The Dominion SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1922. AN UNSUPPORTED ATTACK

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 53, 25 November 1922, Page 4

The Dominion SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1922. AN UNSUPPORTED ATTACK

Alt, who have followed the election campaign to its present stage attentively and with open minds must be conscious that in one respect it presents a remarkable contrast to others that have gone before it In past campaigns of the kind the party or parties in Opposition have almost invariably been able to set before the electors definite and explicitly stated reasons for displacing the Government of the day and installing another in its place. Any unprejudiced elector who asks himself, or herself, whether such reasons have been stated on the present occasion will be found to reply in the negative. • Taking account, with what has been said, of what has P^ en left unsaid, it is putting no strain on facts to say that Opposi ion criticism since the campaign opened has done much more to vindicate the Government that to bring out reasons for displacing it. With the facts plainly before them, electors may easily test for themselves the accuracy of this statement. . The merits of a Government are determined with reference to two things —the nature of its policy and the quality of its administration. As the public know, it is true almost without reservation that in the present electoral contest, the policy of the Reform Government is attacked and challenged only by revolutionary Socialists. It is true that the Wilford Party has two platform items—a State bank and proportional representation —which it shares with the extreme Labour Party and not with the Reform Party. If in any other material particular Mr. Wilford and his friends dissent from the policy the Reform Party not only affirms, but has steadily pursued, they have not yet succeeded in making the fact manifest. It thus appears that the policy of the Government is attacked only by those who contend that revolutionary, socialism is to be preferred to a policy of safe progress, in which fair regard is paid to the rights and interests of all sections of the community. As regards administration, members of the Opposition groups have offered any amount of general criticism. But where is the specific instance in which they have shown the administration of the Government to ba inefficient dr culpably at fault 1 As all know who have followed the campaign to date, the answer must be that no such instance has been cited. Both Wilfordites and members of the extreme Labour Party freely « condemn the financial administration of the Government, and they advance nothing in the way of definite facts to support their criticism. The public know, however, that the Government has been competent and successful in its management of the national finances during a very unsettled and trying period. They know, also, that financial criticism has seldom in any country touched a lower or less effective standard than that to which it has been reduced by the leaders and members of the present Opposition groups. All sections of the Opposition accuse the Government of failing hopelessly in housing policy. The public know, however, that in the past three years the Government has either built or advanced the greater part of the cost of ten thousand dwellings. That is to say, it has done vastly more than any previous Government in this country »o assist people to obtain dwellings. Mr. Wilford has persistently endeavoured to convict the Government of culpable inefficiency in the matter of stores control. Here again, however,, it is a matter of general public knowledge that the report by the Auditor-General on which Mr. Wilford relies is an important part of the evidence that proves that the Government has improved greatly on the system of stores dontrol it inherited from its predecessors. The list of similar failures in criticism might be lengthened considerably, but the poverty of the Opposition case must be apparent to electors who are following the campaign. As electors'can see for themselves, the only clear line of cleavage the campaign has disclosed is between the Reform Party and revolutionary Socialists. s •../ Mr. Wilford and Me. Holland ask the electors to vote out Mr. Massey and a Government which, has proved both competent and trustworthy. And what would the electors gain 1 The only outcome would be the establishing of conditions under which the Wilford Party nominally in power would be controlled and dominated by the extreme Labour Party. * The bare possibility of. Mr. Wilford and Mr. Holland controlling the Government of the Dominion at the present time should bo sufficient to rally every elector who gives the matter a moment’s thought z to the side of the candidates who are standing with Mr. Massey for sound and stable government. ,