NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 255, 22 July 1921, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

On Wednesday the Council of Agricullure listened with approval to nn address urging the imperative need for supporting the Government in resisting demands for increased public expenditure. Yesterday it carried a resolution asking for a Government subsidy for a Royal agricultural and pastoral show. The amount sought is not large-a matter of £5OO at most—but its very smallness makes the falling away from grace the njore glaring. Two speakers, it is true, raised their voices in protest, but their amendment was lost on the voices. “I think Mr. Nosworthy will bear me out,” said Mr. Hunt in his Wednesday’s address, "when I say thnt since the end of the war the Government has been engaged in one continuous struggle against demands from all over the Dominion for increased expenditure of every conceivable kind. . . .” Twenty-four

hours later the audience he addressed aded another demand to the list. Perhaps one cannot blame th* Council of Agriculture overmuch. The worst that can be said of its members is that they share the popular conviction that the time to be economical is when one has no option of being anything else.

Owing to the difficulty in framing a form of words that would secure to the United States all benefits under the Treaty of Versailles and relieve her of all obligations, American peace-making with Germany has been a long-drawn process of which the end is not yet in sight. A cable message yesterday stated that the American Commissioner in Berlin had been directed to negotiate for a treaty for the resumption of diplomatic negotiations. How far that treaty will coincide with the Allies’ Peace Treaty is still a mystery. According to all accounts President Harding has been finding that while it. was easy to denounce the Versailles Treaty in a campaign speech, the task of making peace anew is strangely .difficult. If the Allies’ Treaty were ratified with the scores of reservations demanded by the Senate, new treaties would bo needed to define America’s relations with her late associates. A separate treaty is apparently now favoured. It has been pointed out that this will still leave unsettled so many difficult legal and economic questions that further treaties with Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and the newly-created States of Central Europe will be needed. Ail these documents, it is to be observed, will require ratification by the Senate fee. fore they are worth the paper they are written on. "There is now no prospect whatever,” wrote the Washington ,correspondent of the New York "Sun” on June 15, "that the signature of the United States will be inscribed on the Versailles Treaty along with those of the other Allied .nations.” Unhappily for this forgetful correspondent, the signature of the United States is on the Versailles Treaty in pride of place. However, treaty or no treaty, Americans are claiming that their country is now enjoying more complete pdice than any other of the participants in'the late war.

Next time Latour members ask in Parliament for the removal of the civil disabilities on military defaulters they might very well be referred to tho "Maorilond Worker" of July 20, 1921. On page 1 is a reference to conscientious objector's having been "persecuted by war-mongers." On page 7 is tho ropu-t of Mr. Holland) on the recent Australasian Labour Congress. The important final recommendation, of (be congress, wo are told, was that men who had been disconnected with tho Australian Labour Party, but who had continued fighting for working-class principles, should bo readmitted, io membership if they so desired. This, it was explained, had to do with men and women who had left the party at some time as a result of a serious split in tho ranks, but, added Mr. Holland: "It would) under no circumstances apply to the men who deserted the party on the conscription issue.” That is to say, any man who supported compulsory service for Australia during the war is damned for ever so far as the Australian labour Party is concerned. Mr. Holland, curiously enough, offers no suggestion that these Latour men are being "persecuted" for having conscientiously desired that Australia should 1 exert her full strength in tho war.

Sir Francis Bell, in his remarks on the Armour case published this morning, favours correspondence with'foreign Governments via tho British Foreign Office. Ho points out that Now Zealand has already taken up a different attitude from Australia over the mandates. Australia took its Now Guinea mandate direct from the League of Nations, while New Zealand received the Samoan mandate indirectly through tho King. At tho same time, it has to be remembered that wo signed the Peace Treaty on exactly the same footing of somiindependenco as Canada or Australia. We have our one independent vote tn cast in its Assembly, ns they have, or, in fact, any of the Great. Powers. Furthermore, wo have undertaken by our membership a variety of political responsibilities in all parts of the world. For instance, we have guaranteed to

“respect and preserve against external aggression tho territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League." This involves New Zealand 1 liabilities in such diverse quarters as Haiti, Hedjaz, Siam, Uruguay. and Poland, to name only a few. Exactly whole we stand internationally may well be ft conundrum to foreigners.

Sir Francis Bell’s contention that the Imperial Government should bo privy to any international correspondence wo conduct is thoroughly sound. If the Dominions attempt to carry on on any other basis all visible signs of Imperial unity must speedily disappear. Independent correspondence might end on some matter in a rupture, a rupture might very easily mean war, and war would mean ringing the fire alarm and asking John Bull to send the Navy and fight it for us. If the Navy did not arrive when we rang tho bell, wo could still afford' to be defiant, of course, to any country whoso fleet could be blown out of the water by tho Chatham, tho Philomel, and the Amokura.