The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1923. THE TAURANGA CONTEST.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 72, 24 March 1923, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, MARCH 24, 1923. THE TAURANGA CONTEST.

for the cause ihai lacks assistant*, For the wrong that needs resietanov, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

The rival candidates for Xauranga have now put their views at some length before the electors, and we need only congratulate the Liberal ex-rremier on the weakness of the case made out against him. The main issue before the electors I is the need for Sir Joseph Ward's return to politics, and no extraneous consideration should be allowed to cloud it. We therefore deprecate the attempt that has boon made to introduce the prohibition issue. This was settled for the time briny at tin- general election, and has no place in a contest like this, which is concerned wholly with political question,... We feel sure that the great majority of electors who have so recently exercised their votes on the licensing issue will strongly rcent the attempt which has I been made by a little self-constituted . i committee in Taurangii to bias their ■ i judgment and dictate to them how they i shall vote when such important national ; I issues are at stake as those which have been raised in tllls election. j It would take more space than we ; ! have at command to review the campaign in detail, but we may point out that from first to last Mr. Massey . and the "Now Zealand Herald" have 'based their chief objection to Sir Joseph Ward on the ground that it he is elected a dissolution and another appeal to the country must then ensue. Xow, even if this were true, it would not follow that ' J Sir .Joseph Ward ought not to be elected. . I But as Sir Jcweph has repeatedly shown, it is absurd to suggest that the election of a Liberal member for Tauranga and the reduction of Mr. Massey's paper majority to one would provoke a new political crisis. Little as the Reformers are inclined to admit it, the crisis is upon us now. Can any rational man pretend to himself or to others that it is possible for Mr. Massey to carry on the government of the country while I j he is able to retain ollice only with the I aid of a few members all • elected as Liberals? It is no more pos- ., J sible for Mr. Massey to carry on with a nominal majority of three, than with a majority of one, and his piteous appeal to Tauranjra not to plunge the country into the throes of another election, merely means that he is elinjring to office with the help of every expedient at his command. Precisely what is going to happen next session, neither Mr. Massey nor Sir .Joseph Ward nor anyone else can say. Rut that is exactly why Sir Joseph Ward has refused to commit himself, for the benefit of hostile critics, by explaining in detail what course lie might take under hypothetical cireumI stance?, as yet entirely unknown. The I "Herald" has been particularly insistent in demanding that Sir Joseph Ward shall explain "where he stands, and what he intends to do. - ' Everybody in New Zealand knows where Sir Joseph Ward stands. He is a Liberal of the old school, he stands for Liberalism always, and he is no more likely to sacrifice the Liberals by enlisting with Mr. Holland, than he is to come into the Reform party and humbly follow Mr. Maesey's lead. But Sir Joseph Ward is fully alive to the fact that all sorts of 1 j changes and- readjustments and reconstructions are possible in the political world juat now. and he has too much common sense to allow himself to be inveigled into a false position, and to oblige the "Herald"' by commit!ing himself to some definite, formula, which it would then be able to distort and misinterpret and misrepresent in any way that suited the interests of Reform. So much for r>ir Joseph Ward's position; we must now turn for a moment to the part that the Prime Minister has \ [ played in this short but sharp ram'lpaign. To say that Mr. Massey is j desperately anxious, <,and that in his ' excitement he has let his feelings get the better of him, is a mild way of describing the Reform leader's words , and tactics during the past week, hi his fear lest he should lose a vote at ;i this critical moment he has dragged out .from their obscurity his threadbare ! " Red Fed." bogy and the lime--1 honoured gibe about "frenzied fimuic/"; and he has appealed once more to the electors, in anguished tones, nut to ! allow the country to be ruined by hand- | ing it over l:> the care of the Liberals. I He told his audience at To I'ui;.- <wi Wednesday that "it would be a tremendous mistake to upset the Government and to allow the Liberal party to get on the Treasury benches, ruining one of the best countries (!od ever nnule." j This is simply hysterical twaddle. ] i unworthy of any man in a responsible ( J public position. It was Liberalism that saved the country from ruin 30 years aco: and if it can once rid us of "Reform" I ascendancy it will do so again. J At Morrinsville Mr. Manscy stated that j taxation in New Zealand is lower than ■ in the Commonwealth, though the "Xow 1 j Zealand Herald" in its leading article ; ! of the 17th inst. quotes figures that ' prove the contrary. But Mr. Maespy's 1 i nervous apprehension about the fate of . Tauranga has urged him on to attempt • many impossible feats. Krotn his ' speeches this week it may be gathered '! that the "Reform" Government has j never been guilty of extravagance or reckless borrowing or inefficient adminis- . tration, that New Zealand has no heavy

taxation to struggle with, and that if only it trusts to his wise guidance it will have no serious difficulties to overcome. The answer to all this is to be found in the vigorous and incisive criticism to which "Reform" has been subjected by member's of Mr. Massey's own parly, and in particular by the "New Zealand Herald" (luring the past two yearn —as witness the extracts compiled in another column of this issue testifying co the "Herald's" distrust and dissatisfaction. In the face of these handsome admissions from the "Reform"' orjjan, why all this turmoil about the difference l>etween Sir Joseph Ward's figures and Mr. Massey's? The object of the Reformers is, of course, to confuse the issue and obscure the vitally important fact that Mr. Massey has bungled our finance badly, and over-taxed us most oppressively, and that apparently be cannot see a way out of tiie maze into which he has wandered. The cry of "frenzied linanoe' , raised against Sir Joseph Ward's proposal for a bond issue to finance public works is of a piece, with the rest of the pett\', quibbling misrepresentation.;) to which he lias been exposed. Hut his claim upon the electors of Tauranga is the ablest politician, the most experienced nnd successful financier, and the most distinguished public man in the Dominion remains unaffected, and it will I-.- sullicicnt, we confidently believe, to put him at the head of the poll.