PASSING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3277, 3 January 1917, Page 3

PASSING NOTES.

(From Saturday's Daily Times.)

That the German cry for peace is an enforced signal of distress all the world knows, including President Wilson. The President may have the heart of a fish, but one doesn't limit him to the intelligence of a three-year-old, being where he is. And since it is obvious that Germany wants peace and wants it badly, it 'S equally obvious that the (Jerman demand for a conference is an act of war, subtle and deadly. . It is an attempt to cheat the Al!ie3 of their potential victory. The prizefighter who can't win fair puts his hope in a foul and a barney. That is Germany's policy. What is lost in the field is to be recovered in a peace wrangle, the American President as referee. Hence the proposal of a peace wrangle is as much an act of war as tiie initial challenge of an ultimatum. The thing is as clear as daylight; even the American President must see it. Then why does he lend himself to the scheme and consent to be made a catspaw? " The lvaiser's proposals are not peace but war," says a French criticism; — "he wants the Allies to talk; once talk starts, he undertakes to divide and embroil them until German terms are accepted." But in that sense the Allies are not going to talk. Surely in vain the net is spread, in the sight of any bird! The mystery is that so self-righteous a neutral as the American President should be art and part in machinations of the Kaiser, Que diable fait-il dans cette galere?

It is true, 03 the American papers labour to make out, that the President's maladroit Peace Note may mean anything or nothing By this time the President himself doesn't know what it means. He only knows that he was unlucky enough to get it bracketed in the morning papers alongside the Lloyd George speech that made it ridiculous. Whilst the British Minister was addressing the Commons, speaking urbi et orbi. the President was being decoded in an adjoining street,— emphatically a day behind the fair. Altogether a sorry business. America, 'n the person of its chosen figure-head, is put to eharne. " You see you began

wrong " —says the publio voice, addressing him. " You were ridiculous from the start.''

You saw Belgium bludgeoned, looked on at murder, rape, and robbery, and said nothing; —" Strictly Neutral " your motto. The German arch-criminal's birthday came round j you sent him a card, —strictly neutral. lie assassinates your citizens on the high seas; in a spirit of strict neutrality you remonstrate through the typewriter; ho puts your remonstrances into his wastepaper basket, and assassinates more. So on, month after month, year after year, you endure,—too proud to fight and strictly neutral. At last, when the assassin 13 about to meet his deserts, you crowd in as " Peacemaker" !—picturing yourself m a grand reconciliation scene—Lloyd George and BethmannMollwog locked in' each others arms, you with hovering hands and " Bles3 you, my children!" But the thing does not come off, nor will; and you are left, planted there, pontificating in effigy, the laughingstock of the world. President Wilson, with his history, as Peacemaker! By this time he is sorry he spoke. (

Anything that, an outsider may venture to say in criticism of President Wilson is meek and miid compared with what Americans themselves say, Americans of his own party. Here is one, Mr Owen Wister, a name not unknown to general literature : Perhaps the final disenchantment of his friends came after he had requested them to be neutral about tho European war even in their opinions. At tho moment of the explosion, while we were still stunned, before we understood what the war meant, this was well. Loyalty to the President was imperative just after that explosion. But soon wo began to understand. By autumn little Belgium had bean overwhelmed and mutilated, and the sacred principle of free government derided and hideously assailed —and not a word from us to cheer on free government in its struggle. Distinguished Belgians came over and - told tho President of women raped in public, of babies impaled on bayonets, of farms and villages in ashes, and tho people burned with them. Still the President was silent. By then the war was to his former admirers a plain moral question, a choice between right and wrong, between the Declaration of Independence and the strictest despotism: they could not stay neutral in their opinions. . . . Europe, weltering in

her own failure, looked to us for a word and got none. To us, the greatest of free governments, who had boasted ourselves the big safe beacon of democracy, freo government over the sea in its death struggle with despotism turned for a ray of light, and Mr Wilson turned tno light out. Ho said wo were everybody's friend. Ho showed Europe wo were not up to our Fourth of July brag, he sidestepped the greatest chance to make good that we have ever had. One spoken word of protest from him about Belgium would have put us right. His silenco put us wrong with the world, and (what is much worse) with ourselves. When the test came wo proved begus.

The misfortune is that Mr Wilson rules over nearly a hundred millions of people, exercising a despotism tempered only by assassination, which is the American notion of free government. If not allowed to pose as Peacemaker now the mood has taken him, he may give trouble.

Dunedin, in common with the rest of the dominion, is luxuriating in an unmerited commercial prosperity—wallowing in it, one might say. Researches into the year's trade by a Daily Times reporter yield results such as these :—Wholesale merchandise, business well maintained ; soft goods, " people- seem to have the money and they are spending it" ; toys and fancy goods, a very prosperous year; groceries, "trade compares more than favourably with preceding year"; books, a good year, " no sign of decreased spending power among the people" ; jewellery (the realm of luxury unashamed';,, an increase of business.—"there seemed to be any amount of money about." Other trades are quoted to similar effect; and then in general summing up we have—" Retailers optimistic; every sign of prosperity; increased Christmas returns." I suggest that these joyful fact:? should give us some heart-searchings. Wo are in possession—doubtless lawful possession—of a prosperity for which we have neither toiled nor spun. It is a gift of the Kaiser and made in Germany. The Kaiser made the war, and the war has flooded New Zealand with war profits.

To what extent New Zealand has been flooded with war profits ndbody cares to know. It is a painful subject. Yet the facts are sticking out visibly enough. Neither facts nor figures are my strong point, but I may quota with confidence the following : Export Values. Last two pear© years ... £45,934,085 Two war years f 3,954,286 Subtract the less from the greater; the difference is 17 millions cdd. Which is to say that during the two war years there came into this country 17 millions sterling more than during the two peace years immediately preceding. All told, we are a million people and something over. So

that if the 17 millions sterling had been equally distributed it would have panned out at £l7 per head for every man, woman, and child. But certainly not every man, woman, and child received it. Where did all this money go to? Who got my share? Of the total there went to the producers of wool over seven millions; of frozen meat, over live millions; of butter, nearly a million; of cheese, over a million and three-quarters; of hide 3, nearly three-quarters of a million; and the rest to producers of tallow, sheepskins, leather, hemp, and some other small exportable:!. Hero I am quoting the Lyttelton Times. Of course 17 millions sterling deluging the producer class must filter down through other classes. We are all made th-c richer by the Kaiser—every one of us. Which, as I have «aid, is a painful refaction. And there are some hard cases. A Christchurch paper tells of a settler unable to contribute to patriotic funds because he had lying idle £40.000 for which he could find no investment. The Government 4g per cents, have come to the relief of tin's sufferer, and he is now able to subscribe his guinea to the Belgians. A great moral lesson; let us all profit by it.

That amusing person Mr W. D. Mason, of Middlemarcn, contributes in a small way to the amenities of the season by discoursing on " ' Civis' aud Discipline in the Army,"—Daily Times correspondence column, "it is not by his gaiety that Mr Mason pleases, still less by his wit. That which makes him an amoosin' cuss is a gloomy conviction that in public affairs and public men whatever is is wrong, and that the man to rectify tilings is W. D. Mason. If only he were permitted ; —and there's the rub. The time is out of joint;—O cursed spite That I am not. allowed to set it right I So far, unhappily, no Parliamentary constituency has become enamoured of his services. Hence in letters signed W. D. Mason the or.o thing constant is a tone of frustration; whatever the subject, surgit amari aliquid,—bitterness will out. It is a world of disappointment, and nothing goes as it should. Here is "Civis," who ought to be under the lash—treated to that " well-deserved and too long deferred whipping," which would " trace a beautiful criss-cross on his naked skin" ; but Mr Mason has no real hope of seeing it. Here too is Sir Douglas Haig, "doubtless a great military leader," yet all in the dark about the principles of military discipline, and quite unlikely to accept them from Middlemarch,- Otago. Nor to that Parnassian fount is Rudyard Kipling likely to resort for inspiration. Sir Douglas doesn't understand that an officer offending should be clapped : n clink just the same as the offending common soldier, nor Kipling that the talk of his Irish Mulvaney ought not to be in the brogue of Hampshire. Mr Mason could teach them; but, alas, is denied the chance.

The sympathies of Mr Mason, as I gather, are with the anti-conscriptionists everywhere and all the time. Naturally they would be, since here as in Britain conscription is the law of the land. And of conr. e the conscientious objector is to ba allowed his preposterous conscience. One of these queer people figures in the proceedings of the Military Service Board titling at Oamaru. After a theological skirmish with the chairman he was asked: What if someone camo to attack your mother? —I would use all means to avoid force. But what if you cculd not?—l hardly know. lie might try a verse of Moody and Sankey, or invito the Hun to join in " a word of prayer." It is to be noted that only when his own skin is to bo *aved does the conscientious objector discover that he has a conscience. He hears in meeting (if that is the word) the text: " Sell that ye have and give alms." Does that touch him? Not a bit! He is a farmer of many acres and he will sell when he gets a good price. To th<» text " Lend, hoping for nothing again," he is deaf on both sides of his head, absorbed in the consideration—which is better, a mortgage at 6 per cent., or the sweet simplicity of the Government four and-a-lndfs with immunity from income tax 1 Butler, three centuries ago, had tire measure of the conscientious objector: ■ What makes all doctrines plain and clear ? About two hundred pounds a year.

And that which was proved true before Prove false again! Two hundred more.

At this season, sacred to kindly thoughts, where kindly thoughts are pos, siblo, and to the domestic affections, the hearts of all true New Zealandcrs are with their sojis and brothers oversea. New Zealand wants them homo again, the war well ended. To lighten the job and hasten the ending New Zealand would send men, more men, and still more men; hence is impatient of slackers and the apologist of slackers. Good omens attend the opening year. Before next New Year it may be

wo shall bo ringing l joy-bells. We—observe, not the Kaiser. C1T.13.