ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1911. UNWORTHY TACTICS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLV, Issue 259, 7 November 1911, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1911. UNWORTHY TACTICS.

Acting on the principle, we suppose, that if only enough mud is thrown some of it is bound to stick, many of the Opposition candidates for Parliamentary honors are fairly tumbling over each other in their haste to paint the Ward Administration as the personification of all political abomination. Unfortunately, in this most reprehensible procedure, the candidates are only following the evil lead given them by prominent members of the party, who know perfectly well that the vast majority _ of the reckless charges they bring against the Government are absolutely without justificatory foundation. We have had Mr Massey, at Eltham,

i and Mr Herdman, at Wellington, ! each accusing the Government —by innuendo, of course—of having improperly aided speculators to acquire the Mokau estate The impression intended in each case to remain upon the minds of the audience was that either Ministers had. in some personal, secret way profited by the transaction, or that they had aided some political friends to "pull off" a "deal" which was not straight. And yet both Mr Massey and Mr Herdman must have a-ead the repprt^qf the Mokau Inquiry Committee, and, more than that, have heard the honest opinion of Mr Herries, one of the most respected members of their own party, who in the House declared that no suspicion oi personal benefit could attach to any member of the Government. As for the part played, .in the transaction by a gentleman, Mr 'Robert MeNab, an .ex-colleague of the Ministers, he .came into the speculation at the last moment, and had no more to do with the obtaining of the Order-iri~Cdnncjl-than the man in the moon. A number of Mr Massey's, own political friends and supporters in Hawke's Bay are partners in the property with Jvlr McXNab, and surely, the Leader af the Opposition does not infer that these gentlemen have Jent themselyes to any impropriety? The. fact is that .as a".scandal" the Mokau business piio.vie^ just as much a mare's nest.as did the "Bun Tuck"' charges, the "Seddon Voucher," the, "Hine charges.;" 4 .and half-a-do^en other malice-inspired accusations or' innuendoes of dishonesty which havel been made by Oppositionists duringl the Jast few years. Then we have' Mr James Allen, i&at soured and captious reactionary who 'hates the present Government w#tii an «n----dying hatred, mainly borii ni the disgust of himself and Ibis capitalist friends oyer the fact t&at » Liberal Government has, by ite'eheap money scheme, rendered for ever wnpassib'e any return to the "good old (flays" of "Private Bnterpriser' in money-lend' ing—the days waen the farcnejiS had to pay anything between 9 and 15 jper cent, for their loans. Mr Allea i» just as politically dishonest as fess confreres. His speciality is to insinuate that the Government has interfered with the course of justice. At Mosgiel the other day he resurrected his old charge that the Government exercised an improper influence over the Stipendiary Magistrates, his text' being a letter, written two or three years ago, by Mr H. W. Northcroft,s; S.M. ■ But Mr Allen conveniently and studiously omitted lo" mt ,2?tion the fact that in a second letter Mi'^rthcntft) stated most distinctly that h* W r -b< *n r: fered with by a Mjfii&Wr of the Ward or Seddon Governments, whom he cotfuietely exonerated, hk ttiam pretext" for nia' original assertion having been based, it would seem, upon tfie fact that Stipendiary Magistrates do not possess the same security ot tennre of office as that enjoyed by Ji"'ages of the Supreme Court. # And yet, no doubt, Opposition candidates all over the country, especially when they are speaking at country places— where there are no reporters present will be quoting with pious unction the "grave charges" brought against the Gorecnmeat by tha Member for Bruce, and, as w$ said at the outset, if only plenty of mud be thrown some of it t» sure to stick. Other prominent Oppositionists hypocritically deplore the alleged fact that the Government has been guilty of extravagance in public works expenditure. And yet it is notorious, as we have often remarked before, that the weirdest and noisiest howls at the Treasury doors' for new railways, roads, bridges, schools, and other public works have been those of OpI position Members, one of whom, so I Sir Joseph Ward informed a muchamused House a few weeks back, wanted practically one-third of the whole of the last loan to be expended on public works in his particular district 1 Where is there any common sense, any common honesty in canting cries against extravagance when they emanate from men who themselves are the greediest suppliants for the "doles" they afterwards so virtuously denounce to the electors? But the most nauseous features of all this •Opposition humbug and claptrap are the iservile appeals being made to the Labor party to throw in its lot with the Masseyites. "Only help us to turn Ward out, and then you'll see what we will do for you" is what is practically being preached to the Labor party from every Opposition platform. All wo need say on this head is that if the Labor party allows itself to be gulled into supporting the Opposition it will have only itself to blame should the time come—as it assuredly would come" were the party to follow so absurd a course of action —when it would repent its folly, if not in sack-cloth and ashes, at least i a homes to which" the bread-winner would bring a greatly-reduced wage, if in some instances he had any wage to bring at all. The present Government may have its faults—our chief objection to it. lies in its cowardice in not doubling or even trebling the graduated land tax, and so rendering the partition of the huge estates which block settlement compulsory.

and immediately so. But suppose that a Government including, say, Messrs Allen and Buchanan had been in power during the last few years, what would have been the state of the country—and especially of the working classes of the country—in this year of grace nineteen hundred and eleven? Do the workers seriously'believe that any of the humanitarian and progressive social reform measures which are now on the Statute Book would ever have been passed? If such men exist they must be singularly gullible. As for the future, were such a positive calamity to befal this country as the return to power of a Conservative Administration, it would be speedily followed by such a period of commercial and industrial stagnation as would rapidly be followed, in its turn, by a most material depression in the labor market and a substantial fall in wage®. The Labor party has a perfect right to run its own candidates, and to attempt to get more of its own class representatives into Parliament. But if on the first ballot they do not succeed, and on the second they are foolish enough to play the game of the "landocracy," the party whicli wants to sell all land for cash, which has all through its long career as an Opposition done its best to emasculate or completely destroy the progressive legislation brought forward by the Liberals for the benefit of the masses—if, to put it briefly, they consent to play the Opposition game, then will the leaders and rank-and-file of the Labor party be-guilty of a piece of supreme folly whose full and (for them) most unpleasant import they will not be long in discovering for themselves. We do not contend that the present Government is faultless. It is fa.r from being so; but we do say that it is not getting common fair-play in the rancorous

and unjust criticism its actions are receiving from Opposition candidates and the Opposition press. And what is more, we believe that in the long run Mr Massey and his followers will live to learn that mud-throwing is not altogether so successful a weapon in. electioneering as they seem at present to consider. '