The Otago Witness WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED AND SOUTHERN MBRCURY TUESDAY JULY 12, 1921. THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3513, 12 July 1921, Page 35

The Otago Witness WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED AND SOUTHERN MBRCURY TUESDAY JULY 12, 1921. THE WEEK.

"Nunquam allud natura, aliud sapientia dixit,"—J UVJSKAL. “Good nature and good sense must ever ioin.”— POI'JB. Congratulations are being showered upon Mr Massey as iie eaters Nine Years a upon the tenth year of liis Prime Minister. Prime Ministership of the Dominion, and speculation is rife as to whether he is likely to hold office sufficiently long to enable him to exceed the “record” held by Mr Seddon as head of tho Government of New Zealand. Such speculation lends interest to the comments on Richard Seddon and his policies, made by Viscount Bryce in “Modern Democracies.” Of Mr Seddon Lord Bryce writes: “He had little booklearning, no love of knowledge for its own sake, and in particular no acquaintance with even the rudiments of economics and legislation. In eloquence lie was equally wanting. There was neither art re it grace in his speeches, which rambled on through a. string of details tedious to the listener, with nothing even of that idealistic strain by which men of ardent soul but halting utterance _ sometimes rouse an audience.” In considering Mr

Massey’s political career and in any endeavour to forecast his political future it has to be remembered that he was trained in the same rough and ready school as was Mr Seddon. “The present generation,” remarks Lord Bryce, referring to political conditions in N ew Zealand, “patriotically British as it is, to have but slight sense of the long British past behind it. Traditions are needed, and great men are needed to create them in these new countries, striking figures that can touch the imagination and throw some rays of colour over the landscape of national life. Tame are these regions of the sky in which no stars of the first magnitude glitter. Leaders of some talent and force there will always he in every free country, but it is a misfortune nation’s most forcible and trusted leaders do not represent something more ideal than did Richard Seddon.” It may with perfect truth be questioned whether Mr Massey is one whit more idealistic than was Mr Seddon; but there is a difference in disposition between the two men. Mr Seddon possessed a wonderful power of compelling circumstance to bend to his indomitable will, and over and over again he snatched victory out of seeming defeat, a characteristic which Sir Joseph Ward woefully lacked, hence his disappearance from the political arena. In Mr Massey’s case, since his elevation to office nine years ago, the stars in their courses have fought for him, and circumstances have aided him wonderfully. Indeed his sweeping triumph at the iast election was not so much the consequence of the people’s unbounded trust, as that they distrusted “the other fellow” more. At the same time, it is right to admit that Mr Massey has profited exceedingly by his visits to the Homeland, and has acquired many of the arts of leadership in consequence of rubbing shoulders with the leading statesmen of the Homeland and the prime ministers of the other British dominions. When all is said and done, however, the strength of Mr Massey’s political position lies in the fact that no other probable leader as yet looms in the horizon; the weakness consists in the persistent fanning of the flame of sectarian bitterness which is so sedulously encouraged in certain quarters. There has been a great deal of interchange of ideas in the Problems of Imperial Conference, and Empire. hut little indication of anything approaching a final settlement. Indeed, when all is said and done, determination upon all the knotty points of policy, about which so much difference of opinion exists, will remain with the British Government. In the case of the Anglo-Japanese treaty the order of reference is still more wide, Mr Lloyd George having stated that the terms of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance depends upon the tenor of the replies received from the United States, Japan, and China. The Daily Chronicle practically says the same thing when circulating the statement that the Imperial Conference favours Anglo-Japanese friendship being harmonised with free development with China, in close co-operation with the United States. The Nation, a iournal whose antagonism to Mr Lloyd George and all that he represents almost approaches virulence, congratulates those dominion representatives who “have imposed a check on the Government’s intention to renew the Anglo-Japanese Alliance.” The Nation alleges that Mr Lloyd George has been driven to accept delay as a middle course because of “the stubborn resistance of Canada and the powerful influence of South Africa,” and the same paper howls at the risk of driving Canada- into independence if a renewal of the Anglo-Japanese treaty be persisted in. Whatever importance be attached to such an allegation, the discussion strongly points to the impossibility of the Imperial Conference developing an international character and thus assuming the scope of an embryo League of Nations. _ The Anglo-Japanese Alliance is a case in point; it has become apparent that to renew or annul the treaty witnout reference to the wishes and desires of America and China would involve all manner of international complications ; the same argument applies, in a minor degree, to the settlement of the New Hebrides in the light of the admitted failure of the Condiminium. In the light of these and other similar considerations it is difficult to understand the hostile spirit towards the League of Nations’s proposals exhibited bv some of the dominions’ delegates to “the Conference. Despite Mr Balfour’s exposition of the aim and objects of the League and his declaration that, it “was destined to become the greatest instrument of peace in the world, the British delegates to the League of Nations Council had a chilling reception, at the hands of the Conference. Tn the ensuing discussion in which all the Prime Ministers particip*itecl, the tone of some of the speeches was almost hostile, the opinion be in e expressed that unless there were sums of improvement the league was a useless extravagance. It- does not seem to have occurred to these hostile speakers that the expense of the League of Nations even admitting some needless extravagance during the period of incubation, is as nothing compared with the waste and extravagance of the great war into which the world is drifting, failing the maintenance of roue powerful instrument for the futherance of peace. Particulars have J ust ‘"' r ' n published of the invention of <l I,l ' ’ un, concerning which one armament expert is reported to have said: “It will do more eventually to bring peace than the Peace Conference, as it will make war too terrible.” Experience only too sadly goes to prove that the invention of new death dealing weapons does not deter men from war! but rather the reverse. The truth should he impressed upon the British Prime Ministers now in conference that the British Empire is, do facto, a little League of Nations, and that the more

the league idea is imparted to all legislation the closer will the Homeland and the dominions be drawn together and cemented into an industrial whole. It is in the extension of the same idea to the world at large, by means of a League of Nations or some" such device, that disarmament will be brought about and the world will have peace. The news about Ireland is distinctly encouraging, although the A Truce tor hopes of a filial settlement Ireland. are not too optimistic. Still the fact that a truce has been entered into betweeq, the Crown forces in Ireland and the rebel troops lends to the coming conference possibilities which could not be entertained while passion ran riot over murder, outrage, and bloody reprisals. There is hope in Mr Lloyd George’s official declaration that “as soon as 1 hear that Mr de Valera is prepared to enter into a conference with the British Government and lias given instructions to those under his control to cease their acts of violence, we shall give instructions to the troops and police to cease their activities and operations against those engaged in this unfortunate conflict.” To which Mr de Valera has replied that the desire expressed by Mr Lloyd George “to end the centuries of conflict between the two peoples of these two islands and to establish relations of neighbourly harmony” is “the genuine desire of the people of Ireland.” That desire was touchingly illustrated in the fact that while the Sinn Feiners and the Southern Unionists were in conference in Dublin a crowd outside knelt in the streets and recited a rosary for the success of the deliberations. The truce having been concluded it is now certain that- Mr de Valera will go to London and that a- conference will be held between representatives of the British Government and representatives of Sinn Fein over which. Mr Lloyd George will preside. There is such an overwhelming pressure of public opinion in favour of a peaceful settlement-, not alone in Ireland and throughout the British Empire, but all over the civilised world, that it may be taken for granted that every effort will be made to devise a possible compromise. It is scarcely too much to declare that the peaceful settlement of the Irish question is a first step towards a world peace: if the difficulties in regard to Ireland are once successfully surmounted a spirit will have been engendered which will go far to solve the other knotty problems which stand in the way of harmony among the nations.