The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATES The Evening News Morning News and The Echo THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1924. LIBERALISM AND LABOUR.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 252, 23 October 1924, Page 4

The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATES The Evening News Morning News and The Echo

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 23, 1924. LIBERALISM AND LABOUR.

For the cause that lacks assistance. Par the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that ice can do.

The election campaign at Home ha 3 been unusually prolific of sensations, but it has been reserved for Mr. Ramsay Mac Donald to provide one of the most noteworthy and 'significant signs of the times with his appeal to the Liberals for' support. It is difficult to conceive how the Prime Minister can have brought himself into his present frame of mind except on the assumption that he has little sense of humour and a very short memory. For very few Liberals, at all events, are likely to have forgotten the arrogant and contemptuous attitude that Mr. Mac Donald and his colleagues have adopted toward the Liberal party since their own advent to power. It ia true to a certain extent that, as the' Prime Minister has said in. hia call for help, "Labour has the Liberal spirit." Indeed, Mr. Mac Donald might as well admit the truth that Liberalism prepared the way for Labour and that everything of real and permanent value in the Labour policy is founded upon Liberal principles or has been inspired by them. But so long as the Labour party felt itself even moderately secure, in view of the conflict between the two older parties, it .suited, the La-botrr leaders to disparage and revile Liberalism and to reject with, ostentatious exclusiveness the efforts made by tha Liberals to propitiate or co-operate with them. Now that Labour sees the rocks looming ahead, and fears that its fortunes are drifting to shipwreck, Mr. Mac Donald has changed his tone. But what response can he reasonably expect to an "5.0.5." sent out under such circumstances as these?

The arguments by which Mr. MacDonald and Mr. Snowden have tried to ' arouse Liberal sympathy are in thami selves most instructive. How long, asks Mr. Snowden pathetically, has Labour been in the eyes of Liberals "the ! common enemy"' 2 How long is it since the Liberals were assuring the political i world that they agreed with nine-tenths ;of Labour's programme t It is true that i Liberalism, haa supplied Labour with the largest part of its "platform," and equally true that the Liberals tried to deal with the Labour leaders as friends and not as foes. But how have these kindly feelings and good offices been reciprocated I Mr. Mac Donald and his followers have been bitter enough, in their attacks upon the Conservatives; but they have usually reserved their most violent invective and their most supercilious and sanctimonious contempt for the Liberals. And why? Simply because the essential characteristic of Liberalism is discretion, moderation self-controlr—the particular type of political virtue which, is most indispensable to the country's safety, but apparently most odious, if not to Mr. MacDonald personally, certainly to some of his friends.

Labour cannot have it both ways. Both in England and in New Zealand it is fond of saying that there is no essential difference between Liberalism and Toryism, and that Labour has nothing to expect from either. Mr. Mac Donald's appeal to Liberals is directly opposed to this contention, for Labour "has the Liberal spirit, widened broadened, and heightened,'Liberalism must differ vitally from Toryism. We commend Mr. MacDonald's admission to some of our Labour friends here. The position now taken up by the Liberal party in Britaiu is explained in a speech of Mr. Asquith and the official manifesto quoted in our cable columns to-day. Mr. Asquith has definitelydeclared that the continued ascendancy of Labour constitutes a "common danger" of such a menacing character that the two older political parties feel compelled to avert it by co-operating together and making reciprocal W cessions, "without loss of identity or compromise on principle." Jy' o doubt, as the official statement from Liberal headquarters points out, t Mr. Mac Donald"* injudicious decision to force an election, and the virulent attacks mode hv the . Labour leaders upon the Libc:,.:,,' have wunted for something in this decision. But the cause of the temporary- truce ' or the virtual alliance, between Liberals and Conservatives for the moment lie* deeper. It is to be found in the conviction that Labour is dangerous- to the country. That Liberalism, which offered Labour a helping hand, should have come to this conclusion, is Labour's own doing. • •,»