Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1921. LORD BRYCE'S OBSERVATIONS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 295, 7 April 1921, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1921. LORD BRYCE'S OBSERVATIONS.

Loan Bryce has been described by a leading English journalist as "tlio greatest living Englishman" in "the sense of the variety of his gifts and of his practical genius." But the term "Englishman" is only used'in Lord DryCe's'casc in the generic sense, for as it happens that distinguished statesman is, like our own Prime Minister, a ' Scotsman born in Ireland. Viscount Bryce and Mr Massey are both Ulsterlnen, gilled with shrewd common sense and a certain genius that has placed them head and shoulders above their fellows. 01 the former, the late Sir Henry Campbell Bunuermau once- said, ''Bryce is the most accomplished man in the House of Commons. He has been everywhere, he- has read almost everything, amp he knows everybody." In his "Pillars of Society," Mr A. 0. Gardiner speaks of him as a man to sit beside whom at dinner "is to pass out spiritually into the universe with the most accomplished of guides. The great splices of history open out before you as familiar as your own back-yard. You traverse the continents with the easy assurance of a citizen of the world, known everywhere and welcome wherever you are known. You pass from ancient Home to modern America and take Iceland and its literature on the way. . . You trip gaily from the question of fleas in a Spanish hotel to the reason why the supervisors of Pike County, Missouri, pass such and such ordinances concerning the keeping of dogs, or to the relation of the Australian States to the Commonwealth." Lord Bryce, in a word, is a man in a million, with almost unrivalled powers of observation and deduction. A profound scholar, he is still a man of affairs. "History to him," Mr Gardiner says again, "is a, lamp by which he sees' the panorama of to-day and illuminates its meaning.. His real interest is not in the dead past but in the living present, in the great humane movement of events towards that liberty of speech and action, and that icign of international peace which, as he told a society at Harvard, is the tine measure of the world s progress." He was possiblv the most- able «and welcome of the distinguished Englishmen, who have lHd the position of Ambassador to the United States of America, his term of office there, coupled with his generous and discriminating criticisms of American institutions ' as set forth in his monumental work, s "The American Commonwealth,"i.and his known sympathies with the American neople, greatly endearing him to both Government officials and' thfe public 1 , who recognised in him not merely, the scholar and diplomat, but the champion of rlemocraey. ! Such a man does, not lightly, rjsk his., reiwi&trom.'by a, mere superficial .observation.- m a country or IX'oplo. iioivbas«.' , }ii!>s impressions of a fnii'Hrv.- uriott the' c'flguaP-' talk, or .< pMioao'. of tbriae 1 with"Avliptii; ho Gomes in contact, !Nor d,ws" Hp' take ,h|s pen

lightly; in:«,as >° trotters" do, to recorcobson* tons « HtH« nr no value. Hence, wnen .wo finon "Modern Democracies," and histories of Australia and N«jg land, Ave expect.to-get something out' of the ordinary, because we me assured by his past reputation that, m 'dealirift with such matters, he , .m upon them. And it must bo said that, so far as the cabled reports of Jus —"the Scotsman born in Lister full justice to Australia's political History aud to its legislations anu methods of Government. Like m statesman that he is, ho is able to put. his finger upon the weak spots in to latter—the government -by the LaDom caucus system, when Labour assumes office, under which the members of the party in office arc compelled to vote ana act unitedly, ("the caucus becoming the absolute master of the representative • assemblies'!) and the Australian politician's low level of attainment resultin- therefrom. "Most of them, he points out, "had only an elementary education, and very few were ."University trained." In tho development of the Australian democracy, and ra our own development, to a smaller extent, the character and personnel, of. the :represcnative Chambers, comprising our Parliaments, have undergone a change which is certainly not for the better, and the change has been more marked since the introduction of payment or members, and even more so with the obtrusion of Labour in politics, candidates offering thein services and being often accepted by the Labour caucus,, whoso ignorance'of even tho primary principles of government has been palpably demonstrated again and again, and'has led, in Australia, under the Labour Governments that have ruled there, to many a serious blunder for which the public has had to pay dearly. In examining State enterprises Viscount Bryce points out that "when unions controlled Labour Governments; and the workers, they became both employers and employed, ami when State considerations conflicted with personal' interest, the State interests went to the wall. The Australian workers' ideas under Labour Ministries seemed to bo that the State's duty was not to get work done by paying wages therefor, but to provide wages and findwork." That is a truthful presentment of the case which ought to set the people of this country thinking seriously when they are urged to give) Labour a turn in office. It is an nude-1 niable fact that the one Australian State that has experienced tho least trouble with Labour, and that is relatively the most prosperous, is the only State that has not yet given itself over j to Labour rule. With all its limitations Victoria is in a better position, financially and otherwise, than any of tho other States. On the population basis, it is carrying a lesser debt than the others, and it has never lent itself to the "wild cat" schemes that are seemingly inseparable from Labour rule andj taken all round, its politicians seem to be of a superior order to those of the other States. There .is one other point ih'VLord Bryc'e's observations to which the attention of our Labour friends who are so fond of denouncing what they are pleased to term, "the lyjng capitalistic press" may well be directed. Speaking of the Australian newspapers (and the New Zealand journals may well be included) Lord Bryce says: "They arc of a high standard, well written generally, and providing fnjr and honest news services. As far as be discovered they could not be worked behind the Scenes' by politicians. The' newspapers had not,-' savo'witlr a few exceptions, lapsed into vulgar sensationalism by inattention to the truth. which had 'increasingly characterised numerous organs in older countries in the latter decades of the last century."