NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 36, 6 November 1928, Page 10

NOTES OF THE DAY

From time to'time we are permitted to glimpse a little further round the corner; some new discovery some new twist to an old idea and we blunder just a little further forward. The future, totalising to-dav, would have been maddening to the voyagers of old if they had only known how simple voyaging would become when marvels of which they never even dreamt had become accepted practice. One wonders sometimes if we really realise how our discoveries will seem when later centuries have ™ acle practice so absurdly simple. Just tlunk of Captain Cook. Yester day 155 years ago, he anchored for the first time off Barrett s Point, iust by Wellington Heads. An unpleasant place to anchor you would say, yet how was he to know that just round the corner, where contrary winds prevented him from going, there lay a peaceful anchorage, where round another corner the corner of the centimes would spring up a great city?

Some of the United Party candidates have been getting themselves into a rare tangle in their endeavour to answer the simple question as to how they would vote on a no-confidence motion it it meant putting the Labour-Socialists into office. Some say Aye and some say “No,” and some wriggle. Mr. Veitch is one of the last-named. He belongs to the old school of politicians who imagine they can fool the public by confusing an issue with an evasive answer. When asked how he would vote on a no-confidence motion, he said he would vote to get his own party control that he would not vote to have either Mr. Coates or Mr. Holland Premier. This evasion should be enlightening to the electors of Wanganui, for though Mr. Veitch dodges the question, he discloses his own political weakness. There is only one reason why. he should attempt to avoid giving a straight-out answer to the question of whether he would vote with the Labour-Socialist Party against the Government on a no-confidence motion, and that is that he fears to. lose a few stray votes one way or the other. In the past he has succeeded in persuading a certain number of Labour vote'rs that he is still one of them; while there have been Reform voters foolish enough to believe that after all there is very little difference between his views and Reform. So he has held his seat by seducing votes from both sides. On the present occasion, with a very live and enterprising candidate carrying the Reform banner and a well-known champion of the Labour-Socialist Party also in the field, Mr. Veitch’s old trick is not likely to divert many votes. Reform voters will be very foolish if they fall into such a plain trap on the present occasion.

Mrs. M. Young, the Independent Labour candidate for the Wellington Central seat, last evening proved her case. She had stated at her preliminary meeting that under the present leaders of the Labour-Socialist Party individual members were not allowed to have opinions of their own. And she added that if they disagreed with the leaders they were branded as traitors. Her charge was substantiated by the cowardly attempt made last night to prevent her putting her case before the public. It was a disgraceful exhibition on the part of those who, resenting her appearance in the field against Mr. Peter Fraser, heckled and badgered and insulted her as she endeavoured to explain the reasons for her candidature. That a woman making her first appearance on the public platform should have been subjected to such a nerve-wracking ordeal was quite sufficient evidence in itself of the lengths to which a certain section of the Labour-Socialist Party will go in attempting to suppress freedom of speech for those with whom they differ. It says a good deal for Mrs.' Young’s courage and strength of purpose that in the face of such unmannerly interruptions she held her ground at all. Probably the impression created on the public mind by the evening s. happenings will be quite as effective as if she had succeeded in delivering the speech she had prepared for the occasion. Naturally people ' will ask'why the Labour-Socialist Party is so anxious that the disclosures promised by Mrs. Young should not be made public. In any case we doubt very much whether the overzealous supporters of Mr. Peter Fraser’s cause have improved the chances of the Labour-Socialist candidate by the treatment accorded Mrs. hist cveyin&