Jan. 6.
President Coolidge's swollen wrist is but another instance of the fact that public office is rapidly -becoming a hazardous profession in Western countries. The East has, naturally, solved these problems centuries ago. In China, a public official grasps his own' hands and bows at a distance. There is no possibility of a swollen wrist in such circumstances nor even of broken fingers. But hand-shaking, as practised in Europe and America, is becoming increasingly burdensome and dangerous. The doctors oppose it because the hand is to principal purveyor of disease. Beware of fingers and flies! But no public man dare beware of fingers no matter how antagonistic he may be to the flies. For the fingers everywhere are used to mark ballots, and who can expect any fingers to mark ballots favourably to himself who will not shake those same fingers on all occasions. President Coolidge, however, has this distinction that whereas he will shake a hand, he will not raise his voice. Now' President Taft was a genial soul and always provided his caller with a beaming, King Colean. laugh and President Roosevelt spoke mighty words and swung a big stick softly, but President Coolidge is g si-Ient'man and whatever psyefical impression one hopes to. take away with him to the far flung corners of the world from. the President, must come through the hands. Therefore the swol-Ten wrist!
In Russia, they say, men still greet each other by kissing, even if they wear "beavers". That habit may to some extent be responsible for Bolshevism, The Russians are also strong on the hand shaking. They are an expressive people and probably like to show their affection. But whatever means are employed, it is the public man who must pay the penalty. Even more sober and stolid Britain must offer up its mighty leaders to the gods of Democracy and must require them to shake the hands of everyone who has one to shake. Horatio Bottomley, having been designed by Nature to perform mighty tasks, ought perhaps to be a leading citizen, for who could shake hands with greater vigour and kiss infants with more smirk than this hero of the populace. It all comes with Democracy, which pulls the world down' to the lowest common denominator. Everyone is equal, if not better. Thus the proletariat aspire to dic tatorship even though they have not even learned to do. their Jobs and the flappers enjoy the vote and elect Presidents and Premiers. There can be no philosophic objections to such a stem if it works, but there seems not to be much increased happiness in the world since unlimited and untrammelled voting and hand shaking have taken the place of reason and knowledge. For instance, Big Bill Thompson, the Mayor of Chicago, is a very popular figure in his very windy city, but no one would accuse him of being particularly erudite or rational. He is a product of the bani shaking era and from his photographs and his size, one should imagine that he is particularly adept at it. He wor an American election on the campaign of keeping King George out of Chicago, which must have been a jesting voters who are not r cerned as to who is in Chicago. Were they s0 concerned, there would have been fewer! shootings in the place. But Chicago is no worse than other citi for instance, Mr. Saklatvala we elected to Parliament although no really British voter could have possibly believed that he belonged there and that irrepressible humorist (is his name not Jack Jones?) who always hias his little joke when the Empire demands serious attention was also elected by a proletarian constituency.
One can take the two extremes of opposition to the hand-shak-ities of our democratic Mussolini manages everything in Italy as he sees fit and tells about it afterwards, and in China, the militarists appoint themselves to office first and find a legal basis for their activities afterwards. Legality in such places is relegated to lawyers; that is, they must discover somewhere in books. of precedents and constitutions and such impedimenta an explanation for what was already done. And all opposition becomes counter-revolution or just plain revolution and is punishable by death. That is quite a way out, although a little dan-rous if the proletariat really insists on having its hand shaken. The proletariat, however, if the truth were really known, never insists on anything, except some bread or rice, a little freedom to do as it pleases, less of law and fewer interferences and taxes. But the politicians never give the proletariat'a chance to speak for itself. - They always speak for it. They tell'it what it wants and hires a band to drown the proletarian protests. How many proletarians of the world have over read Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" and how many of them want to read it? Enough for them that Karl Marx belonged to the bourgeoisie and spent his idle days in the British Museum. Philosophers and politicians, they are the gentlemen who tell the proletariat how much it suffers from inequalities, and the proletaviat is told to prefer a hand shake from a democratic mil-aire turned Socialist to an ample meal at the end of a good day's work, They are told to let the machines do the work and meanwhile they starve as unskilled labourers. There is something frightfully wrong in all this democracy and hand shaking, but one does not easily discover the remedy, for men seem to be set in the direction of bringing all government down to the proletariat.
Now, we have often been criticized for finding 0 little that is good in China, but per haps it may be suggested with out cringing that the most excellent thing here is the way the proletariat and even the merchants and bankers ai ignored by all the soldiers and politicians, who simply they please and never ask consent of anyone. Nothing: could be more efficacious. In fact, the military men never even ask the consent of the politicians for any of their plans. They send their soldiers. from: province to. province, they: collect and spend taxes, they issue mandates and proclamations and they announce and denounce governments without. theslightest compunction. That is a most efficient expedient for controlling a state, Besides, the people never dare to protest because they find it so much cheaper to ye bled by militarists than to pay the politician's income taxes, There is much to learn in all. this and the West should send a commission to China to make a most thorough investigation into this militaristic form of government, so that they might model themselves. after it. The British parliamentary system should be abolished and Ramsay MacDonald. might. become the Tuchun of Scotland and Mr. Cook of the Welsh coal mining district, 'There is much to consider seriously in this suggestion, particularly by the proletariat' which would hereafter not have to labour at all but simply fight each other for a living. What a wonderful thing for Ireland thit would bet
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.