The Liberal Party.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18184, 22 September 1924, Page 8

The Liberal Party.

During the last reeess the Leader of the Liberal Party went through the country making speeches which were intended to, and which probably did, arouse eager hopes in the breasts of the diehard Liberals. He was speaking, as all know who know him, with his tongue iu his cheek, and no doubt he thought he was doing very well. Suflicient for tha recess was the oratory thereof: the session, which ho certainly suggested would find him a formidable fighting-man, witli the power, indeed, to decide whether or not Mr Massey should go or stay, could take care of itself. Now, what has Mr Wilford done in fulfilment of such hopes as he inspired during the recess.' Ho has talked a great deal; he lias moved some hostile motions which failed to arouse even the faintest interest in the electorate; and he ha s competed desperately with Mr Holland tor recognition

as the only true "friend of the "people." In brief, he has been unable to conceal the fact that ho and his party have ceased to have any real significance and force. They * have

ceased to mean any tiling to the electors. Neither lie nor any other member of bis party can name a substantial cause or a concrete policy of which ue and they are the trustees. This, of coarse, is hardly Mr Wilford's fault; he inherited a worn-out machine for which the times have no further use. Its position is not very unlike the position of the Liberal Party in Great Britain, the main differences being, first, that its motive power is more utterly exhausted, and second, that it wholly lacks leaders of ability and intellectual weight. In one of the last articles he wrote for the "Spectator-" the late Henry Massingham examined tiie character and prospects of the British Liberal Party, and much that he said is trnc of tho Liberal Party in New Zealand.

"Time," he said, "has long been its enemy. Inevitably, and by the mere process of evolution, Liberalism has lost the power to attract by moral force, and by the possession of conquering and persuasive policies, and of great thinkers and orators to commend and illustrate them. Men have no lunger much reason to relate the Liberal Party either with moral ideas in politics or with material benefits comparable with those which Free Trade and national education brought to our industrial democracy.'''

Mr Massingham went on to point out that for years a new constituency has been forming and new ideas ripening, in the presence of which Liberalism has helplessly watched its legions deserting it for more active and more real parties. The leading Liberals "are not an Opposition, they are only "critics." And than Mr Maesingliam put his linger upon the central fact: "Tho Liberals are fighting with small "forces against growing ones, with an "inadequate staff and with supplies * 6 drawn from cvcr-nsrrowing "centre, and with the thought and " passion of the world, in their two "main eurrents, going against them." In Britain, as in New Zealand, the battle has moved away from the old gTound; and tho Liberal remnant, mourning and throwing* ineffective missiles at the distant conflict, calls it back in vain. Mr "Wilford has been too long a politician to be ignorant of the true position, but he expects the peoplo who have generally voted for Liberal candidates to ignore the facts. Some of them will, but to many of them it is becoming increasingly clear that the Liberal Party has ceased to have any purpose, and that its maintenance as a party can have no effect except to assist the Beds by dividing the forces of moderate opinion.