which makes feasts, not to air the eloquence of its members, but to feed the poor and cheer the aged and afflicted. Or let the suggested Society emulate the earnestness of another in England, which has lately been formed to study the prose works of Milton, for the sake of the light they may throw on public questions akin to those on which he wrote. Or, if no such immediate aim present itself, let it nt least not be forgotten that what England asks of her sons is " four-o'clock-in-the-morning " patriotism rather than the after-dinner variety. Let them speak " after the use of the English, in straight-flung words and few," and let them learn with Spenser that " Who seeks with painful toil shall honour soonest find."