CURIOUS TACTICS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 211, 30 May 1908, Page 4

CURIOUS TACTICS.

An attempt is being made to.reprcsci the passing over of Messrs. Crabb an Morrison in the'elections to the provii cial executive of the. Farmers' Union' i proof positive that the Union is blindly partisan association of " Tories, opposed to the interests of the* sma farmer. Most of the farmers of th province, and all who were in a positic to know what actually took place at tl accent Conference at Palmerston Nortl knov/ quite well that in this instance, i in most eases, the. advice of the Radio: and Socialist newspapers is as worthy ( bo followed,,by farmers iis the advice'r the wolf [to 'the flock of sheep, and thei professions of friendship just as hollo? But it may be as well to static the fac of the matter. Messrs.- Crabb and Moi rison .failed to sccure election simply bj cause other men were preferred by tl Conference for reasons as remote fro: party politics as those which explain tl rejection of candidates for places on, li us say, the committee of a club. If an; thing was made clear by the discussioi at'the gathering, it was that party pol tics, have no place in the Union's coi corns, and the critics who are seeking 1 spread.the idea that Messrs'. Crabb. an Morrison are the victims of a Tory. pl< are merely, seizing what they think is splendid opportunity of discrediting an misrepresenting the body that stands b tween the agriculturist and the rabble < urban hatred and discontent, One of these uncandid critics has ove reached itself in a rather amusing' fas] ion through its haste to discredit tl Union. It goes to great pains to estal lish its contention that " the more, d m'ocratic " of the delegates to the Levi Conference last year "refused to be mac the catspaw of the wealthy owners," an carried the principle of limitation < area. That result, it claims, was pro< of the fact that the small farmer is class to bo reckoned with. Surely tl small farmer is as well able to mal himself heard this year. . If the ado] tion of the "limitation" principi proved the essential • Liberalism of tl agrarian community, then nothing th; it may' decide through its parliamei can prove its hatred of Liberalism. 'Tl critic we have quoted cannot' have i: cake and eat it too. The," limitation resolution and the rejection of Messr Crabb and Morrison spring from tl same source, and if it was Liberalise that produced the one result it coul not have been Toryism that produce the other. Tactically, no doubt, it migi ■ have been wiser of the Conference to iv jeefc the men it did want, and elect thoi whom it did not want, if only to sto the tongue of' ready slander. The Coi ference decided—and, in our- opinio] rightly—that the risk of injury throug misrepresentation was not so great i to make it advisable to forego its ow preferences in the matter of its leader The Conference need not regret havin disdained tactics and expediency. Wh should it, a non-party organisation, £ to the trouble of, protecting itself again: misrepresentation on one point, when i: enemies arc certain to find a tiundre other points upon which to 1 misrcprcsor the Union's aims'! The farmer is ni quite the fool that the city Radicals wh arc so solicitous for his welfare suppos him to be.