NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1190, 27 July 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

*- ■ Although the session of Parliament that begins to-day is certain not to disappoint the general expectation that it will be unusually lively, it is fairly certain that it will open very tamely. • The Governor's Speech has already been anticipated in our columns and in the columns of several of our contemporaries, and there is a general understanding that it will contain nothing sensational, and perhaps nothing but the left-over remains of the "programme" of last year. Nobody will take seriously anything that the Acting-Ministry may put into the mouth of his Excellency; the Speech will be accepted as merely a "mavk-ing-timc" process. For cur part the only point that interests us is whether the Speech will promise a Land Bill. It will not be surprising if the natural inclination of even an Acting-Ministry to provide for possibilities in this way is this time restrained. The object of the ActingPrime Minister is of course to keep the House doing nothing until Sin Joseph Ward returns. This would be his plan in any case. But he has this special reason for carrying it out —that the Ministry have blundered so badly and made so many serious mistakes of every kind since March last that they must actually realise very keenly that if they try to act for themselves any longer there is no telling what will happen to them. To-morrow an Imprest Supply Bill will be brought down, and the public may look forward to a lively skirmish.

It is in some respects a pity that General Godley cannot spare time to get about even more than he does amongst the public in different parts of the country to explain what the defence scheme really means, and so remove many of the misunderstandings which exist respecting it. The Commandant of the Forces has a happy knack of explaining things, and his enthusiasm is'infectious. His anxiety to carry through the scheme with a minimum of inconvenience to everyone, and his readiness to fall in with any reasonable suggestion for overcoming difficulties were well shown at his interview with the Farmers' Union delegates yesterday. Those who talk wildly about conscription and the introduction of militarism into the country, and so on, would do well to give a little attention to tho facts. In this connection the closing passage of General Goblet's address seems to us to be worthy of the widest circulation.

"I do beg of you," ho raid, "that when you hear this Mk of militarism and conscription, you will do nil you can to combat it. We only want to help you to establish your citizen array. I do not want to fight I can assure you; hut the best way to ensure pence is to be prepared. (Applause.) Quite apart from the military point of view, the training, the men will get will be of immense value to the country. All this talk about conscription and militarism is really the greatest rubbish. A conscript soldier is one who is taken away from his home and put into barracks. The whole thing here is simply a system of general training, so that the men of the country will be in a position to defend their homes should the occasion ever arise, and pray God it never will." (Applause.)

This is the spirit in which the matter should be approached. The question is one of national duty—we all-trust is one of national duty. We all trust that the training imparted to bur young men may never be required to be put to the test in active service, but whether it is or .not, both they and their country will be the better off because of their having undergone it.

The comments of tho Ministerialist newspapers on the Mokau case have placed us in a dilemma of an unusual kind. Every day we find them saying the queerest things. Our local morning contemporary made a suggestion respecting Mr. H. D. Bell which Mr. Bell ,at once showed was monstrously absurd, and as far .from actual fact as can be conceived. The Napier Telegraph has been telling its readers that all Mr. Massey's references to the Order-in-Council were absurd, since therj was no Order-in-Council issued at all in connection with the affair! The Grey River Art/us says, in a comical rage against Mr. Massey, that "the Order-in-L'ouncil sanctioning the transfer appears to have been issued long before the syndicate was formed." And so on and so forth. Now our dilemma is this: To what should we ascribe such grotesque misstatements as_ those quoted—to stupidity or to dishonesty? For there is no other choice If tho Ministerialist press as a whole could settle private conference which charge it would prefer to plead guilty to, we should accept its decision. What surprises •us now and then is a note of real earnestness in the abusive language of some of these journals. Our own opinion is that they arc writing as they do write.simply out of ignorance. However, enlightenment will come to them in due course. The case against the Government in this matter has not been half stated yet.