A PERILOUS SECRET.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12392, 13 December 1909, Page 5

A PERILOUS SECRET.

Friday's " Evening Post " says:— " Poor Mr A. W. Hogg was in the toils yesterday. The subtle Mr T. E. Taylor cleverly tried a " Will you walk into my parlour? ' upon" the ex-Minis-ter when New Zealand's Dreadnought " dragged its slow length along" the floor of the House of Representatives. It was a melodrama, with two actors and the inevitable secret.. Mr Taylor was the dark man, practising various wiles to worm out a secret of dreadful import from Masterton's member. The secret was the communication sent to tho Government at the height of the Dreadnought contest between Britain and Germany—a communique which led the Premier to throw a " Dreadnought or two " into the Thames. Mr Taylor's playful efforts failed to extract the information. Mr Hogg is still burdened with his secret. Even the prospect—conjured up by Mr Taylor—of taking that awful secret to " that place which no vicissitude can change"—has not shaken him in his resolve to keep his lips sealed. Yet the disingenuous man half confessed his secret by stray remarks and by his criticism of the Naval Defence Bill. Mr Hogg, as a member of the Cabinet, was given to understand that " a grave emergency" had arisen. Obviously the cause was Germany, and Germany's latest entente with Austria. Mr Hogg does not now believe that the Empire's naval programme needs to assume the proportions which were'urged to be required. Is any further confession necessary from him ? It needs no immense imagination to fill in the details, but Mr Hogg's change of front does not discount the Dreadnought. He has given no evidence, since his exit from the Ministry, that he has been closely studying European politics.