Untitled

Observer, Volume XL, Issue 26, 28 February 1920, Page 3

If Britain reconstructs her national and social life on sound moral principles, then any resulting loss in external possessions may be well lost. If justice is done to India and to Egypt, the result will be a great gain in the final analysis, whereas any delay must mean a proportionate loss in that which forms the very basis of national greatness. The League of Nations, as an ideal, was a reaching out towards a higher goal,- in the international sphere; but the manner in which the practjca.i outcome of the idea has been subserviated to sectional interests proves that the moral basis of pres-ent-day statesmanship is lacking in that which is the prime factor of human progress. Character as Emerson taught, overrules all else.—• Grey mouth "Argus."

It need cause no surprise that hundreds of would-be emigrants from Britain are daily besieging the offices of the New Zealand High Commissioner in the hope of securing passages to the Dominion. The emigrant who is \mwilling to leave the Empire has a choice of Canada, South Africa. Australia, and New Zealand for his new home and naturally choses New Zealand. Canada is too cold, South Africa too hot, and there are too many natives, Australia is too hot and too prone to droughts. The Dominion has none of these faults, and its great distance from Britain is the only thing that prevents us receiving many thousands of settlers. — New Plymouth "Herald."

The poor German is doing his darned best to get back. On all hands we receive evidence of the wonderful optimism of the Hun in business. He has had proof sufficient of the hate we bear him; but that does not bar him from addressing hopeful letters to us, soliciting our custom and appealing for the restoration of the trading conditions that existed before the war. "We hear of the replies these communications get from loyal firms, especially where the heads of the businesses have been soldiers, and have no illusions "about Germans, but nothing much is said about other firms and their attitudes; so the proposal of New Zealand soldiers—that great public meetings be held to stir up feeling against the idea of German trading, and to demand a special tariff to block the ambition of trading Huns—seems called for, and is as necessary here as in the Domin-. ion. We cannot deal with Germans without lending a hand to help them to again throw the world into a welter of murder and rapine, and no decent Australian will stand fof that.—Melbourne "Punch."