Evening Post. THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 1922. A DULL SPEECH

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 151, 29 June 1922, Page 6

Evening Post. THURSDAY, JUNE 29, 1922. A DULL SPEECH

' The absolutely unrelieved dullness of the Governor-General's Speech at the opening of the session yesterday makes one sigh for the good old days of twenty years ago, when Mr. Seddon was accustomed to do these things in a much brighter style. If the purple patches and the resounding phrases which his robust Imperialism loved to put into Lord Ranfurly's mouth on similar occasions sometimes made the judicious smile, they had at least the effect of making both the judicious and the injudicious feel that they were getting something for their money. It is equally impossible'for the judicious and the injudicious to feel that they are getting anything for their money from such a speech as that | delivered by Lord Jellicoe yesterday. If there is nothing in it to shock the most, fastidious taste, there is also nothing in it to please any taste at all. From beginning to end it is too flat, too dull, too insipid to attract, to repel, or to interest. Such a monotony of dullness is powerless to pi'oduce any emotion but that of weariness. The result is that, though there have been many longer speeches delivered at the opening of a session, few have been harder to read. Feeling that even bombast is more appetising than sawdust, and at least equally nutritive, the exhausted reader falters in his task, and pines for the good old days. Of the inevitable • paragraph about the Eoyal wedding, with which the Speech opens, no reasonable complaint can be made. There was no call for rapturous eloquence, and the essentials are adequately, if conventionally, stated.' But this paragraph abounds in life and colour in comparison with that which deals with the Washington Conference. By universal admission,' this was one of the very greatest "events in the history of the world since Germany laid down her arms, and, from the special standpoint of these Dominions in the Pacific, the greatest' event of all. We all felt the outcome of this Conference" to be aUife-and-death matter, but not a touch of this feeling is allowed to colour the tame reference to the matter in His Excellency's speech. We are certainly told that the Conference was "very important," and that the results have "exceeded expectations," but "the signal success of the 5 per cent, five-million loan" is treated in a far less chilly fashion. The limitation of naval armaments, the Four-Power Pact which brings the United States into line with Britain and Japan in support of the status quo in the Pacific, the united front presented by the British Empire at Washington in- happy contrast with the go-as-you-please procedure which so flattered the vanity of some of the Dominions; at. Versailles, and the close understanding between the English-speaking nations 'which is the strongest guarantee of the world's peace— not one of these capital results achieved at Washington receives,a single word of specific reference. The least disappointing of the four colourless sentences in which this all-important j Conference is disposed of tells us something that we really did not need to be told: " Papers relating to this Conference will be laid before you for your information." As Sir John Salmond's report will be among these papers, Mr. Massey will have a fine brief from which to begin the educative process to which the Governor-General's Speech makes no contribution at all. The League of Nations is treated in an even ! more perfunctory fashion than the Washington Conference. There is not the faintest expression of sympathy with the objects of the League or approval of its work. Of I the two sentences devoted to the subject, one, if we mistake not, is inaccurate, and the other is certainly superfluous. The first sentence says that " a Conference of delegates from those nations constituting the League ef Nations was held at Geneva, at which the High Commissioner for New Zealand represented this Dominion." But was not the Geneva meeting a formal meeting of the Assembly of the League, and should it not have been so described 1 The second of these sentences repeats the formula about papers from the preceding paragraph about the Washington Conference, with the addition that' resolutions relating',to certain of the League's decisions will be submitted. If the Washington programme could be similarly treated, the value of the discussion would be enhanced by the defining of issues and the focussing of attention. On the issues of domestic policy His Excellency's speech is less inadequate. No striking announcements were to be expected, and the' broad facts of the depression, the. improving outlook, and the cant Uuued peed for drastic economies

lend themselves better to curt treatment than the matters to which we have referred. A very satisfactory point is the stern insistence on rigid economy. We are told that the Estimates have been prepared with this object in view, and that, much as has already been done in curtailing public expenditure, "much 'more must be done in order to maintain the desired equilibrium in the finances of the Dominion." The most interesting item in the legislative programme is the proposal for the establishment of agricultural or people's banks. These institutions have, as the Speech says, done good work elsewhere, and they may do good work here, but any scheme that may be submitted will have to be very carefully watched and freed from any suspicion of class preference at the public cost. An unusual, but by no means unwelcome, feature of the Speech is the expression of the Government's opinion "that this session should not be of more than average duration, thus permitting members to have a proper opportunity of visiting their constituencies before the date of the General Election." A short session and a fruitful session are by no means incompatible. The shorter the better, if the necessary work is done. The less that members put into Hansard, the more can they reserve for direct i speech to their constituents.