The Otago Witness. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1924.) THE WEEK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3673, 5 August 1924, Page 44

The Otago Witness. WITH WHICH IS INCORPORATED THE SOUTHERN MERCURY. (TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 1924.) THE WEEK.

*-JuyEXAL, m allud natura ' alhld sa P ioatia dixitPOPB°° d nature “d 6ood sense must ever join.”—

1914-ISM.

The tenth anniversary of the outbreak of war compels a. comnari-

son between the condition of the world a decade r cm

tl UCUiIUt -i g U and now. Unhappily, the comparison affords but scant relief from oppressing thought. The Great War, speaking broadly, was the climax of an overpowering militarism, typified in the example set by Germany and followed to a greater or lesser extent by the other European nations. It was fondly believed that die four years’ titanic struggle between the Allied nations and the Central European Powers ivould be a war to end war, and which would put tlve finishing touch on militarism. The passage of ten rears has seen militarism still dominant” science still brooding upon the letting loose of yet more destructive agents, forecasting the annihilation of mankind, and the League of Nations—the sole concrete idea for the preservation of the world’s peace—still a struggling plant, striving against tremendous odds to gain root in an adverse environment. If, however, the Great War, viewed from a national and international standpoint, has done little to solve world problems, and has indeed created more problems than it has solved, a gleam of optimism may be discerned in thinking of the war from the point of view of the individual. It was John •Ruskin who pointed out that the soldier’s essential honour was not that he killed his enemy, but that he was willing to die; and it is to the everlasting glory of the- dominions, in common with other parts of the British’ Empire, that so large a number of brave young New Zealanders found it a sweet- and comely thing to lay down their lives for their country in distress. The unveiling hy the King of

the Belgians at Messines uf a memorial to the men ol Mew Zealand who tell in that historic engagement seven years ago is an eloquent tribute to the valour and skill which brought deathless fame to the fallen and at the same time pride and sorrow to so many hearths and homes. In an essay on patriotism in literature, Mr John Drinkwater, poet and playwright, puts the case fairly and forcibly when lie writes: The soldier's glory, then, is the gift of himself to his country, the offer of his life, and the suspension, if needs be, of his private judgment. That this is an ideal position, either of the intellect or of morals, nobody can pretend ; but, when the country is at war, it is the best position, intellectually and morally, that society has yet been able to devise. And once the decision tor arms has been reached, those who serve are rightly objects of public honour and the celebrations of art, though unhappily the emotion that applauds is apt to wither with the occasion, and the cheering is too often followed by neglect.

Germany and the Conference.

There is ground for optimism in the announcement that at a

plenary session of the Inter-Allied Conference in

London an agreement has been reached on all points, with the consequence that an invitation has been sent to the German delegates to join the Conference. And it is a happy augury that the German delegates were expected to reach London on Monday, August 4, the tenth' anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War—surely a sign that the reconciliation of the nations and the settlement of the reparations question is drawing nigh. In his introduction to his essay on “The Present State of Germany/' General J. H. Morgan says many things which may profitably engage the attention of all publicists. The writer has been Deputy-Adjutant-General for four years in unoccupied Germany, on the Military Disarmament Commission, as British representative on the luter-Allied Council of the Commission, and Deputy-president of one of the two Sub-commissions. In the course of his inspections of the German Army and police units, he was called upon to visit at frequent intervals and report upon the condition of every State in Germany. In reply to the insinuation that he had shown pro-German tendencies, General Morgan said : “I confess to no such partiality. But no man, certainly no Englishman, can live long in a foreign country without taking an interest in its inhabitants, whether the motive of that interest be sympathy, affection, or merely that humane curiosity which finds expression in the sentiment ‘humani nihil a me alienum pate.’ Such has always been the temper of Englishmen.” General Morgan endeavours to set forth the steps by which the German national consciousness has reached the- conviction that the Allies are determined upon her annihilation, a consciousness astutely fostered by the militarist and monarchist sections. Regarding this _ conviction on the part of the German people, General Morgan says: The origin of it can be traced back principally to those clauses of the Treaty which saddled Germany with unliquidated damages for a generation and more than a generation. Whatever may have been the difficulties—and assuredly they were not small—in the way of an immediate assessment of Germany’s “capacity to pay,’’ it was a fatal policy to impose a vague floating charge over all her assets, whether public property in the shape of State undertakings or private in the shape of taxable capacity, to defer the assessment of that charge, and, I think—- ■ though this is debatable—to exclude all appeals to an impartial tribunal of arbitration against the weight of it. The Allies appear to have overlooked the elementary fact that men live by hope, if not by faith, and that no man will work till the last hour of the day if he labours under the conviction that all the fruits of his toil will be annexed by another. A peasant will work with the sweat of his brow to redeem a mortgage on land that is his own if there is any hope of redemption within his own lifetime, but what serf will toil so devotedly merely to cultivate his lord’s demesne? From that point of view the economic exploitation of the Ruhr by the French is even more fatal than the delay in liquidating the liabili- .. ties of Germany as a whole. Nothing indeed can extinguish the German passion for work, for there are no people in the world more industrious, and Germans have worked since the armistice as even they have never worked before. But so also have they spent as they never spent before. It was inevitable. There is no spendthrift like a bankrupt. Not all this spending, indeed, has been purely sumptuary. Much of it has been- farseeing investment.”

Ireland and Her Boundaries.

In August, 1914, prior to the outbreak of the Great War, Ireland

appeared to be on the brink of a between

N ortli and South which threatened most disastrous consequences. To-day, after ten years of attempted settlement, the old quarrel between North and South, between Ulster and the Free State, promises to break out with all its old virulence, at the same time probably precipitating a general election in Great Britain, when the old battle of Unionism versus Separation will he fought over again. It has been well said that one of the obstacles in the way of general peace in the world is the fact that there come at moments national differences so acute that they are beyond the solution of reason. When, as in the case of Ireland, to the acute national differences there are added the bitterness of religious quarrels, there is small hope of settlement by reason. The determined refusal—and this in face of the most powerful appeals—of the Government of Northern Ireland

to appoint a member of the Boundary Commission has precipitated a situation not provided for in the Act of Parliament ; if, therefore, the Boundary Commission is to proceed to its appointed work, further legislation is called tor. This further legislation, according to the statement of Mr Thomas, is contemplated by Mr MacDonald, and its passage tlwougli Parliament will be facilitated by the support of Mr Lloyd George and the Liberal Party. Mr Thomas holds that the British Government is bound in honour to secure the carrying out of the undoubted intention of Parliament when it ratified the Treaty. Some of the hotheads in the Free State Parliament incline to the view that the non-fulfilment by Ulster,of the Treaty has made, occasion for a revision of the. Free State Constitution ; the fact, is also recalled that three, years ago Sir James Craig declared that, the Boundary Commission could not materialise. The Times cautions the Government against hasty legislation as representing an attempt to override Northern Ireland, and the Daily Express declares that Ulster is relying upon the English Parliament to fight against any tampering with her territory, and “failing everything else she is willing to spend the last man and last shilling in preserving What she regards as her sacred rights.” If the British Government introduces an amending Bill providing for the appointment of an Ulster delegate oil the Boundary Commission, it is forecasteu that, with the aid of the Liberals, the Bill will pass, the Commons, but will be thrown out by the Lords, in which case Tver MacDonald will appeal to the country. Thus a critical situation has been created, the outcome of which will be watched with much anxiety.

Budget Criticism.

The construction of the Budget does not

afford much material for adverse criticism in so far as its purely statistical side

is concerned, ana tne Leader of t>he Opposition was hard put to it in attempting to work up an attack upon Mr Massey's figures. Mr Milford followed his usual course of magnifying details in order to give them the appearance of principles and he succeeded to the extent of the capacity of his public. Figures rarely can be used as efficient argument, and Mr Wilford quoted a. bewildering mass of statistics with the intent to prove that Mr Massey was wrong and that he was right. Inasmuch as if would call for the services of a trained accountant to decide the points in dispute, and this only after careful examination of original documents and parliamentary papers, it is manifest that, politically, Mr Wilford's oration did not cut much ice. Far more effective was Mr Downie Stewart’s exposure of the palpable blunders into which Mr Wilford had fallen in his laborious effort to confute the Prime Minister. The criticism, delivered with all the sarcasm, and enlivened by snatches of humour, in both of which arts Mr Downie Stewart is a. past master, was a merciless one. The most effective speech from the Opposition benches was delivered by Mr Rolleston, although he spoke as a private member and expressly disclaimed a partisan standpoint. The two points made by Mr Rolleston were, first, that the whole of the accumulated surpluses, totalling nearly twenty-seven millions, should have been devoted to the redemption of war loans; and, secondly, his condemnation of the policy of the remission of taxation. There will he few in agreement with 1 either of these points, and, viewing the Budget debate as a whole, it cannot be said that there is much cogency or force in the adverse criticism presented.