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Press, Volume LII, Issue 15767, 7 December 1916, Page 6

A cable message published this morning contains the official announcement that the new Admiralty Board consists of" Mr Balfour (First Lord of the Admiralty), with Sir John Jellicoe (First Sea Lord), Admiral ' Burney (Second Sea Lord), Admiral Tudor (Third Sea Lord), and. Admiral Halsey (Fourth Sea Lord), with Lord Lytton and Sir Francis Hopwood as civil memmembers. Presumably this is the new Board sot "P some time ago, the composition of which was withheld from the public "for military reasons." We take it that on the formation of a new Ministry Mr Balfour will once more go into retirement, and that the new First Lord Curzon and Lord Milner have be) will take his place. The new Board is a strong combination, which we should say will command the confidence both of the Navy and the public. New Zealanders will be especially interested at the inclusion of Captain Halsey (formerly of H.M.SI. New Zealand), whose promotion w G believe is as welldeserved .as it has undoubtedly been rapid. Admiral Halsey has not only proved himself an exceptionally able. executiv e officer, but he is especially well-versed in naval strategy and history. We must confess ourselves not altogether in sympathy with the dead set which is being made against Viscount Grey of Falloden, although we suppose that ho will follow his leader. Mr Asquith, into retirement. It is impossible to forget the services h c rendered as Foreign Minister from 1905, when ho was first appointed, down to the first outbreak of war. It was of him that Mr Gladstone said: ; I never remembered so signal a capacity for public life and so small a disposition for it. ; ' His singlc-mindedness, and wo

might even say his nobility of character, gained him the respect and, indeed, the admiration of all parties. If he failed to realise the importance of preparation for war as the best guarantee of peace, it was a failing exhibited by almost every leading statesman of his time. He achieved a triumph for diplomacy by the skill with which he averted a general conflagration immediately after the Balkan War in 1913. H 0 made a magnificent fight for peace in the fateful days preceding the outbreak oi the great war in 1914, and only failed because Germany had made up her mind for war at all costs. It must be admitted that our diplomacy in tli t , Balkans since the outbreak of war has proved a. dismal succession of failures, and for these Lord Grey, we fear, must accept some share of responsibility. The truth is he is too much a man of honour to be able to hold his own against th P dark devices of intrigue, deception, and treachery against which he had to contend. For the last display of perfidy on the part of Greece Admiral Du Fournet seems to hav 0 been as littlo prepared as the British Foreign Office. There is somo excuse for venturing to accept the word of a King. But evidently it does not do in the case of a Greek King with German connexions.

Possibly there will be. some difficulty in selecting a suitable successor to Viscount Grey as Foreign Minister. We can think of no one better fitted for the position than- Lord Curzon, who, it may be remembered, was UnderSecretary for Foreign Affairs during his brief but brilliant career in the House of Commons before ho became- Viceroy of India and a Peer. 7t has been a grave reflection on the party system m England that men of such-, ability as lx>rd Curzon and Lord Milner havo not been allowed to remain "on the shelf" for ycar s instead of their great talents being worthily employed in the public service. There will naturally bo a good deal of speculation as to the futuro of Mr -Asauith. Wo do not look upon his im mediato return to power as probable, while it is hardly conceivably that he would accept office under cither Mr Lloyd George or -Mr Bonar Law. There is no doubt ho could have a peerage if lie wishod, but that would prevent him from resuming his practice at the Bar, should he deem this desirable. Perhaps the. best solution would bo his appointment to tho Judicial Bench, for which ho is eminently qualified.

A correspondent signing himself "Anxious" writes to us to-day a tolling letter of protest against tho indiffcrenco of the Now Zealand public to the necessity for thrift. We confess that we aro rather tired of heaping public bodies and Ministers preaching tho doctrine of thrift without doing something practical to make thrift a fact. The New Zealand public has its faults, but nobody can say that.it has not shown a real readiness to follow a god load when that lead is given. There arc a great many individual cases in which thrift has been practised—in some cases with the object of providing means for directly helping in the war by subscribing to the War Loan and tho many war funds, in other cases on tho principle that the less that is consumed the more thero will be available for export, and the less thero will need to bo imported. But what have tho Government done J* Wc do not like to 6ay they have don© nothing, but we should liko to be ahle to say they have dono something. The trifling increases of Customs duties are not checking imports, and thero are some people who object even to these increases, holding that war or no war their old political idols must not be displaced.

On every hand there are evidences of prosperity, and also of a firm determination to enjoy that prosperity to the utmost. The,people who are complaining about the high cost of living would' complain less of they realised and were helped hy example to realise, that this is a time when the inconvenience of high prices would disappear if everyone curtailed his pleasures and lived at a lower standard. When we mado this suggestion some months ago we were sharply criticised by a contemporary, which resented the idea that the general body of the public should go without anything. Perhaps wo shall escape 6uch criticism now. The very fact that prices are high shows that the public is living on the old scale. ' Today we have some particulars of the steps which the British Government have deemed it necessary to take with the object of reducing consumption. An order has been issued placing restriction's upon the menus at hotels and boarding-houses, and another order foreshadows the institution of ''moatless" days. "Why should the people of Great Britain bear greater burdens than the people of New Zealand, or make greater sacrilices, or be called upon to exercise greater thrift and economy? If the Government will do nothing positive in the matter, surely our public bodies can do something. New Zealand is prosperous through the war. It is not the primary producers, but the whole public, including those who rail at the primary producers, who are enjoying the high prices of our staple products. And these are being enjoyed at Britain's expense.