The West Coast Times SATURDAY, JUNE, 17th 1916. PARTY POLITICS.

West Coast Times, 17 June 1916, Page 2

The West Coast Times SATURDAY, JUNE, 17th 1916. PARTY POLITICS.

'Wk have aways been under ’ tli<* impression that since the outbreak ol tills most, awful war, polities wero barred as far as possible, and that since the e; tablislnnent. of our Coalition, or National, fiovernniont polities were for the time being effaced altogether. ’lo lay aside, every oth. r consideration and to win be war was, wo understood, not only tactile, but aeualiy the one. object in view. The late unequalable (if wo may coin a word) Lord Kitchener i iS reported as baring said that “if we would cease lighting among ourselves and concen-

tratc upon an attack on tin? enemy, so miirli tlio sooner would tlio war no brought to an end.” Politics—party politics—arc eschewed by the highest in the land in the Mother Country, ami _ we are glad to say, by those at j the head of our own Dominion Go\cruuient. Yet our evening contemporary has time, and again descended I to its own peace-time level, and broken ( this clear understanding. On Tiuu-s-I day evening our contemporary, more gives ns a leading article on ’ party politics, that article being writj ten round the gift of H..M.S. New /<•„- ■ land to the British Navy. This is uy no moans the first second, or third occasion upon which our contemporary has dragged in this subject. Its object is twofold and apparent, viz.; firstly, once more to ventilate it, s fulsome praise and its abject servility to I Sir Joseph -Ward; and, secondly, to .(heap insults and opprobrium upon those who at that time (so the Guardian says), “severely criticised the gift. 1 ' To indulge in party politics at a time like the present, when every loyal and sensible person is saying. “To —. — witli politics; it is to win the war we’re out,”’ were surely despicable enough; but when articles are from beginning to end practically misleading and untrue, it shows what means and ends may ho resorted to j by their authors wlio.se one aim | seems to be to toady to their Party, , oven though that Party may, at least for the present, bo but a ghost. In its article on Thursday evening our contemporary says; “The smallness to which polities sometimes descends was indulged in to a nauseating effect”; and, again: “Sir Joseph Ward, for the time being, suffered in prestige for the gift.’’ Then it prates of the Guardian-fancied “grievous wrong that was done to Sir Joseph Ward’s uns'Jfish patriotism at the outset.” We do not really know whether our contemporary expects (certainly it hopes) that such misleading and grouudl'ss stuff a.s this will be effective in any quarter. Wo will he very explicit; The gift of tile Dreadnought was never “severely criticised”; politics, neither small nor large, were never “indulged in” about “the gift” ; Sir Joseph Ward never “suffered in prestige,” nor could have so suffered “for the gift”; and. lastly, Sir Joseph Ward’s patriotism was never “grievously wronged” by i “the gift.” Particularly in these last | two statements is our contemporary's | position most contemptible and shame- j fill. Who, we ask, over did. or over ) could, nuestion Sir Joseph Ward's patriotism 5 Our contemporary's aim in that article is to induce its readers j , to believe that the then Opposition j I and n host of others, wore sovetmr 1 I «

criticising “the gift”; that,-to do so \ they “descended to nauseating effects” | and, so “injured Sir Joseph Ward’s' ! prestige.” Why does not our conI temporary slate the actual caser None of the criticisms or objections j were levelled at “the gift,” and all l New Zealand knows that from first ! to last the gift itself was never severely criticised in or out of political circles. What was criticised was the i manner, the high-handed unwarrant- ; ed, irregular, and utterly unconstitutional manner in which the gift was made. Even in the House itself the heads of the Opposition publicly voiced their (indorsement of such a , gift, but .severely aud correctly criticised the right of one man to take upon himself to offer nearly two millions pounds of the Dominion’s money wthout consulting Cabinet, Party, Parliament, or people. As we [glinted out at tho time, had Sir Joseph Ward consulted these, as he should ana could have dime, he would have secured their practically unanimous ana ready support. Hut, to do so evidently did not suit, because then it would have been the llovornmcnt’s and nob j (S.r Joseph Ward's gifj,. Our con- , temporary goes on in this fashim.. I “.Air -Joseph Ward accepted th« changed position without any ebulli- ■ tion of feeling, and time lias brought I Ills revenge, if he wanted any." Wo I ask what changed position and reI vengo, what forf And it calls upon the Dominion to lake occasion in some

| notable wap to redeem the wrong the | Dominion once did in this respect to (Sir Joseph Ward. This is the piffle written in tho vain hope that readers may believe that New Zealand or the Government Opposition objected to the gift of a Dreadnought to Britain ami should now lick the dust off the shoes

of one mail who laid, as the Guardian ! puts it, “the ansellish patriotism and | great foresight” in connection wan the gift. And onr contemporary calls upon the Dominion to right- the which the Guardian says the Dominion once did to Sir Joseph Ward.- Put | in a few sentences our contemporary I was practically saying, to its readers: I “Sir Joseph Ward made a gift of a Dreadnought to 'Britain. He was the only man in New Zealand in favour oi it; he was the only man in New Zealand who foresaw the war "’ith Germany. ‘The whole Dominion was 1 against it; but he now has his revenge, and surely the Dominion, which 'so severely wronged him, so discounted his prestige, and questioned his patriotism, will now abjectly apolo- : gise.” That is the oroam, or rather the sour milk, of our contemporary's latest shameful attempt to mislead ; the public. In conclusion, wo can only say that the making of the gift by Sir Joseph Want was perfectly right,

but the manner in which it was made was all wrong. Wo cannot admit that (Sir Joseph Ward showed any more foresight than bus been shown by the Hritish Admiralty for the last quarter of a century. As to the mode of making the gift, well, we suppose i,vill he admitted, even by onr contemporary, that the office which Mr. Asquith fills at Premier of Great Britain is at least almost as important as that held by Sir Joseph Ward as Premier of New Zealand; yet wo do not know of Mr. Asquith ever giving

awa.v nearly two millions of his country’s money without saying “by your leave” to anyone;