The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE MONDAY, MAY 13, 1918. THE MAURICE SENSATION.

Taihape Daily Times, 13 May 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

MONDAY, MAY 13, 1918. THE MAURICE SENSATION.

(With which. is Incorporated The £m*

hape Post and WaXcmmo News)*.

There is no country in the world where tne subject has greater liberty, or where freedom of speech is more tolerated than in Britain. Whether it is wise or behencial to allow unbridled tongues to wag at will in a time of crisis such as the Empire is now going througn is proved to be very doubtful. For saying half as much in New Zealand as General Maurice has said in England a Member of Parliament is bustled off to gaol for a few months. Xn New Zealand a man intemperately discusses a duly enacted law and he is promptly arraigned and punished; in England General Maurice animadverts on the actions of Cabinet and accuses the Prime Minister of deliberate falsehood, and to demonstrate that National Government is a farce, a certain political gang seriously wastes the time of the House by moving a noconfidence motion in support of an untruthful political assassin. Surely, to allow such freedom of speech is u permit an individual to shake the very foundations of the Empire. It has been shown to the satisfaction of the British House of Commons that Maurice's charges were nothing more than the very worst instances of malignant invention. They were undoubtedly political in intention, and Lloyd George had no alternative but to regard them. as such, and had those lying political inventions been as successful as it was hoped they would be by the pffcGerman gang in Britain they might have had the effect of altering the wholse course of human existence throughout the world. We are as much entitled in New Zealand as they have in Britain to know what is going to be done to this British general whose breach of law, civil and military, is incalculably more serious than that for which a Member of Parliament is sent to gaol. General Maurice has committed a crime against the \ Empire at a time when its total destruction might have resulted therefrom. What is Britain going to do with him? In Germany such crimes are met by promptly shooting the man that dares to commit them. From present appearances it seems that some slight remonstrance will be administered after considerable waste of time -j of Parliament and of various tribunals. Is there cause for wonder that the masses of the people are rising against such aristocratic national dangers? Is it surprising that the huge industrial forces in Britain are* potently refusing to be dragged at the tail of such an aristocracy? Even the House of Lords is rendering itself ridiculous and contemptible by its pacifist discussions. Industrialists know what it is to be dominated largely by aristocrats, and they have determined to fight to the last man rather than make peace with that most lust.ful of all autocrats. One is related to the other and the democracy has decided that both must go together with their tinselly decorations and their silly-sounding titles, which they are trying to, extend to this young country. After all the sensational statements of General Maurice being cabled over the world, they are proved to be spiteful, malicious falsehoods. The utterances in Parliament by the British Prime Minister which Maurice says are untrue are nothing more or less than the information which Maurice himself officially supplied the Premier with. Lloyd George wished to submit the whole incident to a judicial tribunal, but the supporters of Maurice wanted a political tribunal, despite the fact that the secret affairs of an ally were involved. Then Lloyd George gave the sources of his information and asked the House to decide at once, and, by a vote of 293 to 106, the House testified to its disgust of the political methods of Maurice and his political coterie. Never before in the history of British Government had Members been asked to enquire into the truth or falsity of Ministers' statements; the incident was without parallel, and yet Asquith persisted with his motion, unparalleled in history, to give the lie direct to the Government, for his no-confidence motion could only have so operated had it been carried. The Government made the public its judge and the verdict cannot be questioned by the Asquiths, the Maurices' or the anti-Gov-ernment, pro-German, pacifist press. The public judiciary will be more frequently requisitioned in the future. While there are those privileged to govern who have not the stamina or Intellect to refrain from jeopardising the very existence of the Empire to secure their, own miserable political

ends the public in its anger will not cease its efforts - to them. While mothers in New Zealand are made to sacrifice their sons; whiie they are willingly fulfilling a sacred duty, the aristocratic political Maur- : ices in England are playing ducks and | drakes with the young life of our Empire. If there is no law in England to punish such crimes, then the public will be lacking in its duty to itself if it does not insist upon the enactment of one that will for ever put ah ens to both direct" and indirect treachery and traitorousness. In impugning the accuracy of. Mr. Lloyd George's utter, ances, Maurice'.,was proclaiming his own official statements about the strength of British armies on the West front to be entirely false. One hardly knows whether to put the lapse down to intellectual shortcoming or to deliberate lying. Was Maurice in a condition in which he was not responsible for his actions, or had his mysterious departure from his high position something to do with him becoming the political tool of a discredited political party? In either case he is proved, beyond all doubt, to be entirely unfitted to fill any position or trust; he should therefore be. dismissed from the army and from all participation In important public affairs. Offenders in high places who betray the public confidence placed in them deserve to be placed beyond all possibility of men- j ace to the public weal.