The Oamaru Mail MONDAY, MAY 10, 1915. THE SESSION.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XL, Issue 12539, 10 May 1915, Page 4

The Oamaru Mail MONDAY, MAY 10, 1915. THE SESSION.

As tlic time ajiproaches for the assembling of Parliament there is an increase, in speculation as to what is going to happen. As little as possible should happen. New Zealand is in no mood to wrangle over the tweedledums and tweedledees of politics, and has neither the heart nor the head to deal with big questions. The paucity of political matter .in. ..the newspapers is proof of the people's state of mind. Last session legislators found it difficult to concentrate their attention on sessional work. The world was at grips, millions of men. women, and children were suffering the tortures of the damned, and tens of thousands were plunging into the unfathomable sea of death. Nobody wanted politics then. Politics are not entertaining at any .time, it is true; but to talk of roads and bridges and parties, and dispense red tape, and wrangle, how taxes shall be apportioned, is like playing marbles in a house that is afire, or having a game of crib in a mortuary. But now that New Zealand's sons are at the front, in imminent peril, and giving their lives in the supreme effort of the nation to maintain its very existence —when every hour brings news of some startling event, and nobody knows what is going to happen next —then there will surely bo a consensus of opinion that it is high time to cry a .truce in politics. And what, after all, is there to do? There is nothing necessary but war legislationprovision for our brave sons and their dependents, and for carrying on the ordinary operations which appertain to government. The finances arc satisfactory, we arc told, and these is not likely to be any luck of funds to enable the Government to keep going. A few technical amendments will be necessary in the moratorium laws which were framed last session, and Mr Ilerdman has hinted at legislation to check the extortion of moneylenders—a very •necessary expedient at a time when, as all are suffering, more or less, from the •consequences of. the war. consideration for each other should be the rule of the road. There is no reason why the session should last more than two months. Nothing that really demands attention is contentious. But there-is the uncertainty of the Government's position—that will and must count. Whether or not the Government will be able to command a majority to enable it. to carry on depends upon the decisions in the election appeals. In any case the margin for either party will bo small, but it is still a question as to which, will have the majority which, though small, should be accepted, under the circumstances, as sufficient. Neither side wants the country to go through the agonies of another election, and yet that a Government .should have a majority at its back is a constitutional necessity.

THE LUSITANIA ATROCITY,

The torpedoing of the Lusitania, mournful as it is in tho loss of human Jives —lives of non-combatants and of people who had done Germany no injury—adds but another to tho list of outrages committed by the Germans in pursuance of their bitter hate towards Britain. This latest- wanton and wicked: "deed is of a piece with 1 much that has gone before, and is part of a ■premeditated. and carefully-planned policy of vengeance designed to strike terror into the civilised world and to scare neutral nations into quiescence. It-has been made clear that there are no lengths to which Germany is not prepared to- go in pursuit of that policy and to accomplish her hellish mission. The Germans, one.of'the most highlyeducated nations : of the earth, have shown by their .past acts that there is no law of God or man too sacred for them to violate; -no lie too great or too vile for them to utter; no crime too heinous for them to commit; ;io atrocity too appalling for them to perpetrate. - From tho moment they. treated as a scrap of paper to be committed at/will to tho flames- the treaty tinder which Germany, in common with other nations, guaranteed the neutralBelgium; they have brushed aside all other "international agreements, compacts, and' treaties. They 'have violated all the canons of civilised warfare, and in so doing have committed a monstrous, crime against -humanity a.nd forfeited any claim upon thc = regard and confidence of civilised nations or of even barbaric peoples. All their scientific research has been turned- to diabolic uses, and they have reduced honorable warfare, to the level of wholesale -assassination —to the murder of men, women, children and innocent babes alike, who chance to couio within the sphere of their- career of destruction and devastation. In every corner, of the earth, they have sought to sow the seeds of bloody strife and set the whole world aflame. Instead of becoming, as they might have become, tho propagandists of a higher civilisation and a broader and deeper : humanity, the Germans have been the promulgators of hatred, malice, and dishonesty. They have played the part of agents. of Satan while professing to be the servants of

God. Their success in the present gigantic conflict would set back -civilisation and inaugurate a new era of barbarism upon a basis of scientific and organised cruelty such as the world has never seen. Germany, in short, lias become a pestilence menacing mankind, and must be treated as such, no matter at what cost, lest the whole world suffer. How long will the neutral nations fail to comprehend the diio prospect that lies before the world if Germany succeeds in this war and becomes the dominant Power? How long will they fail to recognise that Great Britain and her Allies are lighting for the preservation, of natioual and individual liberty and in the cause of international honor and integrity, and that if they would enjoy those blessings they have a part to play in the struggle. Possibly the torpedoing of the Lusitania-, with the consequent loss of the lives of many American citizens may bring home to the United States a tardy recognition that she has a greater, a higher, a nobler duty to perform in connection with the war in Europe than the gathering in of dollars. If it should have the effect of rousing the United States into action, then the fifteen hundred unoffending persons whom Germany suddenly sent to their account will not have been sacrificed in vain.