The Evening Star. FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1908.

Evening Star, Issue 12964, 29 May 1908, Page 4

The Evening Star. FRIDAY, MAY 29, 1908.

In his speech at MiHon on Wednesday—a speed* contrasting «jtranger7 I "CoslMwnee" but pleasantly, as regards • anrt«Co»lltlon." toneand temper, with many previous utterances from the same platform—Mr James Allen expressed his approval of the project of uniting the Liberal awl Conservative parties. He deprecat33 "coalescence," but favors "coali- • tion." Truth to say, the distinction is rather too fine for the average powers of perception. Our dictionary defines " coalescence'' as "union," and "coalition" as "the act of coalescing": a matter of tweedledum and tweedfedee. Apart from mere wording, howevar, Mr Allen's desire for union is a noteworthy phenomenon. Tor more than twenty years the. member for Bruce has been one of the most trcn:hant and unwmpromising opponents of Liberalism and all its works; he has held ip the policy of Mr Seddon and Sir Joseph Ward to scorn and reprobation; he has {pared no pains to show that the finances af the Dominion, under the control of those statesmen, were in a most dangerous condition: in short, he-has been a consistent and undeniably able champion of the reactionary party. And now he is ready to join forces with the enemy. Why? He has not changed his political faith: at least the Milton speech contains no admission of change; and assuredly the liberal Government and party have not changed theirs. The Leader of the Opposition, we take it, would be considerably astonished when he read the report of what his lieutenant had been saying—unless indeed, Mr Allen had thoughtfully prepared him. For there has been no hint either of "coalescence" or of "coalition" in the •ddresees which Mr Maasey has delivered •luring the recess. He has not changed his tone. In his eyes the Ward Government are still all that is politically bad and dangerous—the abetters of Socialists and Land Nationolisers, if indeed they are not Land Nationalkers and Socialists themselves. And, at least in on© important respect, Mr Mwsey is right. Of course he .exaggerates

tremendously tho Radical tendencies of the Ministry, and misrepresents their policy in order to provoke the apprehensions of timid and reactionary wuls—and so far he is wrong; but he is right in clearly recognising that there is a wide and apparently' impassable gulf between himself and the bulk of his supporters, on the one hand, and the Liberal Ministry and party on tho other. Ho gave no countenance to Mr Thomas Mackenzie's advocacy of coalition (or was it "coalescence"?): indeed, speaking a few days after the date of tho famous Palmerston pronouncement, he took occasion to accentuate the differences between the two parties. Wc can hardly suppose that he will adopt a novel attitude towards Mr Allen's suggestions. The "Socialist" bogey is as terrible to Mr Maesey as to the member for Bruce, but he seeks to arrest it, not by throwing himcelf into the arms of tho politicians whom ho has concistcntly and fiercely opposed, but by trying to rouse and reinforce the forlorn forces of New Zealand Toryism. By means of active misrepresentation he hopes to pervert tho agricultural interest, and ..perhaps ho has succeeded to some extent already. Some of the Northern branches of the so-called Farmers' Union arc neither moro nor lees than political agencies—Conservative agencies—at the present time; and tho resolutions which they pass at their conferences serve to show the absurdity of pretending that the principles and objects of the two parties are virtually identical. Tho "coalitionists" tell us that tho Land Question need not stand in tho way of union: it has been settled, at any rate for many years, on tho basis of last year's compromise. What said the actmg provincial president of the Auckland Executive of tho Farmers' Union a week ago? Referring to the land legislation, he declared that " the "provisions were iniquitous,and the Union "must fight until the obnoxious clauses "were eliminated." Would Mr Allen's coalition party (led by Sir Joseph Ward) aid cr re-ist this reactionary struggle? Again: "So long as the Union continued their "spineless political attitude they would be "unable to make their power felt in the "government of the country." In other words, the Union should openly join the Conservative party in order to secure the repeal of Liberal land lawst It was resolved that the Conference protest against the land nationalising policy of the Government—the Government whose leader is to be the head of the great coalition. At Wellington the Provincial Conference demanded an amendment of the Loud Act so that all Crown tenants (including holding under the Land for Settlements Act) should have the option of buying the freehold at the original value. This is Mr Massey's policy: will it bo the policy |of tho Ward-Massey-Allen coalition? Black is black, and white is white, and New Zealand Liberalism and Conservatism remain essentially what they- wore in Mr Seddon's day. If Mr Allen's views have changed and he finds himself in agreement with the Liberal policy of Sir Joseph Ward, he should join the Ministerialist party, instead of helping to confuse political issues by fantastic advocacy of " coalition" or " coalescence." The Ministry and tho Liberal party aTe strong enough to be able to dispense with alliances which would involve a serious breach of political integrity, and which nothing short of a porI teutons national danger could be held to justify. The activity of a certain number of Socialistic extremists dees not constitute such a danger.