WHERE IS THE NEW BLOOD?

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 134, 4 December 1919, Page 4

WHERE IS THE NEW BLOOD?

The hope for new blood in political candidatures is not being realised, at any fate in the Wellington group of electorates. The much-talked-of legal invasion has not yet occurred; candidates like M;\ John Hutcheson are unfortunately not available; and-in the. political colt division promising material is -very scarce. Parliamentary life is elevated by men of calibre, even if they be of diverse tern peraments, diverse gifts, and different parties. Thomas Taylor (deceased), John Hutcheson, and (Sir) John Find] ay can only be bracketed because they possessed or possess qualities of heart or of brain— or both—put of the common. Neither of the living members of the trio will be in the next House; and while Mr. Pirani is trying to maintain something of what was best in the old tradition, exponents o£ 'the new school of political thought are still, like Achilles, :n their tents. In this district, none of the Labour " young men " appears to have sufficient ability to create a stir anywhere. Colonel Mit. chell, Independent, is shaping well in Wellington South, and in Wellington Suburbs the Liberal candidate, Mr. Dunbar Sloane, is winning notice. But, unless something happens in the Wellington electorate before nominations close, the harvest will be small. And reports from the rest of New Zealand are about equally uninspiring.

. The general, longing for good men, men of outstanding ability, is illustrated by the sympathetic interest felt in many parts of New Zealand in the candidature of an Aucklander, Mr. Gunson. There is a general idea that public life in Auck land has unearthed an independent character whose talents will be useful in the national sphere,* and many people who don't know what Mr. Gunson's party leanings are, and don't care what they are, would like to ses him in Parliament. These are persons of national vision • but as, under our electoral system, there are no national pathways into the House cf Representatives, but only local pathways, littered with all sorts of local obstacles not .appreciated outside the neighbourhood, it is quite possible that all the widespread sympathy elsewhere may not save the absent Mr. Gunson (or any similar candidate) from local defeat. As everyone knows, all the former Parliamentarians honourably mentioned in the first paragraph of this article have tasted of electoral defeat at least once. Advocates of large electorates and the proportional voting system will cite these facts in support of their reform, and will plead that in no other way can nationallyminded candidates be sure of national acceptance.

But meanwhile facts must be faced as they are, and the principal of them is that, under " first-past-the-post " bassd on local electorates, new talent is not coming forward in conspicuous force. A progress report at this stage must hold out little hope of the dry bones of politics being shaken up as they deserve to be. Perhaps, in order that things may he better, they must first become worse.