MR MASSEY’S CHALLENGE

Evening Star, Issue 12647, 30 October 1905, Page 3

MR MASSEY’S CHALLENGE

V VIGOROUS PROCLAMATION OF POLITICAL FAITH. [SI’KQAL XO TUB STAB.] CHRLSTCHUECH, October 28. The ‘Lyttelton Times’ accepts Mr Massey’s challenge to impeach the Premier for his conduct' over the Lund for Settlements Kxtchsion Bill. It. declines to believe that Mr Seddon really meant to renounce all his former professions on the land question, though it admits that his vote certainly required explanation. It says; —“The electors are entitled to know, quite apart from the fate of any particular measure, whether the Government are going to stand by a liberal land policy, or whether they are going to drop it at the bidding of the Opposition and the Farmers’ Union. It is more obvious than over now that Mr Seddon made a grave tactical blunder in not accepting Mr Massey's challenge at the beginning of the season. All misunderstanding about his intentions might then have been easily removed, and an appeal to the constituencies would have effectively silenced the cry for freehold. We have no shadow of doubt that the heart of the country is sound on the land question. Mr Massey and his friends, by persistent misrepresentation, may make a few of the Crown tenants imagine that their leases and their liberties are in. peril, but it is an insult to the intelligence of the great mass of the people to say that they are anxious to go on buying land for a mere handful of lucky individuals to convert into freeholds. If this is to lie the new policy of the Liberal party, then the Liberal party roost be reconstructed. The men and women who have been fighting during the past dozen years against the evils of the aggregation monopoly are not going to abandon the first tenets of their political faith to ■ save the face of any party tender.’’