Lake Wakatip Mail. QUEENSTOWN, TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1917. New Zealand & the War.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3247, 3 July 1917, Page 4

Lake Wakatip Mail. QUEENSTOWN, TUESDAY, JULY 3, 1917. New Zealand & the War.

Last week Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward, after an absence of ten months, returned to the Dominion. It is not out of place to be perfectly frank in this relation, And our frankness consists in assuring both the Prime and the Finance Ministers that had it not been for Sir James Allen, who was continually impressing upon deputations that he would do nothing in the absence of Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward, no one would have known that they were away. The affairs of the country have been just as badly administered as though they were here. The taxpayers and fathers and mothers of the Dominion are not greatly concerned in those things that, apparently, seem, of superimportance to the Prime Minister and his colleagues. We unite ourselves with those critics who have either said, or implied, that the transformation of the Governor of New Zealand with a Governor-General is a piece of meaningless folly and utterly out of touch with the stern realities that we in common with the rest of the Empire are called upon to face.

Governor-general indeed! Governor irenera! of wlia' ? Oui upon this shoddy imperialism. The change, we are informed, was made in recognition of the magnificent services rendered by New Zealand throughout the war. We regret that we cannot appreciate the compliment and we further regret that the Imperial Government did not lake steps to ascertain what the people of New Zealand thought about the matter before accepting Mr Massey and Sir Joseph Ward's wishes a.s final. These gentlemen do not represent the feelings, or wants, of the great majority in this regard. The plain people of New Zealand have no particular admiration for titles, the creation of a distinct class, or for an Imperialism that expresses it.se'f in high-sounding names. Mr I.loydGeorge, in the course of one of his recent speeches, said that there were people in Great Britain who were un-

der the delusion that the country after the war would be the same country it. was before the war, and oi' the»e he remarked: "Then God help the country." Yet the Lloyd George

Government, like its predecessors, is busy, twice or thrice a year, making new lords, new knights, rewarding faithful political barkers and perpetuating those disastrous class distinctions and institutions of which sober Britons, in common with Anieri-

cans and Frenchmen, are heartily tired. If all that Mr Massey ana Sir Joseph Ward have brought us back from their association with the masses of the Home people, is a belief in outworn creeds and the idea, that the men and women of New Zealand care two straws about these tawdry trappings and artificial distinctions, then, the sooner they are brought, to see the folly of their ways the better for themselves and the better for our common country. Honors that are awarued as the result of political preference and not as the result of personal worth, or merit, are valueless. "Honor and shame from 110 condition rise, act well your part, there all the honor lies." What the returned Ministers "have had to say about the war, New Zealand's part therein and future possibilities does not greatly add to our knowledge. On these matters they know no more than does the intelligent and consistent student of the day's news. But Doth are satisfied that the Allies will win, that they wild,

make no patched-up peace, and that Germany cannot starve England. So say we all. To halt and hesitate now would be to fling away all that we have so far gained. And we have gained much. We have profited by our blunders, we have published our incompetence and mistakes to the four winds of heaven and we have in even more sounding terms shown by our determination that we shall not sheathe the sword until the savage

and inhuman monster that has su long cursed the world with his presence and his crimes is beaten into impotence. This is the will and spirit of the British people in the Motherland, and it is the will and spirit of the people of these Southern Seas. We know that there are laggards and weaklings among us, we know aho that there are those who are shamelessly ignorant of the causes, meaning and objects of tiie war, but we know too that the larger number of us are of one. heart and one resolve. If their prolonged holiday and most interesting slay in the United Kingdom has done no more than open the eyes of our own Ministers it has not been made in vain. The country needs as its political chiefs men of enlarged views and a lirm - rip of th»* fundamentals. As far as Parliament and legislation are concerned, the work of the session, as is but lit, and in harmony with the serious nature of the task

that still awaits the Km pi re. wild be con lined almost solely to what are. termed "war measures"—a term suflicently far-reaching to include the earlier closing of li-le' liar.- among the most urgent. There be an appeal for-a second loan for any sum between ten and fifteen millions, and heavy increases in taxation. The one is the inevitable accompaniment of the other. Incomes will have to pay more—much more, than they have-, and the government's share of what are known as war prolits will he even greater than it was. The only ones who are likely to he let oil "-cot free, save through the Cii-ioins. are the do-nothings who waste (heir Lute and their breath in .shrieking for what they call "the conscription of wealth."