AUSTRALIA AND ITS DUTY.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 October 1916, Page 6

AUSTRALIA AND ITS DUTY.

To the Editor. Sir,—As a man who has the honor to be an Australian and to have his four brothers with the Australian forces, I bitterly resent, as all Australians must, the publication of such an indiscretion as 3-our leading" article of. this morning headed "Australia's Failure in Duty." Decent people do not advertise the other fellow's troubles, particularly if he happens to be a member of their own family. Personally, I am o; the opinion that the publication in the press of Sir Douglas Haig's communication was politically and ethically unwise but criticism of such matters is as muelr beyond my aspirations as it is far outside my province. But when the leaderwriter of a responsible, newspaper dons the phylacteries of the Pharisee and dares with the glib self-complacency of ''Holy Willie," and with the irresponsibility ar.d unwisdom of the politically immature, to enunciate views the spread of which would inevitably imperil the continuance of the good feeling existing between Australia and New Zealand, it is high time to protest. Usually it is wise to suffer fools gladly, but in these times we dare not risk "the little rift within the lute." Had the bad taste and foolishness of the leader been alleviated by any literary merit or by any flash of insight or original thought, it would have been less inexcusable. Apart, from quotations, however, it is merely a collection of well-worn platitudes and self-righte-ous cant. Its tone is throughout that of the officious and offensive candid friend, and the implied comparisons are as odious and in an execrable taste as comparisons usually are. Your leader writer say?, inter alia:—"lt is unsatisfactory that Sir Douglas Haig had cause to complain," "that the necessity for a referendum on conscription is discreditable to the patriotism of the Commonwealth." and "we may charitably assume that in Australia it is the political system that is at fault rather than the waning patriotic ardor."—his charity, his faint praise, and. his civil leer. It lias long been recognised that some things are better left unsaid; and that in some cases good taste, right feeling and 'he truest wisdom- unite to counsel silence. In these times the nijghtiest intellectual forces (leader writers ineluded) have to concentrate on. their own particular business, and it is, of course, at any time prudent to mind one's own business. Some Australians have died ir. the great cause, and. there are still some Australians in the field. Your leader writer has so confused the part with the whole that in gratifying his misguided loquacity he lias cast a slur on the whole of a great Dominion, and unwittingly earned a fee from the German Publication Bureau. My letter, of course, refers to your leader only, and not otherwise to your well-edited and valuable paper. —I am, etc.. A. A. STEWART. Eltlmm, 23/10/10. [As we never allow abuse to affect our | courtesy towards correspondents, we have published the above letter, which not only misconstrues the main points of the article in question, but is. in itself, beneath contempt. To attempt to traverse such a tirade would only lead to a further raid by our correspondent on his remarkable vocabulary of invective, and we spare our readers that infliction. —Ed.]