STILL A THIRD PARTY.

Evening Star, Issue 18998, 21 July 1925, Page 6

STILL A THIRD PARTY.

Mr Wilforo lias found a now restingplace for liis foot as well as a now name for his party. In one of those rare intervals in his political career whoa ho caught and held tho public oyo for a moment, he became cryptic and spoke about keeping his foot on the soft pedal. He has now got it on the accelerator, and things are moving. Ho promises to break all speed records. The rechristening of the Liberal Party took place on Friday night. By Monday night there had been a “ marvellous response.” • Congratulatory telegrams have been despatched to him. Gisborne, rising superior to its geographical isolation, heads tho rush for reregistration. Feilding, Marton, Bulls, Waimate, Dunedin, Christchurch, and Auckland have not yet taken the decisive step; but they “seem to bo wavering. All that seems necessary is that the executives of their Liberal branches should confer over the wires to the tune of ‘ My Irish Molly,’ urging one another t° Change your name: go on, be game; Begorra, and I’ll do tho same, And—we have the birth of a new party. It is all done to escape the evils and the dangers of the three-party system! Mr Wilford seems to have forgotten this very trivial fact. For instance, he says not with regret, but with pride—that Mr Richard Cobbe, jun., of Feildiug, will stand for the National Party at next election against Mr Gordon the Reform candidate. Truly, as the Prime Minister said last night at Pal-HIW-&5 SEtfasi k ft Jis^r

ning change artist. “Are Mr Wilford and his party groping for’ support?” asked Mr Coates. Mr Wilford had even then given answer already: “From Christchurch came an offer of a Nationalist candidate who never before had stood for or even boon an active supporter of the Liberal-Labor Party.” All his goose are swans. But most clcclors know the type of political aspirant who cither draws His party label out of a hat or weighs the probabilities of this or that ticket having the host, chance in that particular electorate, and then announces a lifelong devotion fo a cause of whose first principles ho has barely begun an elementary study. Evidently some of the wotild-bo bearers of tho National standard know the value of getting in early. Their leader does it. Why should not they? Mr Coates is only human when, beholding this miedifying scramble, reminiscent of looting rather than salvaging after tho stranding of a fine old ship, he declares: “It seems to me almost a tragedy that such a thing should happen. ... I wonder what the hosts

of sincere Liberals in tho country will think about the jettisoning of tho name 1 Liberal.’ ” We also wonder. Mr Wilford has received many congratulatory telegrams. Unfortunately there are no moans of communication with tho unseen world, or perhaps he might bo in receipt of messages of quite another tenor. To put it very bluntly, he has squandered an undeserved inheritance and betrayed a trust. This latest move is corroboration enough of Mr Coates’s contention that the first move (towards fusion) was not purely altruistic. “The desire to amalgamate on a real national basis was only skin deep.” As soon as the Prime Minister said ho could not immediately reconstruct his Cabinet the negotiations were off. Tho path now being followed scorns more likely to end nowhere than to lead to office.