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Evening Star, Issue 13090, 24 October 1908, Page 6

Mr E. G. Allen comes before the Chalmers electors with a fairly Th« long record of consistent Cfaslnen S»at. service. It was in 1893 that he first stood for the Port seat, and on that occasion he was beaten by the present Minister of Labor, but it was a fight between two Liberals, and there is not the slightest warrant for the statement that Mr Alien was then a supporter of the Conservative party. We have refreshed our memory with a glance at his reported utterances during the campaign, and it is sufficiently clear that he would have acted with the Ministerialists if he had been a member in 1894-96. Three years later, when Mr Millar transferred his candidature to Dunedin, Mr Allen was elected at the Port, and the confidence which his constituents have reposed in him continuously since that time is not likely to be withdrawn next month. He has served them with assiduity and intelligence, both in local and national affairs. His political critics are in the habit of alluding to him slightingly, as a member who is ready to support the Government through thick and thin, without much regard to the merits of the questions to be decided. Disparaging reflections of this kind must be expected by those members of a parliamentary majority who have no penchant for wobbling, and whose intelligent steadiness in further-

ing their avowed .principles naturally irritates a minority bent--on hampering progress. In point of "the country owes a debt of gratitude'to parliamentarians of Mr E; G. Allen’s iritarop, seeing that their strong consistency of and'action haa enabledthe Seddon and Ward Administrations to give legislative effect to the wishes of 'the - 1 people. We may not share Mr Allen’s' “ firm belief in party government,” but we recognise that so long as the system lasts- the so-called ” independent ” member must necessarily be a futile personage. If Mr Allen’s opponents have nothing to urge , against him beyond the fact that he makes a practice of voting with his party, and generally supports Liberal measures and administration, their case may justly be ignored. His speech on Thursday evening may not have been entertaining or original, but it furnished a lucid and careful review of the political situation, and his hearers probably felt that their interests might safely be left in the hands of one who had served them faithfully in the past. The details do riot call for special comment, but we may just note that Mr Allen (who is a useful member of the Public Accounts Committee) always speaks according to knowledge and sound sense on the subject of finance.

If our references to Mr William Barr’s candidature should be hither brief, it must not be supposed that we either question his right to stand as an Independent candidate for Chalmers or that we undervalue the personal credentials mentioned by Mr John MacGregor, who presided at the Anderson Bay meeting on Thursday night. We believe Mr Barr to be “ a “ high-minded, intelligent, and honorable “man”; but neither his individual worth nor bis hereditary interest in politics can be regarded as a conclusive reason why the Port electors should send him to Parliament in Mr E. G. Allen’s stead. And it cannot be said that he adduced any better reasons : nay, perhaps it should bo candidly affirmed that he unconsciously showed good cause why he should not be torn aivay from the studious seclusion of private life. Cruder speeches have doubtless been delivered in Otago during election time, but that is as far as we can go in the way of admission. Mr Barr is a Socialist —of sorts—and also, strangely enough, a supporter of the Freehold tenure; but the aggressive Socialists would probably regard some of his doctrines and methods as milk-and-watery, to say the least. Neither on the Labor problem nor on the state of the money market were his remarks of a luminous kind, and the speech was characterised by a general haziness which must have left the audience in considerable doubt as to what the speaker really thought and wanted. Mr Barr may become less obscure as the campaign proceeds, but we do not expect him to become more convincing, and his candidature can only be regarded as an interesting eccentricity.