THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1908. INTENSELY FOOLISH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9103, 1 June 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1908. INTENSELY FOOLISH.

At times it is impossible not to wonder whether some of the leaders of the Labour Party at Home are endeavouring to qualify as tragedy actors of the maniacal order, instead of striving by strong, sane and cautious political moves to benefit the enormous? masses of their fellow working men and women. The row that the Labour member ha? to hop. at Home is so frightfully hard and the work is so dreadfully disheartening that on occasions he appears to lose control of himself. Mr Ramsay Macdonald has just indulged in an "explosion" of an extraordinary character. As the cables have recently told us King Edward is about to pay an official visit to the Czar, and all loyal subjects, no doubt, hope that the weighty affairs of State which cause His Majesty to visit the Czar will be settled to the advantage of Great Britain, and thus to that of the Empire as a whole. It is true that

the internal condition of Russia, or rather many varied internal conditions of the mighty Russian Empire, do not coincide with British ideas of justice and morality, but it would be the height of folly for the State of Great Britain not "to treat" with the State of Russia upon such a ground. Mr Macdonald, however, is anxious that the King should cancel his visit, "and refrain from hurting the feeling 3of his people, who now hang their heads in shame." What terrible blunders, infinitely worse than the most villainously conceived crimes, would be perpetrated if the British Labour Party were supreme in affairs of State! If they were to occupy such a position it is safe to conjecture but that the Lriefest period would elapse before actions, fraught with incalculable injury to millions of people, would be committed. All would be done with the best intentions, no doubt, but still committed. Statecraft, and especially international relationships, is a science that only men of the greatest intellect and successful students in diplomacy can be encrusted with. Mr Macdonald is just about as much at home dis"eus,sing the relationships of Great Britain and Russia as a huge bull would be in a shop filled with the most fragile china. There is a humourous feature to the explosion, however. Mr Macdonald urges that the King should be memorialised not to make his visit of a State or official character. Now, if the King were to pay a private visit to the Czar, and if the two monarchs were to spend a pleasant holiday together in "the land of the Great White Czar," Mr Macdonald would, probably, be the first to protest, and in such an event his piotest might be worthy of some slight consideration.