The Chronicle LEVIN. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1917. LEADERS WHO LEAD NOT.

Levin Daily Chronicle, 17 July 1917, Page 2

The Chronicle LEVIN. TUESDAY, JULY 17, 1917. LEADERS WHO LEAD NOT.

•Every time that there is need for a (statesmanlike view to be taken in regard' to New Zealand's war policy the duty falls upon the Bight Hon. W. F. Massev, Prime Minister. It so falls in virtue of the high office that Mr. Massey holds. But he is no more able to take a statesmanlike view than are the majority of those who placed, him in his present high position. He is a narrow-viewed mediocrity whose abilities were and still are only equal to administering the affairs of a country in time' of peace; and, in his case, to the order of factional forees that stood chiefly for politicnl reaction. What he was elected to secure for his factions he did secure; and if, incidentally, he strangled the true basic principle of political liberty in following up his principle of "sound administration," it remain's to be said that those who pay the price to-day voted for him, six years ago, in a so'id 1 phalanx, in consonance witli their class idea that "Liberal and Conservative in iNVw Zealand were all alike." That class to-day is changed and sorry; and yet to-day other classes still regard Mr. Massey'fi record as ideal. But the war-time problems ar© placing him in true prospective, and showing in unmistakable manner that straightforwardness and bonhommie, unallied to general ability, make but a sorry political head in times of trouble. After three years of administration under war conditions, our Prime Min|is'ter finds himself face to flpce with a position of grave economic d,ang;er tio this dominion—a danger, unfortunately, that is more real than obvious to-day, though in twelve months' time it will be unescapable— and the Prime Minister is facing it with the unflinching assurance that a blind man shows who is unwittingly walking towards a precipice. 3vew Zealand is fast approacing a stage where she is about to (be reduced to inability to produce foodstuffs in the quantities that the needs of the 'Empire demand: and the calamity is to be hastened by the Prime Minister's approval of the Defence Minister's resolve that the reinforcements fuom iNFew Zealand shall g» forward in undiminished numbers, though the not numerous Second Division will have to be called upon to enable the drafts to be fully maintained. A few

months will exhaust this class of tlio nation's manhood, and what will be .New Zealand's position then? If a statesman were at the head of '.New Zealand there would be no need for tlrs insignificant country journal to be asking the question that the influential metropolitan press is afraid to ask: a statesman would have forseeu the difficulty two years ago, and have straightened out the emotional tangle that has landed this country, in eoimmon with most other parts of the British Empire, m a position of industrial weakness. But nothing has been done. And, now, we have the Prime '.Minister and the .Minister of 'l>eience proclaiming their unflinching resolve to maintain the rate of reinforcements at the always-too-high rate that misguided political enthusiasm settled 1 upon in the misguided belief that the war would be a matter of a few months' duration. Our alreadydecimated manhood 1 is to be drawn away unduly, and our primary industries ruined through lack of labor, to bolster up a policy of widespread fighting that was conceived by soldier leaders and Homeland politicians whose abilities to correctly diagnose future likelihoods already have been shown by developed events to be as inept as "our Mr. Massey's." [If we write strongly, we write what the occasion needs; the whole war policy has been a bungle from beginning to present, and the clearest proof of this lies in the position that all the combatants have reached to-day.

Consider thafc bloody tragedy, the Gallipoli campaign. What chiefly led to that disastrous blunder? The Chronicle <»ay.s unreservedly (and it says in print to-day what no newspaper and no magazine hitherto lias had the courage to sav regarding Gallipoli) : that though the primary blunder lay with the British War Office and the then Ministeu-iii-Oiarge, the chief contributing cause was the superabundance of troops ready to hand from Xew Zealand and Australia. In the bloodquickening madness of the early war fervor, the Rt. Hon. W. F. Massey (Prime Minister), Sir James Allen (Minister of Defence), and their scores of Parliamentary abettors vied with Australian politicians as to how great a number of our men would be sent to the front. What principle chiefly undeilaj tiiis action? It was the fatuous idea that the war would bo a short, sharp, struggle; a matter of six months' effort with a glorious termination for us. It was an idea conceived in folly, and made a popular belief by alleged leaders of thought who in doing so constituted themselves self-labellejd political pigmies in the judgment of all clearbra ined men. There lias been but one great war .in th<s history of both modern and mediaeval times that was finished without years of waging; and the one between Germany and France in 1870-I—was finished is less than one year simply because the French were unprepared and outmatched in all respects from the beginning of the war. -Vol even a superfirifo.l observer could have regarded Germany as being unprpepared for the present war: yet we had in New Zealand, as elsewhere in the Empire, the spectacle of our alleged leaders intensifying the - popular delusion, and' embarkpng this- dominion upon a

policy of unnecessary, unhelpful decimation of her brightest manhood. This false idea wag widespread, land the bitter fruit- is widespread. Verily, tlie peoples of the word are having in these bloody years of trial an object lessson .given them (that should last at lea.st throughout 1 'their 1 ' generation) of the futility of electing ias leaders the comfortable, prosaic and mediocre people who in late years have monopolised the posts of administration. write in this strain not merely be* cause we resent what has been done against Xew Zealand's interests, but because to-day we still see the same misguided outlook upon the future being taken bv 'Xew Zealand's Ministers that they 'took in the first .and more unsettling year of the war. The government's policy is wrong and waistieful; and the waste -represents the casting away of life unnecessarily, besides the lesser evil of causing n diminution of Xew Zealand's producing power, the maintenance of which is more necessary to the Empire's success than is the provision of Xew Zealand's _ manhood for the fighting line. We repeat once aga.in, that 'this country has been sending out far too many men; our is a country of primary producing nature, not 0110 of manufactures; and, for that reason, w.e> cannot send men to the front in the same proportion that Great tßri-

tain, does without feeling the strain i'u double degree.

Doubtless some commentators/ wjill rise up to ask why to-day the (Levin Canary "roars so fiercely" and "lucubrates thus deeply," and then imagine that by this sarcasm the foregoing arguments and allegations are quit© diisoouiite. "Thot" we must bear with as best we may; reflecting, meanwLvLo, ithati the truth is .as likdjiy to be written in Levin as London, and a broad, statemanlike view be no less likely to be uttered by an unknown proletariat of Bunnamagoo than by a self-shown failure sti'll enshrined in high office. And, be that case as lit may be, there is small room for burking the fact that the New Zealand Prime Minister and the INjew Zealand Dcfeuc<> Minister, and all those who abet them either in Parliament or out of it, are combining (first and last) to iruai this dominion on to the rocks of financial difficulties; secondly, and yet more heinous, to send forward reinforcements in numbers too .great; merely because even at this late hour the alleged leaders are unable to see that the great war is practically only half developed. Tke present! proportion of fighting men cannot ib'e maintained much longer, and if New Zealand had statesmen at its head instead of muddlers; sound politicians instead of place-hunters who have "arrived" by devious. pro cesses and held on by pandering to the less enlightened forces of political Tjife in 'Parliament iand among the people, ,New Zealand would inform the British War Office that that office's original "estimate had been proved wrong so clearly bv events that the ..estimate could not be acted upon further, so far as New Zealand was concerned. Such a decision could be made to-day with advantage to all; if it is delayed for twelve months the lives of great numbers of our married men will have been laid down in the interim and to no effective end; for the present war has but three possibilities: (1) It will end when the British money-lender finds the Income Tax absorbing seventeen or eighteen shillings in each pound sterling of interest; (2) "When "both" of the chief combatants are prepared to make reasonable compromises; • (3) When the present methods of finance have been done away with; when confiscation of wealth has reached its ultimate pos>sibilty, and when we of the present year are at least seven years older than wo are to-day. .

POSTSCRIPT. Perhaps we should say leaderscript. Iti any case, we hasten to say that nothing fin the foregoing article is intended to discourage recruiting nor to interfere wiith the New iZeialand" Government's efforts to administer this dominion's war policy. "We make ■ this explanation to prevent misunderstandings, and also liavjing in view the process of government by Govern-ment-made '• Regulation that in iNew Zealand to-day bestrides Parliament and its Statutes like some Old Man of the Sea. In other words, we find that the Coalition Government's Regulations have placed all publicists in the position of the condiment manument manufacturer who to comply with Xew Zealand Statute law (or its lie too governed by regulation?) prints on liis tins G-tTAiR --VXHEBI> PURE PEPPER. (Mixed with Cornflour). So, to stick still to the Parliamentary phraseology, we add that the content* of our article are to be read in accordance with the jrequlir|omentis of THE WAR REGULATION'S (With a Slight Admixture of Cornflour). a—p