THE POLICY OF DRIFT.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 44, 20 February 1919, Page 8

THE POLICY OF DRIFT.

! GOTTEKN__*T CALLED TO ACCOUNT. : POLITICAL MOVEMENT IN THE [ SOUTH. i tSpecial to "Star.") , WELLINGTON. February 17. Commenting upon the movement • among the farmers in the Manawatu • district Li organise against what some of their number style the menace of • Bolshevism, the "Dominion" this morn- ' ing lays-upon the National C-abinet much of the I,lame for the growth of pernicious political doctrines in the country. "The policy of drift, which seems to mark the closing stages of the life of the Coalition Government." it says, "has resulted in the LabourSocialists having practically a free field for their propaganda. They arc stumping the country, spreading their Socialistic ideas, stressing .md exaggerating grievances which have grown up under war conditions, and generally striving to stimulate class prejudice and sectional strife. And the political leaders of the two main parties are content, to look on." That the Laboui leaders have the field for propaganda work ail to themselves just now there can be no possible doubt, ami that they are using it to the best of their ability is obvious to everyone. TONUUE-TIED POLITICIANS. Hut. as the "Dominion" itself admits, the leaders of the two main parties and their colleagues in the National Cabinet are not free, to do as they would in tbe present crisis. "No doubt their position is an awkward one." their critic continues. "They are. to some extent I fettered by the terms of the coalition. - l."t in the meantime their interests and i the interests of those who perceive the [danger of an extreme s<-ction of LabourSocialists building up a powerful organisation in the country are being neglected." The whole trouble has arisen, of [course, from the long duration of the war. No one expected when the party truce was arranged that it would run into a fourth, year, and that party controversies would be tabooed for longer than the life of an ordinary Parliament. |To what extent the truce is binding I upon the elector-* is a matter of individual opinion, but the limitations and [obligations it places upon Ministers arc beyond all question. LAND AGGREGATION. Another view- of the situation is suggested by an article on land aggregation appearing in the "Evening Post." Genc- | rally there has been a good understanding between the newspapers of the Dominion that party asperities should be suspended during the course of .tie war, and their leading columns often have-been rather dull and colourless in consequence. Rut the "Post," in one of its spa.sms of land-reforming zeal, has girt up its loins for another tilt at the "political insincerity that has helped so greatly to promote revolutionary propaganda . . during the last seven or eight years." The last seven or eight years", it will be noticed, covers roughly the declining years of the last Liberal Government, and the full terms "of the Reform and the National Governments. The wrath of the "Post" is directed against the lax administration of good lawsjn- tinsym|«thctic Ministers. *~and makes one wonder why the editor has imposed upon himself' all these years restrictions that were intended only for I the politicians. TIIE SMOULDERING REVOLT. The growing candour of these two newspapers may lie accepted as further evidence of the accumulating dissatisfaction with the present political situa t'ion. The members of the two main parties in the House of Representatives are bound by the conditions of the truce till the return of the party leaders to the Dominion, but quite a number of them have announced their intention to proclaim their md' oendence immediately upon the arrival if Mr. Massey and Sir • loseph Ward. The anxiety" of these geutlemen is to free themselves from responsibility for the shortcomings of the National Cabinet, and though their action may not be very heroic it is perfectly natural. As for the members of the Cabinet, they probably will be "lad enough to have an opportunity to explain | their own position. For most of them |it may be said" that they have been I scrupulously loyal to a compact which lhas brought them little personal advantage or personal honour. ======