THE PREMIER'S BOMBSHELL.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 259, 25 July 1908, Page 4

THE PREMIER'S BOMBSHELL.

The terrible threat of the Prime Minister to expose a conspiracy against the ■credit :of .New Zealand turns out to have been empty bombast. We were to have revelations that would fill the public with amazement; a scandal of the greatest magnitude was to be laid bare; villainy was to be shown cowering in the glare of exposure—all these terriblo things were vaguely foreshadowed, the more terriblo for their vagueness, and oven the most hardened cynic looked forward to the great impeachment. . That the revelation would be the customary Prime Ministerial abuse patched up with innuendo we fully expected. We did not expect, however, that tho performance of the Prime Minister's promiso would be quite so ludicrous as it was. What was tho ghastly talo that he nn-' folded 1 ! That a British financial journal published some very sound comments (which we reproduce elsewhere) on Mr. John Duthie's analysis of the financial poßition of Now Zealand; that Beveral foreign investors applied .unsuccessfully

for New Zealand stock at bargain prices; that several financial houses lately committed tho unpardonablo offence of stirring up their clients; and, finally, that The Dominion discussed the price of wool yesterday. From these facts tho public is asked to piece together a plot arranged by persons unknown, for motives unknown, with tho object of bringing ruin upon New Zealand! Tho public is not quite so foolish as the Prime Minister is pleased to think, and it is unnecessary to waste time over his laughable appeal to the public to believe that tho nest ia not a mare's.

Of course, tho Prime Minister does not. really believe that there has been any conspiracy to injure the country. But when a Government has to savo its face, what is it to do if it cannot accuse somebody of something dreadful? Kir Joseph Ward appears, however, to have transgressed a littlo beyond tho license permitted to men smarting under criticism. Ho was too heatod perhaps to remember the rules of the game. He forgot, indeed, a good many things. He forgot that the Chairman of tho Hank of New Zealand, Mr. Harold .Beauchamp, urged the need for caution as strongly as any of - the Government's critics; ho forgot that the Hank of New Zealand; in which the Government exercises the controlling power, was one of tho financial houses that has of late kept a sharp eye on its advances. He forgot to read the articlo in The Dominion yesterday on wool values, for we do not think that even Sir Joseph Ward would call pessimistic, and so contrived as to injure the wool market, an article that was exactly the opposite of pessimistic, and that expressly declared that wool was sound and on tho mend. Mr. T. Mackenzie, who is so impressed by tho virtue of Sin Joseph Ward's administration that he has definitely surrendered to it, endorsed our articles, last night. Is ho, too, in the conspiracy? It is some months since tho Prime Minister began his campaign against The Dominion, and we have given up as hopeless the task of getting him to cease his misrepresentation of our motives, and misinterpretation of our expressed opinions. if ho devoted to a reconstruction of his financial policy the energy he has expended in fulminating against this paper, he would do tho country a service, and would, moreover, do himself more credit, His idea ol financial reform appears to be a constant outcry against those who urge the need for it, and the public must be very, very tired of his talk,. It is to bo hoped !that he will exercisc more care when he'-next seeks to make the public's flesh creep with portentous hints about a conspiracy, for his performance last night not only failed as financial criticism, but was not even good art.