The Otago Witness. (TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1920.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3442, 2 March 1920, Page 39

The Otago Witness.

(TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 1920.) THE WEEK.

WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THB SO UTHEEN MERCURY.

"Nunquam allud natura, allud sapientia dlxJi.* —JTJVENAL. "Good nature and good senso must ever iota."— Vera. The event of the week, so far as politics in the Homeland is con- " Keep Your Eya corned, has been Ason Paisley." quith's return for Paisley. The significance of the return lies not so much in the local victory, since Paisley has always been a stronghold of Scottish Liberalism, as in the influence which Mr Asquith's re-entrance into British political life is likely to have upon party politics. Moreover, tlie Paisley verdict, taken in connection with the 20 by-elections held during the currency of tne present Parliament, may be 'taken as an indication of the trend of political opinion in the Homeland. A summary of tne voting at the by-elections shows that, compared with 'the general election figures, there has been a decline in the Coalition vote of 48,311, while at the same time and during the same period the Liberal vote has increased by 04,446, and" the increase in the Labour vote is 41,792. There 13, of course, a personal element in the Paisley election which must, by no means, be overlooked since Mr Asquith's absence from the House of Commons is, to cite a familiar parallel, infinitely more regrettable than is the'absence of Sir Joseph Ward from the New Zealand House of Representatives. An ex-Liberal member of the. House of Commons, at present visiting the Dominion, and who exhorts observers everywhere to "Keep your eye on Paisley," declares: "There is no one Mr Asquith's superior, if, indeed, there is his equal, in parliamentary ability. Indeed, his self-effacement during the last ten years has not, by any means, been a gain to the country or the world." In addition to the sense of the loss to politics which Mr Asquith's absence from the arena has undoubtedly proved, a powerful influence somewhat unexpectedly turned in his favour was the championship, qualified indeed, of the Northcliffe Press, whose vigorous denunciation of "the old gang" still resound across the When all these events and influences have been adequately discarded, the fact remains that the two most powerful forces in English politics 'to-day are Liberalism and Labour, and that these former allies are in active antagonism. A caustic critic, commenting on the situation, says: "So long as the alternative forces cancel each other out Mr George will remain Prime Minister of England. His path will be paved with compromise and littered with failures. He can proclaim nimself as being a Labour man, a Liberal and a Tory; can break all the rule 3 and yet fail 'to govern well. But he is active and " vigilant; wields the mighty power of patronage, and is the candidate of the new rich, who think their day will'last for ever. So long as Britain's main concern is to make money, and the Revolution passes her door, materialism in politics may well flourish., and the feeling for principles, the taste for order and probity in Government, will languish or seem to die away. Two new sections of society are emerging out of the chaos of war The Dead Weight and revolution, and are of the definitely arraying themNew Rich. selves the one against the other in all efforts for reconstruction; they are the New Poor and the New Rich. The former class consists of the people '. with fixed incomes, with little if any opportunity of amassing war profits, who before the war were materially well off, and able to indulge their tastes and follow their pet pursuits with a certain degree of ease and comfort. The ever increasing cost of Hying has left thousajids of such stranded and grappling with the harassing. problem of how to make two ends meet. They have all the old tastes, but are minus 'the means togratify them; they incline to the old pursuits, but find themselves powerless to gratify them. other end of the scale stand the New Rich, whose selfcomplacency must have been sadly disturbed by tho investigations of the Select Committee on the taxation of War fortunes. The principal witness examined by the (Committee —Sir John Anderson, Chairman of the Inland Revenue—testified that the valuation for taxing pui'poses would probably affect 340,000 persons, and that the sum realised by the tax, spreading the payments over a period of ten years, would amount.to £1,000,000,000. It is proposed that post-war wealth not exceeding £SOOO per annum should be excluded altogether, and as illustrating the remarkable growth, of the New Rich, Sir John Anderson estimated that during the war no fewer than 80,000 people have increased their income from below to above £SOOO per annum. In any forecast of politics in the Homeland the influence of this vast amount of wealth, distributed among some -thousands of people, must be taken into consideration, and this probably accounts for the newly arisen antagonism between Liberalism and Labour. The Paisley figures go to show that a great number of quiet people, who are averse to violent disturbances, are likely to go on voting for Liberalism until its power as an independent governing force in English politics has definitely passed away. Liberalism stands out "a respectable but still a mean and deceiving element —the agitated mass, mind of our huge modern electorates." Labour; on the other hand, "bears the visible mark of an army, but Labour obviously lacks the reserve of intellectual resources which the other parties retain, even in "the hour of their enfeeble-, ment." It is manifest, therefore, that what Great (Britain needs, what tEe world

needs, is ah alliance between intellect and Labour in order to give a new direction to politics, and the comments of the critic already quoted from bear right along this line. "While Europe," he writes, R is in danger of perishing amid the strife of its fashions, the union of the intellectual and the land -workers, of the more disinterested!. minds and energies of each national society, presents itself as" a true means of sound salvation. It "has long been possible, and at moments it never seemed nearer or more important than it is to-day. The prize of "will fall to the party that' can join thought and feeling in the worst t circumstances and adventures of its citizens, .and can thus promote the moral stimulant to a new society, reapportioning leisure and the fruits of knowledge, appeasing the senseless strife'of states and races, and harnessing science to the almost forgotten service of human enlightment. That is the real political end, and it is distressing if Liberals on throne hand were to fall back into timid compromise with a passing order, and the Labour Party on the other set itself mainly to assuage* the workmen's appetite for an easy, rather than a full and ennobled life. The country will never become interested enough in politics to get rid of the -Coalition until Mr Georges Government encounters a broader and finer political conception than his own, and is overthrown by it. Some 7 few men, notably Lord Robert Cecil, continually raise this higher standard, and seek recruits, for it.. But at present they, 'work in rather pathetic isolation. ■ The 'classes' think for themselves and the 'masses' have hardly begun to. think at all, except in terms of an aggressive trade unionism. Who will think for the country, for the moral distress. giving social disintegration of Europe?" /, According to reports the English Cabinet have at length agreed upon The Future ol the terms of the Home Ireland. Rule Bill, which is de- \ Ascribed as a "Bill for the better Government of Ireland," and which has been formally . presented to Parliament and read a firsft time. The full text of 'the Bill has no* • yet been published, but rumour declares' that county option has been abandoned . in favour" of 'a dear cut for the six Ulster counties. It is affirmed that the Labour Party is. tabling an amendment againsti this suggested partition, and this because of the report of the Labour delegation which recently visited Ireland, and which; favours a full measure of Dominion self-; government, with, provisional protection of the minorities, or a costituent Assembly.. elected on a system of proportional repre-. 1 sentation to decide the form of seb> government, the question of defence and • foreign relations to be reserved for the •; Imperial Parliament. That there is great 1 and pressing need for the better Govern. ment of Ireland is made manifest from a single statement of Mr Churchill's, when introducing the Army estimates to the House of Commons. He said : "The troop* % garrisoning Ireland were now 35,000 as against 25,000 before the war." Towards the end of 1918, when Great Britain's, supremacy was definitely threatened by the gathering G erma n hosts and when every; man was needed at the front, Mr G. Iv. . Chesterton was persuaded, to visit Ireland in a recruiting campaign- in the hope' that he, an Englishman'with definite. Irish sympathies, might be able to persuade'Irishmen to. enlist. He has set down his observations during that visit in a book* . just published under the title "Irish Impressions," a book which may profitably be examined by anyone desirous of studying the Irish, question with a view to a' permanent and satisfactory solution. Mr Chesterton, amid much that is amusing,and a good deal that is absurdly paradoxical, writes things that are profoundly practical, and have given evidence of great discernment and keen observation. Ha' definitely ' pins his faith to the Irish peasantry, and illustrates his case cleverly, by a commonplace incident. "I was driving in a hired motor down a road in the Irish West." writes Mr Chesterton, "towards the middle of that rainy autuihn *. I was not moving very fast, because th« progress was slowed down by a solemn procession by crowds of families with their, cattle and live stock going to the market beyond; which things are also an allegory. But what struck my mind and stuck in it was this: that all down one side of th«f road, as far as we went, the harvest was; - gathered in neatly and safely, and all down the other side of the road it was rotting in the rain. Near the side where it was safe was a string of small plots worked by peasant proprietors, as petty by our standards as a row of the cheapest villas. The land in which all the harvest was wasted was the land of a large- modern estate. I asked why the landlord was later with his harvesting than the peasants, and: I was told rather vaguely that there had been strikes and similar 'laboui troubles. I did not go into the rights, of the matter, but the point here is thati./' whatever they were, the moral is the.same.*That moral, which Mr Chesterton would apply not only to Ireland but to a world"rent by an irreconcilable rivalry between Capital and Labour" is that "the peasant "across the road is both a capitalist 1 and a labourer. He is- several other curious things, including the man who got his crops in first, who was literally first in the field." The settlement of Turkey remains the greatest problem o*f the The Unspeakable "New Europe, and the TSJ&. greatest interest centred around Mr Lloyd George's anouncement that the unspeakable Turk' is to he permitted to remain at Constantinople. The British Premiei certainly declared that the Turk would r under the Peace terms, be "terriblj punished far his follies and crimes." H$ would, to use Mr Lloyd George's exad) words," be stripped of more than half hii, empire and his capital. He would be unde* the Allies guns, and would be deprived of his army ana navy and the prestige which, the guardianship gave." It is curious to

reflect, however, that In the early stages Of tho -war, and prior to the commission of the atrocities for which Turkey is now to be punished, the dismantlement of the Turkish Empire had virtually been decided wpoa by the Powers. Lord Loreburn, in ithat informativo book, " Hour the War Came," points out "The secret waa well kept for two or three years. But in November, 1917,-the Russian RovolutioniM.y Government published a number of private appeal documents which they had discovered in the archives of St. Petersburg. On 19th February to 4th March, 1315, the Russian Foreign Minister handed to the French and British Ambassadors a memorandum of the following territories which Russia desired to acquire "as_ a result of the present war." The territories were—Constantinople, the western coast of the Bosphoms, the Sea of Marmora, tho Dardanelles, Southern Thrace, as far as the Enos, Midin line, the coast of Asia Minor, between the Bosphorus and the River Sakaria, and a point on the Gulf of Ismid to be defined later, the islands in the Sea of Marmora, and the island of Imbros and Tenedos. "Both the French and the British Governments expressed their readiness to agree to our wishes, provided the Avar is won and provided a number V>f claims, made by France and England, hoUi in the Ottoman Empire and in other places are satisfied," and as Lord Loreburn points out " Finally agreement was attained between Great Britain, France and Russia in regard to the partition of Asiatic Turkey. . . .in other words, Turkey was to be completely broken up." The refusal of America to accept a mandate in regard to Constantinople has virtually thrown the Powers back upon the secret agreement of 1917, with this important difference, that Russia is no longer among the contracting parties.