The Dominion. THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1911. "THINGS BETTER LEFT UNSAID."

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1118, 4 May 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, MAY 4, 1911. "THINGS BETTER LEFT UNSAID."

_—, , —. The Hon. Tl Mackenzie, who has been electioneering in the Taranaki district, presumably wth a view to the possibility of contesting one of the seats there, must have been considerably embarrassed by the eulogies he received from an enthusiastic supporter of the Government. This gentleman, in an endeavour to shower the highest possible praise on the Minister, concluded a flowery speech by remarking that "Mr. Mackenzie was fo] ■• lowing in the footsteps of the late John Mackenzie and that glorious

man Dick Seddon, and in doing this he could not go far wrong. , ' No doubt Mr. Mackenzie long ere this has realised that the price he has to pay for changing his political coat and accepting ?. portfolio in a Ministry with whose policy in the past he had been in direct antagonism is at times a painful one. He has smarted often enough under the jeors of his one-time political colleagues, but it must have proved even more humiliating to have to submit to tho unintentional ridicule heaped on him by his present-day friends. The gentleman, for instance, who thought he was paying the Minister the highest possible compliment in stating that he was "following in the footsteps of that glorious man Dick Seddon" could hardly have known that Mr. Mackenzie had condemned that "glorious man" in the most vigorous language pormittsd by Parliament. It was Mr. T. Mackenzie, for instance, who told the Seddon Government that "if money has fallen in value it is no less than what the Government ought to have effected, for by their wild-cat legislation they had frightened capital from this country —driven it away, and when the people of New, Zealand tried to get money from their institutions here they found that every penny had been used by this Liberal Government themselves." It was Mr. T. Mackenzie who'on the same occasion said to "that glorious man": "Tho Premier also told us that the unemployed difficulty was grappled with and got over. We know there are more unemployed in New Zealand than ever there wore before. . . . Of course so far as the West Coast is concerned I can quite understand things being better, because, sir, he sends his pets down to Milford Sound, pays them 10s. a day for easy work, and pays £6000 for making a road that, might have been made for as many hundreds." These are the opinions expressed by Mr. Mackenzie concerning "tho glorious man" in whose footsteps his enthusiastic Taranaki admirer tells us ho is now following. But further than this, Mr. T. Mackenzie in those bad old clays violently assailed the man in whose footsteps he is stated to be following for "increasing the burdens on the workers" by the tariff amendments of 1895, and accused one member of tho then Cabinet of ''stating at the hustings that it would be justifiable to put the whole taxation of New Zealand on the landowners of New Zealand." When this allegation was challenged Mr. T. Mackenzie showed what he thought of the gentlemen in whose footsteps his admirers applaud him for following by scornfully retorting: "Of course; but who pays much attention to Ministerial denials?" When Mr. Mackenzie, listening to tho praises of his present friends, recalls his past denunciation of those he has changed his political coat to follow he must surely find tho sweets of oifice at times a little unpalatable. We have no desire to pursue the matter at any length, but it is well worth while to rerjroduco for the edification of the Son. T. Mackenzie, "Liberal" Minister of to-day, what plain Mr. T. Mackenzie, of the past day, thought of the "Liberal" party with which he has now associated himself. Mr Mackenzie was dilating in his vigorous fashion on the gross injustice done to employers and the well-to-do by a member of the Government party, and proceeded as fellows: • Then the honourable gentleman told us that some associations in .New Zealand had been the means of driving numbers of men into the ranks of the unemployed, and he also said the wcalfhv won'.* v-.i not contributed as they ought to the unemployed relief funds. Sir, ..<■ h-.J ... 0 other day the list, of subscriptions given towards tlio relief of the unemployed in tho cify (if Wellington; and how many Liberals, I would ask, are to be found oil that list? Few if any, J venture to r-"-. The subscriptions come from men with means in this colony—means thai in u».e opinion of the Premier it is a crime for nnynno to possess. Talk about Liberalism! These people are. industrious and generous, and yet are not thought worthy of being called Liberals. They have beeii self-denying and careful during past times, and thev can now help these sufferers when the time of trouble approaches, whereas your gabbling Liberal send them away with words only. This was tho Mr T. Mackenzie of a past period. To-day we find him associated with the "gabbling Liberals" upon whom i.c turned his scorn and contempt, and meeting as his highest reward the eulogy that he is following in the footstep 3of the men whose actions he so unsparingly condemned. Should Me. Mackenzie be forced to desert the South Island and seek an electorate in the North he is likely to experience a somewhat painful electioneering campaign. In tho South his friends do know what to avoid saying, but here in the North not only will he be bombarded by his opponents, but he is liable to be lacerated still more deeply by the well-meant but unfortunatcly-choscii references of those who wish to assist him. He is faced with tho embarrassing possibility of a constant stream of "things one would rather have left unsaid."