The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1917. APPEAL TO MODERATION.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLI, Issue 11367, 13 October 1917, Page 4

The Rangitikei Advocate. TWO EDITIONS DAILY. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1917. APPEAL TO MODERATION.

THE other day we had. reason to criticise the attitude of some of the members of the Second Division in advocating a robber raid on capital and pressing demands which the country was utterly unable to afford. It there arc still any cherishing these ultra- Socialistic, utterly non-economic and reckless notions wo recommend thorn to read the subjoined remarks of Sir J. G. Ward in the discussion on the Bill. It is tho clearest presentation of the situation we have seen. He said: There was not a man in the House who did not wish to do more for the soldiers and their dependents, but the responsibilities were accumulating, imposing a heavy financial burden on tiio country. Surely the sensible members of the House must have some responsibility to the country as a whole, and they could not always follow the promptings of tiio heart without taking any heed of facts. What was the amount of money we had taken authority for? Nearly fifty millions We were now up to forty-six millions; we should have four millions more; and by the end of next July we should have to provide for August and September. Then if the war went on longer we should have to provide for a great deal more. The amount already raised in this country was equivalent to £2,000, 000,000 for Great Britain. Tho men who would feel the pinch worst of all if tho financial conditions became insecure would bo the men earning less than £4 per week. The war taxation was hound to reduce the capital worth of very many people in New Zealand, and unless the burden of taxation could bo reduced after the war tho conditions of employment and the processes of development would suffer. It was not reasonable under such conditions for a member of the House to pose as the advocate of things that tho Government, with the responsibility on its shoulders, could not endorse. New Zealand had now got by far tho most generous system of war pensions and allowances the world had yet seen. The annual interest account was £6,700,000 a year already, and the was increasing. No change of Government would alter that fact. The war bill this year was £36, 700,000, and if the war continued for another year after the end of this year, at least as much more would be required. Surly in the face of such figures members should stop theorising and get down to hard facts. No member could say the war was going to end within twelve months, and • New Zealand must shape its course with the idea that another year of war had to be. undertaken. To destroy sources of taxation in such circumstances would be an act of sheer .insanity A Government that had tho vital interests of tho country at heart could not yield to a more impulse to court popularity. It must say plainly to those who attempted to force the country beyond the limit of safety that the Government would not go further.

To this we have nothing to add except that we believe many of those of immoderate speech, who have undertaken to voice what they con. coive to bo the demands of the Second Division have been more concerned to got themselves into the limelight than to benefit ' anybody else.

XHE most auapicion appeurugs in regard

An Omen For Good. to the war, of which we have had news during the present week, lias not uoon of the tremendous blow; with, which Sir Douglas Haig has smitten the 1 touts of the Gormans, hut of the. German naval revolt and of outbreaks of the revolutionary spirit on land. Here is an ally with which wo have hitherto,not reckoned. It ha ; . been assumed that an awed respect 'hr the powers that reigned had boon so incorporated in the nerve tissue and tlio blood ot tin' Hue. that a mutiny against high Heaven was more within the hounds of prohahililty than rebellion against the Kaiser. The significance oi the situation does not lie so much in sporadic outbreaks that, have so xar occurred Ijoth on land or sea. hat ju the indication they afford of the permeation of the fighting forces with revolutionary principles and instincts. As Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge sagely remarks, whore tin‘re is so much smoke tin-re muse he much fire and a revolution is quite certainly within tlie reiilm of prohahiilty. One of the presages, which will also be 0110 of the causes, is the bitter animosity with which

the dominant party is treating the Socialist and Radical majority in the Reichstag and the hint of merciless repression which have been voiced by some of tho junkers and their organs. These have always been tho precursors of great upheavals and; revolution follows with tho inexorable inevitably of natural law. We now feel like trusting the German people to bring the war to a conclusion. It is impossible to catalogue all the elements which have contributed to this change of heart in the German jjooplo. But probably the reiteration by Preisdcnt Wilson that no peace is x>ossiblo while the Hohenzollorns remain in power has boon worth more than an army in bringing it about, and if it is in any way due to the influence of the Russian revolution we may write a credit against the immense debit or the subsequent inaction of the Russian armies.