The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 1906.

Evening Star, Issue 12868, 18 July 1906, Page 4

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 1906.

Last night we published a long letter ■written by Mr J. T. Pad Labor in answer to our leading Politics. article of the 12th Lost. It is a pleasure to reply to such a clewer and courteous eommnnicatiniL Atid in this connection we may note our correspondent's protest against the Suggestion that oar criticisms might not be taken in a friendiy spirit. Assuredly we did not erpect any wanton hostility from Mr Paul lrhjrtseli: yet there was sotne ground far a general expression of misgiving. A f£w mdttths ago some coOHnehts of ours ohjindusfcrial matters evoked a reply which was deplorable in tone and temper, the possibility of the 'Star' having goodwill towards Labor being scooted in quite outrageous terms. That letter, it id tme, wis sfgtted by an " Executive," not by an individual; but nafcuftdly It l&ft an uwpkaisani impressiom on out mind. Perhaps tips " Executive'' oi the Independent Political League, had they answered our last article, would have disrplayed less urbanity than 3tr Paul. Anyhow, we gladly respond to the proposition that " a tanrrororey can be wttgdd in a fair spirit," itftA desire to acknowledge the unprovocauhte tone displayed by Mr PauL as we& as by Mrßreen, whose leitfer (hardly requiring special aaswer) appSfired on Saturday. In ttfe&fd to amna of tho jjointe at igcue

it would be ftrtae to try to reconcile Mr Paul's views and our own. We disagree, and there is no more to be said. For instance, we are quite unabte to believe that Labor or any other interest {save reaction) would have benefited by the non-existence of the Liberal-Labor alliance during the last fifteen years. In which lobby, wo lire asked, would the Independent Laborites have been found? With the Liberals, when it suited them, no doubt; but there would have been mufcoaii suspicion instead of cordial co-operation, and the potent, propelling influence of Mr Seddon as a progressive legislator would have been sorely hampered. The parliamentary strength of the > Conservatives would have been increased by three-cornered contests at election time, and their strength in the country by a manifestation, of impatience or disgust on the part of many voters anxious to avoid such political conditions' as have prevailed in Australia during the last few years. Liberalism might not have been strong enough to overpower the combined forces of Labor and Conservatism—and the combination is not unthinkable. " Experience teaches us/' says Mr-Paul, "that the Conservative party are With due respect, experience (as represented by the number of votes polled for Conservative candidates last December) teaches nothing of the kind. The cause of reaction is very much alive; and, as Mr Massey is fond of pointing out, a system of prbportional voting would give it a highly respectable, not to say formidable, appearance in Parliament. We grant that without the alliance Labor might, as a party, have been more busy and conspicuous, but we believe that the general effect would have been nrischievons rather than beneficent, and we see no reason to suppose that the virtual disruption of the alliance at the present juncture would produce less dangerous results. u Tho workers have lost the wan who tried to do much for them": ergo, according to Mr Paul, they should straightway part company with his colleagues and co-workers in Parliament and in the country—the men Without whoSe active and faithful assistance even Mr Seddon could have done little for Labor. Why?—and why now? Is it because Sir Joseph Ward granted a totalieator permit to the Dunedin Jockey Club on Labor Day five years ago? It is ai poor reason, but wo do not know a better. .We are told that the critics of Labor ideals go astray because " they do not know." It tnay bo freely allowed that criticism- from outside is apt to be partial and inadequate, and thsat the Labor party might be expected to know their own business best; but, after all settle of the data necessary to a right judgment arc available to all sympathetic observers; and so long ari tho party as a whole have not actually adopted what we must still term, a disintegrating policy it is our duty, as friends of the alliance, to offer our views and even out counsel.

Ortr quotation, from Burke, iegardin" tbo ethics of representation, has given Mr Paul the text for an interesting discourse, and ire should be ghd to think that his appreciative acquaintance with the great political philosopher was shared by a largo number of his colleagues. "Burke is so great," says Matthew Arnold, "because; almost "alone in England, he brings thought to "bear upon politics—he saturates politics "with thought. ... His greatness is "that he lived in a world which neither "English liberalism nor English' Toryism "is apt tcf enter—the world of ideas, not "the world of catch-words and party "habits." Mr Paid, however, with the assistance of Mr David Syme, detects a fallacy in Burke's reasoning at Bristol. He is unable to endorse the main thesis in what Mr John Morley terms the mordy doctrine there emmcia±ed. For oar own part, wo cannot agree that principle of representation requires to be modified by allowance for the fact that Mr Seddori's father was not bom in 1774. Representative government existed a century arid a-quarter'ago, arid repeated exterisiofis have not affected the fundamental idea. Burke was elected (by a small propottion of the people of Bristol, bat his ground would have been the same if every adult bad possessed the right of voting. Railways, cables, telephones, aind daily newspapers would hardly have changed his convict bn that the determination should not precede the discussion, that- one set of men should not deliberate and another decide and that the subordination of judgment, to a pledge is alike -unconstitutional and contrary to right reason. Parliament is somc--thing more than a lobby in which the votes of primed delegates may be mechanically recorded. We have vainly tried to find some relevance in Mr Paul's rather ad captatidum allusion to events in Dunedin at the time of the Boor Wai. The representative whom he mentions was not censured by us because lie had broken a pledge: what pledge had he given in relation to the war? We never suggested that he should accept an authoritative mandate to vote against his convictions. We drew repeated attention to the fact that he no longer represented the views of the majority of the electors, and emphasised the further fact that (to adopt Syme's wordi) though the constituency could not dismiss liitn it might refuse to reappoint him when his term expired. Burke would have had northing to say .against that. He himself was rejected at Bristol in 1780 on account of his attitude towiards the American War. We quite agree that " pledges of some kind " are absolutely indispensable at every clec"tion"; but their character should be as general as possible, whereas the tendency of Later elecidoneermg—-more, perhaps, in Australia than iii New Zealand—is bo make them oppressively specific and destructive of freedom of judgment in subsequent discussion.