THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1924. ANY STICK GOOD ENOUGH.

Wairarapa Age, 22 February 1924, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1924. ANY STICK GOOD ENOUGH.

Dispassionate readers of the news regarding British politics must have rubbed their eyes on reading yesterday ’s cable news and asked themselves whether the first Labour Government in Britain is receiving quite the fair field for which the advisers of both of the older parties appealed. On quite half a dozen of the great questions which affect the Dominions in common with the Mother Country a mass of news has reached New Zealand tending to prejudge the attitude of the Macdonald Cabinet and almost all of it calculated to discredit the new Government with the Dominions. It is only to-day, some weeks after the fair, that Mr Macdonald and his colleagues are beginning to eateh up the statements and to nail them to the counter, or to say with some definiteness what their attitude really is. The storm was first let loose regarding the base at Singapore. It was stated on all hands that work was being suspended and that the Government was not going on with the Singapore policy. It is well known that that policy was roundly attacked by the British Liberals weeks and months ago. As for the Labour Party, they have made no statement whatever and apparently have taken no action whatever to upset the policy of their predecessors. They have adopted the same attitude also with regard to the Navy and to air defence. It becomes daily evident that the alleged decisions for which they have been blamed have not existed in fact. They have not had time to commit so many offences. The alleged “mutiny” of certain admirals who are stated to have threatened that they would not remain at the Admiralty unless the Government made certain declarations of obedience to their own officials reads very like a canard. It would be a most improper course to take, and Admiral Beatty is just as unlikely to utter a threat of that sort as Mr Macdonald would be to sit down under it. I Such stories could only bo concocted by persons having no knowledge whatever of the people they refer to. Another canard calculated to weaken the new Cabinet referred to the health of the Prime Minister himself. Mr Macdonald was represented as bowed down and staggering under the cares of office and likely to collapse. Why should Mr Ramsay Macdonald succumb in a few weeks to a strain of responsibility which his predecessor, already suffering from an incurable disease,- was able to sustain for months? The story was at first treated with scorn, but it has now' been thought necessary officially to deny it. The final and most ridiculous story of all was published yesterday from a Melbourne source. It purported to summarise certain instructions issued by the new British Prime Minister to the Empire squadron to govern their conduct, especially towards labour officials and labour bodies in Australia and New Zealand. Only a very simple-minded person could conceive the idea of any British Government instructing its naval officers how they should behave. These things are governed by well-establish-ed traditions. They come as naturally to naval officers as it comes to most people to eat with their fork instead of their knife. Yet the readers of the Melbourne “Age” were asked to believe that Mr Macdonald told Admiral Field and his officers by wireless that when in Australia they were to treat a trades hall with as much respect as a town hall, to give “objeet lessons in internationalism, and propaganda for peace.” The astonishing thing is that the “Age” itself appears to have believed the ridiculous canard. If inlike this reached the wardroom of a British ship they would be laughed to scorn, and nobody kuows it better than Mr Macdonald. British naval officers and men can be safely trusted to act with commonsenso and dignity wherever they are—to do their duty, to enjoy themselves like rational people, and to keep their mouths shut on political matters. There is no need to instruct them what they should do or how they should do it. “It is a tissue of lies from beginning to end,” said Mr Macdonald when the absurd fable was shown to him. The occurrence of a series of stories of this sort looks like something more than an accident. The tragedy of it is that anybody should think the people of the Dominions are simple enough to swallow them.