The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1919. WHO WON THE WAR?

Taihape Daily Times, 4 June 1919, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 1919. WHO WON THE WAR?

With, which its incorporated “The Taihape Post and Waimarino News. ’ ’

When war had run the warring nations short of very nearly everything wherewith to wage war, it was in the natural order of things to expect peace. When that peace came, it was also expected that there would be a stoppage of plunder, begat of war, and that the nations of the Allies would immediately commence upon rescuing their cwn peoples from oppression and profiteering, by providing housing accommodation, and by seeing that the necessaries of life wore obtainable at a price the w.ages earned would buy. It was hoped that Governments would put all their energies into establishing means by which all men should have the opportunity to work for a living wage; that the causes of destitution would be: eliminated, and jthiat Ithe starvation which, it has been proved is the result of unnatural child mortality would bo rendered impossible. But' what do we sec Governments and controllers of industry doing? They are so fervently engaged in keeping up prices of the national food supply that they cannot find the time to reorganise their businesses on honest lines. Manufacturers and merchants were so concerned with keeping np high prices that they did not notice the. people of Germany getting ready for business on the “tick” of peace. Now. they discover that the Germans arc well prepared, and they have the audacity to hope even that nobody will buy the Germanmade goods. While people of enemy countries have been rebuilding their machinery, reorganising their trading and financial concerns whereby they must live, British manufacturers and merchants have boon scheming to keep up war prices, and they find themselves unready to commence peace with the defeated peoples; they ha we been exploiting their brains for schemes wherewith to exploit the people, and now they expect that people will go on paying their war prices for everything till they are ready to compete with Germany. Shipping extortions can be continued because shipping kings took care that Germany was not. left with a ship to compete with them. From the trend of shipping conditions, one would think it was shipowners, and not the people, that won the war. If the war was won by the people, why is exploitation of the people by shipping combines permitted? What New Zealand did towards winning the war was done in spite of the Government, for had the Press of the country not minimised the stupidities, want of business knowledge. absence of skill and tact in the management of men we should not have arrived at the cross-roads of possibility ® n which wo as a people arc now halting. Instead of first removing every vestige of cause for destitution, suffering, and hardship, we sec the Government busying itself with trying to create an aristocracy in this country; the time that should be spent in bringing about peace and contentment throughout the land, is given to looking up political supporter's and bagmen who are willing to accept titles and 'Orders, so that they may pose a?

supermen and super-women lamong their fellows. We have not reached the Lord and Duke stage yet, but we are very close up, and if the British supermen class have their way wo shall not be long before we have their most august presences. The King has, at the instigation of some sappy-headed individual, conferred the Order of the British Empire on a long list of New Zealanders. The absurdity and the injustice of these appointments lies in the fact that every loyal man and woman in this Dominion did his utmost in the best interests of the Empire while war waged, and those truly loyal arc doing their utmost in the best interests of the people now that war is over, and why should they be insulted, and have indignity thrust upon them by having 'titles and orders forced into their presence, carried by men they, in some instances, regard with loyal suspicion. While people are desperate almost to revolution, for want of ample means to live, representatives of shipping combines and others are given tawdry, is ill y decorations f br doing nothing more than the meanest loyalist in the land did. Are we such despicable beings that we must look after ridiculous decorations while our women and children have no fire to warm them or to cook their food? Are we more concerned with striving after ridiculous decorations than wc arc of saving our children? Must we strut about our streets dcdeckcd with ribbons like animals at |a. horse-show, while our returned soldiers are without work, without homes, and without the means to re-establish themselves in the land for which they fought and -won? Some soldiers have Distinguished Service Orders because they earned them by their heroism, in risking their lives again and again in a more than ordinary way to save the lives of others, but if every stay-at-home Tom, Jack, and Harry in the right political firmament is to be decorated without rhyme or reason, merely to confer some degree of precedence in society and in silly functions, the virtue of the hcroc’s order is overshadowed. No man is entitled to any such nonsense till every loyal soldier that went to the war is first decorated. We already sec the political stay-at-homes strutting along with their 0.8. E. ’s, followed some distance behind by the D.S.O. ’s, 'and other decorations won by casting their lives into the hottest hell of war. These unearned drawing-room distinctions are an insult to the masses of the people, and we venture to say the time is at hand when they will bring about a just retribution. The people arc more humane than their leaders; they want to see the aged and helpless placed beyond the possibility of semi-starvation; they want insurance against nncmv' ployment, -against ill-health, against unfitness of women and men from lack of the necessaries of life;, they want to see the cause for charitable institutions —the Now Zealand form of British workhouses—removed: they want to see a healthy, well-n'ourished, contented, happy people before any thought is given to such frills as our leaders arc giving themselves over to. Despite

trickery and dodgery of politicals, and despite the failure of British manufacturers to push on reorganisation of their concerns to a peace footing, there must be a distribution of tawdry decorations to stay-at-homes, so that the sacrifices of the "common” soldiers may bo discounted. Tho politicals and profiteers have again been beaten by German industrialists, and thej now hope to save themselves by cajoling people into lotting the German article severely alone, but people must liie. If our own race will set up starvation conditions, (lien they must live b\ the help of Germany. But, let us fiist see that every soldier is decorated with the 0.8. E. before any namby-pamby stay-at-home political bagman gets it. "Soldiers first.”