PERSONAL AND POLITICAL.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 9, Issue 349, 16 January 1918, Page 4

PERSONAL AND POLITICAL.

N.Z. CASUALTIES. Week Ending January 12. Dead 105 Wounded _. 228 Prisoner 1 Missing „....„.........—.— 8 Total 882 * * * * "Ballot Box" and. his wife were in Wellington last week end. They return to the West Coast this week. * * * * The scheelite capitalists are moving for bigger money for their wares, and are bemoaning the fact that they are not permitted to sell to other countries than Britain for higher prices than Britain is prenared to pay. In "The Scandal of the War Profits" H. E. Holland makes a startling revelation concerning scheelite and its vendors. * * * * One of the most pleasing items the cable furnished last week was the one that announced that Mr. John Galsworthy, novelist and author of the splendid social dramas of "Strife," "Justice*" and "The Mob," had declined the knighthood royalty offered him. The "N.Z. Times" of January 11 had the cable printed in an obscure portion of its columns; it was too democratic for the centre page. * * * * A little publication, which for some reason best known to the inner circle is permitted to go through the post as a newspaper, was so angry with Australia for turning down Prussian militarism that it howled for "a few explosive bombs" (whoever heard of a bomb that wasn't explosive?) to drop on Sydney, and further hissed: "So many of the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Sydney 'left their country for their country's good' that there is litle need for surprise that their descendants should be such human scum as to be destitute of the very elements of patriotism and loyalty." It is needless for us to comment that the writer of the foregoing was either a deplorable dipsomaniac or a criminal lunatic. In either case he ought to be taken care of. * * * * The readers of British papers are missing a great treat since the 8010. affair has disappeared from the colums of their papers. It no longer suits th.c "patriots." It is too much a mirror of their own minds and methods. They gave the credulous public to understand that 8010 bought pacifists and paid men'to speak of peace. 8010 knew that that did not help the German governing classes. So as the trials proceed, we find fire-eating patriots, ruling ladies of easy virtue; fraudulent or shady financiers, company promoters, "men about town," stepping into the box. In short, 8010 knew his people, and attached to himself those types of evil livers and people of no rectitude who respond to every surge of popular passion and appetite, and who shout with the crowd in war and sin withjt in peace. Those are the 8010 dupes, and I hope that Sir George Cave and Scotland Yard are not forgetting these French revelations in whatever investigations they may be making into Boloism in this country. It is really no use bribing pacifists. The art of bribery is to get at the scum in the dominant camp, so that, when the time comes, by insinuation, by plotting, by mischief, it may paralyse the camp to which It belongs, and by which it is trusted. Verily, 8010 was no fool.—Ramsay Mac Donald in "Forward." w * # * "It is beyond comprehension," says a Federal Minister, weepfully bewailing the death of Conscription, "that a majority of Australia could vote in support of German military despotism and Kaiserism." And it is equally beyond comprehension how any alleged human intellect can fail to perceive that the majority of the electors of Australia who were privileged to vote, by the grace of the War Precautions Act, voted No just precisely because they were so much up against German military despotism' and Kaiserism that they were determined not to allow it to get a footing in the Commonwealth. —Brisbane "Daily Standard." * * * * As we pointed out in a previous issue in this connection, when Conscription was first imposed in N.Z., Australian workers were drawn in the ballots, and thie kept shearers and others from going , over. Now when they are to be allowed to return tshey have. decided not to go because for every Australian who goes to N.Z. to work a New Zealander is sent to the Front. All shearers, slaughtermen and other workers are warned againet New Zealand and its conscripting slavery. —Queensland "Alert." * * * ~ .Victor Fisher, Captain Tupper, Havelock Wilson, Ben Tillett, and other antiLabor propagandists appear to be making big efforts to raise with the aid of the Tory press for the purpose of driving the I,L_.P". out of tie British Labor Party. Tillett has got himself elected to the Coninions as an "independent"; Joseph Burgess is going to assist the Tories in an effoTt to defeat Snowden for Blackburn; while J. F. Green is to do similar service for Labor's enemies against Ramsay Mac Donald at Leicester. J%C •&* *** %* "Sydney Morning Herald" (Dec. 17): "Yesterday we saw in Sydney Australia's saddest spactacle. The Premier of Queensland . ■ • passed through the streete of Sydney in a JSkvconsciription prooee* sion, with a band playing- secular music, and with the'strangest confusion of banners and pictorial devices this city ever «aw. He passed through streets co crowded in places that they were reminiscent of such historic days as the- arrival of the American Fleet, or the inauguration of the Commonwealth—that Commonwealth of ours which is now fighting for its very life, its very existence. And tens of thousands of people applauded him. and he kept bowing from side to side like some great general of olden times passing in triumph through the streets of Rome." Several leading "Nationalists" of the Tory sort in the Brigand's Cave presided over by \V. M. Hugi.es would seem to be •glad of the defeat of conscription because it excuses their determination to chuck Hughes overboard. Over 81,000 Australian soldiers have voted against conscription. Of 163,000 soldiers' votes east the conscriptionists have only been able to get a majority of 400 or so —and it remains to be seen how many of these are nurses, doctors, civil employees, etc. Looks as if one half of the Australian Army consists of "I.W.W-ites,'* "Sinn Feiners," "traitors" I and "sown."

'At the opening of a new ech66l t Easendon, Melbourne,. Archbishop Mai nix said a very few words-about the t' ferendum. He eaid Jh» way* tir«» of the question. He had ~w*lly JeetjiJ interest in it wl*n the fight xvae over «epcially if it had been won. He want** very little to say abcut,.jt. They &a< made a good fight ;*h*y he said they had won he dwLw meat people of the Catholic persuaeljp. Pro. bably for every Catholic votfng "No*, there were three * came way. He emphasised"fajs becaway some people were endeavoring to mak* it appear a sectarian vo£». /? # * ?■ * f V. Queensland "Alert" eit th*Wfet A *k» Conscription, vote: "Alt Chinese, Afghans, and' oOfaj. oolnjari .jaf i. pie will have votes at tibe '(SfMia^K," while netavi© born Australians, tecatts* their fathers were bora in what ie now an enemy country, are disfranchised." * * * * A. recent issue of the eaye: "Mr. White, who xeom&y ▼Mtal Gisborne with Mexican panwts, has ap» pointed Mr. Geo. Smith, 13 Road, as his agent. Ajoy to possess one of theee parrots, wnioh Mr. Smith avers can talk better than any politician, should loee no tim* abvo.tr ptafeing an OTder, as only a limited ape available." It does Bot*«M*t -|Nft&& of- a puff to say a bird if&is "better ftjM • any politician." Bat what a pitr th« Tory politicals were* not Ufefc !tb» pAmts —"a limited number."