MR. ISITT'S ATTITUDE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1265, 21 October 1911, Page 14

MR. ISITT'S ATTITUDE.

A THEORY. Sir,—l am an uncompromising Local and National Prohibitionist; I havo been that ever sin-co I was a boy. With this statement I clear the way for what I am about to say, lest I bo thought a general opponent of the membeT for Christdmrch East, the Rev. L. M. Isitt. I am also an Oppositionist of tho clearest water, yet, like many others of my way of thinking, I welcomed tho advent o£ the rev. gentleman into politics, because I believed in the man; that he would be conscientious enough to subservo his feelings on any ono problem to the vaster and moro general interests of the country politically: that he would be, in reality, what 110 professed to be—an Independent—taking tin a useful role, as a general and unprejudiced critic. Imagine my horrible disappointment, then, to find him an indisc.i'iniinating "barracker" (apparently in the most unthinking way) for the Government that stands -for everything undesirable in administration and in policy; appraising it in a way that only Ministers of the Crown, or potential Ministers, would think of doing, and that not even tho boldest of the rank and file of Parliament would be daring enough to do. What can his object be? Listen! After weeks of trying to think it out, I believe I have found the solution! I believe the rov. gentleman is before _anytliing else a No-Liconso advocate. . Y'ears ago I heard his brother, the Rev.' Frank Isitt, mako u-se of theso words in the Theatro Royal, Timaru: "I know I am a Prohibitionist, I hope I am a Christian, and tho parson coruos a bad third!" Apply those words to his brother Leonard, add "politician," and I think you havo tho scored of tho latter gentleman's attitude in Parliament. Why? I suggest, sir, that Mr. Isitt has been acute enough to have fully taken the measure of tho Ward party; that ho has seen its repeated crawling and surrender to the opinion of tho day; has rightly appraised its spinelessniws; its opnortunism; its desiro to bo on the sido of "the big battalions, and having summed it up thus, expects to get moro out of it, as a Prohibitionist than ho might expect io got out of a party of proved political principles—ono that thinks and acts in a broad national way— a party not to bo coerced into sacrificing those general principles to its selfish desire for pay and power. Sir, I am uncharitable enough to suggest that it. is not beyond the limits of possibility, or probability, that thoro exists a secret understanding with tho Government as to faturo Prohibitionist developments—an oxchango of prineipWon both sides. Sir, I be-liovo also that Mr. Isitt is blind to his larjor responsibilities, and that, with his eye fixed on a certain objective, he loses sight of everything that lies between, or at least sees them only dimly. I may bo wrong (I hope .[ am), but I can think of no other reason why Mr. Isitt speaks and acts in 6uch an irresponsible way in the House. As an alternative, it is because he knows nothing of what almost every thinking and observant person in New Zealand know 3 of the absbluto lack of a singlo unselfish guiding principle on the part of tho Ward party. "Independent" of the country, . but "dependent" on tho Ward regime, seems to sum up. tho rov. member's attitude. Sir. let mo again repeat tliat I am a Prohibitionist, that I have and always will vote accordingly, and am not an opponent of Mr. Isitt generally. This year may indeed bo the year of emancipation from tho licensed liquor evil (I hone it may), but lot us not trample under foot all those sacred and indispensablo traditions of our Parliamentary system in order to attain to it.—l am, etc., A NATIONAL THINKER. Wanganui, October 17.