WHERE ARE WE HEADING?-I.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIII, Issue 277, 25 November 1919, Page 6

WHERE ARE WE HEADING?-I.

[to the editor.] Sir, —After hearing Sir Joseph Ward deliver his first- campaign speech for the coming elections, and listening to a majority of our would-be legislators in the large centres, also i having jead the opinions of the • editors of almost all the important i newspapers in New Zealand, may I i have the temerity to place a few of imy conclusions before your .readers i| j• I. believe that the next election is | the most important ever held in the ' history of Mew Zealand. We have | had live years of government by j Oxder-in-Council; for five \ears the j electors have been living in a state of i simmering suppression, and from i close observation, when the numbers jgo up, and the people are again i allowed to have a say as ,to what j party representatives, shall control the benches in the Ministry, then I ' fully believe that it will be the death- ! blow of what was once the great I Liberal Party. 1 Liberalism as the people of this country know it became defunct when the Liberals lost their identity in a National Government. For five i years they have acquiesced in putting j laws on the Statute Book quite i foreign to the true spirit of Liberalism. This conclusion was not hastily readied but by analysing the i opinions of all with whom I came in contact, listening to the criticism in ! the acrimonious spirit with which the ! Prime Minister and Sir Joseph Ward refer to each other in their speeches I from the public platform, in travel- , ling about, hi smoke-rooms, in railway carriages, in conversation with all classes of business men, I invarially found that what was once a staunch supporter of the Liberal Party was now head, neck, and heels behind the Reform banner, or helpi ing to swell the ranks of the Labor PjTrfcy. While listening to Sir Joseph Ward being introduced as the greatest living statesman, etc., and hearing the comments of the audience—not, mark

I jou, from an audience composed of supporters of the Labor platform, but comments from an audience admitted by invitation card —it appears to me in the lis;ht of subsequent events that in New Zealand we have now an individualistic party or Sir Joseph Ward party which, are few, -very few, in numbers, which will not count for much in the future of New Zealand. But—we have an exceedingly strong L'tform Party, and an <jquaily strong Labor Party.- I am, etc., CRITICUS.