Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER, 10, 1919. DIRECT ISSUES

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 139, 10 December 1919, Page 4

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER, 10, 1919. DIRECT ISSUES

We referred yesterday to the striking fashion in which the nominations emphasise the danger threatened to the country by tho division of the forces that stand for law, order, patriotism, and sound progress. The first three of these essentials of civilisation have never before been seriously challenged at any General Election in this country, and as to tho fourth of them controversy has hitherto turned almost entirely upon questions of ksa or more within safe and fairly well defined limits—questions of j detail on which responsible, law-abiding, I ! and patriotic citizens v could reasonably differ. How citizens of. this type who still form an overwhelming majority of i th-> people can be content, in presence of the danger that threatens them all, not merely to continue their traditional quarrel, but to spare no effort to inflame prejudices and passions that the war had laid to rest, is a question which seems to us even harder to answer than it was three months ago. The dissolution of the compact was, of course, the work of tho j politicians, and in no small measure it was the work of a politician whose long absence from tha country had necessarily put him 'to some extent out of touchy with local conditions. Personal differences and personal ambitions contributed to disqualify the politicians from an impartial judgment on the matter, but even after their decision had been formed, and the decks had been cleared for action, there was reason to hope that their second thoughts would be wiser than their first, and that the detached common sense of tho country would at least mitigate the mischief of an unfortunate decision. We believe that the public regards the dissolution of the Coalition with even more disfavour to-day than it did at the time, but there is little indeed to encourage the hope that this opinion is as active as it is widespread. Whatever else may be said against the Labour Party, it cannot be reasonably held responsible for the blindness, the apathy, the concentration upon differences of relatively trifling importance, to which it owes what one of its leaders has described as the chance of a life-tirae. Like other parties, the Labour Party has not been entirely; superior to the camouflage which seeks at election times to obscure or to accommodate to the popular taste the very points that at other times have been. accustomed to draw the loudest plaudits from enthusiastic partisans. But, despite this inevitable toning down, enough has remained to leave not the slightest room for doubt as to the revolutionary aims of the party and the ruin which they threaten to almost every institution and ideal that is held in honour by the people of this country. The constitution, the objective, and the methods of the Labour Party under its present leadership stand out too clearly for the subtlest electioneering finesse to conceal or to disguise. And, to do the party justice, incidents that are not in the programme have done more to aggravate the impression produced by the formal declarations to which we have referred than any evasion or accommodation has done to weaken it. The silence of the Labour Party has indeed in some respects been more eloquent than fhe most uncompromising of its written professions of faith or the wildest polemics of its least responsible member while the war was-still on. and there was no election m sight. What is the .attitude of the party to the Crown and the Empire? This is a question which attracted a great deal of attention during the war, but it would now drop entirely out of sight if the leaders of the party had their way. They are ea*er and voluble on an immense number of comparatively small matters, but on an issue of such supreme importance-as this ih«y hn.vu nnjliimr to say. Tlwy are .ml. only silent, but obstinately silent. They

are silent in the face of the most peremp- ! tor.y and defamatory -charges possible. The loyalty of a political- party has never been in issue at a General Election in this country before. It has never been questioned, because there has been no need to question it. But in the present case the question has been raised by the utterances of the Labour leaders during tho war, and their silence in the election campaign suggests that they can say nothing now to qualify those utterances. Three or four weeks ago they were publicly branded by the Mayor of Te Kuiti as disloyal to King and country, but they have not replied. A week ago eighty loyal citizens of Murchison retired from Mr. H. E. Holland's meeting on the ground that they did not want to listen to a man who was disloyal. Mr. Holland remained in possession of the remnant of the meeting, but neither he nor they appear to have thought it necessary to affirm his or the party's loyalty. Nor has any other of the incriminated leaders come forward to supply the omission. Silence under such conditions is, as we have suggested, more eloquent than words, for it admits of only one possible conclusion—viz., thai, the charges are true. Actions, are also sometimes more eloquent than words, and we have a remarkable illustration of the fact in the attitude of those who claim to be the only genuine apostles of freedom to free speech. The Labour Party professes a belief in free speech, yet in Wellington and in Auckland its opponents have frequently been denied a fair hearing. Not democracy but despotism, not freedom but lawlessness, is really the creed of a party which behaves in this way. It practises political "direct action" against its opponents, while praising free speech, and prudently refraining from repeating its previous eulogies of direct action in industrial matters. On this last point, however, the electors should not be deceived by camouflage, and they oughtto "be grateful to Mr. Bloodworth, Labour candidate for Parnell, for a timely utterance, which puts the matter plainly and bluntly. "If Labour is prevented from expressing itself politically and constitutionally," Mr. Bloodworth is reported as saying, " then the time is coming when Labour will express itself in some other way." What does this mean but that, if the party does'not secure a majority at the polls, it will take its revenge as a minority by direct action? Such being the attitude to the absolutely bedrock issues of loyalty, free speech, and constitutional government, we should bo glad to know how the relatively petty differences between Liberals and Reformers can justify the division which in no fewer than thirty-fonr electorates gives revolutionary Labour a chance of winning on a minority vote.