WELLINGTON TOPICS

Wanganui Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15657, 8 November 1918, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS

PATRIOTIC DEMONSTRATIONS. WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS. (From Onr Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, November 6. In moving the adjournment of the House yesterday in commemoration of the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Austria-Hungary the Prime Minister made quite a nice little speech along the conventional lines. He must have found it a little disconcerting to have his remarks punctuated by the rat-a-tat of iron work proceeding in another part of the building close by, painfully reminiscent of some of the weird noises that rent the air during the municipal celebrations of the previous day, but in these times he is not easily diverted from the even tenor of hia way, and he spoke his piece with impressiveness and considerable effect. His main appeal was for the study of history and for the preservation of the tradition of the British race with a proper measure of hero-worship and national pride. THE FUTURE. Sir Joseph Ward, who followed Mr Massey, touched lightly and with a becoming diffidence upon post-war problems. Nothing, he said, could restore the lost lives and the broken homes, but he believed that out of the war, with its great sufferings and great sacrifices, would come blessings which would be passed on from generation to generation through all the centuries ahead. Education would be more rational and more intense, equality of opportunity and equality of sacrifice would be realities and not merely phrases, and a chastened, educated, -and disciplined democracy would safeguard the best and highest interests of the world. He agreed with Mr Massey that there still would be differences of opinion, but ho also agreed with his chief that there would be, as never before, unity of purpose and sane progress towards a common goal, HOIST WITH THEIR OWN PETARD. Mr Harris, the member for Waitemata, “caught the Speaker’s eye” as that gentleman was about to put the motion to the House, and having held the floor for the best part of half an hour, was succeeded by Mr H. E. Holland, who recited for embalment in Hansard the story of the secret treaties with which he has made his Labour friends fairly familiar. Ministers had asked for history, and they were to get it. Mr Holland’s argument appeared to he that if diplomacy had been 1 frank and open there would have been no war, and that if Britain had refused to meddle with other nation’s affairs she would not have been involved in their troubles. It was the speech of the Little Englander who would have had the nation save its own skin at the cost of its soul, and the House listened in impatient silence. THE WAR AND POLITICS. There can be no doubt that the overwhelming success of the Allies’ arms on every front is making the way of the National Government much easier than it appeared to be three or four months ago. Disgruntled members of the House who came up to Wellington determined to make things unpleasant for Ministers in general and for the Minister of Defence in particular may not have abandoned their intention altogether, but meanwhile they are remaining strangely silent. The prompt rejection of Mr Hindmarsh’s amendment to the Address-in-Eeply the other day is significant of the spirit that is abroad. Adversity, of course, would have produced the same result. But then it would have been an appeal to members’ patriotism. Now it is an appeal to their national pride, and it is irresistible