The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1916. BRITISH POLITICAL CRISIS.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 219, 5 December 1916, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1916. BRITISH POLITICAL CRISIS.

(With which is incorporated The Taihapo Post and Wahnarino Nows).

When Germany willed the war it found British statesmen and military men just as rusty in their ability to think war.as to come to a clinch with a country that had been living, teaching and thinking war for upwards or forty years. Therefore it was not unexpected that there should follow a good deal of shuffling and reshuffling of the military and political cards. First, it was deemed sufficient that a National Government should be formed, one thoroughly representative of the two greater factions in the House of Commons, and although much improvement resulted this Government was far from satisfactory in its ability to think war, and from then on re-organisation, displacements, and substitutes have been urged and agitated both in and out of Parliament. In July of this year the greatest misfortune in s the loss of a military leader befel Great Britain, and it became necessary to fill the vacancy in the Secretaryship for War. Lord Kitchener’s mantle fell upon the shoulders of Mr. Lloyd George, and he was succeeded as Minister for Munitions by Mr. E. S. Montagu, who had previously been Financial Secretary to the Treasury, a position to which Mr. McKinnon Wood then returned. Long before this Winston Churchill had been dropped overboard from the Admiralty, and this thinker of war was replaced by one of the old school whose mentality had been trained in old-fashioned ■grooves with respect to war. It is now very generally admitted that Winston Churchill saved England from invasion, by his foresight in handling the j Navy at the outbreak of war. He is admittedly the designer and inventor of those land-dreadnoughts, called “tanks.” He urged the construction of these engines of war a long time hack, and he was apparently supported by Mr. Lloyd George, but Cabinet

I could nut think human destruction * sufficiently to see the necessity of anything of that kind. The day of the old muzzle-loading gun, when men had to be trained in biting off the bullets from cartridges before the powder could be poured down the barrels of theirs rifles, was not far enough removed. They knew all about the scientific warfare of later days, but it constituted a novelty to wonder at rather than something to be used to its fullest capacity in saving the Empire from slavery. During the past two years Parliament and Press have urged political leaders to wake up to a realisation of what is necessary, and ' succeeded so far as to have one or two admittedly capable war thinkers given responsibility, but they did not free them from the shackles that had hobbled their predecessors. The British National Government was an incoherent body; some members who repreJ sented the thought that demanded 1 more vigour and force, found themI selves manacled, and they got out of it; Britain was being taunted by her enemies. We were told outspokenly by Count Andrassy that England -had no conception of what this war required of her. “To be sure,” he said, i“vve hear the old worn phrases repeated in the speeches of Messrs Grey and Asquith, but their words lack-sub-stance. The broth is still there, but the bits of meat, that are demanded for the destruction of militarism and the smashing of Germany are not there.” From this we can assume that our enemies realised they had been there, but were now removed. However that may be, the crisis that was inevitable has come. Mr. Llovd George will no longer accept responsibility without some freedom of action; the methods of dilatoriness, indecision, and delay, which he says characterise the actions of the present War Council, endangers the prospects of winning the war, and he will be no party to its continuation. He wants a smaller Council empowered to make binding decisions, and one that will act promptly. He regards this as a matter of such urgency to the Empire that he has sent in his resignation as Secretary for War because the older heads in the Cabinet will not realise the present methods. Mr. Asquith is without doubt a very capable administrator, but his kindly nature does not conduce to the deep war thinking that is necessary to bring England victorious through this great conflict. The crisis has come; statesmen and military men arc being adjusted to the places in which experience has proved they will be most effective. The First Lord of the Admiralty is now a naval prodigy, and the command of the Grand Fleet is in the hands of the cleverest and bravest of naval fighters. Our War Council is openly charged with the murder of Roumauia; quick realisation of the danger and prompt action would, it is claimed, have rendered Roumauia immune from tragic reverse at the hands of Hindenbnrg. The Labour Minister, Mr. Henderson, says we are confronted with the possibility of a long and severe struggle, causing unparalleled suffering and sacrifice. If more vigorous action can obviate this possTulity while it is in that stage, the War Council, as urged-by the war thinkers, headed by Mr. Lloyd George, is distinctly worth while. Germany is blinding us to realities by her multiplicity of unofficial peace offerings, but there can be no peace acceptable to the Allies until the resistance of Germany is broken by force of arms. Germany is making her supreme national effort, and Lloyd George, Sir EdWar q Carson, Winston Churchill, and the other foremost war thinkers see that it is as clear as day that misfortune must result to our cause unless the indecision and dilatorinoss which has largely characterised the actions of the , unwieldy War Council in the past are substituted by promptness and vigour. We can no longer go cn deceiving ourselves into the idea tro B’ritain is waging an offensive war. Attrition was the only course left us i while in a state of unpreparedness, hut there seems no reason that we should be taunted with keeping millions of soldiers doing nothing because we do not know how, or where, to use them. The conduct of the war has become disappointing and palling, let us hope that in the near future more aggressive and businesslike methods will characterise the work of the new War Council that Is assuredly on the tapis of formation.