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In England the poet and the novelist are obstructed in a way which is not yet common in New Zealand. If they cannot prove that they spend a set number of hours each week actively writing, they are liable to be directed into 'useful' employment—mines, factories, or that greater horror, government departments. It would have gone hard with Rilke, Waiting eleven years for the Duinese Elegies, if he had lived in post-war England. Such thing are not yet an obstruction to the New Zealand writer, whatever the future might hold in the way of manpower direction. But there is one problem, certainly very acute, which may well be more acute here than in the rest of the world. We suffer from a serious lack of publishers.
The Caxton Press is of course the mainstay, but one press does not make a heaven. Although if does not print a great number of books, it is edifying to see a businessman putting out even a few products upon which he is sure to lose money. But the choice of books is different matter. There are three volumes so far in the Caxton Poets series. The choice of Baxter and Brasch was good, but Hart-Smith's mediocre volume raises the question whether the materials and effort could not have been better devoted to a volume from Curnow, Dowling, Wilson or Campbell. A cheap edition of Gaskell's The Big Game was worth while. But where was the point in printing a similar cheap edition of Sargeson's When the Wind Blows—a fragment already merged into a novel to be published in England? Again, what purpose was served by the vague and repetitious Creative Problems in New Zealand, when all that was said there had been already said? And finally, what motive stood behind those delicately hand-set volumes of ballads, all of them already available in any good collection?
But the problem is a general one, rather than restricted to the policy of one press. If Glover printed nothing but contemporary prose and verse, a large amount of good work would remain unprinted, simply because there are in adequate physical resources in the country. An occasional grubby volume has emerged from the Handcraft Press; the Pelorus Press has, it seems, been printing the same volume of verse for two years, and is still printing it; there are rumours of a new series of poets to come from A. H. and A. W. Reid. But the situation is still unsatisfactory. The duty of initiative still rests with the magazines.
Insofar as this magazine has any policy, it is the print as much poetry, fiction, polemic and scholarship, as we, in fallibility, judge good. To that end, we have done without reviews and commentary, choose neither to do battle with muddle-headed painters in Christchurch and inhibited censors in Wellington, nor to discuss the duty of the state towards musicians, actors and writers. This neglect springs not from a contempt of these causes, but from a feeling that they are already well covered, and not, essentially, as important as the job of publishing poems, stories and essays, Such an intention is perhaps hardly a policy, but it is a purpose, and a job to be done. And in doing this job, we intend to print as much of the work of each contributors a possible, either in one number, or in successive numbers. All writers would prefer to have their own volumes on sale, but because that is not often possible, it will be our purpose to bring out as much of their work as we can. We thing this is a job worth doing because other ways do not exist.
After breakfast Margaret wandered off by herself. She did not want to be with the grown ups who never did anything interesting and the five year olds were just a bother because she always ended up by having to keep an eye on them. When you were thirteen you didn't want to play with children and the rest of the family were fussy and stodgy.
She did not know what to do with the morning. She did not want to walk south to the river because it made her tired walking miles and miles through loose sand and she did not think it worth the effort on such a hot day. She thought of going north towards the little stream, for that was not so far. She could walk along the beach and come back by road. She liked the way the sandhills fell back as the stream reached the sea and closed in again as you followed it up. Further on where it was very hot and sheltered there was pig fern as high as your shoulder and nasturtiums and convolvulus growing wild. After the dry lupin land this wilderness where she could feel things grow, was a most important discovery; but as she had been to the stream yesterday and knew exactly what it was like, there did not seem to be anything new to be found there she did not know what to do with herself.
She wandered aimlessly on, skirting a line of young pine trees which grew vigorously among the sandhills. When she was much older there would be quite a shady belt of them. Now they were nothing. She swished through the coarse, brown grass thinking that if the trees were bigger they might be worth climbing if you liked climbing. But you could hardly climb these—they had only about five or six strong branches. She stopped beside one of the trees and put her foot between the trunk and the first branch and then stood upright on it. The end of the branch curved up pas her head. She leaned forward and caught hold of it and doing so dislodged her feet. The branch yielded to her fall like a piece of elastic; until she was no longer above it but hanging underneath. It was quite exhilarating.. She thought how much she would have enjoyed it when she was younger. She got to her feet and tried it again. The branch dipped and swung, the air rushed by, the sky flew away. Flying was probably like this. She did it twice more. The last time she gave herself a good downward push to make the swing sensational, but her hands did not turn quickly enough and she had to let go. She hit the ground with a thud.
There was a movement's darkness and then everywhere pinpoints of light. She could not breathe. She was suffocating. There was a terrible pain in her chest; and a great sea of darkness waiting to overwhelm her. She fought it back desperately; she had never before experienced such an inside pain. Her stomach was smashed; she had broken her back most likely; she would die. The darkness was going now because she was keeping very still, but she knew she was done for. She lay noting everything very carefully, nothing everything very carefully, waiting for her senses to blur.
Looking up she saw the sky overhead, very blue, very far away; she saw the brown branches of the tree rising upwards to soft green leaders; she saw the grass beside her, sturdy and brown, growing past her in the sun. Even the toi-toi bush grew strongly in a sandy fashion, raising bedraggled feathers above her. These things seemed far away, yet very important.
She knew suddenly that everybody who had died before her had reached this, and that everybody who had lived after would come to it; and for a movement she felt herself one of this multitude and her thoughts were silenced by fear and awe; and then in another instant she was by herself again, alone and terrified.
I will not die, I will not die, she cried passionately. But immediately a whisper seemed to say—
Oh yes you will. Yes you will. You've got no say in it now.
This is unfair she thought, horrified at the meaning of it. I am only half-grown.
The other part of her which she was always having to live with now, said, you've had thirteen years. That's your lot. What do you make of it?
It was unfair, and she could not make anything of it.
Perhaps she should call out for help. No, they would come and make a fuss and want to move her and she would die in agony in a bumping car. Everybody would be pretending for everybody else's sake that they weren't really upset, and they would tell her that she would soon be better, and they would promise bicycles. This time she could not stand it. She would just stay here quietly by herself. She did not move; but lay waiting.
Far away an aeroplane was droning. She could hear the breakers rolling in on the beach. She moved her arm slightly so that she could feel the sand in her fingers. It was hot and gritty. It must have gravel it in, even here. She raised her shoulders very carefully to see if she was right. A sandhopper jumped on to her arm. She shooed it off. She did not feel as bad as she had thought. She tried sitting up very slowly. Nothing happened. Perhaps then, if she stood up very very carefully, she might be able to go slowly towards home and get to her bedroom without being seen. With infinite care she drew herself on to her feet, using the tree as a support. She was astonished that she felt no pain whatever. She began taking little footsteps and found she could walk quite easily. Her eyes opened wide with surprise, there is nothing wrong with me she thought. I am not going to die at all!
A wave of joy swept over her and she wanted to dance and dance among the sandhills. She had escaped! She had escaped!
But the other part of her said there had never really been anything to escape from—she had just been very silly that was all.
There is front of her stood the tree that had caused all the trouble. She looked at it with distaste, but some feeling stopped her from touching it. She didn't think she'd try that again for a while. She was too old to be swinging in trees anyway.
What was she going to do with herself now? Now that she was living what would she do?
She began to walk away through the lupins kicking the grass angrily because she had straight hair and legs like pipe-cleaners.
The corporal watched the day break. He stood up, but felt so tired he sand to his knees again. He stayed on his knees a moment. Leaning over, he shook the sleeping figure of the private lying beside him. The private muttered irritably, went on dozing, then sat up with a start. The corporal was exploring his haversack for food. They decided to eat before they started to rejoin their Company.
The two men sat opposite each other and each opened a tin of rations. The corporal paid much attention to opening his tin. He gazed sadly at the hash in it. They both ate. The corporal picked up the curled seal of the tin and unwound it while he ate. He examined this minor mechanism with interest and wound it into a spiral. He held the spiral in his hand and flipped it from side to side. The private went on eating.
An ant clambered from the corporal's shirt on to his hand. He watched it intently. It crawled over the back of his hand and through the narrow tunnel between his fingers to the palm. He turned his hand over and cupped the palm. The ant rested for a moment. Then it scurried up the steep ridge of his palm. He pushed it back into the pit with the metal spiral. Cautiously this time, the ant sloped around the bottom of its prison, then made a dash up the side and on to his fingers. But the spiral was suddenly there in front of it. It turned around and ran back to the hollow. Slowly it crawled up the side again. He stalked it with the spiral and caught its back leg. The ant felt the weight and fell back again. Finally, the corporal tired of watching its struggles. When it tried once more he smiled indulgently and, squeezing his forefinger, catapulted it with a flick on to the ground.
Both men had finished eating by this time. They watched the sky, catching a momentary glimpse of three planes as they whined above the screen of trees and vines. The sun was gradually rising higher. They started to sweat, profusely.
The corporal tied a handkerchief round his neck to keep the sweat off the neckband of his shirt. He edged towards the corner of the foxhole and beckoned his companion to follow him. The private was cautious. He persuaded the corporal to wait until they felt more certain they were alone in the gully. They lay on the ground and listened.
Hiding in a foxhole they had found at the bottom of a damp gully, covered with unhealthy jungle undergrowth and sprawling decayed trees entangled with a myriad vines, the two men had spent the night sleeping and keeping watch alternately. They had been cut off from their patrol during a skirmish the previous afternoon. Now it was morning and they must try to return to their Company. But not yet. It was wisher to wait. If any of the enemy were in the gully, they would be easy targets the instant they crawled out of the foxhole. They listened to the incessant clamour of the jungle, trying to distinguish any sounds that might be human.
Through the gap between the two logs on top of the foxhole they watched dark, muttering rain-clouds bullock across the blue sky. The corporal looked at the side of the foxhole. He picked up the metal spiral and wrote his name on the earthen wall. Under his name he wrote the name of an obscure village. He looked wistfully at the inscription for a few minutes. Would these, the letters of his name and his home-town, be the last remnants of his life? Ants were scampering along the side of the foxhole. The corporal watched them leave their fragile footprints, little driblets of earth, traced across his name.
A parakeet flew across the sky, squawking stupidly into the jungle. There was a sudden rustle of leaves. Both men tensed, alert, listening closely. The sky was black now and scowling. There was another rustling, Closer this time. The corporal's hands clutched the trigger of hi tommy-gun. The private quietly crouched at the side of the foxhole, knife in hand. A few drops of rain fell. The two men were suspended, breathless, and expectant. They felt their mouths dry, their tongues hard and swollen. There was a sudden scurry and a big lizard crawled over the logs. They waited. The rain became heavier like the minutes that pressed past them. They listened for suspicious sounds in the undergrowth. There were none—only the steady thunder of the rain.
The rain was so heavy they couldn't see the top of the gully. They decided to start. The corporal crawled an inch at a time over the logs. He waited for any signs that he may have been seen. He shifted his eyes over the confusion of vines and trees. He crawled quickly to a bamboo thicket. He whistled softly and the private slid over too. A fleeting smile passed between the two men. They stood up slowly and looked around. The bamboos were over their head. The rain was still pouring down but the jungle seemed quiet and safe. They slung their weapons and made their way through the rain up the gully.
They were about twenty-five yards from the top when a shot whizzed past them. They flattened themselves behind a big tree. The corporal peered through the leave but could see nothing—nothing but the thousand places a man could be hidden. Under cover of the tree, they edged down the gully again. At the bottom they separated and came up very slowly on opposite sides, crawling on their stomachs through the slime. The rain was blinding. Another wild shot checked them, but they continued to advance cautiously. The sniper wasn't much good. He'd missed twice. They crawled further up the narrowing sides of the gully. Neither of them could spot the sniper.
But on the crest of the ridge the sniper was waiting for them to crawl closer. This time he would let them come near the rim of their prison, then he would squeeze his forefinger and catapult them into oblivion. He smiled to himself.
Suddenly the corporal came into his sights, Only ten rainy yards away. The sniper squeezed it an ant rushed from his cap across his right eye. the shot went wide. He rushed his hand up to brush the ant away. But a burst from the corporal's gun hit him. He fell into the mud with his hand still trying to get the
But by the then there were a thousand ants crawling over his eyes, his face, his chest, his legs, over his whole body.
There was nothing to stop them.
That morning on the bus I knew I'd be taking the day off work. The disastrous effect of absenteeism on national industry didn't worry me. It was a clear summer morning, mist rising off the seaside lagoons, gulls gliding on a gentle wind—too good to spend sweating over hot steel in a foundry, As the bus passed by the works I could see plumes of steam against the black ramshackle roofs. They were getting ready for another day, without me. I was free to do what I liked; the thought gave me a sudden feeling of recklessness and power.
In town the streets were empty. The water waggon had been past, and the gutters were still clean and dripping. I walked down by the wharves to look at the ships. There were only a few tugs, like bedraggled ducks, moored at the land end of the main wharf; but further out lay a Home boat riding in the water. One could see a gun turret at the stern and the strange blunt antennae of radar. I strolled towards her, eating my sandwich lunch and throwing pieces to the gulls that dived and squabbled in the scummy green swells. The dark blue uniform of a policeman showed for a moment from behind a shed. I turned back towards the gate, trying to look casual but feeling as though I had been caught out in a crime.
The feeling of guilt stayed with me as i went up town again. Tomorrow I would have to tell the foreman I had been offcolour. He would believe me, but it was a shabby kind of lie. And one of my mother's friends might see me in town and mention it to her—more explaining to do. I stopped by the Crown Hotel and rolled myself a cigarette. It had just opened. A girl knelt scrubbing the steps; the shining swing-doors beckoned me in.
The barman was publishing glass. "A great day"—the phrase was worn and meaningless, what he had said a thousand time before. "You going out to the trots?"
"I might be later on." I bought a handle and drank it slowly, discussing the chances of various horses. Then an old man with redrimmed eyes and shrivelled face shuffled into the bar. He knew the barman. Soon they were talking about Harry who had died and George who had gone up north. I could drink in quiet.
After about five beers and sourness had gone and I was no longer conscious of my third-best trousers. My face in the bar mirror seemed mysterious and handsome, the face of a Don Juan or young genius gone to seed. The bar was filling up—business-men having their morning quick one, old soaks feeling the tide rise again after the night's dryness. The sun glittered on the coloured rows behind the barman's head. I was ready for anything. Then the swing-door creaked to let in a stocky red-faced youth in a leather coat and sailor's jersey. He propped himself on the bar and ordered a double rum. The English burr in his voice was like a draught of seawind. I remembered the Home boat down at the wharves, tall and self-possessed beside the scrubby tugs.
I was wondering how to speak to him without seeming intrusive when he saved me the trouble. "Got a match, mate?" he asked. I gave him a half-full box and told him to keep them. "Have a rum," he invited. "That chemical muck goes through you like a dose of salts."
I finished my beer and join him. He stood with his coat open, one foot on the brass rail. His eyes were a hard blue, set far apart, with high cheekbones and brows slanted a little. He drank his rum neat as if it were lemonade. I mixed mine with a good deal of cloves. As the drink loosened his tongue he became more talkative. Peter Johnson was his name, from Manchester. He had spent eight of his twenty-four yeras at sea, but was still an A.B. "i've not got the college learning to pass the exam," he said. "But I can splice a wire cable and take my turn at the wheel with any man. I've been logged half may pay for coming aboard drunk, but they can't say anything about my work." He had been torpedoed once in the North Atlantic and spent twelve hours in the water; had seen the backside of every
By twelve o'clock my head was swimming and the floor undulated gently. Whenever I shut my eyes I fell down a black shaft towards the centre of the earth. Pete was less drunk. "Come and have a binder," he urged me. "I've not had a feed since yesterday." I let him lead me into the street. The movement and fresh air sobered me a little. We found an upstairs grill room and sat down to slabs of steak flooded with Worcester sauce. I was happy again, but felt as if I were cased in glass that might splinter at a touch. Sweat was standing out on Pete's forehead. "Come down to the boat," he said, "and meet the boys. We'll go back to the boozer after. The old girl sails tomorrow and she's short-handed. You can sign on as a deckhand."
The idea seemed a fine one. To cut clear from the whole tangle of shore life, father, mother, job, morning and evening anxiety. Strange pubs, foreign girls, myself a man among men. The world I knew drowned in an always widening wake. I could go in the clothes I stood up in. "All right," I said, "let's go."
We paid for the meal and climbed down the stairs to the street again. A curdled pale blue sky stood over the sunny buildings. Above iron-roofed bungalows the dark green bush belt slept like an animal. The town had never looked more beautiful to me. Down on the wharves a fresh wind wrinkled the harbour water.
I remembered the policeman. "Maybe they won't let me come on board," I said.
"We'll dodge up when there's no one round," he said. "The b— bosun's the only man likely to squeal."
We climbed the steep swinging gangway. I felt I was leaving my life behind me, coming into a new dangerous world. Wood smell, tar smell and paint smell carried with them the unique atmosphere of a ship. A blast of music came from a radio in the fo'c'sle. The officer superintending the loading of cargo took no notice as Pete led me forward. We entered a narrow corridor that led us to the crew's quarters. Three men sat eating at a wooden table—one lantern-jawed, who spoke with a Yankee twang; the one a tough-looking curly-headed Irishman; the last a huge Swede, who said nothing but lay back looking out the porthole, chewing slowly at a hunk of dried beef. Pete introduced me. I could feel their faintly hostile scrutiny, like that given to a new boy at a boarding school. The drink was wearing off, and with it my sense of confidence.
Red, the Yank and the eldest, offered me a seat and a cup of black coffee. I sat down warily and rolled a cigarette. The sour hot coffee cut through the haze in my mind. The small room oppressed me. Theirs was a strange world, a jungle almost, where a know ledge of Mozart's music or figures of speech would count for less than nothing; only the quick blow and native cunning could give security.
"You ever been to sea?" asked the Irishman.
"No," Pete answered for me, "but he's thinking of signing on for this trip."
"You'll find it hard. You got to be tough to make a sailor."
Suddenly I knew that I would never sail with them, tomorrow or any other day. The tought had been a childish one, springing from an unearned holiday and too much to drink. I looked at Pete. Red baby face and aggressive build, he looked like someone who had lost his way and couldn't find the road back.
"I've got to see a cobber up town at four," I said. Then to Pete, "See you tomorrow maybe, same place."
I walked quickly down the narrow corridor and out to the head of the gangway. As I clambered down to the wharf a cloud came over the sun, darkening town and harbour. My head ached and my legs were tired as I went on towards the bus station.
With this article we commence a series of quarterly discussions of developments in the island countries of the pacific. The article, an outline of the mandate and trusteeship systems, is intended as a general introduction to the series.
If international rivalry has been one of the dominant themes in the history of the political and economic penetration, and even on occasions, of humanitarian endeavour in the Pacific Island, there has also been a growing conviction of the value and necessity of international collaboration among the nations responsible for the administration of the various islands. In the 19th century international agreements played their part in the political partitioning of the Pacific, though largely because the powers concerned were not convinced that the strategic and economic value of a scattered island empire was worth the risk of international complications, or the burden of political responsibility and cost of administration. Hence a general willingness to permit all to share in the spoil, apart from protests of certain Australian and New Zealand premiers whose sense of isolation and insecurity, and whose youthful and self-assertive nationalism would only have been quietened by making the South Pacific a British lake.
In the present century, international collaboration in Pacific affairs has expanded into many fields. Self-interests of the native peoples themselves, and the climate of world opinion have fostered this trend. Economic interests have pointed this way. Western capital invested in backward territories has shown as increasing disregard for political boundaries, commercial, plantation and shipping interests have found that economic nationalism does ot pay, particularly in times of crisis. Western labour is realising the value of international standards as protection against cheap native labour. Colonial rivalry and the growing resentment of imperialist rule among dependent peoples themselves have been and still are potential threats to international peace and security. Governments responsible for the administration of dependent peoples have been faced with common problems of welfare and development calling for the pooling of information and experience, and the working out of common solutions. Small countries, such as New Zealand, have found the sole burden of a dependent territory too much of a strain on their limited resources. The spread of the idea of trusteeship has demanded that all countries responsible for the government of dependent peoples should in some way be made accountable to world opinion.
All these factors then have favoured experiments of different sorts in international collaboration in the Pacific. In government there have been the not very encouraging results of the Anglo-French Condominium (dubbed "Pandemonium") in the New Hebrides, and the more fruitful if informal co-operation of British Commonwealth countries with Pacific dependencies. In the economic field there has been the war-time collaboration in the marketing of island produce. In health services there is the outstanding example of the value of co-operation provided by the Central Medical School at Suva. For the future, there is the prospect of regional collaboration in economic and social welfare through the south Pacific Commission. And twice this century, was has been the architect of systems of international supervision of certain island administrations in the Pacific, the effect of which has by no means been confined to the areas directly concerned. In
The former German colonies in the Pacific all became C Class mandates, a compromise devised to meet the promises made to Japan in secret treaties, and the demands of Australia and New Zealand for outright annexation. These demands stemmed from their fear that the original scheme would have sanctioned the open door not only to the trade, but also to the nationals of all countries on equal terms, and thus have prejudiced their stategic and economic interests as well as their "White" immigration policies. The C Class mandate provided for the administration of the islands — by New Zealand in Western Samoa, Australia in New Guinea, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand in Nauru, and Japan in the Carolines, Marshalls and Marianas—as integral parts of the mandatory's territory. It was alleged to be virtual annexation. Still there were important safeguards. There was the fundamental obligation in the dual mandate itself, the sacred trust to promote the well-being and development of the inhabitants of the territory for their own benefit, as well as for the benefit of the civilised world. There were the specific if negative safeguards for prohibiting the slave trade and forced labour, controlling the liquor and arms traffic, precluding the military training of natives and the erection of military or naval fortifications in the territory, and provisions for freedom of conscience and worship. Direct supervision could be exercised by the League through the obligation of the mandatory power to submit annual reports to a Permanent Mandates Commission comprised of specially appointed individuals, experts in colonial affairs who were to exercise independent judgment and make criticisms and suggestions to the mandatory power. No specific provision was made for tutelage in self-government, though this was implied in the Covenant; no future date was envisaged for the termination of the mandate. In practice, it was the system of annual reports, the work of the Permanent Mandates Commission, the sense of trusteeship of mandatory powers, and publicity, which gave reality to this system of international supervision. The wishes of the natives themselves in the choice of mandatory power were not considered. (In Western Samoa there was a marked lack of enthusiasm for New Zealand, whose war-time military regime, alleged responsibility for the influenza epidemic, and lack of "big power" status, were by no means calculated to win the favour of a traditionally proud and "nationally" conscious people.)
It is difficult to assess the practical results of international supervision in the mandated islands between the wars, because economic progress and social welfare, expressed in the dual aspect of the mandate, were common objectives of all colonial administrations in varying degrees. Its indirect influence on colonial practice generally is even more intangible. New Zealand can claim to have done much for Western Samoa with no thought of exploitation for her own profit. "The economic interests of Samoans have been put first, even at times in the face of strong pressure from non-Samoan interests. A case in point has been the repatriation and exclusion of Asiatic labourers in order to safeguard the integrity of the Samoan people. Alienation of land to Europeans has been prohibited. Public health, education and other welfare services have been greatly advanced. Samoan customs have been respected. Substantial money grants have been given for development and welfare to supplement local revenues." "Report to the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations Mission to Western Samoa," Dept of External Affairs, Wellington, 1947, p. 19.
Samoans can complain of unsuitable personnel in the administration, racial discrimination, tardy political, social and economic development. "We want to be free; we want self-government because it is our birthright"—and, "we want roads, and schools, and health—more than New Zealand has given us" was the trend of feeling encountered by the United Nations Mission in Samoa in
If welfare and development in New Guinea has been much less impressive-education left mainly in the hands of the missions, medical problems still barely touched, and the indenture system a disruptive influence on community
Japan's record as a mandatory power compares favourably with that of Australia and New Zealand in many respects—particularly in the fields of development and welfare. On the other hand the basic objectives of her policy of assimilation, her agricultural colonisation of the islands, and above all her use of the islands as stategic bases were incompatible with the terms of the mandate.
There were then definite weaknesses in the mandate system itself; large gaps between policy and practice, complicated by the difficulty of defining the degree of responsibility of the various authorities concerned. "From the point of view of the native, too, the mandate organisation has failed to provide any tangible and appealing set of symbols, rituals, and ideology which might hold his loyalties; it is hard for native groups to get enthusiastic about some vague super-national entity." F. M. Keesing, "The South Seas in the Modern World," p. 300.
The system of international trusteeship provided for in the United Nations Charter has potentially greater scope, wider functions and more precise objectives than the mandate system. The basic objectives of trusteeship are more clearly defined. The interests of the inhabitants in territories which have not yet attained a full measure of self-government are paramount. There is a more positive definition of the obligations undertaken by states administering trust territories; there is greater stress on the need to encourage the political aspirations of dependent peoples and to assist them to develop progressively towards self-government or independence. There are assurances of equal treatment in social, economic and commercial matters for all members of the United Nations in trust territories in contrast to the "closed door" in the C Class mandate.
The system is not limited to territories surrendered by enemy powers as a result of war, but may include former mandates, as well as any territories voluntarily placed under it by the states responsible for their administration. So far, however, only the former mandated islands have come under it as far as the Pacific area is concerned.
The means provided for its implementation are more easily adaptable to local conditions than under the mandates system. In place of the three classes of mandates, there are individual trusteeship agreements for each territory, agreed upon by the states directly concerned and submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations for approval by a two-thirds majority. Such agreements have now been approved for Western Samoa, New Guinea, Nauru and the Japanese mandated islands. New Zealand, Australia, Great Britain and the United States have been designated the administering authorities, although it is possible for this function to be exercised by the United Nations itself.
The terms of the three former agreements illustrate the more precise political aims and the greater elasticity of the system. In Western Samoa recognition has been given to the aspirations of the Samoans for self-government. New Zealand has undertaken to promote "the development of free political institutions" suited to the country, to assure the inhabitants "a progressively increasing share in the administration and other services of the territory," and to develop "the participation of the inhabitants . . . in advisory and legislative bodies and in the government of the territory." To help achieve these aims she has undertaken to "continue and extend a general system of education, including post-primary education and professional training." In framing law for Western Samoa she is to "take into consideration Samoan customs and usages" and to "respect the rights and safe-guard the interests, both present and future, of the Samoan population," particularly in questions relating to land. [See "Trusteeship Agreement for Western Samoa," Dept of External Affairs, Wellington,
In Nauru, the Commonwealth Government of Australia is to "continue to exercise full powers of legislation, administration and jurisdiction" on behalf of the three joint administering authorities. In accordance with its established policy it will "take into consideration the customs and usages of the inhabitants . . . respect the rights and safeguard the interests, both present and future, of the indigenous inhabitants," and in particular safeguard their rights to the land. Assurances are given to the people of political advancement and a progressively increasing share in their own administration, provisions which are both practicable and desirable because of the past role of Nauruan leaders in advising the administration in matters concerning their own welfare, rights and liberties, and because of the absence of illiteracy in the island except among the aged.
The trusteeship agreement for New Guinea provides for the continuation of the past policy of administering the territory as an integral part of Australia, and for the implementation of the policy of the Commonwealth Government to place New Guinea in an administrative union with the adjoining Australian territory of Papua—a course which had been considered incompatible with the terms of the mandate. The geographical ical unity and the common problems of the two areas seemed to make such a policy advantageous, while the practical benefits had been demonstrated during the military and provisional administrations from
Another noteworthy contrast between the mandates and trusteeship systems is the more realistic allowance made for the needs of international peace and security in trust territories. Administering authorities are charged with the duty of providing adequately for their defence and are authorised to make use of local volunteer forces, facilities and assistance. Specific articles in the trusteeship agreements for Western Samoa, Nauru and New Guinea provided for such measures.
There is also a proviso in the Charter for the designation in any trusteeship agreement of a strategic area, where all the functions of the United Nations shall be exercised by the Security Council, though the basic objectives of the trusteeship system still remain, and the Security Council may avail itself of the assistance of the Trusteeship in carrying out its functions. These provisions have been taken advantage of by the United States, who as the power occupying the Japanese mandated islands at the conclusion of the war, was responsible for drawing up a trusteeship agreement for them, but whose strategic interests in the area were opposed to the normal type of supervision.
Another important difference between the mandates and trusteeship systems is the method of supervision. In comparison with the Permanent Mandates Commission, the Trusteeship Council seems to possess a substantial degree of international authority. Membership is equally divided between representatives of those states who administer trust territories and those who do not. Individual delegates act as national representatives of their respective governments, which gives the Council an official status not possessed by the Permanent Mandates Commission. Administering authorities must submit annual reports to the United Nations based on a questionnaire drawn up by the Trusteeship Council, which is responsible for the consideration of the reports, during which proceeding a special representative of the administering authority may be present. The Council may also supplement its information from other sources. In the working out of this procedure Australia played an important role by submitting a report on New Guinea based on the provisional questionnaire.
Then the Council has two new powers that were not fully possessed by the Permanent Mandates Commission. It may accept written or oral petitions, and examine them in consultation
Both these powers have already been exercised for Western Samoa. In
A United Nations Mission was sent to Western Samoa in
From all this it can be seen that a new beginning has been made in the international supervision of some islands in the Pacific. In Western Samoa the direct, frank and friendly contact with the United Nations bodes well for the future. Fears that the United States might not participate in the trusteeship system have been obviated by special arrangements made for strategic areas. If the position of New Guinea has resulted in irreconcilable points of view among members of the Trusteeship Council, Australia's reassurances as to the sincerity of her intentions are borne out by her general willingness to co-operate fully in the system. It remains to be seen whether the recommendations of the Trusteeship Council will be fully put into practice. Of the many possibilities of the system, one of the widest is the inclusion of all colonial territories and protectorates. At present the likelihood of this seems remote. Still, a limited degree of international accountability exists even here, through the obligation of all members of the United Nations to submit information to the Secretary-General relating to economic, social and educational conditions in the territories for which they are each responsible.
If only she would die, he kept thinking to himself. If only she would walk off somewhere and kill herself, or, accidently, as she went out into the street, perish beneath destructive wheels.
She talked swiftly, earnestly, all the time, pushing his thoughts deeper into him with her words which, once beyond the outer walls of the ear, merged with the obliterative rhythm of his blood that wished her dead. But she could not tell this.
Her words insulated her against his negative, resigned reception, and the words went on and on, pleading vainly, a radiating battalion of vowels and consonants spent and heaped before his impregnability. She was lost in them, without meaning and dignity, knowing only that somehow, if utterly inadequately, they mirrored her needs, and would perhaps excavate hidden truths—and even if they did not, words were the only weapon to hand, and had to be used in the absence of better.
Part of her desperation arose from instinctively knowing that he heard but part of her pleading—but that part may be the part which would count. And again, it had happened in this manner before.
An accidental meeting—they never met now by design—swiftly assumed the aspects of this present encounter—and would probably end as had all the others—each going separate ways, she alone bearing the stigmata of having heard or participated.
She knows, he thought, that it's no good—but she won't admit it.
". . . but I have changed and don't expect the same falseness and empty refinements out of life—" she was saying, "and I don't try to live it like a Hemmingway short-story any more."
So, she's changed the author, he thought, and was lost to her words again, hastening into the intricate secrecies of his mind away from the sickness of her desperation.
A sudden nausea burned him, confirming his antipathy, magnifying the reasons for his rejection—the malodorous restaurant becoming more sickly-sweet with the scent of her flesh, seeping from armpits and heavy thighs, saturating, deadening her words, implicating innocent objects in her feminine humidity which spread stingingly, like a wet sore, beneath the eyelids.
". . . but I am another—a better person—and I've got to tell you what you're throwing away—because someday you may come to know it for yourself and if you realise now it won't be too late and I know I can help you so much."
How else could she believe herself and excuse her persistence except by believing him, without her, lost?
Of course he was lost—lost even to himself and to his deepest probings, but lost in a manner which another could never restore to him. He was wearied now, his own thoughts opening wider doubts in his designs, his fear flowering to the spring of her words, touching him at last, ironically, as she too reached exhaustion. Reserving his mental ridicule for her at the beginning, now he wished for her destruction—her absorption in the infinite— the extreme extension of ridicule.
The idea laughed softly inside him. He laughed softly with it, breaking her words, breaching her sentences. A pause for her eyes to cloud with hurt, he, taking delight from it.
"You're laughing at me." Her voice, unreal, without malice, accepting that she would appear ludicrous.
"Perhaps you are better off with some virtuous little dame," dismissing virtue as only those who are easy about it are able.
"Then you don't want me at all?" with resigned finality.
"Have I done anything to suggest that I do? Have I sought you, even on this occasion?" He had said something definite at last. But then he remembered having said the same thing on other occasions. So it was not a definite rejection. He would have to repeat it again in the future, persisting in his rejection just as she, unable to accept the fact that he was making a sane decision, would persist in her pusuit.
She existed, her demands existed, and she knew only the fulness of her own day. Because she could not conceive of the fulness of his—because he lived his life and not she—how could she see him as anything but incomplete without her? Where there was life, was hope.
If only she would die!
"I don't know what you're thinking any more. I can't get near you and you don't want to let me get closer . . ." but it was all lost again in words—everywhere words, pleading, jostling, desperate, made by her mouth of no meaning. Arising from mazy emptyiness into moist nothing, but they passed him as passed the minutes on his wrist, and were of as little consequence.
It was her face, sallow and distorted by her sounds, the vital, hopeless eagerness of expression that he wished would die—the words didn't matter.
He stared at the face, setting it in a haze of hate before him, resolving it into the immobility of death, hardening the shades and contours, poising the eyes pin-rigid, relaxing its coherence into a handful of grey ashes, giving it rest.
"Please think about it—please. Here's my number—Goodbye—and please. . ."
This was the end of it. This grimy scrap of paper. All things equated in symbols.
Watch now, her flat-heeled, heavy departure, the loose swing of the hips—a careless facade contrived with cunning ease around all which was care, all hunger, all solace and need here seated. Here was her secret, all guardedness despite the lie of its freedom—a revelation of recurrence—like her words, winding round encirclingly, expunging, forgetting, but never allowing itself to be forgotten.
Unconscious of a beginning, acknowledging no end, but breeding and rebreeding images to itself, shrouded in esoteric rites of omniscience.
All of it, he thought, such a delusion. And she, the eternal female, who could walk forth unmaimed by the death-wish, regular as the moon, resuming but never succumbing, and loving as tenaciously as death so that one could only hate it or admire.
He was not sure which.
This poem is of course partly of the causal plane, or astral, through which much true inspiration comes from spiritual levels, via the subconscious, during sleep, and in waking hours, the production of such a work being almost automatic. So far as any 'thinking it out' is concerned, a great part of my work is produced in this way. The verses partly explain themselves, and embody the wakening of the maiden or woman consciousness in man, wakened in a sense by his higher self, 'the fairy prince,' and by and in which he contacts his divine muse, the 'Sleeping Princess' whose permanent inspiration gives him 'Genius,' the inspirative spiritual glory always being female for a man—the Christian would say the Holy Spirit quite correctly. The idea is found in all great religions and legends based on truth, such as the ancient Semitic story of the Goddess Syndara and Elias, or Syndaraelia and Jesrac, whence springs our childrens' fairy tale of Cindarella and the Prince; the glass slippers which only she can wear, symbolising the clearness of new and inspired spiritual sight, and the marriage of Princess to Prince, of intuititive love to masculine intelligence, of female to male spirit. The Sleeping Beauty is another 'fairy tale' from ancient sources illustrating this divine theme. Or we may put it this way: man's becoming one with his higher spiritual self, 'a Prince,' contacts Syndaraelia, the Princess,' spiritual, personal and universal, (also present in his wife or true love on earth), and is evermore inspired by Her, as it were awake in his heart and mind. For without Her, as without woman, we men can achieve nothing, while with Her we can achieve to the highest spiritual genius in Music, Poetry, Literature, Art, Invention, or Science, as our line may be, or in all of these, which, with universal and solar-planetary, or Galactic knowledge, constitute the Theo-Thea unal science of Cosmology wherein one is a qualified student and teacher of Eternity and the Eternal, and a speaker and writer of the supreme and sublime—Love's all—as prophets and poets are, and as all men one day may become, by women and women alone, here and on high.
Reincarnation is touched on once in these verses, a fact for many people besides theosophists.
They conclude with a picture of the disciple of wisdom, adept in knowledge and in expression of knowledge, giving all praise to eternal and divine 'Woman,' the 'hilarious' one, and holiest we know in heaven and earth, muse and cause of all good things in man.
Mr. Miles was going to die. He was quite sure of it. He lay on the double bed and watched the cracks in the ceiling and was too miserable to get up and make himself a cup of cocoa. He had lain there for two days and definitely refused to move. He wouldn't go out to collect his pension and so he wouldn't talk about paying the rent. The landlady had arrived with "It's Friday morning, you know," but for once he was not sent into a panic, hurrying to get dressed and to get out of the house in time. He merely nodded at her and separated himself completely from her insistent voice. He gently stroked his white hair and said "Eh," fully aware of the mystery he was creating, ignored her and took on an expression of solemn contemplation.
He even began to write a letter to his niece who lived in a nearby suburb. He had written:
"Dear Ada, we cannot live forever and I feel that I am soon to pass away and I would like you to sometimes remember me and to see that Young Jimmie gets my watch and that I am not cremated but buried, for which the expenses are in the bank." Lethargy overcame him and he laid down his pen. He was thinking of some beautiful finishing phrase and had just decided on "I am going into my father's hands" when the importance and the reality of the situation overcame him. He sank back into the large bed.
For a few days the landlady was inclined to scoff. She stood gossiping to the neighbours and declared he was just shamming, but they all became a little alarmed and impressed when, after the third day, he lay silently on the bed and refused even the chicken soup which Mrs. Willis brought him. Finally she sent for his niece.
Ada was at a loss when she saw him and her first feeling of pity was succeeded by irritation for she had three children and she supposed she was expected to look after him now, and after all she was only his niece. She stood at the end of the bed examining him critically, trying to think what she could do with him. Finally she decided she would send him to the home.
Two days later he was in a taxi pleading with her that he did not want to go. She was inexorable and she firmly insisted that it was all for the best. They would look after him and there would be lots of people of his own age. He was suddenly sick for his room, the gas ring, the pot of cocoa and the wallpaper with its flower frieze. Death was a frightening prospect but he had been prepared to die, and had rather enjoyed his new dignity and importance. Now he discovered he was not dying he was faced with the anonymity of this home and the prospect was a far worse one. They drove past the Botanical Gardens and he was envious of the old man in sandshoes who was walking through the gate, allowed to sit in the sun and doze with the flowers breaking into bud and the slight chill of the air. The sun seemed far away and he felt, for a second, young and hopeful. He wanted to walk out there with the warmth on his head and belong completely to himself. The stud in the top of his shirt stuck into his neck and he tried to adjust it, only to be restrained by Ada. She had become, over these last few days, his warden, and her earlier respect, the deference she had shown for his age had now changed into an uncompromising alert attention . . . as if he were a child who needed watching. But she had made up her mind that he should go to the home very positively.
When he got there he found he was being watched with interest by a group of old men who were sitting in the kitchen eating their lunch. A stout matron in a uniform ushered him past them and upstairs to his cubicle and he was told to unpack and report downstairs when he was finished. As Ada left he was trembling with fear and exhaustion. That night he obediently ate the thick white bread and vegetable soup and from under his lowered eyelids he watched the others, fumbling with their food and spilling soup down the fronts of their shirts.
Mr. Miles had expected that there would be some brotherhood amongst this group of men, all of whom were poor and unwanted, but he found there was none; that he got no hope from the hopeless. One of them, drunk
Mr. Miles could not fit into their way of life. They had frightened him too much, he had been too shocked by his first impression and he went about his daily tasks unable to lose the horror of it all. He missed, with a sharp anguish, his room with its wardrobe, the privacy and assurance which he had been deprived of. He could not build his life around a single jewelled phrase, the past was too close and real to him and he had seen this awful blankness too clearly to be able to deceive himself into peaceful dreaming. His longings were exact and in the immediate past. He remembered the dog he used to pat, the man on the corner with whom he had chatted, the people at the shop. Everything that had lain unexpressed and dormant in Mr. Miles' life was shocked into being.
One of the old men had a friend who smuggled cheap wine and charged them a shilling a glass for it and Mr. Miles began to drink. He had never in all his life drunk like this. Except for a glass of wine at Christmas and occasionally a beer on a very hot day, Mr. Miles had been proud of the fact that "he never touched a drop." He had also been proud of his appearance and in his neat clean shirts and carefully sponged suit he had enjoyed being a picture of dignity and sobriety. But here it was all too much for him, and he began drinking to forget his room, not to notice his surroundings, to wrap himself in a warm blanket of forgetfulness and sleep easily at night. Late one evening when he was half drunk he got out of his bed and escaped down the stairs out into the dark. He walked into town across the bridge feeling triumphant and free and singing under his breath as he stumbled along. The river and the town lights winked airily back at him and he was exultant in his aloneness and his happiness. He lay down by the riverbank and slept. The night was warm and the raw wine prevented him from feeling too cold. When he awoke in the morning he was afraid and disgruntled. He was sitting there worried and helpless watching the brown dirty rivet and the long rowing boats with men in coloured singlets when a tramp wandered up to him and tried to talk to him, stuttering out from his broken teeth: "You and me's in the same boat, mate." The "mate" irritated him terribly and he turned away refusing to reply, inexplicably indignant with everything and furious with the tramp for his familiarity. When he insisted that Mr. Miles talk to him, Mr. Miles kicked him hard on the shins. Before long they were rolling about on the ground fighting. Mr. Miles rolled down the bank into the water. He floated out a bit and then sank. The hobo staggered into the water and threw him out onto the bank but he rolled in again. After a lot of struggling some of the scullers managed to get them both out and then Mr. Miles collapsed. The Police arrived in a Black Maria and pushed them both into it. People gathered round to watch the fun and finally they drove off.
Mr. Miles' adventure had made him infamous. He arrived back at the home and was greeted with great interest. It was no use trying to hide it from the others for they all knew. Mr. Miles seemed older and more resigned. He sat on a stiff-backed chair and seemed to have forgotten his previous nostalgia. He sat and dreamt and muttered, "From now onwards I'll be sociable and happy."
In the beginning, there was a wooden head. A long high-browed and bearded head, simple in form, and beautiful. Next came the body—torso, arms and legs with stylized feet and hands, the whole but twenty-two inches in height. This was Prospero, the first and most important member of the cast. While he was being dressed in simple gown and cloak of goergette, the head of Miranda was being carved. A perfect oval on a slender neck, white face and hair of gold leaf conforming to the egg-like shape of the head. Her body was small and flexible and if Prospero's head was beautiful so Miranda's body had grace and perfection from the very beginning. She was clothed in a frock of deep red painted with white fleur de Es, saffron-yellow sleeves banded, and cuffed with green and gold metal cloth, and over all a pure white shift hanging in soft folds and belted with gold.
These two were animated with strings and became "beings" before the rest of the cast were considered. Together they had such dignity and grace that the opening words almost came unbidden—
"If by your art my dearest father you have put the wild waters in this roar—allay them...."
and the answer,
"Be collected—no more amazement. Tell your piteous heart there's no harm done."
Enthusiasm mounted and the cat grew with greater speed and confidence. Ariel, a wisp of silver limbs and white chiffon was the next to appear. Ah! Now the marionette comes into his own and Ariel can really fly, can actually appear from the air and hover there above the heads of Prospero and Miranda.
Next the comedian—Stephano with pendulous paunch and wooden bottle "which I made of the bark of a tree, with mine own hands since I was cast ashore." Here the art of stringing was learned. The short back string throwing the figure forward, the splayed legs permanently bent at the knees. All these details gave Stephano his lasting character. Caliban, rough-hewn and grotesque, with simian arms sweeping the floor and short bent legs supported by great feet—a hideous caricature who was later to be named as the favourite because he was so "real." Trinculo with his sad droll face was a worthy Trinculo to look at, but from the very beginning a trial to operate. If he was to sit, he would kneel; if he was to kneel, he'd fall flat on his face. He tangled his strings in his cap and bells and was difficult in every way that a puppet could be. It was sheer hard work and perseverance that finally subdued him. Ferdinand, Alonso and Antonio completed the cast and were dressed in velvet lames and fur to make up in colour and brilliance what they lacked in their contribution to the play. Ferdinand was another difficult character and his legs, exposed in tights, were made and remade before they could support his necessary dignity and beauty.
The scenes were now set. First a massive rock outlined against a changing cloudy sky. Next a green bank against tree-shapes on gauze with cyclorama behind. Then back to the rocky shore. Next solid tree-shapes cut in wood behind which Prospero appears to interrupt the scene between Ferdinand and Miranda. For the second comedy scene the tree curtains were drawn across the cyc., which was lit from below with a watery green. The last scene returned to the rock, the changes being made during the scene with light on the sky. Simple ? Yes, but easy to change during blackouts between scenes, and quite enough to make packing and transport a small problem. The rock, for instance, was about three feet at the base tapering to about two feet six in height, an awkward shape to pack.
Rehearsals at first were chaotic. To move a puppet with conviction is one thing, to speak for him another, and the combination of these two achievements took many months of practice. Each movement in so small a space had to be carefully planned, each 'picture' set. Sometimes the length of a speech could not be held and had to be cut. Often as rehearsals progressed and the play took shape, more dialogue was added.
Incidental music from widely divergent sources was chosen, starting with Sibelius' Fifth Symphony to represent the storm over which the voices of the mariners called. Stravinsky's Fire Bird was Ariel's music, alternating with Daphnis and Chloe, snatches of L'Apresntidi d'un Faune, Love of Three Oranges and the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Anything, everything that could be found to give the particular atmosphere needed. Endless time was spent in experiment with light and music which were used as part of the pattern of production. The script for lights and music was a part learned by three or four people at one time and another and each time it grew more complicated and ambitious until it was a matter of split-second timing to cope with the dimmer and light switches, the volume control and needle-changing for music, and medium and scene-changes and effects. All the thousand-and-one backstage tasks usually allotted to a team of stage hands, had to be done by one.
It is hard to remember the first performance now that the hundredth is well past. The cast remained as it was with alterations in minor parts but the varied audience-reactions experienced affected the performance inevitably and with much constant repetition the emphasis changed. Four or five times during the six years of its performance The Tempest went into rehearsal. The scenery was altered, the costumes became more elaborate with re-dressing. Light and sound effects were added and the accumulation of bad habits and wrong words were corrected. Yes, they have worked hard, those wooden people.
They played at first to children, Secondary School children who wrote to tell what they thought of The Tempest and of puppets. Ariel was a favourite because she could fly and she laughed so beautifully. Caliban was, as I have said, so real. The "drunken sailor" Stephano was justly popular because he made them laugh. These school essays were very interesting and useful in those early days. Most of the children were asked by their teachers to compare the Marionette Theatre with their most constant form of entertainment—the film. The fact that the Theatre had third dimension was the most commonly noted. They, the puppets, were real, and, as in the cartoon of the screen, the characters that made the greatest impression were those that were caricatured. The heroes and heroines were shadowy and unreal by comparison.
The children were good audiences. They listened and laughed in the right places and on the whole enjoyed The Tempest in spite of their teachers who told them that they should enjoy it. The next period under the direction of A.E.W.S. was new ground and Miranda often made her opening speech to a chorus of whistles and catcalls from the back of an Army Camp Hall. Her dignity and unblushing wooden serenity carried her through this ordeal far better than if she were human. By the end of the first scene there was hardly ever a murmur. They won attention and admiration both for themselves and for Shakespeare from some of the hardest and toughest audiences.
During the next three years the Tempest was played throughout New Zealand and both to country audiences and to the more sophisticated city audiences. From this variety of experience their several characters were cemented and then became seasoned players. They had played the same play for six years to New Zealanders of every age and description. The pity was that circumstances did not allow them to enlarge their experience in other countries and to compare themselves with their contemporaries in England and America. Perhaps some day they may do this. Their faces and characteristics and their combined interpretation of the play are too firmly fixed in the memories of a few people to let them die. Prospero and Miranda, Ariel and Caliban. Stephano and Trinculo must walk again on the stage with freshly painted faces, new clothes and new masters and The Tempest will live again.
Sir,—Dr. Munz has recognised that natural science is subjective in the sense that "the object to be explained, e.g., a stone, can only be explained in terms of the observer, for the stone never thinks about itself and cannot explain its behaviour in any terms at all." He says next that history can, accordingly, he objective—since "history deals with human begins who have minds and who can therefore explain their behaviour to themselves."
Now, does this mean that the historical understanding of a historical figure is to be, if it is to be objective, the same as that figure's understanding of himself? Surely, such a history would be no more objective in its understanding of historical figures than were those figures in their understanding of themselves—and people are notoriously lacking in objectivity in regard to themselves.
On the other hand, does Dr. Munz really mean that history can be objective only if it "can ultimately explain a person in the way in which that person might have explained himself" If he had been able to be objective about himself? In other words, is the historian to make himself the vehicle for the "objective" self of the historical person? This would seem to be what Dr. Munz does intend—but surely such a history could still be no more objective than the historian concerned.
Any discipline which seeks to understand and explain things sets up those things as "objects" of study and sets up itself as the "subject" conducting the study. The understanding and the explanation are accordingly always "subjective" to some extent, though they always aim at "objectivity." This seems to be Dr. Munz's own meaning for the word "subjective": the peculiar thing is that he should have tried to set history apart from other disciplines, claiming "real objectivity" for history but denying it to science.
The logic of the case is singularly clear: no explanation can be objective without being to some extent subjective, because all explanations of objects must issue from the subject who is doing the explaining. We think Dr. Munz would agree with this logic and with its premisses—why then does he still try to expel altogether from historical explanations that very same subjectivity which he finds inexpungable from science?
Moreover, our perplexity increases when we remember that Dr. Munz wants us to accept and use "our disillusionment and our scepticism," instead of running away from the fact that "the world does not look the same from two different peoples' standpoints and that whatever one believed in it was always dependent on one's particular point of view." To say that "no judgment is true beyond the boundaries of the one particular world in which it originated," is simply to say that all judgments are to some extent subjective. Why does Dr. Munz himself try to expunge subjectivity from history?
Such subjectivity cannot be expunged by saying, 'I will "explain a person in the way in which that person might have explained himself" if he could speak to me today'- this is merely substituting that person's subjectivity for your own. Nor can it be expunged by saying, 'I will "explain a person in the way in which that person might have explained himself" if he had known the objective truth about himself'—for this still leaves us with the subjectivity of the historian who is doing the explaining.
In fact, subjectivity can never be expunged, and "real objectivity" is a misleading ideal. Dr. Munz seems to know this fact: he asks us to accept it and use it: why then does he himself try to do away with it ?
Sir,—An illuminating idea imparted by word of mouth does not always appear so convincing in cold print—even the tidy print of Hilltop. This is how I feel about Dr. Munz's article. And especially because his central idea—namely, his emphasis on the truth about persons rather than about ideas as the historian's concern—is sound, one feels almost iconoclastic in pointing to flaws in his conception of it.
The central difficulty is that Dr. Munz seeks to get moral benefit by understanding many historical persons in their "own terms"
Dr. Munz, however, tries to solve his dilemmas by lopping off from his task the question of the truth of ideas. "If we must value the truth about people," he seems to be saying, "we can at least reject the value of their ideas and not be at all interested in whether they are right or wrong. So far—yes—but no farther! For might we not begin to tread on the edge of a precipice if we take these people's ideas seriously or allow that they might even have something to teach us ? Each age, indeed each person, is different, so let us beware of regressing to the past." This view is all very well until we ask what has happened to the historian's humility. How can he assume that he has sufficient answers to render the truth of other people's ideas irrelevant, or that our knowing scepticism may not be modified considerably by the additional evidence of other sources? And if we don't take the ideas of people in the past seriously, why take any other person's ideas seriously? The truth is of course that we do learn to take seriously the ideas of others (whether past or present). And indeed this is not unnatural, for most of our "own" ideas are really borrowed from either tradition or contemporaries; if this were not so education would be futile, if not impossible.
Scepticism is not enough. If he really is to penetrate a thinker's mind, the historian must face the impact of the ideas for himself. Similarly a genuine historian of music could not be content with studying Mozart's environment and technical apparatus; he must learn to appreciate his music and reach the reality expressed by the composer. Without such an effort, I can see little future in Dr. Munz's attempt to produce moral education, in the form of his three rabbits, out of the hat of historical scepticism. Morality (and moral education) exists only on the plane of action. And morality will soon die in the atmosphere of ultimate detachment which seems to be implied when Dr. Munz talks of positive scepticism and "acquiring" other people's experiences and beliefs. The addition of the adjective "positive" in such a context is unconvincing. It is more likely to end up as a negative tolerance, not so very different from an enlightened cynicism. And the refusal to treat the ideas in other men's minds as serious issues indicates that, after all, you are not really willing to stand where they stand or understand them in their own terms.
Dr. Munz links his positive tolerance to a "sense of freedom from one's own beliefs." But does such a "freedom" exist, except for the schizophrenic and the dead? If tolerance is to be positive and moral it must surely get rid of this very "freedom from" complex and take its stand on convictions which so grip the personality as to provide a standard of judgment and a will to tolerate the other differing personalities by whom the person is continually challenged. Perhaps this sounds altogether too "positive" for the health of historians, too much akin to that dangerous ogre, the "artificial, willed faith." Indeed, there are dangers involved in having convictions—but there are more insidious dangers in pretending to have none at all; all I ask is that the historian should be honest in bringing what he holds out into the light. That is more likely to lead the historian to ultimate truth than is the alternative, and I believe it to be a truer view of the way we can meet and tolerate other persons.
Sir,—In printing "An Idea of History" by Dr. Peter Munz, "Hilltop" has rendered a very real service to all those readers who are not content to remain mentally inactive in that condition of "disillusionment and scepticism" which certainly constitutes, if not the chief, one of the chief, problems of our age. The
But I would venture to challenge the writer's attitude to what he calls "our Christian faith," and to suggest that in the study of that (to his mind) discredited faith there may be found yet another activity leading to the same goal, "a new and firmer belief in truth." For most of the pessimists and the disillusioned of the younger generation, surely the possessive abjective here is ill-chosen. Is it not rather a "return" to a conventional religion, tightly held in the dead hand of tradition, that Dr. Munz has in mind? As one reader of "Hilltop" put it—"What they were taught years ago in Sunday School." So any return would be to the religion of the older generation, and, by hypothesis, that generation has failed, and all its achievements are as of dust and ashes. The second point made by Dr. Munz against religion seems to be either that the exposition of the Christian faith as we know it has left us no choice but rejection and unbelief, or that it is thanks to Christianity that we are in our present plight I have to confess that I am not quite clear as to the implication of the words used. The third point is admirably clear, however, and I cannot conceive any reluctance to accept the statements (a) that we cannot retrace our steps, and (b) that, standing "on a frontier," we must ourselves "build the bridge which will lead us from the past into the future": nor can there be any doubt that any line of study pursued with intellectual, integrity will help us in the building. Dr. Munz makes a strong case for history, which appeals to me as a humanist, and I can think of students who would make an equally strong case for science.
But man does not live by intellect (or by instinct) alone. He is a strange compound: Pascal's words are ever true—"L'homme est a lui-meme le plus grand probleme de la nature." (I quote from memory.) This idea of our being lined up at a frontier—so vivid a picture of any European of this decade—calls to my mind a book Freethinkers of the 19th Century. The men and women there portrayed were conscious in their day of having to cross a frontier, renouncing a region in which they could no longer live with sincerity, and going forward to they knew not what. So in every generation must those who are truly living souls and not dead echoes face the frontier and build the bridge.
But, strange thought it may appear, having struggled across the bridge of his own enquiries and perplexities and doubts and gropings, on the other side of the frontier the traveller sometimes finds God, the God who transcends all frontiers. He may even come to realise that more strangely still it is the "God and his fathers." He has not "returned," nor do those left .behind on the other side always understand or approve this newness of life. But "forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before," he has pressed on seeking only the truth, and he finds the truth in "the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." (St. Paul.) He does not deny the claims of reason, but he has to admit that in his new philosophy "le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas," (Pascal) and he is not ashamed. He is content to see that while all his life long there will be frontiers to be crossed one by one, the chief end of man remains "to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."
Sir,—There are many points which Dr. Munz makes in his article "An Idea of History" which I would like to contest, but I am going to confine myself to his attack on Christian faith, and his assumption that we must have a "positive scepticism" and that "by accentuating our scepticism we can evolve a new and firmer belief in truth, because it obliges us to transfer our interest from ideas to people."
Dr. Munz then concludes that we should cultivate this scepticism plus intellectual discipline and move forward in the direction we have been moving.
The purpose of this letter is to refute these ideas and to show that a change takes place when Christ becomes the object of our personal faith.
Where does Dr. Munz's view lead us? He says we must rid ourselves from the obsession of any absolute allegiance to any one set of ideas or beliefs. If we carry this to its logical conclusion, what ate we going to do with truth? What is it? What do we mean by it? Even when we know the answers and have decided on what is truth we must not strictly follow it because of this principle of non-allegiance. No, with all due respect this philosophy leads us up a blind alley. Can we build anything in the material or spiritual world without the solid bases of some loyalty? The answer is No. Truth as set forth by Christ and His followers is a solid basis to build on and surely history proves this. All history points down to, and from Christ. Calvary is the focal point, the crossroad of history.
Why divorce ideas from people? Are they not bound up together? What about some of the great personalities whose lives show adherence to Christian faith? Dr. Livingstone, Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Sadhu Sunda Singh, and Dr. Albert Schweitzer? A moment's thought will show that we can go back into history and find inspiration and courage to face the future. If I were to list all the great characters of history who adhered to the Christian faith I would need much more paper than is at my disposal here.
Dr. Albert Schweitzer in his book Civilisation and Ethics writes: "Resignation as to knowledge of the world is for me not a hopeless fall into a skepticism which lures us to drift about in life like a derelict vessel," and continues," every world view that does not start from resignation in regard to knowledge is artificial and a mere fabrication, for it rests upon an inadmissible interpretation of this world". All this from a man who holds five doctorates, including philosophy.
The great apostle Paul said "Faith is the substance on things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." This is opposed to Dr. Munz's view, that we must build our life on a "positive skepticism."
Christ said: "I am the way, the truth and the light of the world." One could go on pilling up evidence from history with its courses of action, good, bad and indifferent, but it shows that any individual, society or nation is doomed if it departs from the right relationship with the author of all truth, God. Rather than trust to a "positive scepticism" I would prefer to trust in Christian faith and God.
Sir,—Dr. Munz suggests that through the objective study of history and the modern novel we should seek to understand people within their own terms rather than judge them in relation to our own scheme of values.
Short of completely identifying ourselves with other persons, in which case we should cease to be what we were, I contend that this is impossible. Everyone, including the author of "An Idea of History," has a scheme of values to which he relates the actions and motives of other people. For example, Dr. Munz believes that the study of history is more important than the study of history is more important than the study of (a) the New Testament or (b) "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." He believes in 'understanding' and the "tolerance' which it breeds. Through the study of the novel and history we 'free' ourselves from "the obsession that we owe allegiance to any one set of ideas or beliefs." People are more important than ideas.
Here now we possess a substantial part of Dr. Munz's creed. Like any other creed it is full of implicit value judgments concerning the lives of other men. Just imagine how pleased Luther would be to find he was being understood in his own terms by a man who virtually dismisses his concern for the truth of his theory of trans-substantiation. This tolerance, too, stops strangely short, for Dr. Munz sets "outside the pale of human intercourse" all those who evaluate the world against background of personal belief. That's a powerful lot of men. Finally, it might be asked, what of a Dostoevsky or a Greene who see their characters etched in against the vast backdrop of Christian theology?
I do agree that where our own universal values are narrow and inflexible we become inquisitors rather lovers of mankind. By all means let us read novelists and historians who have both breadth and sympathy, but let us
Sirs: Mr. Ron Smith has used feeble arguments in his letter evaluating the review of a soviet film written by another contributor for your first issue. Unfortunately I have not seen the film in question myself; but it is against the type of argument, not against whatever actual film criticism it involves in this particular case, that I wish to sound a note of warning.
"One is reminded of the old art for art's sake," and similar arguments, Mr. Smith says. I am afraid that this sort of refutation is, to me, most unconvincing. Surely there is more to be said for or against this approach to art than just to pass it by with the condescending air of a man who allegedly knows better. I am not so sure by what standards Mr. Smith would measure Renaissance painting, or does he believe that artistic achievement should be—or has always been—rigidly controlled by socio-economic forces? I often cannot help feeling that the condemnation of creative work as "degenerate art" a la Hitler and Goebbels, is pretty close to the equally authoritative condemnation of art, especially writing and music, that it is found necessary to impose on Soviet artists. If it is said that he who pays should also call the tune, I would assert that, for the sake of the creative artist, even hunger might be preferable to security. I might change my mind if and when Mr. Smith can convincingly prove to me that Beethoven's chamber music is clearly showing signs of feudal patronage, or that the French bourgeoisie has found its epitome in Rodin's sculpture.
The reason why, I think, that both in Germany and in the Soviet Union, such authority-inspired categorical criticism has been adopted is that to my mind you cannot consciously plan to re-model society and the state without coming to the obvious conclusion that there can be nothing beyond the state, and that art, like everything else, has to befitted into that blueprint. It seems, from that point of view, immaterial whether your goal be Socialism of the Soviet model, National Socialism or Fascism. It is one thing to find that, historically, the dominant classes will tend to have some influence on the artistic development of any epoch; it is, I believe, quite another thing to turn such findings into a political imperative. Lest I be misunderstood: I fully realize the differences between the two systems. But it is no heresy to see them stem from a common basic political philosophy.
That to Mr. Smith a Nuremberg Party Rally, with its undoubted enthusiasm, marching youth, flying banners and smiling faces is inferior to a similar display on the Red square is a permissible point of view. But it is an almost tragic misunderstanding to dismiss Nazism with a shrug of the shoulders, as having produced lifeless "automatons" (sic): it just means that you are fitting a social and historical phenomenon of incredible force into a neatly labeled pigeon-hole of detestable and therefore dismissible facts. The tragedy of Nazims was exactly—and still is, I fear—that it was carried by the enthusiasm of the same smiling and self-assured young people who strike Mr. Smith so forcibly as being truly representative of socialism. He seems to have nothing but faith; he has not, I gather, seen the forces of a similar enthusiasm elsewhere. Parades and smiling faces do not, in themselves, prove very much. And if you prefer one type of it while—partly because of ignorance—relegating the other to the forces of reaction, then you have only repeated an article of faith. You have not, and could not have convinced the reader.
Sirs: I am a young writer still at the stage known as 'struggling.' I am married and earn my living in what Mr. Baxter so feelingly calls "the dismal swamp of journalism." While I agree with what this writer says about our "inability to find meaning in a world either dead or disastrous," I think that too often it is our own fault.
If we agree that no section of the community, no department of experience, should
Mr. Baxter uses a determinist argument to show that although when they are young, writers can sometimes solve their problems by living off their parents, later, "social and economic pressure forces them to the wall."
I believe, however, that such people never are writers in the true sense of the word. A writer qua writer never does stop writing. He uses every trick of fate, be it good or ill, solely as a portal to new experience.
"Those who can, do," is a determinist illustration of what I mean.
Now Showing: At the National Art Gallery—return season of the British Watercolours, Prints and Drawings. Also Loan Exhibition of Works by Charles Hopkinson, Contemporary American Painter.
The Next Exhibitions: At the French Maid Coffee House will be—Paintings by Harry Tombs; Paintings by Elise Meurant; Fabrics by Helen Hitchings.
Every Wednesday Lunch-hour: At Wellington Public Library—Films. Sessions at 12.15 and 12.45.
September 3rd—17th: At Wellington Public Library Exhibition Hall—Exhibition by Mr. M. Berke, and
September 17th—October 7th: Exhibition by Miss E. R. Cuff.
September 14th and 15th: Wellington Film Society Inc. presents "The Earth Sings,' Czech film directed by Karel Plicka in
September—October: At Alexander Turnbull Library—An Exhibition of Examples of Fine Printing by Presses in New Zealand and Australia.
October 1st—7th: Wellington Repertory Society Inc.—Othello, by Shakespeare, produced by Kenneth Firth at the St. James' Theatre.
October 11th and 12th: Wellington Film Society Inc.—"Mor Vran," an account of life on the Breton Islands, directed by Jean Epstein. Music by Archangelsky. Also "Birth of a Nation" (2nd part), with a discussion. Wellington Public Library Hall.
October 27th: Wellington Chamber Music Society Inc. presents the Rosner Chamber Music Ensemble in a programme of Bach and Brahms at the Town Hall Concert Chamber.
About end of October: Wellington Film Society presents a programme of Czech films, including "A Christmas Dream." a puppet film that won award at Cannes
October—November: An Exhibition at the Alexander Turnbull Library depicting the progress of the motor-car in the fifty years since the British motor industry was established in
November 3rd—5th: Unity Theatre Inc. presents Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People," produced by John MacCreary in the Town Hall Concert Chamber.
November 9th: Wellington Chamber Music Society—The Northern Mocran and Brahms, at the Town Hall Concert Chamber.
November 15th—16th: Wellington Film Society presents "Waxworks.' Conrad Veldt and Emil Jannings.
November 26th—December 10th: Wellington Repertory Society Inc. by Kenneth Firth at the Grand Opera House.