The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1914.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3574, 25 February 1914, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1914.

It is quite safe to declare that even ardent sup-

The W inton Speech of Sir Joseph Ward.

porters of the Liberal party

must have been keenly disappointed with the political address which the Leader of the Opposition has just delivered at AVinton. As regards matter, it was, indeed, about the worst speech which Sir Joseph Ward has made for many years, and in no way reflects credit on either himself or on the remnant of the once great party of which he is the leader. Various grounds will be suggested to account for this state of affairs by many. For instance, his failure may be attributed to disheartment as a sequel to the fact' that the amount of support which the Opposition can now claim is a diminishing quantity, but still this circumstance should not be allowed to be pleaded in mitigation, seeing that the best test of a politician, as well as the best test in any other walk of life, is unquestionably ability and doggedness in times of adversity rather than in times of prosperity. Thus it comes about that Sir Joseph Ward, for one, would not be able to complain if, since his address has been published, many more people have formed the belief either that in reality very little could, after all, be said at any rate by the Liberals against the present Government, or, in the alternative, that apparently the Leader of the Opposition now pays less attention to politics than was formerly the situation. In strict fact, this particular address must be regarded by non-partisans as wishy-washy, practically all the way through. To touch on only one matter this morning—and we have no hesitation in saying that alone it is sufficient to damn the whole of this latest endeavor to black-wash the present Government —we shall just briefly refer to Sir Joseph Ward’s attempt to make out that financially this Dominion is not being run as successfully as would have been the position had his party still held office. As is well known, such like assertions were long ago a well worn cry on the part of any side which was in Opposition. If there is anything that the “outs” ever claim they can do better than the “ins” it is invariably that they could, if given the opportunity, more successfully administer their country’s affairs. No doubt on occasions such a claim has proved true in every sense of. the term, as witness for example the great improvement which has come over the conduct of the business of tin 3 Dominion since the Reform Liberals gained the Treasury benches, but ivhat Sir Joseph Ward has overlooked in this regard is that in the case of the Liberals, what is generally recognised is that their chief concern is merely to try and regain by any pretext both office and power. The Leader of the Opposition will, howevei, find that the great majority of the electors have not thus early forgotten that nob so very long ago the Liberals, when they were, the Government of the country, became disrupted, or, in other words, could no longer agree*either as to which of their number should be the leader, or as to who best to govern the country. One does not, indeed, require a long memory to recall not only the

fact that the rank and filo began to give the leaders of the party very indifferent support, hut also the fact that the leaders began to quarrel among themselves. How, then, could the Liberals, at the present juncture at all events, be trusted again with the Government of the country when they are to-day even more disjointed than when they were turned out of office? But wliat we wanted chiefly to-refer to was the circumstance that it must have been quite patent to all readers of the speech which the Leader of the Opposition made at Winton that ho must really have been very hard pressed for substantial complaints to bring against Mr Massey and his party, and one particular matter which we have noted for our consideration is the wretched attempt to make political capital out of the regrettable fact that from one point of view the country during the last quarter ofo 1913 was forced to pass through a rather trying time in which the State, as well as the people, suffered! in a not inconsiderable degree. Sir Joseph Ward, it would seem, had I found that although the national re- j "venue for the October-December period was greater than for the corresponding period of the previous vear, it was the position, so he claimed, that a still greater volume of business should have accrued. He pointed out that there had further been an increase in all branches of some £243,000 for the period under consideration. Thus it was that Sir Joseph Ward, with apparently much political satisfaction, added that “It is selfevident that at present it (the Dominion’s working account, as it were) is anything but satisfactory, and the Minister for Finance will certainly not be able to attribute the position to his predecessor, for the simple reason that he has been in sole control of the whole financial year’s operations.” Sir Joseph Ward’s political unfairness in endeavoring to saddle blame in this regard on the Government of the day has, it is satisfactory to learn, not been allowed to go unchallenged. In a firm, but very kind way, Hon. James Allen has just drawn the attention of the Leader of the Opposition to a number of very important matters which he quite failed to bring under the notice of his constituents at Winton. The drop in customs duties, Mr Allen b as shown, was due solely to the existence of ’be strike, when for some weeks trade was partially paralysed. As to -the drop in the railway revenue, Mr Allen had merely to appeal to Sir Joseph Ward as an ex-Minister for Railways as to whether any different result could have been anticipated in view, not' only of the strike, but also of the smallpox trouble. And so with the fstal revenue, which was undoubtedaffected by the strike, but which, to make matters even worse, the Leader of the Opposition somehow or other contrived to under-estimate by about ten thousand pounds. With reference to the increase in the expenditure, Mr Allen had just as simple a task in disposing of Sir Joseph Ward’s lame criticism. He had just to mention a few instances—that £107,000 of the increases were due to increases under the permanent appropriations, whilst the increases in interest and sinking fund amounted to £IIB,OOO, and widows’ pensions increased by £llOO, and military pensions by £6778. “Now,” asks Mr Allen, “which of these increases does the Leader of the Opposition object to?” It seems to us that if the financial “criticism” which Sir Joseph Ward levels against the Massey Government never reaches a higher quality than tlfat to which we have referred, it need come as i.o surprise if a still heavier slump in Liberal stocks should soon have to be recorded.