THE APOLOGETIC STAGE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 500, 6 May 1909, Page 4

THE APOLOGETIC STAGE.

: No shrewder comment upon Sm Joseph Ward's Inveicargill speech has been made than 1 Me. Massey's observation that what impressed him mostywas that, "instead of , the vainglorious boasting to which we have been accustomed in previ-ous-years, the Minister has now reached tho apologetic' stage." The normal tone of Sir Joseph's references to tho state of the country under his administration is pitched so high that it would be proper to call him apologetic and pessimistic, if he were to sink only to tho not?, that would mean quiet contentment in ordinary people. That is the danger that always besets the boaster ia politics: he shows to such lamentable disadvantage when he takes any tone but that of high hyb'erbole. We do not know if Sir Joseph Ward, has read that splendid passage in Thomas TrahErhe's Meditations in which the poet describes the "sweet and curious apprehensions of the world" that ho had when he was a child:

The'corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. : I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. • The dust and stones of.the street were as precious as gold: thegates were at .first the end of the world. The green trees, when I saw them first, through ono of the gates, transported and ravished me, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, thoy were such strange and wonderful things. . . . Boys aud girls tumbling in the street, and playing, wore- moving jewels. I knew not that they wore born or should die; but all things abided eternally as they wore in their proper places. Eternity was manfiesl in the Light of Day, and something infinite behind ■ everything appeared: which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. Less magnificently, but just,as romantically, Sir Joseph has loved to.give us his swoot and curious apprehensions of tho sordid figures and situations that rnako up the nationaloconomy. Nobody would have complained if, between his poetic ecstasies, ho had Quietly returned to earth again'and busied himself with repairing -the actual defoefcs of tho facts. But he has persisted in acting as if the facts were equal to his presentation of them. Thorc could be ? only one end to such a policy in a world which depends on tho actual facts; tho poet must at last becomo apologetic. Mr. Massev enumerates the themes of Sib Joseph's apologetics; tho falling revenue, the failure of tho defence sy&tom, the failure of tho

Government in connection ,with the settlement of Native land, the falling of Customs revenue, and the necessity for reducing expenditure. From the speech as a whole Mr. Mabsby doduced that tho Government's aystom of administration ia "played out." That might seom to bo a littlo too swooping a. judgmont, but wo would ask the public to give attention to. tho list of the Government's failures and compare them with the proposals of the Government for keoping "Liberalism" going. It is in the real essentials of tho country's need that tho. Government has failed. To koop tho rqvonuo buoyant, to kcop expenses down, to sottlo tho'Nativo land question, to establish a sound defence system—these are duties the noglect of which makes quite useless any quantity of prison reform or national annuities or amended laws. 'While Sin Joseph,Wabd has been rejoicing over tho effects of his administration and decorating tho national body with Radical ornaments, the waves of waste and sloth have been attacking the foundations.,