PRESS OPINIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 17 July 1913, Page 4

PRESS OPINIONS.

The Defence Department is evidently anxious to give the National Reserve movement all possible support, for it proposes to accept t Reserve as an integral part of our military system, and to give formal and official recognition to reservists at all' public functions and ceremonials. Of course, the whole organisation is to be purely voluntary, and this will doubtless conciliate the small but noisy "anti-militarist" element in the Dominion. But in any case the proposal appears to us as practicable and eminently useful, and we believe that it will be taken up with enthusiasm by all eligible for service in the new National Reserve.—Auckland Star. It would have been better for the country if Sir Joseph Ward had raised the loan in January or February instead of leaving Mr Myers to raise it in June, but no one can foresee the course of the money manket, and we can easily imagine what Mr Allen would have said if he had taken office a couple of months earlier than he did and found himself committed to cun arrangement of which he disapproved. Sir Joseph's real mistake was in not resigning when he .realised the elections had gone against him. and for this mistake the Reformer? have reason to be sincerely thankful. —Lyttelton Times. The Defence .system must be lifted clear dust of party politics, and, whether it is a Massey Government or a Ward Government that ' in office, when a deliberate attack is made upon the national system of Defence it should be repelled by all parties, so that there may be no misconception, either in the Dominion or in other parts of the world, as to the temper of the people.—Southland Times. If Mr Massey and his colleagues aire really anxious to get rid of the opportunities for political patronage with which they cannot trust themselves, they should make a beginning by divesting themselves of the right to nominate*members to land boards, harbour boards, and similar bodies. A step of this sort would be a much better proof of the sincerity of their professions than was the appointment of a Civil Service Commissioner.— Lyttelton Times.