THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1922. POLITICAL LABELS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18275, 16 December 1922, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1922. POLITICAL LABELS.

As in other crises of popular feeling, names of parties have been bandied about with great freedom, and not a little heat, throughout the election campaign and its subsequent discussion. Such names Bervo conveniently as weapons or as shields, according to the preference of their users and the exigencies of the occasion. History is spattered with them. Chosen with deliberation to express a party principle, or accepted a*s a nickname fashioned by an opponent, these distinguishing labels have lent definiteness to many a struggle. Some have remained in use, although their accepted meaning has undergone change. The records of religion abound in them. Cluoland is full of them. Those of more or lessy political arising or adoption are not the least important. There were the Whigs, so-called from a nickname of the peasantry in Scotland's West Lowlands, and the Tories, bearing a label originating in Irish turmoils of long ago. " Their prejudice," said Da. Johnson, speaking of the Tories in politics as he knew them, "is for establishment, while that of the Whigs is for innovation." The Tory of late nineteenth century days was a progressive Conservative; the Whigs suffered party death last century, slain by their own hand. Since then Conservative and Liberal have divided the political field in British politics, until the Labour Party gained numbers and cohesion. Spokesmen of the two great parties have put on record the significance of their respective labels. " Tnc conservatism 'of the Conservative Party, modern Conservatism, as we may say," wrote Lord Hugh Cecil, "is of course largely recruited from and dependent on the* natural conservatism that is found in almost every human mind," He quoted as expressive of that natural conservatism the proverbs of caution—" Look before you leap," " A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," and "An ounce of fact is worth a pound of theory." The oft-recalled epitaph on an Italian tomb has been cited as approved by the . conservative bent of human nature: "I was well; I would be better; lam here." It is the inBtinct to "let well alone." Liberals, on the other hand, have made much of liberty—civil, fiscal, industrial, social, domestic, personal, and national. They have claimed the Whig mantle of innovation, and talked much of progress. "The heartof Liberalism," writes Mr., L. T. Hobhouse in philosophic vein, "is the understanding that progress is not a matter of mechanical contrivance, but of the liberation of living spiritual energy."

Tiiiping from such statements of party tendencies in Britain, the land of origin of our New Zealand politics, to the actual use of party names here, there is found a striking departure. The name Conservative has gone from our politics, save as a term of mild opprobrium. Yet, in an age when, to many, nothing is sacred, jfnd blindly revolutionary forces are aggressive, it would seem that a party determined to conserve all that is good might fulfil a valuable mission. Such a party could, while moving with the times, link new with old in a way of real evolutionary service. In the younger lands of the world, however, there is such impatience with the past that a party carrying this particular label would arouse now but moderate enthusiasm. The negative suggestion of its name would be a popular weapon in the hands of its .enemies, while its positive significance, enunciating the value of experience for the making pf safe progress, would carry little weight. Evidencing the newer lands' emphasis on advance, we have here, in place of Conservatives, a party bearing a name—that of Rei:orm»~more sugfgestive of drastic change than any other name in the field. No true lover of progress can reasonably object to the label, save, perhaps, on the score of its being top wildly radical. Appropriate enough when adopted in token of a determination to amend things after a long continuous Ministry had become insensible of any merit but its own, it is now insufficiently indicative of change made with caution. Nor is the Liberal Party here clearly labelled. As known in Britain, the Liberals-have composed the party of protest and attack, even when in office. Faced with traditional privilege often reluctant to surrender its advantage, Liberalism there has fought for the freedom which its name implies. Freedom, of religion,

of trade, of industry, of speech, of life in general—this has been its watchword. It has temporised somewhat in the matter of education, making it a matter of State enforcement; but in general it has stood for untrammelled liberty in the citizen's life. But now in New Zealand it has no exclusive charge to champion liberty. That has been made as much the concern of Reform, let in the vicissitudes of party warfare, the Liberals have inherited the right to be regarded as one of the two great parties in our politics, despite the lack of a truly distinctive name.

Labour's title is ceasing to be appropriate. Taking its rise in Britain, the Labour Party stood for the " genuine working man" as against what Holyoake, the first Labour candidate, called the " master class " and the " middle class." It stood for the manual worker, seeking then to find corporate expression in trade unions. It was essentially a class movement. In recent years an enlargement of its personnel has taken place, and the chairman of the New Zealand Labour Party has stated that his party " speaks in the name of the whole of the industrially and politi-cally-organised workers, in the name of the very best of the workingclass womanhood, name of l the most progressive among the intellectuals, in the name of all who labour with hand or brain." No longer is the party that of "Labour" in the ordinarily accepted and once authoritative 6ense. It is simply an additional political party, including electors belonging to many sections of the community and making a separate bid for power. It should be known as the Socialist Party. Its policy of " the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange " sufficiently sets it apart. It is explicitly set on certain specific changes. It is out for proportional representation, for the referendum with the initiative and recall, for the single-chambered Parliament, forJUmd nationalisation, for a State bank, and generally for the upheaval of most established institutions. It is a wrecking adventure, regardless of consequences and defiant of the interests of those whom it sets out to despoil. It scorns lav/ and order as the twin fetishes of society, and leaves to luck whatever may happen when its destructive policy once gets a chance. That it should get that chance is a repellent, even if a remote, possibility in these difficult days. Is the ship of state to be safely entrusted to Mr. Holland and his .merry men, pledged to tako her on a certain course no matter what perils are in the way? Better far to leave the ship in the tried hands of a Prime Minister who has already brought her through broken water, and know£ the dangers ahead and the surest course to sunny seas.