The Ensign. GORE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29. MR SEDDON'S WRIGGLES.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1417, 29 November 1904, Page 2

The Ensign. GORE: TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29. MR SEDDON'S WRIGGLES.

I The curses arising from acts of pol- | itical insanity, like -chickens, have the unpleasant habit of coming home to roost at most unexpected and inconvenient intervals, jllr Seddon, of all men, is beginning to realise that this is.so,-, and his plilgkt on that account is by no means an enviable one. The Shops und Offices Act is but a flash in the pan when compared with the large and momentous problem evolved by investigation of the land question. in this Jomiection the .Premier has blown hot and cold with singular audacity, and without troubling to protest even the slightest semblance of consistency has pronounced in favor of. one side and the other with a readiness that is extremely puzzling to the onlooker, and not at all reassuring to those who are looking for the esUvh\,ishineiit of desirable policy which shall determine the procedure of the future. Everyone will recall Jlr Seddon's heroics before the faithful at Newtown when he declared that/his buck was against the wall to oppose \tlie . freehold to Crown tenants, and how, a little later when the l'ahiatua election was agitating the minds, of the puilijlic, he approved of the action of his .Ministers and followers of lesser degree perambulating- the ail'ected district nia'king covert promises to the eileel that if the Government nominee (a convert to the freehold at the eleventh hour) were elected, a reward in the shape of the freehold option would be conceded by u gruteful Administration. The miserable double shullle by the Liberal party in the House when the laud question was under consideration indicates the chaotic state of political opinion in regard to it. Rather than make a pronouncement eitlher way us it was fully, entitled to do, Parliament compromised with its conscience and at the command of those who had most to lose by any change, however desirable, being made, deliberately placed the matter still further in tloubl by relegating it to a Royal Commission. Still later the Premier appears m yet another role—that of the earnest friend of the .struggling Crown settler whose needs can only be iilled by the freehold. At Taihapc last week he resuscitated all the hoary myths of fallacious argument that have already 'been bludgeoned out of existence a score of times. The specious reasoning that if conceded, the freehold would necessarily do away with the leasehold was" employed by him for all it was worth. Nothing was said to indicate the truth that the two systems are interdependent, one being a stepping-stone towards the attainment of the other. Nor did lie, in the excess of his enthusiasm for allowing things to icmain as.at present hesitate to condemn the land administration of his own party. If there had been, he said, Jess tape and sealing wax and more consideration shown for Crown tenants, they would not have such a strong fceling for.the freehold. His linger was on the spot; he knew the cause of the trouble, and, if he could remove it, all would go well. The spot has existed for so long that it has 'become a blot, and if eleven years of office has not sufficed to provide Mr Seddon with an opportunity he now so devoutly desires, it is scarcely reasonable to suppose that he will be enabled to discover u remedy within the next lew month's. In any case, why should he set up his knowledge as superior to (lint of the -Crown tenants living on

the land ? In the comfort and luxury of Mb well-requited public positions he cannot possibly realise as do the victim s of an effete system themselves the struggles, the .hardships, and the disappointments and the helplessness surrounding the li''es of tenant settlers in the backblocks. With public opinion so definitely pronounced no commission of enquiry is needed to ascertain the facts of the position. These speak for themselves and unless greater heed is paid to the warning: tones, a change in the direction of selecting a party which will do. what is necessary to remedy pressing grievances without delay will be made by the masses of the people out of sympathy with the lot of thoir less fortunately circumstanced brethren in the fields of pioneer settlement.