Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1914. AN INEFFICIENT OPPOSITION

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 29, 4 February 1914, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1914. AN INEFFICIENT OPPOSITION

To-day a remnant of the once great Liberal Party is assembled in Wellington, in the hope that it will be able to get a discharge from political bankruptcy, and ecrape up enough new or old patents (reconditioned) for a showy window-dressing, as the beginning of a new career. When the members were here for their conclave yesterday they had at breakfast some "hot toaat" (with no butter) from Sir John Findlay, who has kindly taken the role of candid friend. We use the word "kindly" with good cause, for it is a charity to the compound Opposition to tell it some home truths. In his well-timed homily in the New Zealand Time*, Sir John practically chided the vague party for an element of humbug or false pretences, though, of course, he did not use those words. Yet, what other deduction is to be drawn from this statement :—: — "If the Liberal Party is to be left with no clear outstanding differences of policy from the Massey Party, it must, in my judgment, cease to have any real existence, and survive merely in name— a mournful example of how great pristine vigour may through listlessness and timidity sink to impotence and ineptitude." '"Liberal Party, know yourself ! Define yourself ! Havo a distinct creed ! Have a war-cry, to rouse and rally the masses," is virtually the plain advice of Sir John Findlay. He does not disguise his Lelief, which is shared by a majority of fair observers, that the Liberal Party, as a fighting organisation, has no clarion call for the people, no ringing messagenothing to inspire the electors. To-day New Zedland has the pathetic spectacle of a party groping for a policy — a party that was' in office for over twenty years. Have the head men forgotten the "policies" in the Governor's Speeches of February and July, 1912? Did they not claim that these were "policies" for the people, and not desperate shifts to eke out a beggarly existence, because it was beggarly in thb final ignoble days of office. Ip was a stupendous scheme to be marvellously generous to the taxpayers with their own money. In all that ruin of fragments 'is there not one basket of "raw material" for policy to be gathered t now and pieced to- ' gether laboriously? Or is each unit at the caucus praying fervently that somebody else will have an inspiration with no direct suggestion of opportunism and office-hunger? During recent months various members of the party have been hoping for something like an alliance with. Labour and to have also the aid of the Red Federals for an assault on the Treasury Benches. The Reds suspect guile, and they have frankly proclaimed an unwillingness to play cat at the fire for a Liberal monkey. Some Liberals expect that by subtlety they may delude the Reds, but the Socialists are obviously suspicious, and- the Labour Party proper is also wary. What, then, will the Liberals do, definitely, when they face a critical public, and what will they say? Will the caucus unfurl a banner with the line, "Land for the People, and People for the Land" ? Is it intended to have e a 6enous campaign of which the true purpose will be to break up, subdivide, and settle tho big estates? Is the party to have at last, after two years' hard thinking and stock-taking, something worth hearing? A very curious New Zealand is awaiting Sir Joseph Ward's promised policy speech.