The Dominion. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1908. ASPECTS OF THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 330, 17 October 1908, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1908. ASPECTS OF THE ELECTION CAMPAIGN.

Although the Prime Minister, naturally enough, denies that th'e Govern-, ment has supplied the Ministerial candidates with the speeches that they are to deliver, there is plenty of evidence in the speeches themselves to show that some good friend of tho Government has furnished some of tho candidates fit least with pre-digested fallacies and figures. There is, of course, nothing unusual in this. It will bo remembered that a few years ago the boxes of members of Parliament wero stuffed with leaflets composed of malicious misrepresentations of the Opposition for use in tho election campaign. In the speeches delivered by the Ministerial candidates in this island there are so many surprising resemblances running through whole passages that one must believe that the unanimity is more than can be accountcd for by any theory respecting tho precision with which Ministerial hearts keep time with each other. When we find the same fallacies, the same arguments couohed in almost the Bumo words, . and OYca tho same seta of camgai&tive

statistics, begin to suspect a single hand behind it all. And when wo find that in their "general remarks" the candidates say such laughably stupid things as to discredit the notion that they knew enough of politics or finance to extract 1 the figures they quoted, suspicion be- ' comes certainty. Nobody need blame the Government. Any Government whose necessities and whose character drove it into depending upon candidates of the sort which in some electorates are now amusing tho electors would be foolish if it neglected to supply the right "records" for their erratic phonographs. It is at the end of the Ministerial candidate's meeting, when the heckler, or even the simple seeker after knowledge, whose questions even tho most astuto of Prime Ministers cannot foresee and provide for, begins to put queries to the candidate, that the wisdom of supplying ammunition and instructions becomes most apparent. The candidate—we are speaking mainly but not entirely of the less experienced—hedges, flounders, replies at random, and escapes for the time being by saying that he "will look into the matter." He means that ho will wire to the Prime Minister. By the end of the campaign, of course, he will have got advice on all the doubtful points, but in tho meantime he is pleasingly reminiscent of little girl who answered questions at tho Opera House a couple of years ago, and who occasionally delighted the audience with her prim reply, "That is not in my repertoire." Another feature of the campaign is tho bravo show of independence of a large soction of Ministerial candidates. Certainly they say they aro supporters of tho Government, but they reserve to themselves tho right to vote against the Government when they consider that it is making a mistake. Possibly these candidates believe that they have a capacity for great things: they may, since romance hides in tho most unlikely places, even indulge themselves secretly with visions of a great day when, with a thrilling heart, they actually vote with the "Noes" while tho Ministry is in the "Ayes" lobby. But oven a triennial Parliament comes to an end, and elections will recur, and,' as we have seen in the past three months, the high-spirited colt is glad and eager to pull steadily in the team when the Minister cracks the whip. We havo seen it all before. It is true that tho reservation which the candidate adds to his promise of support binds him not at all, since, once in Parliament, and with the next election only three years away, j;h« Ministerialist develops a rcmarkaUo capacity for believing that tho Government is never in error. Occasionally, however, a candidate scorns all subterfuge. Such is the Ministerialist opponent of Me. Bollard, a Mr. Shackelford, who cannot tolorato tho idea of any man being an "Independent." "He did not believe in a half-way house," he said, "for he had never met a man who really did not know on what side his feelings were." That, at any'rate, is frank and refreshing, even although Mr. Shackelford's mental outfit is'such that he ridicules the idea that a strong Opposition is desirable. "It was a new thing in politics to learn that any'great work," he said, "could be carried out by opposition. There vms such a thing as trying to amend to such an extent that they hardly knew where Ihoy were" ! On this .gentleman at any rate the Government's ready-made spe3ch6s will not be thrown away. His originality necessitates a guiding hand. The part that Ministers will play in the campaign has yet to be seen One of the candidates for the Manawatu seat has beon telling his audiences that the Second Ballot Act enables every aspiring Ministerialist to go to the poll' without any misgivings on the point of the Prime Minister's feelings. The Act does relieve the Prime Minister of the necessity for nominating his candidates. Indeed, it constrains him to -a certain amount of impartiality, since he has already discovered that he may back the wrong horse. But in at least one instance he has duly affixed the stamp of his approval on a candidate. As may be surmised, Mr. Shackelford is one of these happy men, and he carries his "lines" about with him. ' But Sir Joseph Ward stated at Ohariu some time ago that he intends to allow the electors a free hand. We shall probably find him and his colleagues assisting tho Government nominees in the usual manner. Sir Joseph can hardly be unaware that 'the methods pursued by the then Prime Minister in the 1905 campaign are rather out of favour with the public. There is not the slightest reason why Ministers should not, during an election campaign, take steps to present their policy to the country. This practice is followed in Great Britain, but with these important differences from tho practice pursued by New Zealand Ministers: that the British Minister pays his own travelling expenses, and his friends the hire of the platform, and that British Ministers do not hold out bribes to the constituencies visited in tho shape of promises of grants .from tho Treasury. If Sir Joseph Ward is still willing to take an example from British statesmen,'he should seize the present opportunity to abandon the political indecencies of past "Liberal" campaigns. The public has not yet completely made up its mind that he has entirely adopted the election policy of his predecessor, and it will therefore watch carefully the manner of his forthcoming speeches in Feilding and Palmerston. And the public is sufficiently intelligent to detect a bribe even when wrapped up in the most carefully chosen language.