The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1911. WARDISM IN DESPAIR.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1310, 13 December 1911, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1911. WARDISM IN DESPAIR.

There are abundant signs that Ministerialists realise that the game is up at last. Strongly .as the tide of Reform is'flowing, we are as unwilling as we have always been to_ prophesy too dogmatically; but it is always permissible to plunge on the minimum of possibilities, and the minimum of possibilities in our political world at this moment is that Wavdism is doomed as a power for national evil. Our "Liberal" friends know this, and they know also that the. ■probability is far more painful for them to contemplate than this minimum possibility. The leading YVardist organs, amongst which we can now without injustice number our local evening contemporary, have exhibited very plainly all'the symptoms of a recognition that the clay of, .Reform has arrived. Prior to the first ballot nothing could exceed the confidence with which the Ministerialist journals predicted the ruin of tho Ivcform movement. When the P 1*131*5 Minister issued his manifesto the Christchnrch organ of the Ministry greeted it as "a moderate, unimpassioned appeal to the good sense of the people of New Zealand," and it did "not doubt that his impressive words will go to tho hearts and the understandings of the electors of the. Dominion.'' Locally we were told that "tho supporters of the Liberal policy" had reason to "profess confidence in their ability to sweep the country." Well, we all know what happened last Thursday—we all know what a difference there was from the day of tho first ballot in lOCS. On the morning after the first ballot in 190S the PniiiE Mixistkii— who was then able to stay in Wellington, a fact his supporters emphasised as jubilantly as they now silently admit that if bo had not, fought desperately this year he would have lost his seat—"thanked the people of the Dominion for the way in which they had stood by the Government in tho teeth of powerful opposition, and had returned its supporters as they had done. He was certain that the heart of the people was with the Government's policy and the party that supported the Government."

Nor is it only in the shivering silence of the Prime Minister and the depression of the Liberal press that tho true state of their expectations is revealed. Yesterday the public heard of tho way in which Ministers and ex-Minisfcers arc being treated by the electors. Mr. FoWlds. on his attempting to address an audience in Ms old constituency, appears to have niet with a more hostile .reception than has greeted any candidate during the campaign, not even excepting the Prime Mixistek at Winton. The Hon. It. M'Kekzie had the mortification of being turned away when ho went with the committee of the Hawke's Bay Wardist candidate's coniraittco to supplicate tho support of a Labour candidate against Mr. Campbell, tho bearer of the Reform' party's standard. Locally wo have seen the alarm and confusion of Mr. M'Laren at the effect of his ill-advised declaration for Wardism, and the deep embarrassment of Mr. Hindmarsh because he cannot declare against Wardism. The older hands amongst the "Liberal" candidates who arc still left in the field have been quick to realise that to be a supporter of the Ward party is just now the worst of recommendations. Mr. Hanan, for example, realised it at once when he saw t-lio figures on Thursday night. "What is Mr. Hasan]" the Southland Times had to ask last Saturday. Its inquiry arose out of the fact that "he is not at all sure that the Labour vote will go to tho Government candidate, and so Is judiciously keeping * tho faot that he is a Government candidate in.

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