The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and the Echo. SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1924. IS LIBERALISM DEAD?

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 170, 19 July 1924, Page 6

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

SATURDAY, JULY 19, 1924. IS LIBERALISM DEAD?

For the eatue that lackt umlmn, For the vmmg that need* ntittanm, For the future in the diitmnee, Ami the good thmt we m *>.

From time to time in the heat of political conflict some vehement controversialist is apt to explain his confidence in his own policy and programme by asserting that the other party is dead. This particular expedient, which has been frequently employed of late in New Zealand, has not the merit of novelty; but it is a very natural trick for a politician to try when he finds himself *t a loss for a better argument or unable to explain why be has failed to detach votes and followers from his opponents. On these grounds both Reformers and Labourites in this country have frequently declared that the Liberal party is dead; obviously because its long-sus'.ained vitality and its obstinate hostility to their pretensions is from their point of view as unintelligible as it is undesirable. But recently one of the leading exponents of Reform principles and policy has attempted a variation on this rather threadbare theme by maintaining that there is no place left on our political stage for Liberalism, because Mr. Massey and his colleagues and followers are all devout converts to tbe Liberal faith. The "Christehurch Press" has supplied its readers with two illustrative quotations setting forth the meaning of Liberalism; and it then proceeds to inform them that the political creed of all New Zealanders except the members of the Labour party answers precisely to this description, and that Mr. Massey himself would not hesitate to endorse these principles because "his Government has throughout its career practised the gospel of freedom preached by British Liberals." We must thank the "Press" for this handsome compliment . to .Liberalism; ■but as it is evidently meant to reflect invidiously upon the Liberal party, it may be worth while to submit this oracular utterance to a little searching analysis. In the first place, as is very natural the "Press," like all politicians of its school, has no clear idea of the meaning of Liberalism. Apparently the "Press" holds that Liberalism is a definite policy special kind of legislation and administration which, being adopted by •any political party for itß own purposes, immediately gives that party the right to describe itself as Liberal. But this is au extremely superficial and inadequate view of the question. It would be just as reasonable to say that King John was a democrat because he signed Magna Charta, or that the Czar of Russia was at heart a constitutional monarch because he convened the Douma. The truth is that Liberalism is far more than a policy or a "platform." As the "Press" has quoted Professor Ramsay Muir for the edification of its readers, we submit to it another quotation from the same source. "Liberalism," says this distinguished thinker in one of the most suggestive political treatises of recent years, "is a habit of mind, a point of view, a way of looking at things, rather than a fixed and unchanging body of doctrine." And what is implied and involved in this special outlook upon life which gives form and colour to the convictions of the true Liberal? Faith in progress and in freedom, the hatred of class privilege and monopoly and the subordination of the many to the selfish interest of the few, belief in the right and the ability of the average human being to control his own destiny and take an active part in the management of public affairs; these are the main characteristics of Liberalism as set forth by its leading exponents and illustrated in the institutions and laws, which in New Zealand, and elsewhere, will remain for all time a standing monument of Liberal ascendancy. But having laid down these general principles, how are we to meet the argument that the "Press" has invented in support of its curious claim,that Mr.

Massey and the Reformers are the true Liberals after all? The answer has already been anticipated. A party lis not Liberal because it passes certain laws, or accepts; as inevitable certain social and political Changes; nor does a Government become . Liberal, because under the pressure of public opinion, and in the conviction that nothing but some formal concession to Liberalism will give it office or maintain it in power, it proceeds to develop a policy which was originally evolved by Liberalism and originally opposed by the founders of its own party or Government with the utmost vehemence and pertinacity. Even those who know little of the past political history of New Zealand are well aware that Mr. Massey in the days of the Seddon-Ward regime was a bitter opponent of all the most characteristic Liberal and democratic measures enacted by those eminent statesmen; and we have seen no evidence to convince us that Mr. Massey in these intervening years has suffered any radical change of heart. Conservatism, like Liberalism, is a habit of mind or a point of view; and anybody who has followed the career of the Reformers with care will readily admit that their opposition to democratic movements and changes, their respect for the privileges of the few, and their resolute determination to subordinate to them the interests of the many, stamp them irrevocably as the sworn foes of Liberalism and all its works. ' As the "Press" is apparently consulting Liberal authorities for a definition of its own politics just now, we submit to it as a contribution to its studies the famous dictum of Gladstone: "Liberalism means trust of the people, qualified by prudence; Conservatism means distrust of the people, qualified by fear." Perhaps if the Reformers, who are now, rather lato in the day, striving to masquerade in a new disguise, will reflect upon this profound maxim, they may realise that to pose successfully as Liberals it is not enough to acquiesce in a Liberal system which they once denounced but which they dare not overthrow lest they should risk political extinction at the hands of the masses, whom they both mistrust and fear.