The Press. MONDAY, JUNE 8, 1914.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14988, 8 June 1914, Page 6

The Press. MONDAY, JUNE 8, 1914.

Inaccurate Opposition Invective. .Although the ''Progressives'V who **wanfc Ward" prevented most of the great .audience from hearing much of Prime Minister's speech on. Friday night, they rendered Mr Massey more than one Ksrvico. Tho averago newspaper reader is inclined to "skim ' Jong reports of political Speeches, and to "skip" very freely, but the disturbances' at Friday's meeting resulted in so many piquant exchanges and lively interludes that the whole of our report was probably read by everyone on Safc•orday. And as the speech was a particularly good one, this is all greatly to tho ; Government's advantage. Tho Primo Minister's critics have found the speech so unpleasantly sound and thorough that they have so far offered nothing but abuse iv the way of rep'ry. It is nol very effective *to answer an opponent /with heated rhetoric and strings of abusiVe phrases, but tho local Opposition icmrnal would perhaps have done better had it contented it•elf with that poor method of "Liberal" controversy. Instead, it chose to charge the Primo Minister with making mis-etatoments. Tiw speech, we are told, "abounded" wjiii " petty slips, amazins blunders," and erai worse things still. Exactly how much credit is duo to Opposition criticism nowadays is .made very clear by the exceedingly unhappy result of our "liberal" friends' choice of its illustrations. They say that tho Primo Minister claimed that ho had supported the Advances to Settlers' Act "and tho Old-age Pensions Act on every occasion. Mr TP-ado no such claim, and the report In

O'lr contemporary contains not a word of any such cKiir. It b further urgeJ tLat the Prime Minister has misquotoil the truo figures in his references to tho commi'ments and funds availattio for advances after tho Mackenzie Go-

Ternment left "\Vhy"—so we summarise, their argument—"he has *' Leen tolling us. that in respect or " local , bodies tho commitments were "£775,000, and the funds only "£17,000;-and yet on Friday night he "told as that the commitments-weio " £711,820 and the funds £96,783. Hero is a mis-statement by £63,000 "in one caso and £80,000 in tho other

' "—a distortion to the extent of " £143,(100." On this basis an exceedingly violent ittack ?s made upon tho Prime Minister's methods. Tho fact is, as Mr Mnssey has inado clear, tho blunder is the critic's. Either wilfully, or through sheer stupidity —the "Lib- " orals" will never tell us which it it when they blunder into arithmetic—the Opposition journal will not recognise that Mr Massey on each occasion quoted the correct fig ■ires, which wi'i.e the h'guies o:\ tivo date.-:, two months apart, a-s everyone iiicws who has followed tho question with any care. But what seems to have hecri specially resented «as t-ho Prime Minister's statement that th-i i-cal factor irj Mopping one of last session's stonewalls was tho threat of a dissolution. This "astounding statei: merit," wo are told, was "neither ;i ' : petty slip or an amazing blunder," but '"a distortion of the fact's.' . One should make some allowance for '' Libe-ral" ill-temper, and regard as leniently as possible tho excesses of "Liberal" language; but it really :s tirr.o that the Opposition began to use thuir intelligence and «,aoir memory. They hnvo so ofk'n denied that .Mr Massey Threatened a dissolution, and that no such threat was connected with the quiet collapse of the stonewall, thut, they may really believe what they say. Mr Massey roc-alls his warning in tho House to the stonewallers that the. - o

was a way of cutting tho Gordian knot, and the almost universal understindinj; thnt a dissolution had been thrciiteiif.l The throat was «ideh ftomi!ienr»-d up<:!n. ami Sir J. G Ward himself understood plainly what was intended, is shown bjy the extract from his speech which is quoted by tho Pnme Minister. .Everyone knows that

the Opposition, who know what x>

election would mean, were greatly afraid, and that tho stonewall quickly ended. Perhaps, after taking the week-end to think about it, Mr Massc-y's critics may bo able to find

something fo in tho speech, although we are bound to say that what the least foolish '"Progressives" would rather have, and are longing to hear, is something like a "Liberal" policy. But in tho meantime the public will measure tho weight of the Opposition's denunciation of tf lt > P r i mo Minister's Creech by tho fact that on each poift upon which its critics ventured to become specific- they exposed thorrselves to a complete and immediate refutation.