Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1914. The Scapegoat.

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2321, 27 March 1914, Page 2

Feilding Star. Oroua & Kiwitea Counties' Gazette. FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 1914. The Scapegoat.

Has Colonel Seely.been sent out into the wilderness as the scapegoat for his colleagues of the British Cabinet? lie certainly lias played up to the best traditions of! British politics in sending in his resignation when his Cabinet is overwhelmed with condemnation from friends and foes alike for the part played by the department of which he is the official head. But will that help the difficulty ? "Peccavi! ,, cries Colonel Seely—and gets from under his load of trouble. That is very comfortable for him, and it does not inconvenience the Asquith Cabinet of Talents any —for the Colonel is the very least of ail the combine in the Cabinet; but will it stay to-morrow's Crisis ? Winston Churchill can step into the breech and fill the War Office as well as that of the Navy—and pour soldiers and sailors into Ireland, if he desires to wield the strong arm of Law and Order. But here cames the test: Winston Churchill is £aid to be more than half a Unionist and wholly sympathetic towards Ulster. Colonel Seely seems to have been weighed in the balance and found wanting as a general, and the latest White Paper discloses that he lost his head when civil war in Ireland seemed to come his way. The Minister who resigned because he was not resigned to his position, is only 46 years of age, so that his rise into the War Office has been almost phenomenal. He was trained for the law, but took to soldiering, serving with the Yeomanry in the Boer War and winning distinction, being mentioned in despatches and gaining the D.5.0.; and he has also been decorated by the French Government for saving life at sea. He went into the House of Commons in 1900, was Under-Secretary for the Coloniea for two years, when (in 1911) he became Under-Secretary of State for War, succeeding to full Cabinet rank last year. And now he is quite prepared to come down and go out —if his colleagues will let him.