March 23.
Statesmen and the nations whom they lead seem so difficult to cajole: into moderate courses and so apt to fly off at tangents at any given moment that the world is not far wrong in despairing of being able to keep them to the dotted line of the documents which they sign. The armoury of the secretariat is ransacked (0 produce a foolproof parchment, or rather one which cannot be brushed aside in' the berserker fury of a pact-scrapping' fit. Is it possible to imagine an entirely new method of aligning, dictators and democrats, making. ions couch with Iambs, so that the: poor benighted citizen' who wants only to pay his taxes, draw his beer money and laugh his weekly Faugh with Walt Disney, can dismiss all thoughts of being compelled sooner or later to become a hero— dead as a doornail—in order to make the world safe for a handful of autocrats?_ Why has modern' wisdom forgotten the lore which permitted the stars, the moon, the tides and the cubs of Aeolus govern the moods of men? When. totalitarians and democrats have exhausted their bags of tricks with the press, the radio and the other weapons of propaganda and still find the world unresponsive to their demand that it should come down fon one side of the fence, is It not possible to revive ancient technique imaginative nation had not the poet Known that the equinoctical gales wore ready to hand for the com: pletion of the sonnet to Britannia's ruling eyebrow.
These are far too serious times for such wilful beguilement of the public to be allowed to continue. The equinox should be squarely faced, It should have a New Deal, a Four Year, Five Year or Any Year Plan, It should be reduced 10 the level of collective security, attuned to a perfect ideology and, in short, made to pull its weight,' If heavenly bodies have "to wait the equinox before deciding their ascensions and longitudes, why should not other bodies with clamant claims to divinity be made foe the same line. If by the revolution of the true equinox round the mean equinox—which though fictitious. is always. sedately uniform like the Broadcasts of the State of Bellipax—a scientific assessment of actuality can be secured, it. seems plainer than any pikestaff that by the revolution of an inadvertently true proletariat round a deliberately fictitious dictaphone, something like order in the chaotic world may be devised. As the distressed voter in the election which has no nees would sturdily assert, anything is worth trying once. 'A. nod is. ood a wink and as nodding is half the philosophy of the equinox if the preceding arguments are to be accepted, the step from the revolution thus invoked to a good pleasant sleep can be faithfully calculated by anyone who can count up to forty. That brings this severely practical examination of the world's problems to-day to the beneficent conclusion that sleep is the essence of their solution. How this can be derived from observing the ascensions and longitudes of the not so heavenly bodies may present a preliminary enigma: Yet, having tion. The fact that criticism has; been levelled against certain phases of its retrenchment activities does not detract from the general excellency of the services which it has, in modern guise by turning to the skies for guidance? This thought is Pertinent at the moment when the Spring Equinox has been passed: That event happened. on Sunday goto far away from the mysticism of Bellipax, there Is no ground for despair. Indeed the way out is crystal clear. There is no need to push the bar and take the craven's Fendered.. Retrenchment is a pro- for, owing to" ihe operation of fight through the emergency exit. cess which can seldom be applied, mystic factors, the date. varies.|1 this equinoctial ideology there is without Inviting controversy. "'The There is @ true equinox and a mean 2 smoke, therefore no fire and no quarrel of this journal with the equinox, just as propaganda may (Continued on page 491.)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.