"Speeches That Are Worth Millions."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 181, 9 June 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

"Speeches That Are Worth Millions."

What " The Man from Australia " is Asking

for="Protection.

A German Trader is a Hun Soldier in

Plain Clothes.

B> ROBERT BLATCHFORD in "Weekly Dispatch

The plain and direct spee.-hts which the Prime Minister of the Australian Comomnweath s making in ihis country are worth millions to the Empire and to the Empire s Allies. In every corner of the globe where Ei.glish is spoken or understood those speeches will he read and weighed and comprehended. We need all be thankful that Mr. Hughes, has such a platform to speak from, such an audience to address, and such solid wisdom to convey. Coming as he does from Australia, speaking as lie does the sentiments of the rising young nations, his message will carry farther and sink deeper than anything a member of our home Government could say or our most brilliant wrier pen. Let us therefore congratulate ourselves that he is saying the right thing and in the right way.

mas which led us into this terrible danger and led us in unarmed and unprepared. Mi . Hughes may do a very great den] for the Empire. He has comprehended the danger and the remedy: ho speaks clearly, forcibly, eloquently: no has the Colonies and the majority of our own nation behind him: but it i- in portant that he should realise the nature of that which lies in his path. Horn the Government he need expect little help : from tho Prime Minister lie must expect opposition .If he can convince the people, then the people may force the hands- „f their rulers. In no other way can his hopes be realised. Mr Hughes is a new and a [•< tent force. It will be a calamity if lie wastes his gifts and lr.s energies in efforts to reanimate dry bones.

What i> the josition? Germany ,s our enemy. She is our enemy ir. peace ns in war. She will be our enemy when war is over, as she is our enemy now. The motives underlying her enmity aro pride, envy, and greed. When she s defeated there will be yet another motive to omibtter her hate —revenge, whether we like it or not we have got to recognise the fact that wo shall have to fight Germane to a finish. We shall have to beat Germany or she will destroy us. Directly the war is over sho will begin to prepare for another war without money. She can only get money bv commerce and bv trade.

And yet we must notice in the case of Mr Hughes, as in the case ot M-. Pemberton-Bilhng, that valuible an 1 effective as his speeches are, they contain no new idea. What these men, tho man from Australia and the man from the air, arc saying has been said by thousands of men before. The truths they are ringing out in trumpet tones are not new truths. In fact, K is with them, as with most of the men who win attention and carry conviction, only a matter of compelling the attention of the crowd V the obvious, or passing on to the many oft-repeated warnings of the few.

Every shilling we allow Germany to make by trading with our Empire or by working in our territories, will be a shilling to buy arms and bombs and poison gas; a rolling to tra'n sailors and soldiers; a .hilling to the fund she will devote to the purpose of destroying us. Everyone understands that a Briton who trades witn Germany now is helping Germany to get shells an'l guns to kill our soldieis. But everyone has to be made to unde-stand that every Briton who trades with Germany in tune of peace is helping to prepare for the next war.

The speeches of Mr. Hughe-; are excellent speeches: cold, and wise, and lucid; but they are not new. He tells us plainly that we were tools to permit the insidious poisoning of our tiade and finance by organised German influence; that we shall have to root that influence out; that we shall have to defeat German trade and commerce after we have defeated l.er armed forces: that we must never again allow ourselves to be dependent upon our arch-enemy for the most important materials of war

and commerce; that we mu-t shake off the old fatal pedantries and jrejudices and enter upon the coming commercial war without the gloves on. All these tilings have been «-aid before, by thousands of writers : nd speakers, thousands of times. But hitherto they have not been said by nnv person blessed with Mr. Hughes' unique opportunity of giving them world-wide circulation. The spokesman of the new Britains, speaking in the capital of the Kmpire, at the right moment and in the right tone, the Man from Australia is rendering incalculable services to the Kmpire and to the Allied unusc.

The same reasons which jusiity us .n forbidding trade with our c-icmies in time of war hold good in time o! peace. To trade with Germany afte" the war is still to trade v.ith the enemy. But wiio is so sanguine as to suppose that our Prime Minister knows or believes these things? lo go back to our prewar relations with German Mr. Hughes tells us, would ho madness What will it be but madness to keep after the war t.,e same Government or the same party in office, whose pedantries. ignorances, and stupidities led us into the mess and prevente.i us from being ready to n eet it?

TO THE BITTER EM). "When this war is over w.o ought to refuse permission to any Gonnan to land 011 our shore or to send gcods into our markets not because we wish to punish the Germans, but- because we know that every German is a:, enemy, and one who will work covert,v for our ruin. If we do not trust a'ien enemies in time of war, why should we trust them in time of peace? These things are quite simple and obvioi.s and easy to understand unless we are obstinate and prejudged and will not understand. It has Hen demonstrated beyond all doubt end question that the German diplomat, trader, or immigrant i-< a unit of a great organised army of hostile spies and exploiters. The Gorman trader is a soldier in plain clothes. Commerce, with the Germans, is a part ot war. It i- the organised means for providing the materia! of war. It i< a part of the great war machine. It bears a relation to the German war machine like the relation of ou" co'li.eries to our Navy. To trade with Germany i< as fatal a form to follow as it would he to supply her with coal and guns and 'shells. For what is the difference between building battleships for the Germans and giving tnem the profits to build batt!,-'ships for themselves ?

MR. HUGHES' TRUMPET CALL. There is another resemblance between Mr. Hughes and Mr. Pem-berton-Bding: they are alike in their optimism. They each call upon the most timid, irresolute, and procrastinating Government on earth to take strong action, and to tnke that action now. Upon what do these spoke-m-'ii of the Empire's cause base their hopes? When uid the head of the Government ever say or do anything to inspire the hope that he will take or is capable of taking a decision so wise and bold and swift as they ucmand? How can anyone behove that Mr. Asquith will follow Mr. Hughes' direct and >tetesmaniike lead? We have seen our Prime Minister driven by i'oroo ot circumstances into the adoption of conipul -nrv service. What has he made ot it, what has he done v.ith it? lie dalljvc'. with the need for a year—a year of war. Then he confuted it with quibbles and restrictions and compromises untd the whole recruiting probh m 1- in a miserable tangle and confusion and i'.:e munt'/y is seething with (I.scontent. Wo .t ha., he done with the blockade 1 And now Mr. Hughe* with a frankness m l darity there is no mistaking, rail, uoon him to throw over all the sacred ]> L . 1.: I:tries ot Radicalism, to bieak away from the fetishes h.e has hugged all his life, and jiut his [tarty s! ibboleths on the shelf and begin to ac t and think as a patriot and an Imperialist. Such optimism is patheti-. Not from tlie head of our Government is Mr. Hughes' virih- statesinansh pto be expected. If Mr. hughes is tti succeed, if lis trumpet (all is to shake the wails of .terieo, it wiii be 110 thanks M l . Asquith. As T have said, .Mr. Hughes lias a chnn.-e such as comes to f"v.' men in a lifetime. His word- will echo round the globe. Our hope is not that they wiU inspire Mr. Mieawber. but that tliey will rouse the p"op'e. 1 hat the peopl" si mild be roused is imperative, for on 1 v by public understanding and by public pressing will our ial.adaisical Government be induced to move.

IXSITKRAW-E APATHY. The war, Mr. Hughes do-lares lias taught ii l ; muc'i. It lia<. Hut lias T taught tli.' Govt rnmei.t min ;i ? TThs Mr." As;|uilll ivor give the faintest sign tliat ho realises the nature and 111<> majrnitmlo • f the Gorman menace? A: 1 < 1 the Prime Mini tor is not the only politician still i:n i -av.'(l. lie !i:.s behind liini and around him many s< i.timent::lists anil pedants ready to b< Ister up Freetrado and pacifism and individualism, and all tho other disored ted dog-

As f understand Mr. Hughes, he % asking .Mi 1 . Asqiuth to say those things to the people. .Mr. Asquitli will not say them ; he does not believe tliein. He has neither the lucidity of mind to understand them nor of spe "-h to express them. Mr. Hughes can think and speak with a clearness and force oI which our Crime Minister is capable. Let Mr. Hughe.- use his g:■ l us to instruct the people and not waste his strength m weaving eaules ot sand. The i~Mie Mr. Hughes i.-> putting before the Enipir.' is a plain i-Mie. It .s an issue that a plain man can make plain iii.cn understand. Jhe i lie thing to do, and to do quickly and U be done thoroughly, is to get this issue put clearly before the people of the Empire. The rest is ea-v. Once let tlie peopiv comprehend the danger and the remedy. and the iiovernnient will have .o obey the will of the people cr go. What Mr. Hughes is asking for, in his own convincing, candid way, is protection; no. protection ,>f capital, or labour, or manufactures, or agriculture, but protection of the lives and liberties ot ihe people; protection et the Empire against tho [ reineditaled attack of treacherous and uitscrtiDii'oui, enemies.

Once tho people understand that, they will see to it that the safety and honour of the Empire are protected and

that the obfuscated doctrinaires who so nearly ! nigiit us to ruin are not allowed another chance to mislead or to betrav us.

"WORSE THAN THEIR (.PEED." If the people cannot learn 'his lesson we are lost indeed. For never in the history of Europe any nation been so completely and conclusively exposed as the Germans have been in this war. Ail the duplicity, the treachery, and the villainy of tneir long-premeditated and carefully crgansod plot against Europe has be.en laid bare. 'l l ey have been proved guilty of every kind of crime, secret and open. They have 11iven stripped of the flimsy rags of hypocrisy and shown for what they are —an organised conspiracy ot implacable brigand-'; men banded, trained, and armed for wholesale robbery and murder. Their creed is a dewi s creed, and they are v.orse than the.: - creed, bad as it is. It ought not to be diffito convince our people that it is unsaie to trust or treat with such a nation.

There are, one may hope, few Britons so stup'd or party blind .as to be unable to see the necessity for c*'ery possib'e kind of protection against tho future design, ~t these savages, whose past now stands revealed in -ill its hideousiiess. But in te work oi instructing ; (I arousing our people \w must not commit the mistake of expecting aid from the Ministers who opposed and thwarted us before the war. .Co call upon M. Asquith for apMogy, lor amendment, for retraction, for promptitude, or for decision is a wicked and rdiculo'.is wa-te ol tune.

The country committed tho grave mistake of leaving the conduct of the war in the hands of a Government, which had demonstrated its flap ant incompetence to jiereeive or to avert the danger its own folly had brought upon us. That was mistake that might well have proved fatal, Let us now avoid a still more dangerous eiror: the error of expecting ttie same Government to cope with the commercial war that is to come. For, incomi.rtent as they are in matters mil.tarv, they are still more incompetent in th n n i.tters of which the Man from Australia lias been speaking with si much sincerity, sagacity, and rower.