SIX O’CLOCK CLOSING.

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 September 1917, Page 2

SIX O’CLOCK CLOSING.

DEMOCRACY -DISC RACE!),

(N.Z. Times.)

The House oi TUpresenta lives has capitulated to faction. Accepting meekly the spurious mandate oi pi’mubitioig tiie liouse has turned its back on Democracy, insulted justice, deiied reason, and despised law. Spurious mandate threatened the tenure ol ullice, and the House, by a large majority. capitulated. It is the sorriest spectacle in our Parliamentary history. It obtrudes the worst moral. It is a proclamation to all factions to rely on threats, backed by assertions contrary to fact. It declaims 1 Zealand an unworthy Democracy. Uu one side was the threat of faction ; on the other .the facts efficiency of army, of finance, of patriotism, diminished crime, reduced drunkenness, alt proved by public statistics. Nevertheless, faction won. Why? Because the House preferred expediency to principle.. .. . But the House is not primarily to blame. The Government, whose duty it is to lead the House, ostentatiously threw principle to the winds, inviting • the House to please itself according to expediency. Stimulated by that bad example, the House ignored Democracy justice reason and law, leaving only expediency. Pardon 1 There was one other quality, the governing quality— Cowardice. The combination, with expediency, has struck a blow at Democracy in New Zealand. Democracy is sacrificed for the moment and faction rules in its place. Surely the future history of the Dominion is not going to’be the history of oligarchial government by factions, with no other tenure. than assertive, invention and furious menace! The Prohibitionists, breaking down the constitutional harriers, have led the way. In their wake is an example which discourages the hope for a Democracy of principle. Truth and justice have fled. Expediency reigns supreme for the moment.