NO SAVING GRACE

Taranaki Daily News, 19 December 1933, Page 2

NO SAVING GRACE

; THE LATE PRESIDENT WILSON. STORY BY MR. W. M. HUGHES. Sydney, November 24. The war-time Prime Minister of Australia, Mr. W. M. Hughes, has supplemented Lord Riddell’s anecdotes of the Peace Conference with an amusing story illustrating the complete lack, of humour of President Wilson. Mr. Hughes said Lord Riddell’s diary reminded him of the days when the fate of New Guinea was being decided. “We had had with Mr. Lloyd George in the morning a rather heated discussion about the advisability or otherwise of taking President Wilson too seriously,” said Mr. Hughes. “Mr. Lloyd George said if we did not do what President Wilson wanted he would go home. I said if I thought he really would. do this, it would remove any doubts in my mind as to the advisability of standing to our point of view. . “In the afternoon we discussed with Mr. Wilson the question of Australia being granted a mandate over New Guinea. I refused flatly to consider any mandate that did not give us the same power over New Guinea as we possessed over the Australian continent. “Mr. Wilson obviously disapproved of me, and, aghast at my presumption, asked if Australia were serving an ultimatum on the conference. M. Clemenceau broke in then,, saying. ‘This is not fair. All that Mr. Hughes has done is to indicate the limit of the concessions Australia is prepared to make to the Peace Conference.’

“I am afraid there may have been a touch of irony in this. President Wilson then said sternly, ‘Then there will have to be a plebiscite of the people of New Guinea on the question whether they will accept Australia’s mandate.’ I could not contain my mirth at the notion of naked cannibals exercising the franchise, and I asked Mr. Wilson if he were aware that the principal industry of New Guinea was cannibalism, pointing out the inevitable fate of the plebiscite officials if Mr. Wilson pushed self-deter-mination so far.

“Then Mr. Lloyd George, trying to pour oil on the troubled waters, asked me if I were prepared to meet the President in his demand that the territory should not be fortified and that firearms and alcohol should not be sold to the inhabitants.

“I said ‘Yes.’ Still President Wilson looked at me like a thundercloud. “Mr. Lloyd George then asked me in a very ingratiating voice: ‘Are you prepared to let missionaries have access to the natives?’ I said ‘Yes, with the greatest pleasure, because I assure the President that on some days these poor devils don’t get enough missionaries to eat.’ “Even this sally could not break down the sphinx-like dignity of President Wilson, and I gave him up as a bad job. “But Australia got her mandate.”