HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE.

Waikato Times, Volume 107, Issue 17964, 8 March 1930, Page 6

HERE, THERE & EVERYWHERE.

(3y “Gleaner.”)' GENERAL SMUTS ON THE EMPIRE. In a series of notable speeches delivered during his Canadian tour General Smuts has suggested some 'guiding principles for the development of the British Empire without the sacrifice of national and political freedom. The point on which he most strongly insists is the need of unity; he thinks the idea of equality of status can be pushed too far. Fanatics and legalists, he said, could think only of equality, and they even went so far as to suggest five kings for the Commonwealth. ‘ln place of such “nonsense" he suggests three means of Imperial con# solidation. First, the Crown as the focus of unily and loyalty. Secondly, the development of the Imperial Conference as the body to mould Imperial policy. Thirdly, the encouragement of diplomatic representation of the Dominions in such a way as not to impair the diplomatic unity of the Empire. Family friendship, which found its most important manifestation in the British Commonwealth was, he said, also the real essence of the growing pacification of the world. • * * .• AMERICAN AND BRITISH ENGLISH. Our friend and critic Mr H. L. Mencken. has been telling us in the press that we are adopting.-the American language. Twenty years ago he was convinced that the English and American languages were going to part “brass rags.” Now he finds that that is not to happen because we on this side are adopting the American language. It has its truth, hut Mr Mencken, who thinks it arises from the war, is a bad historian. It began long ■before the war. It began with the free circulation of American books and magazines in England and the Dominions. We owe a great debt to America (as great as that other debt in a different and harder' currency) for bringing us back to our Anglo-Saxon. It did not, as he thinks, spread from below upwards. . It had nothing to "do with film “captions.” The dead hand of the Latinate eighteenth century had lain heavy upon us too long, and when America, a rustic English-speaking community, presented us 'with fresh, lively, peasant; English expressions like “up against it,” "nothing to it” (quite different from "nothing, in it”), “try out” (more than “try”), “fed up" (for “satiated” or, as Yorkshire people say, “right stalled”), and so on —well, of course, we welcomed them, and the first people to welcome them were the fastidious connoisseurs of English, conspicuously the late G. E. Montague. But let Mr Mencken take note that we have not accepted the comic American word “elevator” for the English “lift" or “hoist.” We have not adopted “side walk” for “pavement,” and we have scarcely adopted the silly hybrid “subway” for “underground.” In language, as in commerce, we import the best and leave the rest. * * * * THE HUMBLE ENGLISH. ' Mr Mencken has one or two, other things to say to us. He talks of the “London dialect.” There is none. He means, perhaps, the London pronunciation. There are three or four of-them, from Whitechapel to the telephone girl. It is true we do not say “woik” for “work" or “foist” for “first," but we do things just as bad. The pronunciation of a cultivated American is easily understood by a cultivated Englishman, and that is good enough. . The subject is interesting and almost endless, but .when Mr Mencken speaks of the old lofty confidence, the old pride, the old postulates of infallibility as characteristic of the English one can only gasp. There is a nation to which these terms can rightly he applied, but it is not the English nation. We are the most self-depreciating people on earth. Mark Twain (an American satirical writer not now read in America) perfectly understood this national characteristic. The English, he said, are mentioned in the Bible: “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

* * * • THE MACHINE AND THE CONCERT. There has been of late much loose and despondent talk about the effect of mechanised music upon the publio taste and upon the interests of the musical profession. This sort of talk has been inspired, quite evidently, more by prejudice than by observation and thought. The gramophone and the wireless broadcast have had an immense influence in making good ■music popular. But what of professional interests? That is a more difficult question, but Sir Hamilton Harty’s recent speech goes a good way towards answering it. He says that during the last five years there has been an extraordinary fresh outburst of interest in music, and he has noticed at his concerts an entirely new public. If the new means of hearing music do not keep people away from the concert hall it is difficult to see how the profession suffer, for they have in addition to their concert fees the profits of recitals lor the gramophone and the wireless. The effect of the talkies upon those who earn their living in “movie” orchestras is another matter, but here real music is seldom concerned. * # * * THE SHEARER FIASCO. Mr Shearer, the big-navy propagandist, has been steadily diminishing as a figure on the public stage for some time, and the revelation which is now made of the real character of his famous "secret British document” puts him In almost complete eclipse. The author of the document, Dr. W. J. A. Maloney, has just appeared before" the United States''of America Senate Committee and identified his offspring. What he says confirms the statement made at the beginning of ■the Committee’s investigations—that Lhe document was a burlesque forgery. Dr. Maloney says lie wrote it in 1919 to counter the pro-British propaganda of Lord Norlhcliffe in America. The Friends of Irish Freedom circulated the document freely, and probably many of its readers took it seriously. However, in 1921, Dr. Maloney told frankly in -the columns of several newspapers how the thing came into existence. Y’et six years later it was brought by Mr Shearer to American naval officials, who had it photographed page by page as damning evidence of British intrigue. . The only man who seems still to cherish a belief that the document has some value, if not authenticity, is Mr Shearer himself, who reiterates that it contains “important revelations.”