SIR JOSEPH WARD.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 September 1924, Page 15

SIR JOSEPH WARD.

VIEWS ON POLITICAL SITUATION. Sir Joseph Ward, interviewed on his arrival in Sydney, said that a wave of prosperity was passing over New Zealand. The Dominion, however, had not been immune from political confusion, which seemed to he permeating the greater portion of the British possessions. The position in New Zealand was very much akin to that existing in England at the present time. The Government of the day had not got a majority of its own following in the House of Representatives, but there was a small section of the Liberal Party which had voted with the Government to keep them in power. It could not be regarded as a healthy condition. A Government, to carry out effectively its policy, should be in an independent positionPresept indications were that the Government would be able to carry through the present session and possibly to the next general elections —in eighteen months’ time. In political life, however, the unexpected not infrequently happened, and nobody could definitely say what the outcome of the present political “closeness” would he. Sir Joseph Ward said he was tHU

as keen and sincere in his advocacy of th© establishment of a naval base at Singapore as he was when the idea was first mooted. Nobody who had had the insight he had into what war meant would hesitate to do everything in his power to prevent a renewal of warfare. Although he believed in the limitation of armaments on land and sea, it would be sheer madness to neglect making the necessary provision for the construction and maintenance of super-cruisers and battleships to protect outposts of the Empire like Australia and New Zealand. Judging from the evidence of the thinkers of the British Admiralty, Singapore was geographically best, situated for such a base, and he thought sooner or later one would have to be