CANDIDATES & THE GENERAL ELECTIONS.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1164, 27 June 1911, Page 4

CANDIDATES & THE GENERAL ELECTIONS.

A con respondent directs attention in this issue to a possible conflict between Reform candidates for the Wellington East scat at the coming general election, and makes a suggestion. There is a good deal in what he says, and it is to be hoped that an arrangement will be arrived at which will remove the possibility of two strong Reform candidates competing for the one seat. One of tho difficulties which the Reform party has experienced in the past' has been to secure candidates, and although that drawback has been .largely removed now, the fact that no suitable Reform candidate, has yet been secured for the Hutt seat renders it desirable that there should be no duplication of candidates for the local city seats, at any rate until the vacancy for the Hutt has been filled. An amusing "forecast" was published in a southern Ministerial contemporary recently regarding the election prospects in Wellington. According tc the author of this, the Reform party is going to be annihilated in this city. The object of this absurd pronouncement was of course to endeavour to discourage South Island supporters of the Reform party—a shallow enough trick, which, under certain circumstances, might affect a' few timid voters, but which, under existing conditions, imposes too great a strain on the credulity of the public to have any real effect. There is not the slightest doubt that public feeling against the Government is stronger in and around Wellington at the present time than it has been at any period during the past twenty years. The disclosures which have been made of late regarding Ministerial methods and Ministerial actions, coupled with the growing uneasiness amongst all classes of the community as to the drift of the country's affairs, crowned now by the latest glaring evidence of the selfish personal amoitions of the Ministry, as disclosed by the allotment, of Coronation honours, could not fail to have stirred the most lethargic and indifferent citizen.

It is in some respects a strange thing that men and women who have treated with indifference and unconcern the repeated exposures of the manner in which Ministers have abused their trust and used the people's money to serve their own political ends, and gratify their own selfish ambitions, should show the most bitter resentment of the fact that Sir John Findlay should have received a Knighthood wincii no hdd not earned, and that Sir Joseph Ward, a "Liberal" Prime Minister, should be honoured with a Baronetcy which introduces into this democratic country an hereditary title to be passed on to generation after generation of the Ward family. Why it is that the bestowal of these honours should arouse the wrath and stir the sense of duty of this section of tho public when the mismanagement of their "affairs, directly affecting their pockets and the future of their country, failed to do so, is difficult to understand. Probably it is that a large part of the public do not follow political matters closely, and so do not appreciate the serious nature of the disclosures made regarding the Wakd Government's administration; while, on the other hand, the most indifferent student of public affairs cannot' fail to understand what lies behind this selfish grasping after Coronation honours for those much favoured persons, the members of the AVard Cabinet. In any case public feeling is so very strong on the subject just now that were the elections to take place tomorrow the Ward Ministry would almost certainly go out of office. However, our object on the present occasion is not so much to discuss the zeal displayed by the Ministry in securing for its own members these titular distinctions as to impress on the Reform party the necessity for bringing out its candidates as early as possible, and for presenting its platform in a concise form. Let the people of New Zealand knowexactly what the party will do if returned to power at the coming elections. That is the first thing requiring attention. Most people know in a general sort of way what the Reform party's policy is; but they should be given it in concise and definite form, so that there can bo no room for misunderstanding by their friends or distortion by their opponents. Me. Massey might deliver a speech in Wellington putting plainly before the country the intentions of his party 'if successful at the polls. We understand that he has something of this kind in view as a preliminary step to a renewal of the election campaign which has already been attended with so much success in the different parts of the country visited by leading members of the Reform party.