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Press, Volume LII, Issue 15766, 6 December 1916, Page 6

We may remind our readers that a poll is to bo taken to-day to authorise the -raising of a loan of £60,000 for additions to the municipal electrical system. "We regret that it should have been deemed necessary to borrow this money during the currency of the war, but tho City Council and their experts tell us that it is important that the system which so far has been successful shall be carried to completion, and doubtless this reasoning will carry due weight with the ratepayers. The facts on which to base a decision have been placed very fully before the public, and it is undoubtedly the duty of the ratepayers, being thus appealed to, to give their answer in tho manner appointed by law. We hope that so important a question will not be allowed to go practically by default —for that is what it means if only a small minority of the ratepayers take the trouble to vote. From time to time it has been our sad duty to record the failure of State trading enterprises in Australia to come up, morally or materially, to the expectations of the State Socialists. Today we have tho sorrowful news of tho failure of tho West Australian Government's State fish supply scheme. In his report upon this hapless scheme the Inspector of Fisheries notes as ono of the principal causes of failure the fact that- ''the fish cannot be trusted to bito within the regular hours allotted to State employees." We do not know what were the conditions of employment in this branch of. the State's activities, but apparently the employees required that the sacred principles of unionism should be most strictly observed. And the fish were expected to be on the spot accordingly. ♦ That is unhappily the main difficulty in all State enterprises: fish will not bite in a way to suit Socialistic and union principles. It does not matter what the fish are, or how they bite. The State Socialist proceeds on the assumption that you have only to nationalise an industry in order to make the material you deal with change its habits. He takes the coal industry, and assumes that th e management will be better when nobody concerned.in it has any interest in its being good than is the management of privately-owned mines; that tho miners will never go on strike or reduce the output. ITe would have State farms, confident that the growth of wheat would stop at 5 p.m. precisely each day and resume at 8 a.m.. that rain would never fall in such a way as to make it necessary for the State farm-hand in harvest-time to work in the moonlight or at. sunrise. He would even have soldiering made a union job, with union hours and union wages, trusting to the spirit of State Socialism to shut up the German guns at (5 o'clock daily and to keep them silent on Labour Day and public- holidays. And though he sees these fish refusing to bite according to the book, and pints still refusing to fill quart pots, and everything that is beyond his control behaving as it always behaves, he does not lose heart. It costs him nothing. Somebody else will pay.

The Germans were not alone in objecting to the tone of Mr Lloyd George's "'Hands oft"' interview. Mr Holt, a particularly rich specimen of the sort of Radical whom, in the unpolished state, we have amongst us in this country, made a solemn protest in tho House of Commons on October 11th. He objcctcd to the description of the British soldier fighting this battle like a sporting animal—''he was a game dog." He also objected to tho phrase '"fight to a knock-out."' etc. Our men went into the war not as sporting dogs

but as Christian -warriors fighting for a righteous cause. Mr Lloyd Georgo had said that the Germans were ''squealing for peace.'' Ho was notsure that this was very accurate or in very good taste. And so on. The cxistencp in Britain of people like Mr Holt furnishes a good reason why Mr Lloyd Goorge should make such plain statements. Mr Lloyd George's reply to this shocked and sanctimonious .Radical was delightful. As to the language of the statement : '"It was not a speech. It was not a letter. It was an interview. An interview is a public report of a private conversation. (Laughter.) I do not know how my hon. friend speaks in private. Purely ho does not address his friends in private as ho does in public. If he does. God help his friends. (Laughter.) So much for tho language." Mr Holt had also complained that the Minister had no right to make such a statement. To this Mr Lloyd George replied that he did not conceive that he should speak only about his own Department—'"about the Department of the QuartermasterGeneral, and the making of breeches in I'imlico." 4 What Mr Holt really objected to, as the Minister said, was th 0 whole pith and purport of the interview, and in particular the policy of going on until Prussian militarism is crushed. He, Mr Lloyd George, could nndei stand men who were opposed to ivar, and to this war, but, h 0 added, "I cannot understand. appreciate, or rcspcct men who preface their speeches by saying they believ 0 in the war. in its origin and its object, and who during the time the enemy was in the ascendant did not say a word about peace, and then at the moment our galiant troops arc climbing through endurance and suffering up the path to ascendancy begin to howl with the enemy." Wo have people like Mr Holt here, as wo have said —men who are anti-British, hut who have not the courage to say so—men who profess a desire that we shall win this war, but who clamour noAr for peace—men who oppos 0 compulsion 011 tho ground that it is destructive of human liberty, but who have interested themselves in recruiting only to th 0 extent of hampering it. Like Mr Lloyd George, honest folk are unable to understand, appreciate, or rcspcct such people.