PARTY POLITICS.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXII, Issue 15704, 25 August 1911, Page 3

PARTY POLITICS.

TO THE EDITOR

Sir, —It was with a keen relish I read your sub-leader in Monday’s issue on the subject of Non-Party Government.” You struck a note that the ear of the intelligent lias long listened for, and I trust that now wo liavo heard it, it will be kept in tune by continual play* Who ever proved the existence of party government to ho the inevitable eventuality of commonsense? In Froucte’s words, “Nature has endowed, us with two eyes, but in matters of State we are called upon to extinguish one.” Politicians are supposed to the individuals with powers of discernment equal at least to the most intelligent electors, and yet in the face of this the electors are called upon to show sounder judgment by being able •to weigh both sides, while the politician deals only with one. A party politician is, to say the least, only half a man. Ho is not iree, lor lie is bound in leading strings, and at best is only a puppet to be manipulated by touching party springs, on which lie comes into evidence, to be numbered along with the automatons that arc regulated by one directing force. If a politician is not free to the uttermost limits of freedom in the exercise of his judgment, than lie could.be very much better employed in trying to solve the caterpillar or the grassgmb difficulty. To sav that a body oi men cannot discuss a measure a fleeting a whole community without lining up like so many Jacks-in-thc-Box, all with tl.eir numbers on, is to say we should increase our mental hospitals, or at leasu liberate the present inmates on the grounds of incompatible detention. Uur very newspapers are warped into political uselessness on party lines, lor every day wo read the stale half-truths with which wo have been satiated, snrlenwi and nauseated, aye. and pot"edicd with the least. You have struck one clear, ringing note, and may it leveiberato to the uttermost limits of the political amphitheatre as heralding 10 introduction of incleoendent music Mat. will favour ol tlie beautiful, longle.ayed commodity, coimnonsense.— I •VS, . T. E. L. ROBERTS, acargill, August 20.