Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1923. THE POLITICAL TANGLE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 32, 7 February 1923, Page 4

Evening Post. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 1923. THE POLITICAL TANGLE

Exactly two calendar, months after the electors recorded their verdict at the polls Parliament meets to-day to determine what it means. As a preliminary to the Parliamentary discussion, each of the three parties held a full meeting of its members, and it is hardly necessary to say that, long before the gathering of the clans in Wellington; those particularly concerned had been busily engaged in pricking cards, pulling wires, and, to use the phrase coined, if We are not mistaken, by that genius in political engineering, Mr. Lloyd George, " exploring avenues." The details of this interesting process, in which his special responsibility has necessarily imposed upon the Prime Minister the leading role; are not yet public property, nor is it likely that they ever will be. Even the general result has not been formally disclosed, but it. is commonly supposed to be sufficiently satisfactory from the Governrftent's point' of view to enable is to survive the ordeal with which it is immediately confronted, and to carry on at any rate until, as a result of the election petitions that are pending, or other small changes, the small margin disappears and the House reverses its decision in a later session. Even for this brief respite the country, no less than the Government, will have good cause to be.' thankful; Though 'the re-stilt of the General Election was undoubtedly a serious set-back for the Government, it conveyed no suggestion that the' electors' had greater confidence in any other party, nor does there appeal to be any. chance of forming any s'tkble Government during the present Parliament except under Mr. Mas'sey. Stability is the country's supreme need 1, but the alternatives' . to the present administration' appear to be weakness, chaos, and dissolution.

Very little' light is thrown upon the' problem' by the party meetingsHeld yesterday. Of the Reform Party's meeting Mr. Massey had nothing to report, and the report of the meeting of the Laboui Party is confined to a list of the officers elected. There was, however, nothing to be expscted from either of these meetings. The attitude of both Reform and Labour is so well known that no further definition is needed. The Reform Party had put all its cards on the table at the caucus which it held on the 11th January. The pith of its pronouncement was that the crucial issue, is the advance of Revolutionary Socialism and the power with which the three-party system and the chances of tli'e elections threaten to provide its advocates. In, order to avert SotE this danger and that of holding another General Election' during the present financial depression, the Reform Party accordingly- declared that it

will welcome any equitable arrangement by which those members of Parliament who are opposed, to Communism may be brought together with the object of expediting the country)s business and keeping.in checli: any section .who favour principles subversive of the best interests of the Dominion.

The'attitude of Labour haS not even needed a formal declaration of this kind to make it clear. Labour will not compromise with eitEer pf the " capitalistic " or Imperially^ minded parties whose" dissensions on subsidiary pointa' have obscured tfieir essential unity and given Labour its chance. It is for a declaration from the second; of these antiLabour pasties that the country has been waiting, but the_ Liberals' have been very coy. They had a good deal to say at fihe Lower Hutt meeting last week,- but, so far as the great practical issiie which has to" be decided during the next week or two is" concerned, it was " an infinite deal of nothing." Something more definite than the most unimpeaichabre" copy-book platitudes' Of Liberalism — unimpeachable 1; but eqimlly applicable to any other finite Or any other country;—is needed. In general exposition of this kirid the Leader of the Opposition is Always at his best.

What they -wanted, he said, was not Tory reactionaries, not the direct action of the Labour extremists, but sSiie, moderate progress. Not x'eactipn,- not resolution^.but evolution was whit -was needed in' the bfest interests of our cotfntfy. Anai-ohy^wais no good on the one side; despotism was no good on the other. Mere autocracy could not successfully combat Socialist exteemian. Liberal-Lab-our principles afforded the only sound, practical alternative^

The essential point at present is not the' valii6 of Liberal principle's or Lrberal-Labour principles in the abstract, but whether Liberals will seek to promote those principles by combining with; Red Labour to ottst a party which is for all practical purposes as Liberal as they are themselves, arid Witt, whicfi on tHose great national and Imperial issues that are anathema to Labour they are protid to be associated. The 1 nearest' approach that Mr. Wilfofd . has personally made to the point raised by the Reform Party's res'biu'tion. ■ftas when he asked whether it contemplated an amalgamation or co-operation v/Mch would deprive him of the Opposition leadership and give Mr. Holland the right to form tjie next Ministi-y- This question, which Mi-. WSfdrd had previously asked ;it Stratford, does not really present the appalling difficulty that Mr. Wilford supposes. If Mr. Holland; or a ncr-6dtt6ae,nce' motioii i^o'vtsd by,~Mr. Holland, is supportld' by" a

majority of the House, no constitutional means can defeat the right of Mr. Holland to be sent for by the Governor-General. The only questions for Mr. Wilforct and his paity are whether Mr. Holland is the _ likelier' to get this chance with their, support or without it, and whether they can square a determination to improve his chance with their obligations to the country and to the Empire.

TheSe questions' were not' touched by the Liberal orators last week, nor by the resolutions passed by the' p'a'rtyjs caucus y'esterd'a.y. The Liberal Party wilf maintain its separatel identity, " initiating, propagating, and 1 supporting t-KeS principles of true Literalism and the real interests of the people." It will continue' it's opposition fr&th to the' Reform Party" so long as that party represents vested interests. and monopolies of all kinds, and to " all extreme' revolutionary; proposals." Whether it will endeavour to play into the Hand's of the revolutionaries' by turning the Reform Party out, or whetEer it* is prepared ib niafce itself putty 1 in ffteif hands in order to keep that party out; are questions left formally open. But the answer to the first of them is not beyond all conjecture.