MR; MASSEY.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 July 1921, Page 5

MR; MASSEY.

BRITISH PAPER'S TRIBUTE. INFLUENCE IN THE EMPIRE. ATTITUDE TOWARDS THE LEAGUE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright, Received July 1, IQ p.m. London, June 29. The National Review, in a reference to conference matters, says: ‘‘We may look for sense whenever Mr. W. F. Massey speaks, and never fail to find it. Were there more men of his temperament to the fore in the public life of the Empire the outlook would be brighter than it is. He was a valuable influence at the Paris Conference, and the Treaty of Versailles would have been unrecognisably better had it been entrusted to M. Clemenceau, Mr. Massey and Mr. Hughes, rather than to facing both ways—to Downing Street and the highbrows from Washington. Mr. Massey was no more taken in by ex-Presi-dent Wilson’s League of Nations than Mr. Hughes was. He had said in the New Zealand Parliament: ‘When we hear so much about the League of Nations our first duty is the defence of the Empire. If I thought Britain, by joining the League, had weakened her connections within the Empire I would say at once that the time had come to resign from the League and to do our best along with those countries we are connected with.’ ”

“This,” says the Review, “is a welcome relief after the cosmopolitan slosh with which we are deluged by the League of Nations Union. Our only hope for a sane Imperial policy is for men like Mr. Massey to assert themselves at the heart of the Empire.”—Special to Press Association.