POLITICAL POTTAGE.

Matamata Record, Volume XI, Issue 932, 28 June 1928, Page 4

POLITICAL POTTAGE.

(By the Gallery Man). | No. 11. To be a mere onlooker, watching 1 others wrangle and writhe and strive, and yet to keep aloof, cool and collected, seems to be a sinful, sardonic, satanic sort of attitude. It makes one feel as though one were merely a spectator in the Roman ampitheatre, watching the gladiators fight to the

death, without ever risking one’s own*~ precious skin. However, that is how ' fate places some of us, and we play our parts. After this prologue the writer will proceed to play his part in the drama now simmering in the political pot.

Whenever you hear A going out of his way to belittle and deride B, you may safely conclude that B is a fellow worth sitting up and taking notice of. Just now the Reform and Labour parties are making frantic efforts to swamp the United party, and at the same time to pretend that the latter is not in the political boat at all. The game is very funny to the Gallery Man. Mr. F. F. Hockly, he that liveth where the bowels of the earth are always in labour, when speaking at Matamata, treated the Country party with great contempt, but he blew a flaming breath across and asphyxiated the Uniteds, and spent no more time on them, but dwelt at some length on the Country party. Next, one notes that Mr. H. E. Holland, Leader of the Labour party, has referred to the United party as * a most extraordinary political organisation.” He told the folks away down in Tapawera, in the Nelson province, that those who wanted to see the Reform Government displaced had no choice but to vote for Labour.

We hae our doots about that, and will not be surprised if the United party, when it chooses to forsake its present attitude of masterly inactivity, does not open up with ‘such a hellish tornado of shellfire as will shake the nerves of Reform and Labour alike. *

Time was when this paper was almost alone in its persistent criticism of Orders-in-Council and bureaucratic control generally; but lately the legal fraternity has taken the matter up, . and the newspapers are becoming If more alive to the menace. There ip a very general infuriation among commercial people at the interference. of the Government in private business, its failure to place State trading concerns on the same level in re? gard to taxation as are private businesses. And in the country the professions of championship of the farmer do not “ go down ” while the gen- 1 cral customs duties keep up. Then there is the question of licensing legislation, which has not pleased the Prohibitionists and has merely earned the contempt of others for ita sponsor that he could father such a stupid apology for reform instead of > sending a commission abroad to investigate other systems, with a view to adopting the most enlightened one for New Zealand.

And so one might go on and quote many more instances where the elector who has no love for the Labour platform is also far from satisfied with the Reform performance. Despite all the ridicule heaped on the United party, one has a feeling that it will yet startle the political world in New Zealand when it chooses to unmask its guns and open fire, delivering broadsides both right and left as it bears down upon the other contending forces. For all this comteptuousness, the Reformers and the Labour knights will suffer some casualties at the triennial joustings.

The man who fathered a monstrosity from the womb of Time, Mr. T. K. Sidey, is still unconvinced of the error of his ways. He is even claiming credit for the cricketers’ and footballers’ victories, thus giving his precious Act an Empire halo. Maybe I am an iconoclast, but I must frankly admit that I cannot see how the winning of athletic contests for the next thousand years would advance

the human race one iota. These things do not enrich the mind of man as does a literary or a musical triumph, a scientific or mechanical discovery, a social or political amelioration. However, Sidey thinks differently, so we must all at least pretend that we are believers. Some day the tide of human interests will turn, and then no doubt we shall swing just as much out of balance in the academical direction. ' : I