The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1912. WHAT THE NATION DEMANDS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1363, 14 February 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1912. WHAT THE NATION DEMANDS.

Although the curious situation with which Parliament is about to deal is of absorbing interest, nobody who keeps his head clear about politics, aud certainly no politician capable of looking beyond his nose, will allow himself to forget the political situation in the country. Owing to the neglect of the Reform party to put up a candidate in every electorate, the result of the election was not so entirely conclusive as it might havo been, or as it would have been had the feeling in the country had an opportunity to reflect itself fully in the final figures. Even, so, however, it was made plain that the country desired the death of the "Liberal" Government. Forty members were returned by European constituencies with an express command to assist in turning the "Liberals" out—the o7 Reform representatives and Messrs. Veitcu, Robertson, and Payne. Of the remaining European members 35 were returned as, more or less, supporters of the Government. The voice of the 76 European constituencies was thus quite emphatically a condemnation of the Government; and this despite the fact that tho Reform party left untested several seats some "of which, it is obviously reasonable to suppose, would have joined in the demand for an end of "Liberalism." To those who, like ourselves, were aware, prior to the election, of the. change that was ripening—a change that so manifestly stupefied the "Liberals," as the Government's hopelessly wrong forecast of the second ballot results made evidentnothing appears so certain as that the Reform feeling in tho country is now grown overwhelmingly strong, and anxious to complete its work by sweeping "Liberalism" utterly away.

That; Hcform sentiment which first cut down from 50 1.0 -J8 I ho majority with which Sin Joseph Ward began his career as Prime Minister, and then wipiid it out altogether, converting it into a small but clear riiinority, is obviously not a shortlived impulse but a deep and strong feeling, growing always deeper anil stronger as the nation more and more, clearly realised the iniquities of. Wnulisra. It is rooted in a national weariness of, and anprr at, the. outrages committed on the na-

tion by a degenerate political clirpic, and a national alarm at the havoc that this reckless and unpatriotic party have been making of the country's future just at a time when from every quarter of the Old World there have been coming warnings to us to conserve and to prepare. The Reform party in Parliament is only for the time being of equal importance with the Reform party in the country. The voters for Reform know what they want, and they are determined to have it. They have been many years making up their minds, they'have given "Liberalism" a thorough trial. They gave "Liberalism" a warning in 1908; but the warning was unheeded. They are therefore now in such a mood that nothing can stand in their way. And what I hey want is Reform. The work they want done is partly destruction and partly construction, as all sanitary work must be. They want to make impossible in future the gross abuses that have flowed in every direction from "Liberalism." The carrying out of the will of the Reform party in the country—the men and women who have rebelled against "Liberalism" and ordered it to be cast out—will be a matter partly of legislation and partly of administration. No amount of Reform laws will bo sufficient unless there is in office a Government full of the Reform spirit.

Everybody knows what it is that the Reform sentiment of the nation wishes to destroy. The list is too long—so gross have been the excesses of "Liberalism"—to give in full in any limited space. But here are some of the things that must be ended. The use of the Public Service as a moans for rewarding party services; the use of the Legislative Council as a refuge for the touts and heelers and financial backers of the ruling clique; the use of the public's money as a means of penalising opposition and free speech, and of rewarding sycophancy in the press; the use of the public purse as a _ means of bribing or coercing districts into earning the goodwill of the party in power by'sending docile dummies to Parliament— these are some of the phases of direct corruption that have led the nation to revolt. Then there are the many channels through which wrongdoing has poured from the Executive's dominance of Parliament:—The perversion or disobedience by Ministers of the orders of Parliament regarding expenditure; the withholding, as the private property of Ministers, of important information that Parliament should possess find that the public should have; the direct defiance of orders of thc_Hou.se; the scandalous fashion in which bad laws are forced through Parliament; the accumulation of power in the Executive's hands great enough to nullify the statutes and to render possible such things as the Mokau land deal. As to the financial side of the Reform movement, the nation wants an end to be put j to- these things:—The simultaneous heaping up of taxation and the public debt; the wasting of huge sums of money through mismanagement of the railways and through mismanagement in railways and other public works construction; the use of the Public Revenues Act to facilitate tricky book-keeping; the manipulation of _ the public accounts for the misleading of the public; and, above all, the increasing extravagance that is sapping the nation's health by making it increasingly dependent on borrowed money. The nation has demanded- the ending of the "Liberals' " shuffling with the land issue, and the ending of the "Liberal" policy of keeping the waste Native lands out of the stream of settlement and progress. ' It has demanded an end of the reign of jobbery and secrecy—of burked inquiries, o'f connivance by the Government at such political abuses as Mr. Hike exposed, of interference with the Courts of Justice. ,No amount of political trickery by the party the nation has condemned to death will prevent the nation from sweeping away this mass of.unclean government. Behind the manoeuvring at Parliament's doors, the nation is waiting and watching. And the wise politician will remember it.