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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16700, 8 December 1919, Page 8

We do not know* why tho Press Association allowed itself to be used for the circulation of the Ashburton story regarding what Mr H. M. Jones snys Mr Howard Elliott said to him in connexion with an alleged proposal that Mr Jonos should rotiro from the contest for tho Ashliurton seat. What — if nnything—took placo between those two people they may explain. What we aro concornod about is the misuse of tho Press Association to circulate a story which has for its object only the prejudicing of tho Reform Party. Fortunately, the Prime Minister has been ablo to deal promptly with tho matter. Ho regards tho affair as a political trick, and that it is a trick is clear from flio insinuation mado by Mr Jones in his "wonder as to who was responsible for these easv entrances into the Upper Honso." This is such a seriously improper suggestion that it is difficult not to believo that even responsible persons on the Liberal side will condemn it.

Mr T. Blood worth, tho "Labour candidate for Parnell, was injudicious enough at a meeting last work to threaten a largo section of tho electors with diro consequences unless it voted for Labour. "If," ho said, "Labour is prevented from expressing itself politically and constitutionally, then tho time is eominc when Labour will express itself in some other way. If that happens then the middle-class will suffer most and longest. There is no political hope for the middlo-class cxcopt through the Labour Party." This was an absurd and, as we havo said, an injudicious statement. It was absurd because nothing con prevent Labour ''expressing itself politically and constitutionally" except its inability, through tho electors' dislike of its* policy and distrust of its lcadors, to win sufficient scats. If, as has been claimcd, Labour represents 80 per cent, of tho people, no power in New Zealand could prevent it securing a majority in Parliament. Tho statement was injudicious, because it was calculated to array at once against Labonr tho whole strength of the so-called middle-class. We are not prepared to defino tho exact limits of tho "middle-class," but wo may assume that it excludes all organised Labour, and: that it includes fanners, great and small, traders, big and little, and a iargo proportion of their employees, professional men of all varieties, and Iso on, all those, in fact, whom MlBloodworth and men of his type aro so fond of describing as "bloodsuckers," and "profiteers," If this is New Zealand's middle-class, it is as numerically powerful as is organised Labour, and it. is not a body that can "be scared into voting for men who persistently misrepresent and abuse it, and which lias suffered sufficiently from the results of the bad advice given by the so-called Labour leaders to their followers, to make it very shy of entrusting to Labour tho fortunes of the country und their own welfare. To threaten the middle class with personal suffering and injury unless it hands itself over to the present leaders of official Labour is simply to provoke resentment, and the middlo class, when occasion arises, is quito capable of proving, as it has dono on past occasions, that it is not quito helpless, even in faco of an attempt to hold the country to ransom.

Fault has been found, we read, with Sir J. S. Dickson, the Government member and candidate for Parnell, by an opponent, because ho has not contributed much to tho 1436 pages of "Hansard," in which tho debates of last session are embalmed. It is inferred, therefore, that he did not represent his constituency adequately. The theory that tho usefulness of a member is to bo judged by the number of times ho is reported in "Hansard" is a deplorably wrongheaded one, bat one that is, nevertheless, entertained by a good many people who, in private life, or in business, would regard with the most profound suspicion, if not dislike, the man who was always chattering. As a matter of fact, of course, "Hansard" reports only a portion of the' business of legislation—nothing of tho discussions in committee, where Bills ore often re-moulded, finds

its way into its pages, and nothing of the* work of the Select Committees, whi:-h occupies no small portion of the time r.f many members. As a rule, it may be accepted that tho member who is perpetually "talking to 'Hansard''' little else than talk, and does little good by that. j