THE NEED FOR ORGANISATION.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXV, Issue 16493, 7 March 1914, Page 10

THE NEED FOR ORGANISATION.

The movement for the comprehensive organisation of the Liberals in the country has been undertaken none too soon. Parliament will be in session by tho end of June and the leaders will be able to do little then towards the stimulation of local activities and when Parliament finishes its work the election campaign will already be in full swing. Tho principal part of the work, therefore, will have to be carried out during tho pest three months, and experience lias shown that unless the representatives actually ' and actively interest themselves in the movement the local keenness soon loses its edge. There can be no question that if the Liberal Party had had even tho shadow of an organisation in the country prior to tho last general election it would have escaped the disasters that overtook it. But it had no organisation. Its forces were undisciplined, its members drifted to the polling booths without direction and with very little enthusiasm, and when the second ballots had to be faced the rank and.file were quite unprepared for the fight. There is, in some quarters a disposition to take the results of tho next appeal to tho country very much for granted, though we understand the Reformers, on their side, are already counting tho scats they are going to gain. But wo see not the slightest reason to supposo that there has boon any real decline in Liberal sentiment. The party in power represents a minority of tho electors and, in spite of its organisation, it has no prospect of gaining tho support of a majority oi tho people in a country so democratic as New Zealand. Its organisation certainly gave it an advantage in 1911, and its discipline will save it from a multiplicity of candidates and from vote-splitting this year. Plainly the Liberals, with a following of superior numerical strength, would be foolish to give away that superiority by inefficient organisation, and organisation,'it must be remembered, will be more important than. ever now that a return has been made to the old, bad system of election. A serious beginning is to be made at once with the organisation cf the party locally. Tho work is needed here, but it is certainly needed far more urgently in many other districts, and wo trust, tliai it will he undertaken without delay on national linos.