PROGRESS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume C, Issue 11623, 5 July 1898, Page 6

PROGRESS.

, TO THE EDITOR. - Sir, —The people of this colony are face to face -with one of the most criminal arrangements that have happened, of late years. Obviously, the sole reason for the existence of the Conservative Party is to baulk the aspirations of the country. Beyond that it has no programme. In carrying out this object it shows an amount of cunning and unscrupulousness, of hypocrisy and fraud, which strangely belie the character for frankness and straightforwardness which the Tories, curiously enough, claim as their special monoply. Until within the last few years it might have been; said of the Liberals, with some measure of truth, that they were out of touch with the bulk of public opinion. To some extent it is true still; the Liberals are not, certainly, all that on© could desire them to be. That need not be expected of any party. And in that fact lies the secret of progress. It is the discontent in the rear that moves the front ranks to action. Still, there has been a decided improvement in. Liberal progressiveness. The serious aspect of public affairs becomes continually imperilled, owjng principally to the studied prejudice of Opposition policy, and the hyperbolical dissimulation of those who, whilst professing staunch Liberalism, when seeking election, have deceived tue electors and seemingly are in dangerous proximity of becoming entangled in the intricate web of Conservative injustice. These things being so, affecting public business, makes it imperative that there should be a general rally of the forces of progress to meet tne intrigues and combinations of that party which has been the hereditary enemy of the democracy in the Old Country, and not the less an enemy in this, but rather the more to be feared, because it has adopted, in a sort of mechanical way, some of the phrases of popular Radicalism. It is abundantly clear tnat, surrounded as the people are with political enemies, so numerous and so active, the true Liberal .cannot afford, in the face of the small majority, by whijch '• .the Government : hold office, to.dissipate their strength upon minor differences. Such .questions!: ,as !tpv'whether the Government has! done all it ought are for the , people to determine. No doubt it has done what it could since it assumed the rems of-office, cimsideiing the obstacles it has had to contend Vith. It seems not only willing but anxious to do more than it has accomplished. The question now is, how to make the best of the present Liberal Party throughout the colony.—l am, etc., H.C.