AUSTRALIA’S PREMIER.

Taranaki Daily News, 23 December 1922, Page 5

AUSTRALIA’S PREMIER.

“A GREAT IMPERIALIST.” ENGLISH PAPER’S TRIBUTE. By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright. London, Dec. 21. The Morning Post, in an editorial, says that a certain section of English public opinion is indecently exultant regarding the possible exit of Mr. W. M. Hughes from office, if not from active participation in Australian politics. “What a dreadful person Mr. Hughes is. If he had refused to stand by the Mother Country in her hour of grave peril, if he had made a separate agreement with the enemy, if he had prevailed upon his fellow countrymen to stay at home, then we may take it that his health to-day would have been drunk in repeated potations. Mr. Hughes is assertive, obstinate, idealistic, inspired; he is the very embodiment of the stuff whereof Empires are made. He fought as hard in the great cause as those Australian soldiers who inspired so wholesome a dread in the Germans.

“Whatever may be the result of the elections, the vast majority of Englishmen salute in Mr. Hughes a great Imperialist. Australia may need a new administration, that is Australia’s business, but Mr. Hughes, if he loses office, will never lose the affection and respect of the race for whose survival and victory be fought in the hour of crisis. He was great in war, also great in peace. Almost alone among the minor statesmen, he saw through President Wilson’s pacifism and Mr. Lloyd George’s megalomania. He brushed aside hvnbug and strove hard to come into touch with realities. If his counsels had been listened to the world might have been at peace to-day.”