TOUCHES THE SPOT.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 16 July 1917, Page 6

TOUCHES THE SPOT.

Speaking in the Address-in-Eeply delate in the House, Sir John Findlay calc: “The Minister for Defence had laboured with a persistency and tireless devotion to duty which must win the admiration of every impartial man. He had borne a burden of difficult responsibilities which would have crushed most men. And if he had failed—as failed he must confess he had in many things —it was mainly because he had only human and not Atlantean shoul- . ders. Even his chief weakness—his outstanding vice—in different circumstances would have been a virtue. He referred to his rigid and unreasoned loyalty to his subordinates and official advisers. They admired a Minister for courageously standing between his ofn-, cers and unfair attacks; but that stand became pernicious (and in these times dangerous) when it threw the ministerial shield over blundering official inaptitude and insensate indifference to reasonable complaints.