NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1169, 3 July 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

\\u do not know how much weight our "Liberal" friends arc willing to admit in the protests of Labour men against Sir Joseph Ward's acceptance of a baronetcy. In their hearts, however, a very great many oHhem arc distressed at their leader's strange lapse from what am called "democratic principles"; still more of them are secretly uneasy at the effect upon the party's fortunes. We were informed last week of the

Dunedin Labour party's condemnatory resolution respecting the baronetcy, but wc were not supplied with the most entertaining point about the meeting. The resolution was moved by Jin. A. R. Barclay, and in prefacing his speech he read a copy of a telegram that had been sent to Sir Joseph Ward when he received his knighthood. It was dated June IT, 1901, and ran as follows: "We deeply regret that you, as leader of a democratic pa'rty, should have accepted a title." The interest of this ten-year-old protest is in the names attached to it: A. H Barclay, J. !«'. Arnold, and—J -V Millar. If Mr. Millar objected then, as a- democrat, to the knighting of a prominent member of the party who was not the actual head of it, what is his opinion to-day upon the acceptance of a baronetcy by the actual leader? There is no likelihood that Mr. Millar will respond to any request for an opinion upon the elevation of his leader and colleague, but it will be surprising if he is allowed to go through his election campaign without having the question put to him. His democratic friends in Dunedin may or may not have a right to feel strongly about Sin Josepii Ward, but at anyrate nobody can deny them the right to know just where Mr. Millar stands.

A cadlb message in this issue tells us the reason why the Nationalist members of the House of Commons abstained from attending the Coronation ceremonies, and a very interesting reason it is. Mr. John Redmond was wise enough to see that if the Party attended as loyal members of his Majesty's Parliament, "it would benefit the Home Rule cause in England." Most people will think that Mr. Redmond might have found some more gracious and loyal justification than that—for example, he might have urged that the JCing is the King of Britain and Ireland. But even the purely strategic plea that he advanced had little weight. On a division 33 members of the party voted for attending the ceremonies and 29 voted against, whereupon Mr. T. P. O'Connor "emphasised the danger of cleavage," and the party then agreed to withhold its countenance from the ceremonies. (The ceremonies,* as reported last week, were nevertheless very successful.) What is of chief significance is the reason given for their action by the opponents of participation. They feared that the attendance of the party at the ceremonies "would have a bad effect in Ireland." The Nationalist M.P.'s ought to know more about Irish Nationalist opinion than anybody else, and the state of that opinion can be inferred from their action. In the face of such a frank admission of the existence of disloyalty and anti-British bitterness in Ireland, it is impossible to accept without reserve the assurances of Mr. John Redmond and the travelling collectors who have lately visited us that the Nationalists in Ireland are all for harmony, brotherhood, and toleration. Nobody; has condemned the bitterness and intolerance of the dominant Nationalist faction more strongly than Mr. William O'Brien—himself a devoted Catholic and a heroic fighter for Home Rule. It is obviously quite useless for Nationalist M.P.'s to ask the British people to trust in the spirit of tolerance in Ireland when they cannot trust it themselves.

It will not be the Attorney-Gen-eral's fault if Britain does not mend her ways and make a serious attempt to become .really respectable and a credit to New Zealand. The other day he was painstakingly explaining to the astonished British public the meaning of Imperialism. To-day wc are informed that he has been teaching Britain the meaning of freedom. Wc trust ho was as clear as he was severe, for freedom is an idea that is not easy to bring home to a people who have been labouring under the delusion through all the ages that they were rather well provided for in that particular way. "That barren negative thing, 'British liberty' "—as Sir John Findlay so finely calls it—has long been a thing that JS'cw Zealand, as well as the Motherland, has been somewhat pronei to take.a pride in. No doubt it was their ignorance. Sin John Findlay intends to dispel that ignorance, or at anyrats to remove all excuse for its continuance. There are those, wc know, who will think that Sir John Findlay should have postponed for some other occasion his instruction of Britain in the art of life and government, but wc arc bound to say that he is a very poor missionary who does not seize every chance to teach the heathen. And the case of Britain is certainly very evil—how evil wc shall not know until the missionary returns and makes his report. But it is sufficiently plain already that he has been roused to a great pitch of missionary zeal. He still lias time to instruct the British Judges upon the essence of law and to drop a few hints for the benefit of British authors. The only thing, apparently, that the poor Motherland has to offer that he does not despise is a knigbthood.

Practically the whole of the press of the country has been supplied, per medium of a Press Association telegram from Auckland, with the statement that "the complaints regarding the Cook Islands Administration broke down completely." This is the sort of thing that a certain class of Government journals uses its position as agent for the Press Association to circulate at times, to the damage of the credit of the Association as an impartial supplier of news. The facts arc, as our readers are aware, that the complainants who laid certain specific charges againrt the Administration at the Islands were ready and willing to produce their evidence in support of the charges, provided that the proceedings were in public and ! that tho witnesses were examined on oath. When the Chief Justice announced his intention of making the inquiry a secret one—to exclude the press and the public and not to place the witnesses on oath—the complainants courteously informed him that in those circumstances they would not offer any evidence. They gave their reasons—and very good reasons, too, for desiring publicity and the swearing of witnesses—but Sir RoniiitT Stout cither through his instructions limiting his powers or on his own responsibility declined to accede to their request. They therefore decided to bring these charges before Parliament in preference to submitting them at a secret investigation, the proceedings at which, the Chief Justice himself stated, might not he made public. Yet with the knowledge of these facts before it the Government journal in Auckland states, and circulates its opinion

throughout the country per medium of the Press Association as a fact, that the charges broke down completely. If the statement had been circulated as the S tor's own opinion it would have been estimated at its true value. (Jur readers, we have no doubt, will obtain an interesting insight into the state of things at the Cook Islands from the disclosures made at the Wigmore murder trial, a full report of which appears in this issue. The lax administration of the liquor laws—which was one of the complaints made in connection with the Administration at the Islands—is, we think, quite sufficiently shown, and there are other features of the evidence which may have a bearing on the subject of the charges when they come before Parliament next session. To-morrow wc hope to publish a further budget of matter respecting the state of things at Karotonga, supplied by pur special reporter who accompanied the Chief Justice and party to the Cook Group.