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Evening Star, Issue 13091, 26 October 1908, Page 4

Prophecy has been termed “ the most gratuitious form of folly,” and “ Talcti T»m,'’ certainly in election matters it is best not to be quit© sure until the numbers go up; but wo shall run no great risk in assuming that Mr Thomas Mackenzie will be member for Taieri on tho evening of November 17, and wo shall not claim kudos if tho assumption proves correct. Mr Mackenzie told the electons at Mosgiel on Friday that he was seeking their suffrages for two reasons—the district had no member and he was a member without a district. On the whole he lias been decidedly fortunate. Not many months ago ha was, prospectively at ’ least, a sort of political Mrs Gumnrridge—“ a lone, lorn ■creature, thinking of the old ’un ” (the old ’un in his case being the doomed Waikouaiti constituency). But tho-Taieri district was also left lone and lorn in consequence of Mr Donald Reid’s retirement, and, as will sometimes happen in favorable circumstances, the two bereaved parties have come together, and all goes merry as a marriage bell. It is a highly suitable match; nobody is likely to forbid the banns on November 17; and there is no reason why tho union should not be prolonged and eminently satisfactory. Dropping the metaphor of courtship, we may remark that there .is some dissatisfaction in Liberal circles on account of Mr Mackenzie’s rather neutral attitude towards tho Government, whose party ho avowedly joined in the early part of tho year. This apparent neutrality may b© due, in a measure, to tho special circumstances of his candidature. He is taking the place of an Opposition member in a more or less amicable way, and naturally wishes to conciliate the Conservative electors as far as possible. Moreover, he still cherishes tho envious notion that Liberal and Conservative principles are virtually identical. Ho recognises only one line of demarcation—the lino “ between “ tto6e who believe in progressive Liberalism “on sound, constitutional linos and those ‘‘who considered that tho State should “nationalise all sources of production, distribution, and exchange, and who .would “call upon tho land to pay tho taxation

j ‘ necessary to cany on the functions i “of government.” It passes our comI prehension how he can read Sir : Joseph Ward’s speeches, on the one hand, and Mr Massey’s and Mr James Allen’s on the other, and still imagine that the Government and the Opposition are not separated by a yet more definite line of demarcation. The Leader of the Opposition and other Conservative followers, especially in the North Island, know better. They make no attempt to disguise the import of the issue between the two parties. They are fighting frankly for the repeal or modification of the Liberal land laws, and they are well aware that their views on this subject are not likely to be harmonised with the principles of the Ward Government. We said last week that Sir Joseph Ward’s remark about the desirability of "taking a rest in legislation” might easily be misinterpreted. Already the less extreme school of Conservatives are beginning to suggest that the two parties might find a basis of union in legislative stationarine&s and the extension of freehold policy. We are convinced that the idea is delusive. The Liberal land laws will stand, and’legislative progress will continue on sound and accepted lines. Wo have no wish to prejudice possible future developments, but if Conservatives and Liberals are to unite before 1911 the Conservatives will have to abandon many of their reactionary doctrines. Better the three-party system than an emasculated and nerveless Liberalism—though we have a confident hope that Liberalism, with the continued aid of a large section of the Labor party, will still prove too much for the forces of Conservatism and revolutionary Socialism, even if those forces should form an unholy alliance. At all events, pending the developments which he desiderates, we trust that Mr Mackenzie will see his way to make good in the new Parliament his profession of Ministerial allegiance, and that he will not harp too insistently on his favorite notions respecting land tenure, which are apart from the general trend of Liberal policy. Some of his illustrations on Friday were nob very felicitous. For instance, ho declared that “the Irish peasantry demanded the three “ Fs—free purchase, free rent, and fixity “of tenure.” Now, the three F’s Lave no relation to freehold tenure or the outright sale of land. The term is connected with the question of tenants’ rights, and is described by Mr John (now Viscount) Morley as “ fair rents to be settled by a “tribunal, fixity of tenure or the right o£ “the tenant to remain in his holding if he “paid his rent, and free gale—that is, his “right to part with his interest. These “‘three F’s’ were the substance of the “ legislation of 1881 ” (‘ Life of Gladstone,' HI., 54). Mr Mackenzie’s use of the term is irrelevant. Some of his other remarks are open to criticism, but on the whole the | Mosgiel speech was interesting and sugges- 1 tive, with a characteristic unoonventionality of treatment, and, indeed, the prospective member for Taieri must not be judged by conventional standards. He ( -is likely to remain a chartered libertine in polities to some degree, to whatever party he -may nominally belong. i