The Liberal Set-back

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2282, 29 January 1912, Page 6

The Liberal Set-back

Speaking at a. soeial tendered t<> Mr George Witty, Lii-J member for liiecarton. last week, the llou. T. Mae- i kenide said he admitted that Ministers did make mistakes, hut statements that they favored Tammanyism and that their actions won; impure wore absolutely contrary to fact. If the system of abase of public men that prevailed during the past year or two were continued,. . alfsensitivo and liouorable men would , be driven from public life, and there j would be called into existence the very j class of men that was not wanted, lie j believed that election after election j had been won by the motor car, especi- \ ally in the second ballots. The law : would have to he altered to stop that,; otherwise the people would be putting the power of elections into the hands of . the wealthy, and they would have to j look in vain for men of the worthy type of the honored and respected member j for Riccarton. Ho bad been told in j the North that a man who had .£I,OOO , changed from a Liberal to a Consorva- j tive. ' Home two years ago when he j was at Cheviot, he met a man who had j been in Otago in the early days, and j who had done remarkably well on Chov- j iot. He told the; speaker that he would j vote against the Government every time, , because Sir John M'Kenzie had told J him that he would have to pay his rent, i

Mr Ell, member for (Jin islohutoh Louth expressed the belief that the Liberal party ha I receiveil only a temporary set-buck, it wan due largely to the wave of prosperity which had swept over the country, and which had ]:'< l many people to forget the ladder upon which tiny had climbed into aflluenee. There was no doubt that the Liberal legislation had enabled many men to get on to the land. They had been helped by cheap money, and in other ways, to establish themselves substantially. The Liberal party hail considerable satisfaction in the knowledge that they had done a great deal for the country. He believed that the people themselves were satisfied with the record. He felt that the party would see their way old; of the present difficulty, and he hoped that when the country got on to the road of progress again the same progressive policy would be pursued as in the past, The people would find that the spir.it of Liberalism in New Zealand was not dead yet —not by any means, lie was confident that a great deal of good would be done in the next three years.