The Waikato Argus. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] A Guaranteed Circulation of over 8500 Weekly. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1911

Waikato Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 4853, 14 November 1911, Page 2

The Waikato Argus. [PUBLISHED DAILY.] A Guaranteed Circulation of over 8500 Weekly. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1911

The Prime Minister addressed a meeting at Invercargill on Saturday. He took the opportunity to contradict erroneous statements with regard to the defence scheme. In the first place there was no intention to compel cadets and boys to go into camp with men. Cadets are controlled by the Education Department. He stated that all parties, with very few exceptions, approved of the system, and proceeded to make political capital out of the fact. He asked why the leaders of the Reform Party had not given expression to their approval. He replied to the question himself: “Because they believed that only a small section of the community was against it.” It is quite a new theory that an Opposition party is called upon to praise the actions of the party in power. Surely all a Ministry can seek from them is that they shall not adversely criticise their measures if they approve of them. He goes on to say that the defence question should be placed above party tactics. It is really amusing that he should charge the men who have aeon silent on the question with pre-arranged silence. Would he wish that those who arc contesting scats in the interests of the Opposition should go out of their way to give kudos to their opponents, and as a sequence, influence votes in favour of those whom they are working to remove from office. He defended the Dreadnought gift on the grounds of the moral effect its spontaneity was calculated to have upon all the Powers. The Opposition do not grumble at fhe gift, but at the mode of its giving, and that an alarmist telegram was sent in advance. Such a telegram, coming from such a source, gave the impresssion that in the opinion of the British Government there was reason for serious alarm. The vessel is built and launched, but no reason has yet been given for the urgency for Now Zealand’s action, unless it be that a coup de-theatre would divert the world and be acceptable as a symbol of Imperial unity. The interpretation, however, has been largely written in and inspired by Sir Joseph himse If.