A VERY FAIR RECORD.

Southland Times, Issue 17482, 24 July 1915, Page 5

A VERY FAIR RECORD.

For some reason or other which most people must And it difficult, if not impossible, to fathom the attempt is persistently made in some quarters to create the impression that the dominion’s services to the Empire in the war are not such as it can fairly congratulate itself upon. It is difficult, we say, to suggest any reasonable explanation for this continued crying down of the dominion’s efforts to play its part worthily in the great crisis, but we suspect that if what has been accomplished had been the work of another Government, no more and no less, these querulous critics would have been the loudest in lauding the authorities for their success in maintaining New Zealand's position in the van of the dominions. We think that any comparison between the services of the various dominions is to be deprecated, partly because in patriotic work of this kind, in which it must be assumed that all are doing their utmost to help, comparisons are doubly odious, but chiefly because the performances of any particular dominion do not set a standard for any of the others. There is only one satisfactory standard—the utmost of which each is capable, and any dominion that is doing less is falling short of its duty. Still, when other dominions are cited in a vague way for the purpose of suggesting that New Zealand makes a poor showing by comparison, it is necessary to put the facts on record in order that the people may not be misled. And the lirst fact is that without fuss and with extraordinarily little misfortune, New Zealand has sent away, and has in training more men proportionately than any other dominion. The critics who talk in a general way of what Canada has done, and Australia has done, is confronted with the plain fact that whatever may be the methods these countries have adopted they have achieved less than New Zealand. If we are to speak of Governments then the Massey Government has been’the most successful of the Governments of the oversea dominions. To be precise New Zealand has mobilised for active service 26.000 men, of whom 10,000 have already left the dominion; had Australia done as much she should have raised 125.000, and the Commonwealth forces are still considerably short of that number. Months ago, long before Parliament met, the demand was made that Mr Massey should state in the fullest detail his proposals for war taxation. It was suggested then, and it is suggested now, that Mr Massey was singularly unwilling to commit himself with respect to war taxation, and the magnanimity of party criticism showed itself at its best in the motives attributed to the Prime Minister—the fear of unpopularity, the desire to shield the “squattocracy,” and so on.' Mr Massey was fully entitled, of course, to keep his own counsel until the question of taxation had been settled by Cabinet and the details prepared for Parliament. What has happened elsewhere? Though the Federal Parliament has been in session for some months, it was not until Friday of last week that Mr Fisher announced that in addition to the war loan war taxation would be necessary. Even then the Prime Minister gave no details, and on Tuesday we were told that “there is much speculation (in Australia) as to the form the tax will take, and as to whether it will include the small wage-earner.” This morning’s cables report Mr Asquith’s reply to a deputation which waited upon him in Condon in regard to war finance, and Mr Asquith is found admitting that the Government “had not gone far enough in providing for the war out of taxation,” and yet though the statesmen of other dominions, as well as those of Britain, who have the assistance of the ablest financiers in the world, have found it necessary to proceed slowly and carefully in this matter, and even then have not fully anticipated the requirements of the war, Mr Massey is chided for not having an adequate scheme completed within a few months of the outbreak of war, and for not submitting it to the country first and to Parliament afterwards, though Parliament has an undoubted right to hear the proposals first. The truth is that the Government has done more than well. New Zealand has been kept in a position of which the people of the dominion may be proud. Much of the criticism against the Government is not criticism at all, but misrepresentation, and of the rest the chief characteristic is lisingenuousness. When the Massey Government's war work is tested by the facts, and not by the vague generalities which are the party, oritics chief stock-in-trade, it is found

J very satisfactory, and we believe that the great majority of the people are of that mind.