Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1928. THE GOVERNMENT'S DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 140, 15 June 1928, Page 8

Evening Post. FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1928. THE GOVERNMENT'S DEFENCE

With the General Election less than six months ahead and Parliament meeting for the last session of the present term within a fortnight, the Prime Minister and his colleagues are wise to recognise that it is time to overcome their natural modesty and to show themselves before the public. At the last General Election Mr. Coates was returned to power with a majority unparalleled since. Mr. Seddon was at the height of his popularity, but it stood upon a much more precarious foundation. The great majorities of the veteran were based chiefly upon t performance, but the astonishing success of one who at the time was but a novice in leadership was necessarily based chiefly upon hope. The combination of personal and sentimental causes which gave Mr. Coates the full benefit of his late chief's hard-earned majority and a good deal more cannot possibly recur. "Hope, once crushed," is, as the poet says, "less quick to spring again," and when hopes are as extravagant as many of those which carried the Reform leader to victory in 1925 it is just as well that they should not. The extravagance of those hopes has left a legacy of disappointment which, aggravated by the pinch of economic depression, has reversed the luck of three years ago. The Government which was then able to carry all before it is now placed on the defensive, and last night's meeting in the Town Hall shows that it is not blind to the fact. Neither in numbers nor in goodwill did the meeting give the Prime Minister or either of the colleagues who accompanied him any ground for complaint. "The fair and sympathetic hearing" which the Mayor bespoke was fully realised. All three Ministers were well received, but especially the Prime Minister himself, and it was evident that he had much to say that the meeting was very glad to hear. His speech was not, he said, "a policy speech in the full sense of the term," but it went about half-way. Much had to be held over for the session, and perhaps more for the'election campaign, but. the retrospective review of what the Government had accomplished and of the unforeseen difficulties of hard times which had straitened their normal activities and demanded new ones was of genuine, educative value. Much of the exposition of principles was, however, too general and too familiar to be of much service. One of the most familiar points might, indeed, have been omitted or drastically revised with advantage. It is quite funny at this time of day to see the place of honour among "the outstanding principles for which the Reform Party stands" assigned to free, secular, and compulsory, education. Though the Reform Party stands for this principle, most of its M.P.'s do not. Though the Reform Government stands for it, nearly all of its members do not. The party would have jettisoned this "outstanding principle" by virtually deleting the word "secular" from the Education Act if the other parties had not rallied in force and kept it to its pledge. The most telling parts of the Prime Minister's speech were those in which he dealt with the economic depression, the steadily improving financial position, the broad contrast between the aims of Reform and Labour, and the choice of the electors as practically restricted to these two. The exposition of the impracticability of the Labour Party's ideals was particularly effective, and it was relieved by a welcome touch of humour in the suggestion that the party might be given a thousand acres of land in which to make its experiments and "with short hours and high wages to produce foodstuffs for the people cheaper than the farmer can do it." But though the contrast between the policies of Labour and Reform appeals very strongly to the commonsense of the electorate, and the discerning can see that in such changes as those from the public ownership to "usehold" and from "usehold" to leasehold the.,, Labour Party is not altering its direction but merely taking shorter steps, Reform is not going to win on a mere negation. To the elaboration of a convincing criticism of Labour policy in greater detail than Mr. Coates was able to give last night should be added a clearer and more definite exposition of positive policy. Both the defence of the Government and the defeat of its opponents can be best conducted on constructive lines. In one respect the Government may even be said to have abandoned its own principles for those of its opponents. "More business in Government and less Government in business" is an excellent ideal which has had a measure of fulfilment in the appointment of a General Manager of Railways to reorganise that Department on commercial lines. On the other hand, not "less Government in business" but more is the principle underlying the. special consideration extended to one class of the community or another in the rural credit schemes which carry substanlial,Stale aid, in the Motor-bus Regulations which have been proved to go beyond the point of equalising competition and actually create a monopoly for

existing interests, in the pork subsidy, and in the increased protection of wheat-growers, coupled with a Minister's advice to them to hold their wheat. We are far from suggesting that public enterprises should be made to yield to private interests, but we share the widespread feeling —a feeling which is far stronger among the supporters of the Government than on the other side—that in violation of one of its own maxims the Government has been led lo carry public interference too far. Land settlement, taxation reform, and the choice of candidates are three other important issues with which we had hoped to deal. The Government should realise that ihf* country is in a critical mood, and that, though there is no fear of any considerable accession to the strength of the Labour Party on the merits, those who in bad times are always apt to vote for a change for the mere sake of a change will be particularly likely to do so if the Government seems to take livings too easily or to let them drift.