Those Blessed again and again. In this world, where the shouting of the largest crowd counts for so much, it is not safe to assume that right will be done because it is right. No German statesman ever discusses the future without assuming the return of Germany's oversea empire, while the enemy Press has evidently been ordered to treat it as a matter of course. The silence upon our side is no less significant than it is disquieting. Mr. Lloyd George has not said one helpful word on this great Imperial issue, while the paralytic attitude of more than one of his colleagues encourages the worst suspicions, especially in the face of the suggestion of our Defeatist Press that despite her crimes against civilized and savage mankind, Gerniany may hope to regain these blood-stained territories. It is about a year since General Smuts echoed and applauded the brave words of Mr. Walter Long, the Colonial Secretary, which were universally hailed as sealing the fate of the German colonies; in the interval both statesmen have preserved a rigid silence. We would warn the Dominions to agitate; otherwise judgment will go against their claims by default, and they will get little or no help from those "Imperialist organs which profess to reflect the "best constructive thought " of our overseas compatriots. Fortunately, there is too much sense in South Africa to tolerate the abhorred Teuton in "South-West," while General Smuts recently gave the Geographical Society conclusive reasons for keeping him out of the rest of the Dark Continent, though his failure to pronounce the decisive word which seemed to be the only possible peroration of his lecture deepened the general anxiety. Australia and New Zealand are equally ardent on a question they have it in their power to decide, as, combined with the authority and prestige of these Governments, the voice of common sense at home would be sufficiently strong to prevent the usual Downing Street betrayal. Were our Propaganda Department a serious Imperial institution instead of a mere Ministerial office invented to prop up a tottering Government, there would be a ceaseless stream of protest backwards and forwards between the Mother Country and the Dominions against the possibility of any such unthinkable thing as the surrender to the Mailed Fist of one acre of territory or a single native who had been liberated. We note with the keenest satisfaction that New Zealand is keeping her end up, and that her patriotic and far-seeing Prime Minister, Mr. Massey, misses few opportunities of emphasizing New Zealand the Colonial view. We can assure him that he is not wasting his breath in proclaiming a "Monroe doctrine" for the British Empire. Mr. Hughes, the Australian Prime Minister, whose presence in London we are all eagerly awaiting, is known to be equally robust on this question, while General Botha, the head of the Union Government of South Africa, is the last man to re-create the German Empire. Nor have Colonial statesmen confined their action to the platform. At a conference of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of New Zealand, held at Wellington at the close of last year, Mr. Massey referred to the efforts of Sir Joseph Ward and himself to impress upon the British Government that any attempt to restore to Germany Samoa, German New Guinea, and other islands now in British occupation would be very bitterly resented by the British people in the South Pacific." As the Prime Minister told his audience, the actual value of these islands was "a secondary consideration." New-Zealanders were thinking of something much more important-namely, National Security. 66 What would it mean if German Samoa were given back to Germany? It would mean that Samoa would become again the headquarters of the German fleet in the Pacific, as it was before the war; it would mean the establishment there of a great wireless station, which would be able to speak to countries all over the Pacific; it would possibly mean the establishment there of a fleet of submarines. It would certainly mean an immense fleet of German submarines that at the chosen moment would destroy every merchantman afloat. Mr. Massey, as the Times' Wellington correspondent reminds us, realizes more clearly than the rank and file that New Zealand's interests and desires may be overlooked or pushed aside if they are not constantly before a large audience and a high authority. THE ordinary New-Zealander, who is not in touch with Imperial statesmanship and may be somewhat hazy as to international diplomacy, assumes that his wishes must prevail Key of because after our experiences during the present Pacific war there can be no difference of opinion, especially in the face of the statements of the German Press, of which that of the Hamburg Fremdenblatt had reached Wellington two or three days before Mr. Massey's warning. That paper declared: Germany must not surrender her island possessions in the Pacific, because if used as naval bases and coaling-stations they would enable Germany to defy Australian ambitions, check Japan, and threaten the western shores of North and South America. After all, our German friends" remain our greatest asset. Mr. Massey told the Conference: I have the best of reasons for believing that the present Secretary of State for the Colonies understands and looks at the position from our point of view. But the danger would be at the Peace Conference, when it comes, and the terms of peace are being arranged. We cannot expect people on the other side of the world, even British citizens, however Imperialistic they may be, to see the importance of these islands as we see it. Every one who is capable of "thinking imperially" shares New Zealand's standpoint, and for one person who was capable of appreciating it before the war there are a hundred to-day. But it would be risky to leave the matter in the unassisted hands of any Minister, however well meaning, because Downing Street is paved with good intentions. Mr. Massey returned to the charge in a subsequent speech at Wellington (March 7), of which we have but the briefest report. He reiterated: Our interest does not lie in the fertility or productiveness of the island [of Samoa], but in the fact that we are anxious because Samoa is the key to the South Pacific, and if restored to-day would become the headquarters of a German fleet and the centre of German operations in the Pacific. The British flag was carried away from Samoa in 1889, and the New Zealand boys carried it back again in 1914. My opinion and hope are that it went back to stay. Wanted- WE are most anxious to put this vital Imperial issue plainly and even brutally before readers at home and abroad. The German Government, from the Kaiser downwards, are absolutely determined to recover these lost possessions, as in their eyes any other solution would be an unspeakable humiliation for the Fatherland, which would cause a serious set-back to the Pan-German cause, for which so many sacrifices have been made, bes des being a personal affront to the Monarch. Germany's future as a world-power depends on her maritime position, which in its turn depends upon coalingstations, every one of which could be made a formidable submarine base that would threaten every community within five thousand miles. So far from surrendering any German colonies, Germany confidently counts upon taking certain British colonies as jumping off places for fresh adventures. She has been told by her Sovereign that her destiny "lies on the water," and this war has but whetted her appetite. Count Hertling, the Imperial Chancellor, obligingly suggests that we should relinquish Gibraltar, HongKong, Aden, and the Falkland Islands, just as the Russians are abandoning the Baltic and the Black Sea. Can we be surprised at the open ambitions of Berlin when Lord Haldane apparently gives some countenance to Count Hertling's demand, while even members of the War Cabinet warn the Allies against putting their claims too high! Such an attitude towards the great hulking bully of Europe is simply asking for trouble. Our statesmen literally terrify us; of nothing else are we afraid. On one side of the North Sea is a relentless, determined Government that knows what it wants and means to get it, bent on recovering every colony --whose ambitions are encouraged by our Invertebrates. Unless the War Cabinet can be "gingered up " we shall have a debacle whenever it comes to "negotiations." It is the duty of the Dominions to make themselves continuously and thoroughly offensive to the Home Government, which invariably pursues the line of least resistance. British Bolshevists are already demanding that whatever the Hohenzollerns ask, that they shall be granted, in accordance with the maxim no annexations," which was invented in Berlin for the express purpose of saving the German overseas empire without the necessity of defeating the Grand Fleet. Toast and It is everybody's duty to give up everything they can, and even some things they think they can't, if such sacrifices in any way contribute to the present prodigious national effort. It is not only the duty of the wine-drinker, the whisky-drinker, the beer-drinker, to drink less, but likewise of the tea-drinker to content himself or herself with less tea and more hot water, just as it is necessary to forgo meat, bread, and other things once deemed indispensable, of which there is at the moment, and will be for some considerable time, an alarming shortage throughout the world. All excess at this crisis of the country's fate is a crime as well as a blunder in the individual citizen, but we confess to being unable to appreciate the virtue in those who exploit the occasion by summoning others to make sacrifices. Thus teetotallers who may not contemplate drinking one less cup of cocoa angrily demand that all beer-drinkers give up their beverage. By all means let the latter, like the rest of us, consume as little as they can, and less than they care about. But there is no reason for putting them to the ban, as is proposed by a large number of enthusiasts of both sexes, who mean exceedingly well, though they would achieve more were they less conscious of their own merits and of the inferiority of their fellows. We can conceive no policy less conducive to victory than the campaign of men like Lord d'Abernon-who have never passed for being the most self-sacrificing section of the community-to constrain the British working man to cultivate patriotism on toast and water. There might be something in it were prohibition equally applied to wine, but this does not seem to be suggested. D'Abernonism strikes us as inverted Bolshevikism. We are not surprised that the programme arouses keen resentment wherever it is propounded by its plutocratic, not to say sybaritish, apostles. TEETOTALLERS are in a state bordering on frenzy owing to their belated discovery that this vast war has increased the National Drink Bill, as might have been foreseen by every Vodka one in touch with human nature. Mr. Leif Jones informed a more or less horrified House of Commons (March 12) that whereas the National Drink Bill for 1914 was £164,000,000, in 1915 it was £182,000,000, in 1916 £204,000,000, and in 1917 no less than £259,000,000. On the other hand, the amount received through the taxation of drink, apart from excess profits, was actually diminishing-namely, from £62,000,000 in 1915 to £35,000,000 in 1917, though it was not made clear why excess profits should be excluded. Our expenditure on drink is undeniably enormous, and in a perfect world the whole of this increase, if not the entire sum, would have found its way into War Savings Certificates. But as things are, a substantial addition to the Drink Bill was inevitable whenever the mass of the people found themselves exceptionally flush of money, as during the last four years. Indeed, considering the enormous increase of wages, the increased expenditure on drink does not strike us as disproportionate. If we thought it would in the smallest degree help to win the war to stop beer, as appears to be the opinion of Sir Charles Bathurst and our much-esteemed contemporary the |