ELECTION NOTES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVI, Issue 17337, 8 December 1919, Page 8

ELECTION NOTES.

WHO OFFERED THE POSITION? ' In the fierce contest which is in profess in the Lyttelton electorate, it has tune to be an open secret that Mr. H. G. 111, who has left his old constituency of Ihnstchurch South, has lost the official tipport of his party, though he has been or twenty years a, member of it, and idd Ministerial office in the Mackenzie Cabinet. Mr. Ell now states that he was ffered a Government position, but would - lOt accept it. The inference is that the : fffer was contingent upon his retiring 1 rom the contest. The most interesting . question now is who offered him a posi- ■ ion in the Public Service ? It seems most ' easible that another condition precedent cas that the Offerer should win the ' lection. i LABOUR PARTY AND LIBERTY." J Truly circumstances alter cases. When : tsked what hardship it would be for a roung man to undergo military training ; vlr. Brindle, who is contesting Gisborne is a Labour candidate, said that the >nly hardship would be the taking away >f the individuality of the man, because vhen he came under military discipline le must not think, he must merely obey, [hat was a hardship the Labour Party lid not stand for. And yet how aptly it lescribes the condition of the politick ispirant who signs the pledge of the Labour Party and adopts its platform. He must not think, he must merely obey he caucus, whether he accepts its decision >r thinks otherwise. Anybody who doubts that need only recall the history of the present party and its attitude toward Mr. Veifeh, " because he thought, and roted, instead of obeying, when it was a matter of opposing or supporting the Military' Service Act. If any further evidence were wanted Mr- Walker, who is again standing for Dunedin North,. Furnishes it. Answering a question, he said: —"My first regard must be to the political platform. Every man returned is the official Labour candidate must rapiply with the requirements of the platform. Any request made to me as a member, so long as it is in harmony with that platform, will have my support. " " COST OF LIVING" CANDIDATE. The " Liberal and reduced cost of living" candidate who is courting the favour of the electors of Manukau at least deserves credit for having adopted an election tag which should win him favour in any constituency in the Dominion only it could be made as convincing as it is attractive. Everybody is looking for the genuine reduced cost of living member. If Mr. Major could quote chapter and verse for his claim; if he could prove beyond question that his return would reduce the cost of living, the unanimous "Aye" from the electors to the proposition that he be returned would without doubt be audible through the whole Dominion. But the present cost of; living is no subject to joke about. Mr. Major should restrain his Bense of humour. It would be awkward for him if somebody took his claim seriously. CURING? THE COST OF LIVING. "Addressing a large number of ladies in Petone yesterday," says a Wellington paper, " Mr. T. M. Wilford dealt with the cost of living, and said that •if the Liberals were returned to power the cost of living would be reduced." This simple statement opens up a whole vista of possibilities. It is satisfactory to know that somebody has dealt with, the cost of living, for everyone will agree that it was high time it was dealt with. But Mr. Wilford's recipe is surely too simple. The public have long been told that the present condition of affairs resulted from a tremendous complexity of causes : inflation of the currency, a world-wide shortage of the essentials of life, wastage of j war, shortage of shipping, depletion of man-power, and numberless other things have been described as contributing factors. And all these are to be resolved by the operation of the ballot-box, and the return to power of the Liberal Party. Mr. Wilford is an optimist. PLEDGE AND PERFORMANCE. i One of the charges against the Government is that it has not fulfilled its programme of 1911. That view is not held by Mr. J. T. Paul, president of the Labour Party. These are his own words :—"The Reform Party carried out its platform as it was put forward." That is the marvellous thing about the Reform Party. The Reform Party is a party to which I am absolutely opposed, but it put that platform before the people of this country, and during its short existence it carried that platform into legislative effect. Many of tbe planks of the platform I am absolutely opposed to, but there is the position that we cannot shut our eyes tothat this party defeated the Liberal Party and put its legislative proposals on the Statute Book. That was the opinion of Mr. Paul on July 20,1916, and it cannot be supposed that anything that has since happened baa altered his opinion of what Mr. Massey's 'Government did in 1912, 1913, and 1914. OPPOSING LABOUR CANDIDATES. A considerable amount of capital has been made by the Opposition out of the fact that there are no official Government candidates opposing a number of Labour members in their strongholds, and that I the Opposition Party is the only one | which has had the courage to do this. The other side of the picture is shown by j the Prime Minister, who states that in j a number of instances where there seemed to be a probability of the Opposition | nominee beating an extreme Labour candij date, lie ha 3 deliberately refrained from 1 nominating a Government candidate.

POLICY SPEECHES IN AWARUA. Some injustice has apparently been done to Sir Ward in the recent report that he was too Busily engaged in canvassing for votes in his own district to expound the Liberal policy. He has been devoting a great deal of attention to the instruction of Awarua electors in the principles of Liberalism—addressing as many as four meetings in one day— and a sad mistake has been made in depriving the country of full reports of his eloquence. In the course of his speech at Mandeville he dealt with the whole range of newspaper criticism of his proposals, exposing the fallacy of his- opponents', arguments in the following trenchant and lucid exposition of his projects:—"The people should remember that when they read a leading article with the editorial ' we,' they were merely reading the opinion of one man. That man might not have the qualifications to sit on a tenth-rate road board, let alone give a competent opinion on vital matters. He knew some of them intimately, and would not accept their opinion in preference to that of an infant six months old—that was, if it had the gift of speech." The same facility in the choice of appropriate metaphor was displayed by the Opposition leader in revealing the weakness of the Reform Party in administration and its poverty of progressive ideas. " There are," he said, " many men in the Reform Party as bad as the Bblshevikshe did not mean as far as murder was concerned." It is almost unnecessary to add that Sir Joseph,, received a unanimous vote of thanks and confidence.