The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, MAY 16, 1592.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 9726, 16 May 1892, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, MAY 16, 1592.

The Premier’s career during the past few weeks is more than a small encouragement to those who have an idea that the Government pblicy is as acceptable to the majority of the constituencies as they thought it would be when they declared for their party at the general election of 1890. Ever since the financial debates of the session of 1891, every argument has been employed by the opponents of the Government to prove that the very things have happened which everybody on the Opposition side predicted —flight of capital, a crushed agriculture, discontent of labour, an impossible finance, a deficit, the stoppage of settlement, exodus of the" bone and sinew of the country, and, as a natural consequence of all these disasters, a general loss of confidence in the Government. Every now and then the organs of the Opposition party point to what they describe as the signs of the realisation of these predictions. The first of these signs was the growth among the northern farmers of the great Political Association which was industriously trumpeted as the most successful of modern political successes. A sensible people, wo are told, had made up its mind to expel all sham Liberals from power for the purpose of establishing true Liberalism oti the eternal basis of the dual vote. But the Government which had, to the surprise of the other side, begun by winning the Egmont election, went on to secure further successes all through the country. The victory at Egmont was “ accounted for ” by statements of the usual almost libellous character, which came glibly ‘ enough to the tongues of men accustomed to worship the policy of borrowing and buying which has made the name of the Continuous Ministry so notorious. Bub when the Premier went to Wooclville, and his lieutenants spoke at Palmerston and Masterton, the “accounting” theory was entirely broken down. After that we had the campaign by the Opposition Association, but many members of the party — notably Mr Bell during the memorable contest; at Wellington—disavowed its leading tenet, the dual vote. Then came the sudden pricking of the babble inscribed “ exodus of capital.” The Opposition Proas tried to score in return with a discovery of a new loan, which was promptly proved to be bogus. The climax was reached when the Premier wcufc straight into the enemy’s c-jtjvp at IVisdiug. Pcildiug ia the Iroadquavtors and central rallyiug-p'oint of Mr Macarthur and his immediate followers. Every vote in the Manchester Block was supposed

to bo bound to the Macarthur side by ties of gratitude and affection. The Macarthur influence had ruled supreme in that favoured district. Was it not the theatre of the most beneficial understanding and co-operation between capital and labour? Was not Mr Macarthur the benevolent capitalist, or rather the more than benevolent representative of the benevolent capitalist ? Mr Macarthur was the good fairy whom every child in the Manchester Block was taught to venerate. Mr Ballance was the bogie that brought panic to all good souls ; the best antidote was to whisper the name of Macarthur into affrighted ears. Such was the Macarlhur tradition. To the surprise of the Conservative party, Feilding accorded the Premier an unprecedentedly large meeting—larger than any meeting which had honoured the Macarthurite people. What is more, that great meeting gave the Premier a perfectly genuine and perfectly unsolicited vote of confidence. The Macarthur side tried to recover the position. It packed a small meeting, and passed a resolution which was simply a gross insult —on the face of it—to the people of the Eangitikei district. No one can think much of the Macarthur side after such tactics. The moral of the story is that the reception of the Government policy in the north has entirely falsified the prediction of the critics, who were, after all, more interested than learned.

In the south an attempt was made by the Opposition to secure some capital out of the report that rudeness had been shown to Mr Seddon on an occasion when politics ought to have been tabooed. But that attempt only recoiled on the heads of the originators. Lord Onslow lifted up most pertinent, and most independent, testimony before many thousand people. Only one champion had the hardihood to attack his lordship, and ho experienced the fate of those who fling themselves down before the chariot of Juggernaut. Mr Grigg was hopelessly crushed. Oh the heel of these Opposition disasters came the Brace election. The Government, which has made up its mind very properly to fight every election, fought hard. Bat the elements of success not being present, the Government was defeated. Wo have no word to say against Mr Lee-Smith. Ha would, doubtless, have made a very excellent member had ho been elected, and he stood exactly on the strongest part of the Government basis that which is buiit up by the successful land administration of Mr M'Kenzie, and. the just and most expedient taxation of Mr Ballance. But the seat was a safe Opposition seat from the first, and that is why the Government candidate was defeated. The Opposition ignored that fact: it had gob a victory in the south, and it boasted at once that the whole South Island had declared for its policy. Alas for the vanity of human wishes! Within a week the Premier, who had never been near the Bruce election, proceeded to repeat his northern successes. At Invercargill he was received with honour by a vast meeting of twelve hundred people, and was applauded and made as much of as the warmest friend of the Government could desire. The solitary victory of the Opposition was promptly confined within its own district—one of the few in New Zealand where Conservative prejudices still prevail.