DAY BY DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 109, Issue 18309, 21 April 1931, Page 6

DAY BY DAY.

“Where snobbery prevails in education, in. social conThe Snobbery tacts and in politics, of men are so befogged The Artisan, that they cannot see

economic issues clearly. They call social services ‘burdens on the Exchequer,’ and preach ‘economy’ when they desire to excuse selfishness,” writes Dr. C. Delisle Burns in. the Daily Herald. “But how can one be angry about it? It Is not, of course, polite to laugh at the British lion or bulldog; but his manners are too peculiar to be taken quite seriously. He is incredibly ‘uppish,’ even when he does not belong to what he likes to call the ‘upper’ classes. I know a town In England in which one ‘class” of raihvaymen feels superior to another ‘class’ of rallwaymen; and the wives of the different grades will not meet socially. I have seen snobbery expressed by skilled engineers in their manner twards the labourers on whom they depend In the exercise of their skill. These attitudes of superiority and uppishness may be reinforced by economic differences; but they lie deeper down than the eye of the economist or tho political theorist can penetrate. They are survivals of an absolete culture, like picturesque and unhealthy cottages In a mediaeval English village. They may bo interesting to the observer; but they are very bad for the health of those who live in them. The Incidental results of snobbery and of flunkey-ism In- those who ‘love a lord’ are to be seen in the aridity and nervelessness of the present form of civilisation in Great Britain, But the most amusing of all the results is tho illusion of the ‘uppish’ that they are civilised.”