Anxious "Liberal" Strategists

Press, Volume L, Issue 14907, 4 March 1914, Page 8

Anxious "Liberal" Strategists

The member for Lyttelton probably did not foresee tho fever of anxiety into which ho would throw our '"Liberal" friends when ho said the other day that 1: there was only one point on which " tho progressives of New Zealand " agreed—to oust Massey." As a result of this frank admission that tho Social-Democrats care nothing for "Liberalism" excepting in so far as it is willing to help tho Rod Feds, to take vengeance on the Government which defended the community's interests during tho late strike, our "Liberal" friends arc spending most of their time in urging that "liberalism" and the Social-Democrats must get together. In England, they say, the Unionists are winning seats because the Liberal and Labour parties are divided, and they are warning the "progressives" that unless they unite Mr Mnssey will sweep tho country. The "Liberal",strategists aro no doubt not qtiito so well up in tho facts of English politics as they might be, but they really ought to know that the Labour voters in Great Britain aro no fonder of tho Government than 'of the Unionists, and that the only Labour votes unoh which the Government can really count are tho votes of that minority whom the Liberals have made afraid of the fiscal policy which tho "Liberals" established in ibis country. As a matter of fact, the volume of support upon which Mi Massoy can count is so great that »t would not matter even if "Liberalism" did succeed in making its overtures to the Social-Democrats loss disagreeable than the Social-Democrat party considers them. Wβ, of course, cannot cay whether the Social-Democrats will fail to see that all that "Liberalism" wants is support —from anybody or anything—for ite unhappy loader. But there have been signs that the SocialDemocrats are in this matter a good deal less simple than the anti-Reform-ers imagine them to be. Indeed, we suspect that while tho anti-Reform strategists are fancying that they are going to bamboozle Labour as they used to do in past years, the Social-Demo-crats are astutely endeavouring to do the bamboozling themselves. The "Liberals" recently had an excellent opportunity to establish their bona fidee to Labour's satisfaction in connexion with the Christchxirch South eeat, but it would eeem that when it comes to the point "Liberalism's" idea of "compromising" and "healing the differences between " the progressives" has for its basis tho condition that "Liberalism" must give up nothing. In the meantime one of the conductors of the quaint strategy of official "Liberalism" has made the discovery that in repealing the Second Ballot Act "Mr Massey has managed. " to foist upon New Zealand" "the de- " fectivo electoral law in operation in "the Mother Country." This strikes us as uncommonly good, even if it does rather regrettably indicate bow completely, in these days of a "Liberalism" that on the authority of the journal quoted is nine-tenths Red Fedism, our "Liberal" friends sometimes forget Mr Seddon and Mr Ballance. The scheme that the wicked Mr has "foisted" on the country is ihe system of voting which Mr Seddon maintained throughout his Prime Ministership, and which his successor abandoned only becauso he feared the competition of the Labour Party.