Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1916. THE GOVERNOR'S SPEECH

Evening Post, Volume XCI, Issue 110, 10 May 1916, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1916. THE GOVERNOR'S SPEECH

The severest of the critics who have in the past taken, exception to the tasteless verbosity of some of the Speeches prepared by His Excellency's Advisers for delivery at the opening of Parliament -cannot possibly complain on tliat score of the Speech delivered by Lord Liverpool yesterday. It is now the turn of those who favour a freer style to object to the utter*, baldness of yesterday's deliverance. On such an occasion baldness is certainly infinitely preferable to the turgid and the florid. But at a time when the fate of the Empire is still hanging in the balance, when our own men, after crowning themselves with glory in an absolutely forlorn hope at the Dardanelles, have just been transferred to a post of honour in the main battle-line on the Western front, and when the chief practical problem for the rest of us is to back them up with a regular .supply of reinforcements of the right quantity and quality, it is indeed surprising that the emotions which affect us all should not have been allowed to colour a single phrase even in a three or four minutes' Speech. Emotion which, to use an effective Americanism, "slops over" is not a tiling that we desire to encourage, but seeing that on less formal occasions both His Excellency and his Advisers have given admirable expression to the public sentiment regarding the war, there was surely no reason why they should have so rigidly dissembled their feelings in yesterday's Speech. In what it contains, as distinct from what it omits, the Speech 'is >entirely unexceptionable. Two points in ,the reference to the Dardanelles are specially commendable, one being the association of the British and Indian Forces in the eulogies which have been so freely lavished on the troops of Australia and New Zealand, and the other the tribute to the cheerfulness with which the call to abandon a battlefield where so much honour had been won was accepted. On Anzac Bay His Excellency expressed his regret that it had not been called Gallipoli Day. The narrower title disguises the fact that the work done*ai Helles on the same day was at least as arduous and as brilliant. If it was to the credit of British gratitude to christen the day in this fashion, Australian modesty ; and justice should refuse to accept more than .is justly due. The comprehensive title unofficially suggested by Lord Liverpool would put future celebrations of a great Imperial event on their proper basis.

The pith of yesterday's Speech was contained in the reference to the agreement of all political parties to refrain from party controvsrsy ■ during the war, and in the practical conclusion deduced from this fact, viz., "that you will, therefore, be invited to direct the whole of your energies to the settlement! of some of the difficult problems which have arisen in consequence of the war, and to the consideration of measures

which have direct relation to the existing exceptional conditions." A similar statement was made in the! Governor's Speech last year, wrhen there was no National Cabinet in sight. It has been properly repeated now, although with such a Cabinet in being the statement has become a mere truism. But why should the Government have suppressed even the vaguest hint as to what the measures having direct relation to the problems presented by the war may be? Everybody knows that the passing of a Military Service Bill must be the first duty of Parliament, and it would have been proper to say so in the Governor's Speech. The difficulties of the British Government, and the solution -that has at the eleventh hour saved it from ship-, wreck, have fortunately made the way easy for our own Government. No piecemeal or. conditional measure will do. The Government must be armed with full powers of compulsion, to be enforced forthwith in every district where the requisite quota of recruits is not-otherwise forthcoming. The unlocking of the land for the benefit of discharged soldiers and others, on the lines wliich we advocated in a leading, article a'Veek ago, and the floating of a local loan for the purposes of the war, are the two other urgent necessities. With regard to compulsory service the Government can

hardly go wrong, but it is not more than half-hearted in its attitude to the land question, and with regard to a local war loan Sir Joseph Ward has so far adopted an attitude of definite hostility. On both these matters we hope to see the House exercising a steady pressure in accordance with the needs and desires of a patriotic people. Party bickering, sectional antagonism, and personal feud are to be scrupulously avoided with regard to these and all other issues. The supreme need is to help to win the war, and for that purpose al' minor differences must be subordinated to the national unity and loyal co-operation without which victory is impossible.