THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8348, 7 February 1913, Page 6

THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE

The squatters’ organ, realising the futility of attempting any longer to maintain that the Hon. James Allen has not offered an expeditionary force of 8000 men for foreign service, now adroitly changes its ground. Tho evidence forthcoming, and especially the quotation from Mr Allen’s speech at his farewell banquet, was too strong to be denied. The new ground on which tho squatters’ organ takes up a position o; defence is that Mr Allen made no secret of his expeditionary proposals before his departure. But who on earth said he did ? If he had made something ol a secret of the precious plan, if ho had kept it safely in his head and off his tongue, no harm could possibly have been done. Tho complaint was that immediately his feet touched the pavements of London, and before the glamour of Ilia strange surroundings had worn off, he had blabbed to a press interviewer an offer which was calculated to commit tho youthful territorials of New Zealand to foreign service at the dictation of any Defence Minister who chanced to be in power at the moment. That was why Mr Allen was blamed. If he had preserved that precious scheme as a cherished secret of his own, or had presented it to the press interviewer as an interesting and speculative emaua tion from his own fertile and resourceful brain, there would have .been nothing whatever to ho angry at. But when he speaks as the Defence Minister of Now Zealand, and wc are told that he offers the lives of 8000 of our young men. in foreign service as a further proof of loyalty, it is time to demand whether he has spoken with tho authority and concurrence of the Government. It is significant that tho Hon. W. F. Massey has made no attempt whatever to come out into the open and reassure the public mind concerning this disquieting matter. Ho remains in the shelter of his Ministerial chamber, where he is satisfied to “think” what Mr Allen might have said, “while all. tho world wonders.” Meanwhile, the indiscretion of Mr Allen, whatever interpretation may be put upon it, is being strongly condemned from one end of New Zealand to the other. One., writer sums up the situation very laconically when ho says: “It may suit Mr Allen to pose in England as a sort of dictator able to say to this territorial ‘go, and he goeth,’ and to that ‘coma, and he oometh,’ but this sort of thing won’t suit New Zealand.”