A FAR-AWAY VIEW

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1317, 21 December 1911, Page 4

A FAR-AWAY VIEW

We arc always gladi to hear what the London Times thinks of our little local affairs, but we are afraid that the New Zealand public will be more amused than impressed with its judgment on'our general election. The Timet does not- realise, of course, that it was only the quaint vote of Canterbury—which, electorally, is just over one-sixth of the nation— that saved Wardism from a crushing defeat; and, equally of course, it knows nothing of the Heform sentiment. that, has swept into tidal force in the past three months. Nobody will grudge thg -Pujme Mi.vistkr a bit of the pleasure he may be able to find in the news from London that he is "the only man adaptable enough to patch up a Ministry that can collect a majority behind it," but we fancy he will prefer to Icok nearer home for safe opinions. Nobody can question his "adaptability"—as we have often said, we can conceive no policy to which he would bo unwilling to adapt himself—but what he has to adapt himself to now is the uprising of a national determination that he must get out. Whether it is—as the Time-s, seeing dimly an event it cannot understand, suggests that it is—"straining language to talk of his defeat" is a question of no moment whatever. Wardism is defeated; and what is more, the Ward party has already begun to think that its leader must be thrown overboard. New Zealanders will await with eagerness the full text of the argument, that has led the Times to its extraordinary conclusions.