DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 87, Issue 13272, 30 August 1916, Page 4

DAY BY DAY.

"What has become of the Hamilton branch of the Farmers' Hamilton Union" is a question that Farmers' has been frequently askUnion. Ed of late, but no one

seems capable of providing a definite answer, so it must be presumed that it has simply fallen into a moribund state or has died a natural death. Now that the various branches of the Union are discussing the question of amalgamation, it is due to the executive of the Hamilton branch, if indeed an executive still exists, to so organise the district that the branches whose natural and most convenient centre is Hamilton, should be encouraged to meet here instead, as they may be compelled to do, assemble at some other and less convenient town. At the recent conference at Te Awamutu several of the branches invited to cooperate in the new amalgamation proposal favoured the principle, but declared that Hamilton would suit them far better as a central meeting place and for the main depot. Surely encouragement should be given to the inclination. Hamilton, the hub of a wide agricultural district, should have one of the strongest branches in the Dominion.

There is a tradition and a convention in the music of bugle-calls, The just as there is in operatic or Last any other form of composiPost. tion, and to me (says- Fred. E. Wynne in the Maffchester Guardian) "Last Post" always suggests the work of a great artist working in a medium singularly limited. He had but one instrument- incapable of producing harmonies, he had a strictly limited number of notes, he was hampered by conventions, and his* whole effort must not occupy more than a few seconds—certainly less than-a minute. Arid yet he has attempted to give as epitome of human life* and

when the notes come drifting down wind across the tent-lines it does not seem that he has Tailed. There are the opening phases, slow and serious, recalling the solemnity and the slowlypassing years of infancy and childhood, and then the wild, triumphant outburst of youth and adolescence. Then, as passion fades, convention takes the reins, and we have some passages of triviality, the triviality wrapped in convention that too often besets middle age, and then comes a note of warning, the first hint of old age encroaching on the vigour of maturity. It has hardly been heard' and appreciated before we come to the last eight notes, that illuminate the whole thing and i make it a work of genius. They come upon-us with the precipitancy and surprise of declining years, and I know they mean widely different things to different men. I sat one evening with a soldier who was dying and knew it, when he heard what was indeed his "Last Post." He said, "The end of that thins always says to me,' 'Good night, farewell; see you again—perhaps?'" That is the agnostic interpretation, but to other men it means just as strongly "The sure and certain hope of everlasting life." It is a fine tune to go to sleep with, and must be a great tune to die to.