An Interesting Silence.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18526, 30 October 1925, Page 10

An Interesting Silence.

The Labour Party's brazen adherence to the wages lie begins to be less interesting than the silence of the Liberal Party. In the Auckland "Star" of October 27th —Tuesday of this week — there is a mild reference to " the mis- " representation of which the Labour " Party has been guilty,"' and to a " little storm of assertion arid denial " now blowing between Labour and the " Government." But with that very gentle exception there has not, so fir as we know, been a single line of condemnation in any Liberal newspaper. The local Liberal newspaper, at any rate, has been studiously silent, and a newspaper cannot plead, as perhaps a Parliamentary candidate can, that its duty ends with the advocacy of its own cause. If it is an honest newspaper it will condemn any gross deviation from accepted standards of decency by the candidates of any Party, and the wages cut lie is easily the most impudent and the moit unprincipled of the many by which the campaign has been distinguished. It was certainly approached hi impudence by the Corrigan fabrication—except that no one after the first few days suspected Mr Corrigan of intelligence as well as of impudence. But in that case also the Liberal newspapers abstained from condemnation, and have done so, with the leading members of the Party, to the present day. It may of course be urged, by the very generous or very simple, that the Liberals shielded Mr Corrigan out of a stupid sense of loyalty; but is it loyalty that shields Mr Holland? It actually is. Not personal loyalty, of course, or the direct loyalty of Party, but the kind of loyalty that allies, otherwise antipathetic, must observe. The Liberals, though they may deplore the necessity of profiting by lies, do not reject the lies.' In their present pitiable plight they welcome them. They connived, and still connive, at the Corrigan charges because there was a chance that these would injure the Government. They secretly gloat over the wages cut lie because it had an original appearance of truth, got a good start, and cannot now bo exposed to every elector without the assistance of the Liberal newspapers. Fortunately, the readers of Liberal newspapers are a smaller number each day, while the number of those who read Liberal newspapers and no others is declining as rapidly as the number of Liberal electors—ayd for the same reason.