Evening Post. MONDAY, JULY 15, 1918. NEW ZEALAND'S PART

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 13, 15 July 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, JULY 15, 1918. NEW ZEALAND'S PART

The High Commissioner is not often selected to make important declarations of policy. He of course represents the Ministry of the day, but he is not himself a Minister, and except at the beginning of his term he is divorced hot only from, executive responsibility,. but also from the direct knowledge of local opinion and local conditions' which close and continuous personal contact alone can give. In the case of Sir Thomas Mackenzie this detachment from the local atmosphere has now endured for nearly six years, and the fact that four ofsthose six years are covered by the period of the war isi, enough to show how wide a, gulf divides the New Zealand of to-day fpom the only New Zealand of which he has personal knowledge. Yet even when we have added that the High Commissioner's original term expired nearly three years ago, and that he now holds office as a sort of tenant-at-will by successive four-monthly extensions, we have not exhausted his disqualifications for making a policy speech on a matter intimately concerning the s internal -conditions of the Dominion. Perhaps the most glaring'of all these disqualifications is provided by the presence in Great Britain of the two leaders of New-Zealand's National Government.. Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph" Ward are both on the spot. They are both, we may safely assume, in constant touch with the High Commissioner ; both of them have daily access to the platform; and neither of them has shown the slightest disposition to hide -his light.under a bushel. Why, then, while labouring under all these disqualifications, has Sir Thomas Mackenzie assumed a temerity of initiative which is neither appropriate to his office nor congenial to his temperament, and usurped the functions of the responsible Ministers who were at hand to do their own work' for themselves?

Of one thing at least we may be sure —viz., that ' there has really been no usurpation in the / matter. The High Commissioner, who has hitherto brought an. almost unfailing discretion to the discharge of his important duties, has not suddenly, towards the close of his sixth year of office, violated in a particularly wanton fashion the canons which he had hitherto observed. We are justified in assuming that what he said at Leeds last week was not said thoughtlessly or impulsively, or from a desire to trespass on the province of trie responsible authorities. We may assume, on the contrary, that he did not speak except after full consultation with those authorities, and probably , not without their direct instigation.: It is certainly impossible to suppose that such a statement as this was the result ;• of the High Commissioner's unaided indiscretion and uninspired initiative: —

"New Zealand,'.' said Sir Thomas Mackenzie, " had sent 110,000 soldiers out of her one million inhabitants, but, he confessed, the strain on tho man-power and the resources was now beginning to. tell. New' Zealand, however, could supply a superabundance of foodstuffs_ and raw material, while America —' Thank God for America!' —had men in plenty willing to go. It would be sound policy to accept men from America and foodstuffs 'from New 'Zealand."

If the reasons we have, already given are not sufficient to clear the High Commissioner of the primary responsibility for this statement, the fact of the lack of a prompt disavowal by his official chiefs surely means that their silence gives consent and ratifies what, with or without j their connivance, had been previously uttered by an irresponsible authority. It is unpleasant to recall that the men who have failed to repudiate the High Commissioner's plain implication that New Zealand is beginning to weary of the war are tho very men who a year before had done a grievous and perhaps irreparable injury to the martial .spirit of the country by a forecast of a. similar character. It was almost immediately after the return of our representatives from last year's Imperial Conference that" they discounted their valuable services on that occasion by this singular disservice. Replying to a deputation of protest against the curtailment oE the railway services, Sir Joseph Ward said:

"The only thing- that passes through my mind is that we shall have to consider how much further this country can go in sending men at all. ... Tho time will come —I cannot say when —when it may not bo possible to let any more men so." Mr. Maosßy, who was.also present at tho iuUi'view, cgokis to the Uks «fieefc. Bub-

sequent events showed that, in thus suggesting a reversal, of the policy which, had been so admirably maintained during their absence, Sir Joseph Ward and his chief had. spoken without consulting their colleagues. Sir James Allen and Sir Francis Bell were prompt in declaring that the policy of the Government in regard to reinforcements had undergone no change, but the suggestion of backsliding could not be recalled and has not been forgotten. The mischief which, had been done by the official sanction thus given to the doubts and fears previously current cannot be easily measured.

By a remarkable coincidence we have had a revival of this official weakening almost exactly a year after it was first displayed. It was on the 6th July, 1917, that the speeches were made by our returned Imperial missionaries to the railway deputation. It was on the 9th—or possibly the Bth—-July, 1918, that Sir Thomas Mackenzie spoke in the same strain at Leeds. The second occasion is decidedly the more unfortunate of the two, since the High Commissioner's suggestion has been made at a time when the need of the Empire is far greater than it was a year ago, and instead, of being quietly and tentatively addressed to a New Zealand audience, has been proclaimed in a manner which compromises us before the whole Empire. What are Sir James Allen and Sir Francis Bell,.who so promptly vindicated the honour and patriotism of the Dominion a year ago, going to do now? To say nothing will be to give the same consent to the suggestion of the High Commissioner which the silence of their colleagues in England has already given. They owe it to the Empire, no less than to the Dominion, to make a clear and. explicit declaration.on,the subject.

At the moment when we are celebrating the indomitable resolution of the French people it would indeed savour of sheer poltroonery to declare that we have reached the limit of our man-power, or that our energies should now be Confined to the export of mutton and wool. Sir James Allen and Sir Francis Bell have only to look up their speeches of a year ago iri order to see the sort of call that the country needs and the occasion' demands. In any event, let us all clear our minds of cant. We must either go on or go back. We must either continue to play the man or leave the'fighting to others. And we are entitled to a plain declaration from our Ministers as to which course they desire us to pursue. If the latter alternative is the one selected, let it be frankly stated. If the "inflexible resolution" which on the three previous anniversaries of the declaration of war we have consistently affirmed has really, as Sir Francis Bell said a yeax ago, become flexible, the acknowledgment should be frankly made without shuffle or subterfuge, and the expression of our patriotism on the fourth of next month should be amended accordingly.