FUTILE TALK

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1913, Page 6

FUTILE TALK

From yesterday's rather dreary discussion, with tho Budget more as an excuse than as a subject of helpful criticism, it is plain that the Opposition is more eager than the Government to drag the debate on to ignoble length of days. Three Oppositionists spoke in succession before a Ministerialist—the only one— decided to take an hour's turn. Apparently the Government is .willing to .allow; the Pppo«itiorj

a mbnopoly of eloquence, ahd the Ministry was chided by Mr. Witty for not supplying alternating currents of verbiage for the limitless reservoirs of Hansard. Tim iB, in effect, a charge thafc the Government was not acting fairly yesterday because it waa not as keen as the Opposition to waste time ond money. The Government can well hope that such charges will increase and multiply. Except for Mr. Isitt's remarks on the Cook Islands the day and night lacked distinction. The Christchurch member, however, by his references to Dr.' Pomare's administration of the Cook Group, gave some compensation for the futility of the debate as a whole. No doubt the people remember well how Rarotonga and these other sunny spots, where "bush beer" (an ardent spirit) is drunk secretly in fragrant groves, remote from the coastal roads, figured again and again during the session of 1911. Mr. R. A. Wright roared "Cook, Cook, Cook" at the public, on many a day, and he bitterly blamed the Ward Government for alleged neglect, callousness, and carelessness in the management of those troublesome dependencies. Now that the country is controlled by a Government which professes to like the word "Reform" better than any other in the language, the people can look for improvements in the islands, but Mr. Isitt contends that this Government has not made a happy beginning. He Bpoke last night, deliberately, from copious notes; his Words were not given in his customary florid, offhand manner. The indictment was serious enough to call for some immediate explanation regarding matters of which the Minister must have information/ but Dr. Pomare contented himself with ironical, unmusical laughter, intermittent ejaculations of "wrong again," and a promise to reply "in time." On the night the score was with Mr. Isitt. A little chorus of "hear, hear" came from a group of Oppositionists when Mr. Mander, a veteran of the Conservative Party, expressed himself in favour of an Elective Executive. As this opinion was given as a minor incidental in a speech which credited the Government with twenty-four reforms, of which sixteeen had been effected in a year, the audience mostly smiled in mild amusement. Mr. Mander's excuse for this harmless bit of "heresy" was that he wished to have an alliance of the Moderate Liberals of both parties against Radicals and Socialists. He mentioned, rightly, that the party lines of demarcation to-day were not very distinct, and he desired unmistakable boundaries. Much of Buch pleading was done after the elections of 1911— and more will be voiced— but meanwhile any talk of coalition of the "Ins" with any large proportion of the "Outs'* is of only thin academic interest. An effort was matje to bring such a scheme on to the plane of practicable politics after the Liberals' downfall in 1911, but the hidden movers made no headway.