The Press Wednesday, October 7, 1925. Liberals and the Red Challenge.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18506, 7 October 1925, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, October 7, 1925. Liberals and the Red Challenge.

The principal qualification of Mr J. Connolly, the Nationalist or Liberal candidate for Ellesmere —the qualification, at least, which he and his friends place tirst —is not unlike that of the Hindu of the well-known story. The Hindu was applying for a post in which education and intelligence were necessary, and in order that it might be seen that he w; : .-; not one of the multitude, he mentioned as one of his qualifications '•Failed 8.A." Mr Connolly recommends himself on the jrround that he had on previous occasions been " asked to stand." lie certainly gave the electors, in his speech at Rakaia, no better proof than this fact of his fitness for membership of the Legislature. We can employ our space more usefully than in criticising his speech, which we are noticing for reasons that concern other electorates than Ellesmere, but we ca,nnot help mentioning a passage in which the candidate revealed the spirit which made so successful, until the country's conscience stirred, the old ''spoils to '" the victors" policy of the Liberal Party. Mr Connolly praised the legislation of twenty or thirty years ago, and maintained that many people who were successful to-day owed all their success to the Liberals. " Unfortu- " nately," he added, " people were in- " clined to forget their benefactors, " and as a result the Reform Party " came into power." If this means anything, it means that to the Liberal eye the prime duty of the elector is to give his vote, regardless of national or other considerations, to the Government which, in the expectation of such a reward, renders him an individual service. Nor can we omit to notice Mr Connolly's innocent comment on the anxious emphasis of the Liberal paper's appeal to the Ellesmere electors to register their hatred of the Meat Board by rejecting Mr Jones. Mr Connolly is evidently anxious to neutralise the blundering efforts of his newspaper friend, because he implored his Rakaia audience to believe that he has always been a hearty supporter of the Meat Board.

Our purpose in referring to Mr Connolly's speech, however, is to help drim to understand that we said •no more than the truth when we advised the Ellcsmere electors that he .is " really '' working, whatever he ■ himself may " think, in the interest of the Reds." This is true of every National or Liberal candidate who is offering himself for election. Many of them know it, ulthough, as we plainly suggested, we are ready to believe that Mr Connolly is honestly ignorant of what his candidature amounts to. It is extremely unlikely, as everyone knows, that the Liberals will win more than a dozen or fifteen seats, and they are accordingly incapable of doing anything more than divide the moderate vote. The Liberals themselves are beginning to speak of the importance of " unity" in the face of the Red challenge, not because they have undergone a real change of heart, but because they know that an overwhelming majority; of the people have come to realise the truth of what wo have been consistently urging for some years. There are many reasons why those wish, to resist the Red challenge should support the Government. Wo shall mention two. In the first place the Government already has the support of v 75 per cent, of the moderate voters, and is indisputably the Party to which moderate men must look for guidance and protection. In the second place the Liberal Party as an Opposition group sitnply cannot, on its record, be trusted to avoid cooperation with the Reds. It is for reasons like these that we must regard evj»ry Liberal enemy, of the Government as a conscious or unconscious ally of revolutionary Labour. It is the Reds, and not they themselves, who will profit from any loss caused to the Government by their determination to maintain their irrational hostility. Irrational at any time, it is positively dangerous just now when tho Bolshevik attempt to strangle our export trade requires firm and united support for tho Government. •