The Press Wednesday, March 7, 1923. The Tauranga By-election.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17706, 7 March 1923, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, March 7, 1923. The Tauranga By-election.

The state of parties in the House makes the impending by-election in Tauranga unusually interesting, and the interest is heightened by Sir Joseph Ward's decison to contest the seat. If Sir Joseph's decision to offer himself as a candidate means that he and his friends are satisfied that his health is once more normal, and we assume that this is what it does mean, men of all parties will be glad to hear of his candidature. Turning from.the personal to the political side of his decision to contest the seat, we find ourselves able to hope that we may be as truly with his political re-appearance as Mr Wilf ord prof esses to be. It is not to be expected that Sir Joseph Ward will be able to win the seat, although ho will certainly make a better showing than anyone else whom the Liberal Party might have selected. But he will stand as the prospective leader of the Liberal Party, and) we can look to him for an authoritatijve statement of the Party's idea concerning the Administration which the country really desires. No such statement hasj come from Mr. Wilford, although he has had three months of opportunity to respond to the general invitations he has received to say what is his aim and what his conception of the verdict of the people at the general election. Inside Parliament and. out of it, Mr Wilford and his friends have contented thetn--1 selves with snarls and scoldings. The election, they have kept on saying, resulted in the defeat of the Government (which it did not); but when tlioy have been asked to say what Party the electors desired should assume the control of the country's affairs, they have had nothing to say. They could not in so many words say that the country desired the return of the Liberal Party to power, for that Party secured hardly any more seats than the Labour Party, and only half as many as.were secured by Mr. Massey. ■ But while they have lacked the effrontery to make in express terms a claim which would be smiled at by everyone, the Liberals have not wanted the impudence to •make that claim by implication. They have evaded the duty, which tneir attitude of blank and unreasoning opposition imposed upon them, of explaining their aims and hopes, but that duty remains, and Sir Joseph Ward ought to know that he cannot leave the question unanswered.

The position is that while Mr Massey can defeat any motion of want-of-confi-dence, whatever the result of the Tauranga election may be, he cannot carry on the Government effectively, for want of a majority sufficient for comfort, if the Liberals remain bitterly and blindly hostile, and ready to join the Reds in obstruction and offence. In these circumstances, Sir Joseph Ward's explanation of his position will be very interesting, and, if it is frank and full, very useful. Will he stand for the maintenance of the "diehard" policy of intransigence and obstruction? Such a policy must lead to a general election. For there is no other Administration possible than a Massey Administration. Not only did Mr Massey's support iii the country (i.e., in the number of votes given to his candidates) increase enormously; he secured twice as many seats as either of the Opposition parties. Moreover, an absolute majority of the House came back with instructions to support the Government against any combination dependent upon the Reds for any effective power of attack. The country does not desire control by any combination of which the !Reds are an essential pnrt. Mr. Wilford and his "diehard" friends have turned their backs upon these fasts. But the country has kept its eyes on them, and it will await with £een interest Sir Joseph Ward's treatment of them.