The Press Thursday, November 8, 1928. The Show.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19462, 8 November 1928, Page 10

The Press Thursday, November 8, 1928. The Show.

Thode who were afraid that the holding of a Royal Show every second year would kill interest in the intermediate fixture should have their anxieties removed to-day and to-morrow. Although it is impossible to be sure of the weather, nothing but rain can prevent the 1928 Show from being one of the most successful Metropolitan Shows ever held. The entries are naturally a little fewer in the aggregate than last year's, but as the drop is only 165 in a total of nearly 2800 it is almost negligible. There are 156 more entries in all classes this year than there were two years ago, and although sheep and cattle are both down a little as compared with 1926, the total under each head is so very good that no one will be aware of the slight drop in either class. It has to be remembered also in considering the 974 sheep entries that Christchurch has always the best sheep Show in the Dominion, whether the test is total entries or the number and variety of breeds. Visitors to the grounds to-day will see nearly every useful class of sheep known to the British farmer as well as some useful breeds which the Homeland has never seen and which the other Dominions know only slightly. There will never be much wrong with Canterbury as long as her farmers can put a thousand sheep on exhibition each year from ten or a dozen of the best breeds. And with regard to the falling away incattle entries, we have to remember that Canterbury is not primarily a dairy province, though the dairying it does do is done well. The proof of this is the number of Royal champions in dairy cattle bred in Canterbury during the last few years. But we are not sure that the most gratifying feature of the Show—indeed of all Shows so far held this not the extrasordinary increase in horse entries. In 1926 there were 500 entries, at last year's Royal Show the total was 575, while this year it has reached the extraordinary total of 667. In spite of the great increase in the number of tractors in use there will be nearly 60 Clydesdale horses in the ring, nearly 50 harness horses, and well over 100 saddle horses, cobs, and ponies. This is as good a proof as there could be that horses are indispensable to human happiness and as popular as ever as a "draw" at every kind of open-air gathering. For except in a few cases there is no longer any money in horsebreeding, so that it would die out altogether if it were not maintained by pore enthusiasm! And one has only to wander through the section of the Show devote?! to Jarm implements to realise how completely mechanical the age is, indoors and out. A few years ago the display of implements at our ■Shows was anything but impressive, but the display on the grounds to-day wjll probably be regarded by most people as the best exhibition of Its kind ever seen in New Zealand. Farmers who go to the Show to learn new methods of saving labour and expense will, probably find the implement section a little difficult to leave. And with regard to the farmers themselves, it is pleasant to think that they will be able to greet one another with a little more confidence than they have allowed themselves to feel lor some time. Wool is certainly down a little, though it is still a very satisfactory pride, but mutton and lamb ought to be as good when the season opens as they were last year. Wheat-growers, «lgo, although they can hardly expect a third record Crop, have almost as good reason to be Satisfied with the outlook at pJfesent as those whose safety lies in butterfftt

The United Party's Prospects. Nobody is likely to grudge Sir Joseph Ward the warm reception given to him by bis Inverowgill friends. He has always been popular in Southland, he has been a leading figure in politics for many years, he has happily recovered from severe strains upon his health, and be is optimistic enough, after all these years, to lead a brave but forlorn enterprise. These are reasons enough why his Southland friends should make a special display to welcome, him, and most people would think little of them if they had not done so.. Sir Joseph no doubt gave to his friends as much pleasure as they gave to him by predicting, according to the Liberal newspapers, that the "United "cause'' would be victorious on November 14th. Although he is an optimist of the optimists, he cannot believe that he will be the commander of even so many as twenty members in the new Parliament. A, "victory" for the " United cause" requires the election of over forty United Party candidates, and this requires much more than that moderate recovery of votes which of ten means, for a Party that has lost office through a alight lurch in popular feeling, a substantial recovery in Parliamentary strength. It requires, in this case, such a landslide, such a wholesale reversal of public sentiment,' as has never been recorded in this or aily other country under modern conditions. In 1926 the voting was as follows: Seals Votes contested, polled. Reform .- 67 315,688 Labour .. 55 183,201 Liberal ... 50 143,291 If this result had followed an election in whioh the order and strength of the Parties had been the opposite of that, one could riot have said that a victory for the, United Party was inconceivable this year. Bui the 1925 figures were the record of a continuous and unmistakable drift in public opinion. At every election for many years the strength" of the Liberal Party has shown a further decline, and it is well known to everyone who pays attention to politics that a Party which has continued on the down grade for twenty years cannot recover for forty years, if at all, and cannot hope for anything beta* than thai ft may fox the moment

cease to shrink. In 1925 the Liberals were 22 per cent, of the electors. If they can keep up to this level this year they will be more fortunate than they deserve or than anybody really expects. The issues this year are exactly the same as in 1925, and although there will naturally be some slight variations in the percentages of votes obtained by the Parties, nothing short of an obviously impossible change will enable the Liberals even to supplant the Labour Party as the official Opposition. The people who are behind the United Party know this as well as we do. Many of their supporters, however, believe that political miracles can happen, and are hypnotising themselves into the belief that a "Liberal "revival" is possible—although they could not say what a "Liberal re"vival" means. These will discover, of course, that political miracles do not happen, and they will be very Bad folk on November 15th. They will not find much comfort in the reflection that their only effective work will have been the splitting of the moderate vote, and possibly the presentation here and there of a seat to the Party of the Reds. It may be, of course, that by "victory "for the United cause" Sir Joseph Ward does not mean a majority of seats for his Party. /Indeed, it is difficult to believe that any man in his senses could make such a prediction. But if he does not mean that, what does he mean? The Election in America. Although the final results are still not available it is clear enough that Mr Hoover has overwhelmingly defeated Governor Smith in the Presidential election. This is hardly a surprise, although the extraordinary energy of Governor Smith, the strength of his personality, and the reality of his popularity with so many different classes of voters prevented it from being a foregone conclusion. If Governor Smith had won it would have been a sensation—perhaps the biggest sensation in the history of the Presidency; but now that he has been beaten the commentators are trying to make a bigger sensation of it than there would have been if he had contrived to win. They are suggesting that his defeat means the disappearance of the Democrats as a Party, and it is at least true that no one really knows to-day why there are Republicans and Democrats, or why when a man is once a Republican he usually remains one. All we know is that he does, that there have always been more Republicans than Democrats, and that it has Bomehow got into the heads of the American people that to vote Republican is safe. What makes Governor Smith interesting is the fact that he so disturbed this comfortable majority as to frighten it into giving itself this huge victory. Why he lost New York State iB certainly a problem? sinee he has been Governor there for te& years and made himself more popular every day. But it is also a problem to account for his Cfcpture of tteW York City, which is normally. Republican, and one big factor in all these problems, throughout the whole election, has been religion. There has, however, been another factor which the ! New Statesman once summed up like this: The Presidents of the United States since the first half-century _of the Republic have been divisible into two types—the men who have sprung immediately from the soil, mostly of the West, and have embodied the pioneer ideal of "from log-cabin to White House/' and those, few in number, who have been products of the more settled conditions of the Atlantic States-ysuch as Cleveland, Roosevelt, and Wilson. Divergent as are these types, they have been homogeneous in this, that all alike have been representative of AngloSaxon America, generally of British stock, always Protestant, and as a rule regular in such important matters as church-going and personal standing in a simple and eid'fluMQtted community. It'W&s not deemed to be possible that a Roman Catholic could be nominated by. one of the great Parties aa a candidate fi}t the Presidency! it was believed to be almost equally impossible jor a candidate to come out of the newer immigrant communities Which, during the past thirty years, have come to be a most important element in the life of the great Cities. The notion that a President, OJf even a serious candidate for the Presidency, could spring from the East Side "of New York City would, to the great majority of Americans, have seemed merely fantastic. It looks as if this notion became more and not less fantastic as the "great " majority " pondered Over it, and that in the end they could endure it no ldnger.