NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 253, 20 July 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

Responsibility for the prolongation of the war and the needless sacrifice of mnnv lives was the charge which Admiral Sims last year laid at the door of Mr". Daniels. Secretary of the United States Navy Department. The Admiral is a fearless and outspoken officer. He was the American naval representative in London, and in a lengthy letter last year he made eleven grave charges against the way naval matters had been handled in Washington. These the Congressional Committee of Inquiry now reports to have been established. Admiral Sims alleged culpable unreadiness when war was declared in March, 1917; a failure to concentrate American naval forces in the critical area of the conflict : and a continual over-riding of the decisions of the Admirals afloat by the Secretary of State from his Office chair in Washington. Admiral Sims has been on the carpet on many occasions in America —he is there again in consequence of a recent speech on the Irish question—but it has been declared that on every occasion he has justified the courage of his convictions. In the present instance it is necessary to bear in mind, nevertheless, that there is a Republican majority 7 on the Congressional committees, and Mr. Daniels was a Minister in a Democratic Administration.

It is time the Government of New Zealand made up its mind where it desires to stand internationally. Recently Sir Francis Bell, as Acting-Prime Minister, explained that it was not intended to carry on correspondence direct with the United States Government over the treatment of Messrs. Armour and Company in New Zealand. To-day we find Mr. Massey apparently regretting the absence of an invitation to New Zealand from the United Slates to take part in the disarmament and Pacific conference. Our attitude must be puzzling to Washington. On the Armour question we disclaim international standing, and refer the American Secretary of State to the British Foreign Office. On the Pacific conference we appear pained at not receiving an invitation as a quasi-independ-ent State. Obviously we cannot have it both ways. The principle is important ■—in certain circumstances it might prove vitally important. Mr. Hughes does not seem to have any misgivings in entering into direct negotiation with France on tariff matters. In reply to a French query recently as to whether communication should bo through the Imperial Government, he brushed aside such a suggestion, and said the matter was entirely one for Australia. Canada has even gone so far as to approve of a Canadian Minister at Washington—though no appointment has been made. Where this semi-independence begins and ends no one knows. Australia and Canada apparently are willing to take as much rope as they can get. New Zealand, at the moment, is willing to sit in international conferences, but not to carry on an international correspondence. There may be sonnd reasons for this discrimination, but they are not easily discernible to the iaymiin.

England and Wales, with 37 times the population of New Zealand, have only about ten times as many convictions for drunkenness in a year. In 1914 there were 183,000 convictions entered in tho English and Welsh police court records for drunkenness, but with the liquor restrictions and the absorption of men the Army the number fell until it reached 29,000 in 1918. Since then it has been going up again, and a cable message to-day reports lust years iiguie as 95,763, as against 57,000 iu 1919. The latest figure gives 2.7 convictions per thousand of population. Beside it New Zealand is a drunken country indeed with about seven convictions per thousand people per annum. Before 1914- we had nearly 12 per thousand, so whatever else the war has done it would seem to have made us more sober than we were, if not happier. If the court records do not show us as temperate as Britain—and inebriated people certainly seem a commoner sight than in most British cities —we have at least the consolation of being sobriety itself compared with Queensland with 16.7 convictions for drunkenness for every thousand of its population. Victoria is shown in the statistics as even more sober than Britain, but in Victoria the Saturday "ilrunks” liftked up over Sunday are discharged without conviction on Monday-a circumstance which is a reminder that statistics do not always reveal the whole inwardness of things.

Publicity is ns breath in tho nostrils of politicians, and the chief dispenser of publicity in the British Isles is the Northcliffo Press, now boycotted by the Government. At tho head of the Northcliffo organs is "The Times.” but its most widely-read journals arc the "Daily Mail” and the “Evening News” in their London and provincial editions. Lord Northcliffe’s newspapers were conspicuous in their opposition to the Asquith Ministry in 1916, and their attacks had a good deal to do with its downfall and the elevation to the Prime .Ministership of Mr. Lloyd George-so much in fact that Lord Northcliffe appeared to labour under an -impression that ho was the Government and the now Primo Minister his mouthpiece and grateful servant Mr. Lloyd George did not share this view of his responsibilities, and gradual-

ly the Northcliffean ardour for him turned to coolness, and from coolness io rancour. The breach has been an open one for a long time now. In 1919 Mr. Lloyd George referred in contempt to “The Times” as the “threepenny edition of the ’Daily Mail,”’ and (hat journal has not been sparing in its criticism of him. Of course, Mr. Lloyd George states that the Foreign Office boycott of "The Times” is not a retaliation by Ministers for criticisms of thorn, but is undertaken as a public duty, statements of this kind are invariable in such cases. They do not disguise the fact that a false step has been taken. If news is to be supplied by public Departments to the Press the same facilities should bo available to all. "fl “The Times” has libelled Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Curzon they have their remedy. Failure to take that remedy rather indicates to the unbiased spectator that, although “The Timos” may have been most unpleasant to Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Curzon, it did not exceed the legal definition of “fair comment.”

A correspondent directs attention, to -the inconvenience caused to passengers in the dispatch of the Tahiti for Sydney on Monday evening. A quarter of an hour before the advertised, time of sailing all the passengers from ellington were ordered off the vessel while the police made a search for stowaways. This task occupied an hour and a quarter, and at its conclusion the passengers were allowed on. board again. In the meantime they were kept standing in an icy wind; on the wharf, without shelter of any kind. The same proceeding is, wo understand, gone through every time an intercolonial steamer sails. New Zealand is a very much regulated country to-day, and travellers are acquiring a habit of remarking that more of this sort of inconvenience is experienced in this Dominion than in any other part of the Umpire. If the ship has to be searched, surely it would be possible to concentrate the passengers in the saloon meanwhile, or on a sheltered deck. A discreditable incident on Monday night was that an intoxicated man was permitted to hold forth from the gangway in disgusting language for about half an hour, while several more scattered along the deck by passenger entrances were also noisily audible. It is true that the man on the gangway was at length silenced and moved on by an official, but not until he had been shouting oaths at the crowd for nearly thirty minutes. If ladies and children are io be compelled by the authorities to freeze on the wharf by the hour on winter nights, they should at least bo spared this accompaniment of drunken profanity.