ANOTHER COMPLAINT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3185, 10 May 1909, Page 4

ANOTHER COMPLAINT.

Many virtues and great ability are expected of public men, and in the Dominion more is expected of th? Premier than of anyone else. No doubt, like all puhlic men, Sir Joseph Ward is unjustly criticised at times, either through honest ignorance on the part of his critics, or frojn too eager a desire to find fault, tor party purposes, at the hands of those who are his political foes, but there is something very humorous indeed about the complaint of a Wellington publication, which writes of Sir Joseph's speech at lnvercargill as follows:—"It does not tell us in a nutshell the things that are necessary for us to know as citizens of New Zealand." This last demand is surely one that will be beyond the capacity of any Premier to comply with. To deliver a financial and policy speech in a nutshell is a task rather for the conjurer than for the statesman. The intelligence that demands such information in nutshells could probably bring an understanding of similar capacity to bear in the matter of grasping the problems touched upon by the Premier. The quotation, however, is useful as an example of the absurd extent to which captious criticism may be carried. The citizens of New Zealand should know what is necessary "for them to know, and should not look to the Premier to supply (hem with political understanding.