SIR JOSEPH WARD.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9559, 4 August 1909, Page 7

SIR JOSEPH WARD.

A SAIIRE. A correspondent of the "Stratford Post" pokes fun at Sir Joseph Ward and his Dreadnought. In the course of a long letter he says:—"But the champion bluff of the lot wan the one built by Sir Joseph Ward himself and worked off on the editors of the Maoriland Press. After giving a Dreadnought practically upon his own initiative, [he then turned his attention to the powers which sway public opinion, and per medium of the confidence trick he fooled the i collective editors of the Dominion into supporting an action that would have been regarded as unconstitutional had it been done by a despot, let alof.e by the Prime Minister of an enlightened democracy. . . The Opposition, whicti eeems to possess the fkhting capabilities of a regiment of wet hens, ritver murmured, and probably the only man who saw through the trick was T. E. Taylor. Neither Mr Fisher, the ex Federal Prime Minister, nor any of the thing out of the ordinary, and there as a suspicion as dark as the bottom of a coal-hole that the secret and weighty information received by Si' Joseph was mestly myth. The secret none have been able to discover, and as regards the weight, it must have been so heavy that the Ini-. perial authorities deemed it advisable to send it out per eurgo boat probably they doubted the ability of the cable to stand the strain; anyway, ,it does not seem to have come by the ordinary channels of communicataion, and the editors who wrtte th;.t Sir Joseph Ward know more than he did, spoke a double--barrelled truth, for the man who can give away two millions of the State's money, prorogue Parliament, take a trip Home, bring the bushess ' of the country to a standstill, fire Mr , Hogg out of the Ministry, and lassco ' all the editors in the country, certain- | ly knows more than most men.