WHAT OTHER WRITERS ARE SAYING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17781, 26 February 1926, Page 6

WHAT OTHER WRITERS ARE SAYING.

GERMANY AND GENEVA. Geneva is not yet a haven of peace, but rather an arena for international straggle; and Germany expects strong opposition before she wins her rights. So Germany looks at Geneva. She is girding up her loins for a battle. Anticipating resistance to her claims, she is organising her diplomatic forces, and means to come in with Hags flying. Geneva must be awed by the reawakened .cry, Deutschland über Alles,*’ and be made to listen to the Hymn of Hate, transposed, to be sure, to a lower setting, but still in a major key. Herr Stresemann’s speech at j Cologne has been interpreted by his countrymen to mean this. On the face of it, that is certainly what it means, although it is food for surprise that one so valiant for amity at Locarno should lend himself to the bellicose purposes of the people who know no better.—‘‘New Zealand Herald.” THE HIGH COMMISSIONERS HIP. As representative of this country in London during the last six years, Sir James Allen has set high standards. New Zealand, as the Prime Minister has said, is indebted to him for faithful and loyal service. Even those who were formerly his political opponents will be bound to agree that the retiring High Commissioner has carried out the varied and exacting duties of his office with exceptional zeal and ability. Apart from what may be called the routine duties of the High Coramissioilership, it has fallen to the lot of Sir James Allen to represent New Zealand on the Assembly of the League of Nations, to play a part of some importance in connection with the organisation of the Wembley Exhibition, and in addition to act in a new way as an intermediary between the Government he represents and that of Great Britain. It is the general verdict that in all these matters he has worthily upheld the credit of the Dominion and enhanced his own reputation.—“ Dominion.” MR LANG’S BLUNDER. In the tactics by which he has endeavoured to dragoon his followers to the destruction of the Legislative Council, Mr J. T. Lang, the Labour Premier of New South Wales, has been likened by one of them to Mussolini. The comparison does go very far, for Mussolini has a way of getting things done, but Mr Lang has egregiously failed. Bombastes Furioso, Humpty Dumpty, and Goldsmith’s Mad Dog are better parallels than the Italian dictator, and of these the last most nearly fits the case. After throwing down—or, to be strictly accurate, hanging up—his challenge to the whole human race, Bombastes was slain, nut he came to life again. Of the fall of Humpty Dumpty, on the other hand, we are expressly told that its effects were irreparable. The hero of Goldsmith’s poem was of irreproachable character. The first evidence that the neighbours had of there being anything wrong with the dog was that he had chosen ‘‘to bite so good a man,” but they had no hesitation in inferring that even the first bite of a dog which had given such conclusive evidence of madness must be fatal to the victim.

But soon a wonder came to light. That showed the«rogues they lied: The man recovered of the bite, The dog it was that died. —“ Evening Post.” “DEFENDING” THE IMPREGNABLE. An English politician has been moved to a sturdy defence of Capitalism. However that system may be criticised, he remarks, it “has established a gigantic engine for international service. We suppose that such things required to be emphasised in these days when the torch of Socialism (or worse) gutters and splutters in the hands of curious mortals who still believe, or profess to believe, that Marx was a full-sized gocl and Lenin his reincarnation. These fellows will transform the lion W. Runciman s “gigantic machine” into a mammoth Juggernaut flattening the workers into the gravel. We offer them that metaphor without fee or payment of any kind, seeing that their stock of really picturesque phrases is rather shopworn. Capitalism needs no defence at this stage of civilisation. It is not a perfect system; far from it. Occasionally its axles run hot. or the steering gear becomes mutinous, and there is a collision. But, taking it by and large, this machine tends to give greater and greater satisfaction to the majority of intelligent people.—“N.Z. Times.” ■