Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1918. UNITY, NOT DIVISION

Evening Post, Volume XCV, Issue 44, 20 February 1918, Page 6

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1918. UNITY, NOT DIVISION

Mr. Brandqp, who has not been fortunate in his chairmen, had to listen to the delivery of another highly (injudicious speech from the chairman of his meeting on Monday. " There must be no raising of contentious issues, sueh 1 as prohibition," said the candidate himself very properly, though he has surely carried a reasonable principle to an unreasonable length when he declines to answer questions relating even to such minor issues of the liquor question as he might if elected have to deal with, and leaves to the electors the not entirely insoluble problem of inferring his views from the nature of the support that he is receiving. If Mr. Brandon affects a judicial reticence, his supporters cannot all be restrained in the same way, and even hig chairmen cannot be induced to make their pose square with his. At the same meeting at which the candidate depre-. cated the raising of contentious issues, his chairman, Mr. A. E. Whyte, actually gave as a reason for rejecting the Government's choice that, unlike the late member, Mr. Luke is a prohibitionist. Mr. Brandon may well ask to be saved from his friends when his plea for the avoidance of contentious issues is thus flagrantly violated by the chairman of the meeting to which his plea was addressed. As two blacks do not make a white, we trust that this evil example will not provoke reprisals. The question before the electors of Wellington North is not that of liquor or no liquor, but of winning or losmg the war. For the winning of the war the support of prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists is equally needed, and that man makes himself an enemy of the State who, whatever his views may be, obscures and jeopardises the Government issue by creating division and inflaming passion on an irrelevant question of relatively trivial importance.

On another important question that is less unpardonably irrelevant, Mr. Brandon himself and his chairman were at one. "The fact was," said Mr. Whyte, " that Mr. Maasey had failed miserably to put public interest before party." Mr. Brandon spoke to the same effect. He j objects to " machine politics run by polij tical bosses," and he stands by way of protest against the assertion by a political leader—a leader, by' the way, to whom, he is eager to give a loyal support in the House—of "all the autocracy" ■which is exhibited by the Kaiser himself. Mr. Brandon and his friends must pardon us -if we decline to take these transports of patriotic indignation too seriously. We have frequently differed from Mr. Massey, and shall differ from him again, but even in Mr. Massey at his worst we have never seen the faintest resemblance to the vices of a Tweed, a. Croker, or a "Mnrphyv On the other hand, if Mr. Massey should ever develop in this undesirable direction, if fhe liberties of New. Zealand should ever be threatened by a despot masquerading under a constitu-' ntlonal guise, or under any other guise, :-w6 cannot believe that Mr. Brandon and Tils supporters will supply the John dSampden or the 'William Tell who may be needed to vindicate the rights of the dsmocraoy. When the rights of dejnocracy in this country were in serious peril from, a too powerful leader we cannot reoall that any of them went into -the firing-line in its defence. Indeed, not to put too fins a point upon it, the very association. of these good people ■with the name of democracy is calculated to raiae a smile. It is not democracy but class, not the public interests but sectional interests and social privileges, not a, broad-minded patriotism but a clouded and narrow vision unaffected by tho tremendous events of the last three years or the possibilities of the future, that are suggested by the instigators of Mr. Brandon's unfortunate enterprise.

Can the Reform Party survive this, 'breach? That is a question to be determined later, and the answer to it may involve a very dangerous reaction against the influences which, havo created the breach if the result is as xmpleasant as it well may be. But the principal concern of us all is not with remote but ■with immediate consequences, and not with party interest's but -with, those of the country. Can the National Government survive the breach which has been pre;eipitated •at-the-.woi'ist. possible nwiaeuH r

To every dispassionate observer it is clear Mr. Brandon may possibly let in an opponent of the Government which he is pledged to support and of the military policy upon which th© honour of the country depends. Suoh a result would, to cay the least, be very embarrassing to the Government, and it might prove worse than embarrassing. The way to avert this blow, and to protect the policy ■which Mr. Brandon undoubtedly assesses at a higher value than his own personal claims, is to vote for Mr. 'Cuke. Mr. Brandon declares 1 that' he could have beaten any of the other three candidates in a straight-out contest. That is a point which we need not discuss; it is entirely irrelevant. The real point is that Mr. Luke was the first in the field and is the duly accredited Government candidate, that he could have woo the seat to a certainty if Mr. Brandon had kept out of the,fight, and that his only chance of defeat is through the Government votes which may be diverted to Mr. Brandon.

A heavy responsibility, therefore, rests upon those electors who, either on personal or. on political grounds, would in normal circumstances rather vote for Mr. Brandon than for Mr. Luke. Mr. Massey has been accused of foisting a [ candidate upon the constituency and of ! subordinating the publio interests to those of party. Both charges are baseless. Before Mr. Luke was officially announced he had the support of a more representative Reform Party meeting than any to which Mr. Brandon can point. The charge of failing to put .the public interests before party is refuted by the contradictory charge which is brought against Mr. Massey by the same'critics—viz., that in giving the Government support to Mr. Luke he is backing a candidate who is not a sufficiently thorough-going, Reformer. Under the normal conditions of party warfare the last consideration would have been entitled to some weight, but its inconsistency with the charge of putting party first is obvious, and at a time when party issues are in abeyance, what is intended by the partisan for censure may well be put by the patriot to 1 the other side of the account. It is to be hoped that the electors as a whole will subordinate every other consideration to a broad view of the needs of the country and the Empire. Whatever Mr. Massey's mistakes or Mr. Luke's shortcomings, or Mr. Brandon's merits, to vote for Mr. Brandon <will be to vote for Mr. Holland, and to vote for Mr. Holland is to vote against the true interests of the country and of the Em- j I pire.