Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1925. NO TIME FOR A GAMBLE

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 115, 19 May 1925, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1925. NO TIME FOR A GAMBLE

The summoning of the Caucus of the Reform Party for the 27th means that in a little more than a week the important problem .of the party leadership, and with it the succession to the Premiership, will be determined. As the session will open within a month from that date the procedure cannot be called precipitate, and there is no reason to suppose either that the meeting will not have before it all the necessary materials for forming a judgment, or that it will not make a proper use of them. We should be glad to be able to speak with equal confidence of the far more important problem which it will hardly be possible for the meeting to avoid, and upon which; even if it or its managers so decide, it will, in effect, have expressed an opinion. In its choice of a leader the Reform Party cannot possibly go wrong. Both the candidates who are in the running are exceptionally qualified, nor is their rivalry of the kind'that-sometimes,, when ;thc claims of the competent candidates are too closely balanced and too fiercely contested, makes room for a colourless incompetent whom all can unite to support because he has no enemies. The Reform Party is sure to choose a good leader, and to do so without straining "the loyalty of any other aspirant or his supporters. But the party will be setting the man of its choice an unenviable, not to say hopeless, task if it does not recognise that a realignment of parties is the only alternative to a period of political instability and possibly chaos which might inflict untold mischief on the country.

What reasonable man can possibly expect that, under the triangular conditions which were introduced into our politics by the rise of the Labour Party, the- Reform Party can possibly do as well at the coming. General Election without the help of Mr. Massey's leadership and the general conn dence which it inspired as they did with that help at the General Elec tion of 1922? Yet, as we pointed out yesterday, luck was nteeded as well as leadership to carry them to victory in 1922. The Reformers were in a minority at the polls, but the chances of our unscientific electoral system and the triangular warfare gave Mr. Massey a majority. And what' a slender and precarious majority it was! What leader is now in sight who could carry on the public business as he did with a margin of three or four which accidents might at any time reduce, to the vanishing point ? No wonder that the labours of two consecutive sessions under such conditions were too much even for our political Hercules. Ho saw the job through, but at a terrible cost. His successor, would not have to pay such a price, because the machine would break down and enable him to take a rest in Opposition long before the physical breakingpoint was reached. *

To give the new leader a chance of surviving even a single session his party would have to do far better at the polls than it did on the last occasion. This means that he must either provide more skilful management and stronger inspiration than Mr. Massey provided, or that he must have much better luck, or that the conditions of the contest must be altered. The first of these suppositions is too absurd to require dismission. To trust to luck is the part not of a statesman but of a gambler, and in the present case it would be the part of a very rash gambler, for as the Reformers had ail the best of the luck in the last two throws the chances are that the next throw will give the other side a turn. But any prudent gambler on either side must surely see that the chance that either Reformers or Liberals could win a working majority from the urxl, triangular lottery is bo BXuaJl that lor. practical purpsses

it may be regarded. as impossible. What was a working majority for Mr. Massey would be useless for his successor, and a larger majority is, as we have argued, beyond reasonable- hope. The Liberals might become strong enough to defeat the Government with the aid of the Labour Party, but the chances are that Labour gains would contribute more than Liberal gains to this result. In any case, the Liberals would be powerless without Red Labour, and unless they are prepared to be false to their traditions and their professions, and to throw their patriotism and their Imperialism to the winds, what would they have gained ? In these circumstances we are unable to see how any Reformer or Liberal who is not blinded by the animosities of party can fail to recognise that the only hope for either party or for the country lies in the union, of the two parties on a national basis. Under Mr. Massey's leadership the Reform Party declared for this solution a few weeks after- the last General Election, and for the reasons given the case is far stronger now. What the Reform Party Caucus which was held on the 11th January, 1923 declared was that ' the line o f political demarcation in this country should be between those citizens who on the one hand believe in progressive and enlightened and constitutional democracy, and on the other of those who favour the policy of Communism or extreme Socialism. .The same resolution favoured "any equitable arrangement " by which the opponents of the. common enemy could be brought together. That the Liberals declined this invitation is no reason why it should not be repeated now. It would at least serve the purpose of putting the Reform Party in the right if the foolish three-cornered fight is'to continue, but we believe that a more positive result would be achieved. Though the Liberal Caucus had nothing to say, recent | Press references show that there is j a new spirit stirring in the party. ..