The Press Friday, January 25, 1924. The Prime Minister.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17980, 25 January 1924, Page 8

The Press Friday, January 25, 1924. The Prime Minister.

Mr Massey id back again in the Dominion, "the picture of health" a fact, if tho picture does not deceive, that is of more importance* than almost any other wo could be told on his first day home. For health is, of course, in the end tho foundation of nearly every kind of efficiency and usefulness, and Mr Massey's condition was by no means what his friends wanted it to be when he went away. He has returned, indeed, not only in good health, but in fighting health, his challenging exposition of. his attitude to the Imperial Conference displaying anything but listlessness or fatigue. It is to be noted, too, that if it is inaccurate to speak of tho Conference resolutions as .promises, or to say anything at all that would make their rejection by tho British people a breach of faith to the Dominions, Mr ■ Massey's loyalty to the Homeland is as refreshing as ever. While Mr Bruce has said, and re-said, most distressing things about the effect the dropping of tho Preference agreements would have on Australia's trading connexions, Mr Massey proclaims with a most admirable fervour that tho practical effect in New Zealand will be nil. Retaliatory measures aro -unthinkable, nor shall we ever icel in the Dominion that tho Homeland deserves them. Mr Maseey's concern is not what New Zealand will do if the preference on apples, honey and other articles is withheld, but what will become of Imperial Conferences if they cannot be freed from the disturbing influences of party Government. He expresses himself very freely on this matter, and in terms which in one respect the facts do not support, but the reullv important thing is that he exhimself with a more devoted British sentiment than ever before. The first Empire mission from New Zealand to the Homeland carried a petition to the British Parliament asking that the Colony might relievo the Mother Country of the burden of the Maori war. If that makes strange i & reading to-day, it is pleasant to think that Mr Massey' returns from his fifth mission (nearly three score years later) talking still of the. tilings New Zealand may do for the Empire rather than of the things the Empire has been cajoled into promising New Zealand. No statesman living has the knowledge now that Mr Massey has acquired of the need, on the one hand, of Imperial co-operation, and the difficulty, on the other hand, of securing co-operation, without loss of that spirit of self-reliance which each of the British nations must retain. Ho n.13 spent about a third of his time abroad since the beginning of the Great "War, always in conferences and consultations of the most serious kind, and it would be folly to expect him to come back from the most delicate mission of all with the kind of report we should demand from a commercial traveller. He has, as a fact, done a great deal in that way, of which we shall hear more fully when Parliament assembles. We know, for ©sample, that he has prepared the way for a speeding-up of Pacific mails, that he has looked into the majlkoting condiiMons abroad of New Zealand produce, and especially, <as we learn to-day for tho first time, that ho has taken a most important step in connexion with wireless communication. But those are incidents of his mission, and not its prime purpose. He went to London to give and take counsel on the strengthening of the British Empire, in his own words, to assist in "keeping the Imperial family " to-gether," and it has not been necessary to wait for his return to have an assurance that he did not go for nothing.