WEEK-END IN LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 61, 11 March 1916, Page 13

WEEK-END IN LONDON.

SIR THOMAS MACKENZIE HONOURED

ELECTIONEERING AND ZEPPS,

H. G. WELLS ON PEACE. i (From Oar Lady Correspondent.) LONDON, January 18. The vagaries of the mail service bring tribulation to the London correspondent. When he has confided a mail to a tor-pedo-istrcwn path at the end of one week and is confronted again ,with a ''mail day" on the very threshold of the next, he feels himself an Israelite indeed, making bricks without straw. Fortunately this occasion presents less difficulty than it might, for Saturday -was a day of note. On it King George held an Investiture, the biggest since the war. It was the worthy occasion, too, on which Sir Thomas Mackenzie, our High Commissioner, received his knighthood from the hands, of Hie Majesty. From a lengthy list of names of those on whom King George desired to bestow honour, that of the High Commissioner haa been signalled by Press and people for special comment, and there i 3 no doubt of the appreciation felt both by Britishers and New Zealanders of his work. The "Manchester Guardian" gives this warm tribute to him:—"lf Sir Thomas Mackenzie's long record of political service and hie attention to New Zealand's general interests in England entitled him to special recognition, he haa added to those cervices during the last year by his care for the New Zealand , soldiers here and in Egypt. One hardly realises, perhaps, what extra work has been entailed on the offices of the colonial representatives by the creation of the Overseas Expeditionary Forces, but. I am told that the strain on their staffs has been tremendous, as they have been suddenly called on to make provision for the thousands of men in hospital, on furlough, or back in depot. Sir Thomas, who has been largely responsible for the establishment of the beautiful New Zealand hospital at Walton-on-Thames, made a journey to Egypt to meet the forces almost as soon as they landed there, and there is no doubt that his careful attention to the social side of their life there was of great benefit to the men."

The "Manchester Guardian's" London correspondent also tells his British public how the High Commissioner had had the unusual experience of being knighted yeare before by public opiniou. For some reason not quite clear, unless it were the conviction that Xew Zealand's representative deserved it, Mr. Mackenzie was persistently spoken of by the Press or private ■ people as Sir Thomas. Meet of his official correspondence was so addressed, and at his public meetings it was usually his emharraeeing duty to begin by correcting hie chairman's reference to. "Sir Thomas." King George pinned the D.S.O. to Major G. S. Smith's chest, and His Majesty said ttf~tlre v Ifew'Zealand hero, who had lost his left arm in the doughty deed for which he' has been decorated, "I hope you will recover quickly."

Mr. C. Wray Pallieer in still an invalid, but he was permitted by his •medical adviser to come to town "era Saturday, on the strict understanding that, he should do nothing but make bis call at Buckingham -Palace ;to receive ,his Order of C.M.G. from the King's hands.

The quiet of this week-end has been soothing. Whether the Kaiser is seriously ill or on the contrary (and by« Berlin wireless he is sitting up and taking nourishment at. luncheons with his Chancellor), the outside world knows not. This is plain, sick or no, that

(supply the hiatus by the gentleman of the story who would be saint when sick) has been temporarily out of action. It is true the London season of /Zeppelin raids is still on; but as this week's was another abortive attempt, the warning to the hospitals to be prepared need not have been made. In fact, so little does the man in the street—and the woman, too—think about Zepps that they begin to resent the non-appearance of that silvery ship against the darkened and starlit sky on what they call "Zeppy night.""

The note of gaiety has been upheld by the uproarious by-election fight in Mile End, where the issue is Compulsion? Not at all. The election cry is "Light up London," and the protagonist of it is one Pemberton-Billing, who, has given up flights in the air for flights of oratory. And as he has given bis support to no restrictions on liquor he seems likely to obtain the vote of the Mile Enders down east. The point is one on which the public is quite satisfied to trust in Sir Percy Scott and his anti-aircraft organisation, and no irruption of an irresponsible flying man is shaking that confidence. Rather is the candidate for Mile End asked why is he not on active flying , service.

The Liberal candidate is making support of the Government's Military Service Bill his chief claim to support. He, too, has given extension of aircraft activity his support. H. G. Wells declared in an article yesterday on "The End of the War" that "It is doubtful if the utmost damage an air raid is likely to inflict upon England would count materially in the exhaustion process. The net result of these air raids is an inflexible determination of the British people rather to die in death grips with German militarism than to live and let it survive. The best chance for the aircraft was at the beginning of the war, when a surprise development might have had astounding results. That chance has gone by. The Germans are inferior to both French and English in the air, and the probability of effective blows over, the deadlock is on the whole a probability in favour of the Allies. Nor is there anything on or under the sea that seems likely now to procure decisive results." In this article Mr. Wells enunciates the theory of the Russian Bloch that war between fairly equal antagonists must end in a deadlock "of the continually increasing efficiency of entrenched infantry." In to-day's article he ends on the pessimist note. "The broad conditions," he says, "of a possible peace -will begin to get stated towards the end of 1916. . . . Very jaded and anaemic nations will sit about the table, on which the new map of Europe will be drawn. Each of the diplomatists will come to that business with a certain preoccupation. Each will be thinking of his country as one thinks of a patient of doubtful patience and temper who is coming-to out of the drugged stupor of a crucial, ill-conceived and unnecessary operation. . . . Each will be thinking of"Labour wounded and perplexed, returning, to the disorganised or nationalised factories from which Capital has gone and to which it may never jetunfc" ,