MR NASH'S WIZARDRY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 82, Issue 25288, 23 August 1945, Page 4

MR NASH'S WIZARDRY

If Mr Nash's first demand for £105,000,000 was an accurate estimate of the cost of a.full year of war, there is something strikingly original, or ironical, in his call for an additional £34,000,000 to meet the costs of only four and a-half months of war and seven and a-half months of peace. This originality, or irony, becomes glaring when note is taken of two of the principal items in the new bill. He wants another £4,000,000 to pay ex-servicemen for the three months' demobilisation eave they will have. They are entitled. be P a id, but the amount was fully provided for in the vote of £105,000,000. And most of the men will be out of the forces by the end of thcr financial year. Far from an additional bill on this account, there should be a substantial saving He wants £5,000,000 to pay the men the extra shilling a day voted them some years ago. This is the first time that Mr Nash has even hinted that this shilling was not being

credited to the men's accounts. Parliament, certainly the public, was under the impression that this extra cost was appropriated annuajly. As for the gratuity of £18,000,000, Mr Nash still declines to say when it will be paid. With such a system of finance, taking all and paying out little, the Dominion' should emerge from the war with substantial credit balances. The Government's object is perfectly plain. Next year is election year. The Government wishes to be in a position to make a grand gesture of tax reduction from money it is collecting in advance from the people. Then, too, as Mr Sullivan incautiously revealed, it is trying to manoeuvre the Opposition into opposing the new estimates so that Government candidates can stump the country denouncing it for having* opposed grants to ' the soldiers. While being wary of that trap, the Opposition must demand full details from the Minister, especially on the location of the nest egg from which he can draw another £3*1,000,000 without- asking a penny more in taxes. AUSTRALIA'S DIGNITY Mr Fraser's expression of regret that New Zealand was not consulted on the terms of the Potsdam ultimatum .to Japan upholds the status of the Dominion and should prevent a recurrence of like happenings. In announcing that the protest was ' made, Mr Fraser was also able to give assurance that Japan will not be treated more leniently than Germany. The ultimatum conveyed the impression that Japan, if she surrendered quickly, might escape more lightly than Germany. This is not to be so. Australia has been rather shrill in its protests to Britain on the question of participation in the surrender of Japan. The Commonwealth is becoming extraordinarily sensitive, if, in fact, she is not taking herself a little too seriously as a world Power. The terras of an armistice are signed by designated commanders of the belligerents. Thus Grant accepted the surrender of Lee at Appomattox and his subordinates that of other Confederate armies wherever they were found. Focli signed the armistice in 1918 with Germany. There was no great array of small Allies demanding a place at Compiegne. Nor in May of this year did Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Yugoslavia and Greece line up to countersign the surrender of Germany. Great as has been Australia's contribution to the defeat of Japan, there is no occasion for a full ■ dress parade at the surrender. Such ; an ornate facade will not deceive ; scheming Japanese militarists, or the Americans and the Russians. Consultation on the peace terms and . the formal signing of that document is another matter, in which Australia and New Zealand will rightly expect to share.