OBITER DICTA.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17935, 1 December 1923, Page 12

OBITER DICTA.

(By K.) It has not ba«n easy, in a week filled with a Mission, a Presbyterian Assembly, and an uncommon flood of talk about tariffs, with the British election campaign thundering and flashing on the horiaon, to keep one's attention fixed on M. PoincarS. His luck still holds. At a critical moment Mussolini drew all eyes to Corfu, at another critical moment an ©lection obliges Britain to keep its eyes i-.i the boat, and presently war will break out • between England and America aver "Eumrny Bill's" whisky. "What the end of Poincard may be nobody can tell, but one day Britain will wake up end realise how she lias been deluded. Almost everyone in the Empire believed that the war was "a war to end war," and the Empire fought in that belief. The French knew hotter. A correspondent of the "Spectator" quotes a passage from M. Paleologue's book, "La llussie des Tzars." In May, 1916, M. Paleologue said to M. Albert Thomas, who was on a mission to Petrograd: Quelle chiniere do croire que la pais prochaino sera eternelle! Je me figure a,u contraire que lo monde va, entrer dans une ere do violences et que nous semona actuellement le germe d'un« guerre nouvelle." To which M. Thomas: "Qui, apres cette guerre dix ans do guerre. . . . dix ans do guerre."

Hero was Russia wagging its head over the vain dream of a durable peace and reckoning on a new war, and France agreeing that the big struggle was the curtain-raiser to a t«n-years' fight. Poor old John Bull and his sons, sweating and bleeding, paving France and Belgium, holding the seas, pouring out their aouU in effort reckleea of present or future comfort, fighting to a finish, staking everything to save, the world—and all the time ignorant that France, looking cynically (lot us hope, with a little admiration, too) at the light in John Bull's eyes, undimmed by sweat and blood, was whispering tp Russia, "Quelle chimere. . . (''

It was with a shock of surprise (wholly pleasant, needless to say) that most of us found Mr Wilford back in the news again this week. When List heard (if, he was at Petone prophesying the speedy victory of the Liberal Party. Th«n a long eilenee supervened. And now, suddenly and unexpectedly, he turns up at Sipgapore. Mr Mnssey has been thinking all this time that ha would be able to come back to New Zealand and bear down all opposition with the prestige of one who had heen settling the problems of Empire in Jjondon. Imagine his surprise when Mr Wilford, at the end of Mr Massey's first speech, moves a no-confld«nce motion on the ground that the new naval dock at Singapore has holes in it, For poor Mr Maasey, though ho will deny the holes, and will quote extensively from official reports, will be quite unable to reply effectively tj> one who has actually studied Singapore on the spot. The no-confidence motion will be defeated, but Mr Wilford will have a moral victory, and*a* intervals, throughout the saasion he will be able to say, "What about Singapore ?" and Mr Massey will have no reply. 'The Press" hua been criticising the Liberal Party lately as a party wanting character and resource, but Mr Wilford's visit to Singapore knock? the bottom out of that sort of talk. I am not sure that Singapore is as rich in inspiration and appeal as other issues which the Liberal Party might have devised, btft that is hardly the point. The point is Mr Wilford's resourcefulness. It took brains to think of Singaporie.

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