FEDERAL PREMIER.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 June 1921, Page 5

FEDERAL PREMIER.

CRITICISM OF HIS SPEECH. VOICE IN FOREIGN POLICY. By Telegraph.—Press Assn —Copyright London, June 15. Under the heading “Mr. Hughes— Last Phase,” the Manchester Guardian says: It is a chastened Mr. Hughes who made his first public speech of the present tour at the Hotel Cecil. Mr. Hughes clearly knows enough of England’s temper in 1921 to realise that the laurels of 1916 cannot be recaptured. No longer are the Press trumpets heard blowing a fanfare before the strong mar from the Antipodes, sent foi the salvation of poor old effete Britain as he mounts the platform. Mi. Hughes is more modest, and he now apparently proposed to adapt himself to the tone of the times. His speech was as able as ever, but less effective than in the old days, because melodrama has gone out of fashion since the war. Indeed it is rather startling to hear Mr. Hughes, of all people, wondering sadly why the war has not brought the golden age proclaimed in 1916. For all its conventional Imperialism it is a Liberal speech, its chief point being that the Dominions are essentially peace-loving and mean to take a hand in shaping foreign policy in order to keep the Empire out of war. But for a characteristic sneer at the League of Nations there was nothing in the ■speech to frighten the National Liberal Club.