ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 1914. THE FUTURE OF THE1 LIBERAL PARTY.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVIII, Issue 15, 19 January 1914, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 1914. THE FUTURE OF THE1 LIBERAL PARTY.

The speech; 'delivered by Sir' Joseph. Warcl at Greymouilt last week % wiae no doubt an honest attempt to instil a little inubli-nee3ea.' life into the old! Liberal party, .■ Sir JosepSb was, for onoe at leaift, in irSal fighting mood; and (hit out all round at the Massey Government and/ its real or alleged sins of omission and' commission in the most unsparing terms. 4 It was; of course,vSir Joseph's right, and, from a party -point of view, his duty, to give^ some''lead * for members of; his party io follow; when'making; as they may be expected to 'make); their -usual recess speeches to their constituents, when) it is4o be'hoped, for th« credit of themselves andithe party to which they • belongf iaiey will make a "better fist of it" than can be said of their sessional witiclsias of the 'present Government's legislative measures and methods of administration. For, truth to 'tell, the party &id not put up a Very good record last session. There was; a; palpable laiek of cohesion ana an accompanying arid equally notice-able.-lack) -save on one orvtwo; occasions/ of any^ really effective individual effort. : * Curiously .enough, this "staleness"wasless prominent before Sir Joseph Watfd took oyier the leadership of the Opposition; indeed, it wais a matter of rnptoriety in Parfiamelitary circles! that y for some reason or other, the official leader failed to take advantage of not a few opportunities for attackiMg; ythie Government on fairly solid g^ounds-T^pportunities 'of which Mr Q'p^i" fiiisself, when he was acting as real if--nominal leader, would have made^wkilful and. effective use. However,.Sir*Joseph appears to have awakened at last, ; and so far as;■'• its fighting'q.ua|ity 7i8 i:oonce'rned.his Greymouthj speech Mh some ways an able-party deliverance: — But after- all there was not very^ much in the speech which was of a very destritctive chai-aeter. The "party game" was, of course, played by miaking: capital out of the fact that money is dearer than it was when Sir Joseph wasI''Bi'ime Minister, that the cost of living has not been reduced, and that the Government has been far from .''making: good on various promises made during the last election campaign. -But no one knows better that Sir Joseph Ward that, it is no more the fault of Mr James Allen that money Js dearer than it is that of the man the moon. .The money market-i?ate§yiii- New Zealand are almost entirely^dependent upon conditions andvibircumstances which no Australasian' Government coirld hope to modify or., affect in any serious way. j Money is dearer just now, not only in i New Zealand,,but all the world' over, and although it is a matter for sincere regret that the farmers and local bodies, and the public generally, cannot borrotyson the same terms which were in force three years ago, it is ridiculous, .and Sir .. Joseph himself knows full 1 well it is ridioulous, to blame Mr Massey and his colleagues for.the altered condition .of affairs. As to the cost of living and the promises-made by the Government that some;-attempt would be made to afford relief to the community, the Government, bas been confronted by financial difficulties which have rendered it impossible to grant any wholesale reductions of tariff duties. Next session* it is true, a Tariff Bill is promised; but it would be unwise, we think, for the public to anticipate any very substantial reduction in the cost of living as a result therefrom, for the revenue must be. kept up, arid a ' strong finance ; maintained. No doubt the Government' has failed to carry out each and every one of t3ie# promises made by various members of ilhff Massey Ministry when they were in Opposition; but all things considered, it is only fair and just to Mr I Massey and his colleagues to admit ' that on the-jwhole they did very well last year.r Certainly, we do not think a'Ministry 'headed, by Sir Joseph \ Ward and selected from the ranks of the present..Liberal party could have done any better. Our greatest grievance against the Government, is the timorous, inefficient, and altogether unsatisfactory way in which it deals, or we should say, fails to deal, with the question of closer settlement. But we are by mb means sure that Sir Joseph Ward would, were lie in power again to-morrow, exhibit any more statesmanlike attitude than Mr Massey has displayed. As a matter of fact, there are several members of his party who, on the land question, are just as Conservative as Mr Massey's followers. We are disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition «did not more definitely outline his views on the Labor question and the dangerous gospel of tine extremists in the Labor camp. We are very much afraid that this omission is due to some hope or belief that the "Red Fed." influence, scotched temporarily, but likely to be resurrected for new mischief next December, may. be ens?ineered by some moans or other on to the .side of the Liberals. If this be the idea of the Liberal leaders, all we can say is that j they will be playing a very dangerous ] game, and a game which is not likely 5 to succeed. The country constituencies will,, we feel -assured, never npnr/vp« ,<• j, nr nHinnce, open orv secret, between the J.;il;or extremists i 3

and the Liberals, for in the long run,' so the public would not be slow !ti>. perceive, such an alliance could not fail to result ffi the Liberal dog being led in its movements by the Labor tail. The leading ..Labor agitators, men of the "Professor" Mills stamp, make no seorot of their dislike ana distrust of the moderate Liberals. Did not the "Professor" openly and impudently declare, at the time of the Lyttelton by-electioh, that Labor would ' use the Liberals for Labor's own ends with the utmost selfishness and then drop them when the proper time came? Any alliance between Sir Joseph Ward's followers and1 the "Reds" must inevitably weaken the Liberals in the electorates. As for the cities, if the rumor be correct that the Government intends to introduce a- Bill next session providing for proportional representation in the four chief centres, and, maybe, in some of the larger towns, the Labor party may not improbably win a .few seats, or if not, their support of Liberal candidates, if it could be engineered, might result in a slight weakening of the Massey forces. But any such gain for a Liberal-Labor party would be more than discounted by the defeat of not a few of the pre- ! sent country members of Sir Joseph Ward's party, and any net party1 gain would assuredly be on" the side of the Government.

Sir Joseph Ward's duty is to prepare and boldly announce what he and his leading followers conceive to be a trusty Liberal programme, and ,to submit that programme to the country from various public platforms during the recess. But it must be a programme free from • proposals drawn with • any special view to placating or enlisting the support of the Labor extremists. The Leader of the Opposition told' his Greymouth audience that'he would, later on;, put the new policy of his party before the people. The sooner this is done the better, and with it should be made public the definite determination and clear promise that there is to. be no truckling to the Mills and Semple crowd. Otherwise, no matter how ably the new plja-tfoir.m is't6; be' constructed^ the 'great'"majority of New ■ Zealanders yill regard ftbth it arid itsadvocaites- with.-suspicionr and distrust.