PORTUGAL'S PLIGHT. THE LIBERAL-LABOUR UNDER- I STANDING. A MILD REPRIMAND.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13905, 2 December 1910, Page 6

PORTUGAL'S PLIGHT.

THE LIBERAL-LABOUR UNDER- I STANDING.

A MILD REPRIMAND.

Tho understanding between the Liberals and the Labour party with resjiect to tho forthcoming elections at Homo may be excellent tactics for the time being, but one is forced to ask how long such an alliance can continue. Just now the House of Lords is the issue, and the Liberals are willing to accept the help of anybody who will cry "Down with the Peers!" no matter what his policy in other respects may bo. Tlie policy of the Labour party is Socialism naked and unashamed. Hitherto Socialism has been kept slightly in the background in Labour circles. It was considered inadvisable to mention the word too often, lest John Bull should be alarmed, but all the time Socialism was at the back of the party's programme, and Socialistic schemes were openly advocated. Now there is no concealment at all. The party is out for Socialism pure and simple, and says so. It wants the nationalisation of "great vital monopolies," such as land, railways, and mines. Mr George Lansbury, the Labour candidate for Mile End, says in effect that the State should confiscate all that a man receives in income over £.5000 a year, and Mr Lloyd George has given this out-and-out Socialist his blessing. Well may somo of the Liberals of Milo End talk of supporting the Unionist candidate. It is "ll very well to welcome Labour support now when a fight is going on over a question on which both Liberals and Labourites agree, but Liberals will be compelled in tho near future to com© to a definite decision about their attitude towards the Labour party's general policy. Mr Lloyd George and Mr Churchill might quite probably support the nationalisation of land, railways, and mines, but that the Whig section of the party would do so is inconceivable. The alliance cannot be a lasting one. The "Right to Work" Bill alone prevents that. It is one of the measures nearest to the Labour party's heart; but the Liberals, stiffened by Mr John Burns's uncompromising hostility, ivill not have it. In their defence policy the Liberals are further removed, from the Labour party than they are from the Unionists. Mr Lloyd George admits that the Navy must bo kept up at all costs, but Mr Keir Hardie and his following would cheerfully cut it down to provide money for their schemes. The gulf between the two parties is wide, and although, it may be thought necessary to ignore it now, sooner or later it will have to be recognised and faced.

The state of Portugal should create in British minds a feeling of profound pity. Tho spectacle of a man twisted by some deformity .always inspires this feeling, and a nation in Portugal's condition is simply a cripple on a large scale. An English journalist, using a somewhat similar figure of speech, compared Portugal to a fever-stricken person tossing on a bed." There were hopes that the now regime would allay the disease, but the news that we publish this morning suggests that the malady is too serious for tho selfappointed doctors. Thero were some encouraging aspecte in the revolution. Tho bloodshed might easily have been greater. The revolutionists made no serious attempt to stop the Royal Family leaving the country, and their property was respected. The behaviour of tlie Republicans after the coup d'etat was, on the whole, fairly creditable. On the other hand there was gross ill-treatment of the religious orders and savage attacks on their property. In this respect tho Republicans seem to havo lost their heads in a manner at once humorous and tragic. The accounts of the pillaging of a conventual boarding-school for poor girls by a military and civil mob must excite the resentment of every decent Englishman. The very desks of the girls were smashed in the search for loot. The spectacle of the Minister for Justice, , with a large body of journalists behind him taking notes, browbeating a number of nuns for three hours, roaring, glaring, and gesticulating, furnishes a key to Portugal's troubles. A revolution had just been accomplished, and a hundred and one important matters demanded the earnest attention of the new Ministry, yet the Minister for Justice found time to swag-

gcr before a number ot women. [ sn that tho people niijrht see { what a valorous fellow he was. j The country seems to have no men, not ,' even one- man. capable of fiiwline: her j through her difficulties. The President i i.s a uihii of great literary acliievenient j ami .sterling r!i-racter, but hi.s life's! work has r.ot fitted him for roping with ■the disorder;, of hi. country. As for J tho others, the correspondent whose letter we publish this morning takes tlip f_loo.nie_t view of their ideal.. F.obabiy tli_ condition of unrest report- : oJ to-day has been caused by disappoint- j ment at the re..iilts of tlie revolution. | Change. _u?h a.s this promise- a great ! deal and often yield very little. The i new carth —with higher wages and no | taxes and none of the other irksome | restraints imposed by authority —which j ignorant jveoplo imagine will be created j by a revolution, turns out to Ik* the I 'old imperftx-t world, where money is j i scarce, food dear, and policemen unkind. ''This day," said the Proclaim.- i tion oi the Republic, "puts an end J *' finally to tbe slavery of this country, " aud the beneficent aspiration of a "regime of liberty rises luminous in *" its virgin essence." This grandiloquent phraseology is typical of Latin enthusiasm. For the time the populace. |is excited and happy. Their tyrants j havo fled; the Republic is born. As i tho weeks go by the excitement fades, I but most of the old troubles remnin. : The men who were a short time before i the saviours of their country become I objects of suspicion and even hatred. jit is a melancholy cycle, from one rule Ito another through bloodshed, and perhaps back to tlie old nile through moro bloodshed—with never a period of effi- I cient Government and concentration on national progress. That a nation which once was great should bo drifting about I liko a disabled ship with a mutinous crew is a sorry state of affairs.

Dr. Buck's defence of Mr Henaro Kaihau in the House on Wednesday night was scarcely as happy as the friends of the Maori member may have wished. It practically amounted to an assertion that Maori ideas of political morality differ from those of Europeans, and to a plea that members of the native race should be judged by a different standard from that by which the political uprightness of European members is measured. If that plea were to hold good, it would bo an additional and very effective argument against special Maori representation, which, in any case, is an institution that has outlived its usefulness and would have been swept away years ago if it were not that it gives the Government four absolutely safe votes. If a Maori member i- not prepared to abide by the same principles that guide, or are supposed to guide, the conduct of other politicians, then he has no business in Parliament. As it was, the House, having no wish to make a scapegoat ot Mr Kaihau, treated him with the minimum of harshness. The Premier could do no less, after the finding of tho Committee, than move a resolution to the effect that the member had been guilty of impropriety in accepting payment for services connected with Parliament. The Speaker's reprimand, which followed the passing of the resolution, was mild-

ness itself, reminding one of Topsy's j remark that "Miss J-Voly's. whi*,p:n s j wouldn't hurt a ekeoter." A repri- j man . by the Sneaker might be. and in \ other Parliaments has been, distinctly I impressive. But any effect that Mr j Guinnoss's reproof might have had was j weakened by tbe manner in ) whicTi he went out of his way to make j excuse.. for the erring member, ; on the ground that "the .Star d- * ing Orders are not interpreted " in the Maori language" and that Mr Kaihau "may not have known that ho i " was committing an impropriety." Mr Guinness, a.s a lawyer, knows perfectly well that ignorance of the law ig no defence, find as much can surely bo said of ignorance of ordinary political ethics. However, thero iva_ no doubt a feeling in favour of letting Mr Kaihau down easily, since he was the only one of tlio politicians dealt with by the lime. Committee who could be reached by Parliament. To have punished him any more severely might have been regarded as making him suffer vicariously for the actions of others.