WHO IS TO BLAME?

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15751, 18 November 1916, Page 10

WHO IS TO BLAME?

TO 'IHE EDITOU 01' "THE I'RESS." Sir.—Consider the case of Mr Hughes. Upon his arrival in England it appeared that at long last the spirit I animating British peoplo had found a ' medium through which it might bocome articnlatc. The sonorous Asquith, the emotional Lloyd George, had, with the rest of England's orators, failed , somehow to strike the note for which the Empire had been waiting. It came with all that virile' freshness which we associate with "the Australian praise." And so forth and so on. Never before has a man been so boomed and favoured upon in England. Never before has Australia dealt such a crushing rebuff to its "leading citizen." • Consider again the case of the Sydney "Bulletin." Since the outbreak of war this paper has really been a noble thing to read. For to a forcefulness lacking in many eminently sane journals, it has added a sanity from which many forcible utterances are conspicuously free. In its cartoons upon the conscription issue it rose to an exceedingly higher level. Nothing more poignant and convincing, could well be imagined. And New South Wales recorded a No majority of 120,000. The' plain truth about all this is that no cne did more, or worked hajder or to more effect, than the "Bulletin" and Mr Hughes to. cseate that machine whose working has so humiliated them both. They are now in a position to reflect that you cannot gather a respectable crop of wheat from land in which you have been sowing' tares for years.

. The "No" attitude was that a conscripted man shotild not serve outside Australia, where alone his service could avail to keep Germans or anyone else from over-running Australia. The refusal of Australia to help to keep Germans out of Englrnd and New Zealand must render those countries equally indifferent about keeping any race out of Australia. Indeed, the right to colonise and put to profitable use vast unoccupied tracts of Australia is, to my mind, quite a valuable thing to be able to offer an ally, present or prospective. Now when Mr Allen proposed to make preliminary arrangements for the training, equipment, and transport of 8000 volunteers —mark that, volunteers, not conscripts—to fight-the battle which would decide New Zealand's fatp with that of the Empire, who was it. that. foamed at the mouth and screamed that no New Zealander should fight outside New Zealand? Not "The Frees," which, I read, no one takes any notice of, but a lof. of leading progressive, up-to-date journals, edited by keen foresight, advanced intelligence, and yearning patriotism. I do not blame you for criticising the "Maoriland Worker," Messrs Payne. Walker and Co. But who led the movement which has sought so strenuously to help the Noes in Australia? I think the time is ripe for a revival of certain quotations. So. too. Hon. Mr Mac Donald announces that if the Supreme Court had decided against him he would have reduced its judgment to the status of a scrap of paper, refusing, incidentally, to allow New Zealand to supply the Imperial Army or Navy with butter. Mr Mac Donald is by intention quite harmless, and, in sober truth, humdrum. and very ordinary to boot. But he uas the true Liberal sense of importance. He is eaten up with lust of power, and tlie itch for meddling, as witness his fatuous orchard registration ("Last man, last shilling"). Piqued by an adverse judgment, a bad loser, he was prepared to withhold our butter from ou r fighting men, who could live on hard tack, and to cripple, if not ruin, scores of helpless producers. Dare we wonder, then, that unlettered miners, lumpers, or firemen, should regard a judicial decree, such as an Arbitration award, as a thing to be flouted and ignored. By all means continue to hand it out to them, but do not forget the headmasters of the various schools in which they have been trained.—Yours, etc.. NEMO REPENTE . . .