THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1925. THE SESSION AND AFTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19138, 2 October 1925, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1925. THE SESSION AND AFTER.

With the session hardly gone to its end, one of the contestants in the election to follow is before the public with a manifesto. The self-styled National Party, headed by Mr. Forbes, is already in the field with a statement of its aims and intentions. There is nothing really wrong about this remarkable promptitude. Election year is an open season for manifestoes. They can be issued as early and as often as their proud authors desire. In this instance the document has obviously suffered in some features through the party's anxiety to be in early with it. A little attention will be given to these points presently. Meantime this may be described as another attempt to get in first and steal their opponents' thunder, as the Prirno Minister described the incident which immediately followed the breakdown of the fusion negotiations. It is also another proof of the manner iin which fusion has gone into the discard. The stage is all set for the election contest, with the National Party as insistent on its own claims and individuality as if it had never dreamed of uniting itself sdth the Government under the leadership of Mr. Coates. No exception can be taken to the attitude. It does, however, stamp with unreality the professed regrets that the move for union did not succeed. The country is tired of them; it will be a good thing if they are dropped. Even more wearisome is the constant- exchange of accusations about the rupture which ended the negotiations. What good will come from an exact apportionment of the responsibility it is impossible to see. As the charges and counter-charges have already been repeated ad nauseam, it is to be hoped they will not be made a feature of the campaign. There are other things in the situation, national and political, better worth discussing than the exact manner in which two sets of negotiators failed to reach an agreement.

The situation regarding fusion has been put quite clearly by the Prime Minister. He has said that he is still ready to accept it on the only basis which makes the word applicable, that is, an amalgamation of the two parties without hampering legacies from either in the shape of conditions prescribing policy or portfolios. He said that quite plainly, with the added explanation that for the remainder of thifl Parliament he would carry on the policy laid down by his predecessor in office. In the light of this declaration he has carried through the session. It has not produced any sensational developments. They should not have been expected. Viewing the situation from a common-sense angle, the country would have been justified in distrusting a Prime Minister who, taking office as Mr. Coates did, endeavoured immediately to rush through a body of fresh legislation which he could point to as having been originated solely by himself. The Prime Minister has always preferred, on assuming any new office, to familiarise himself with all the details of its workings before making up his mind as to the course he will take. Also he has made up his mind before speaking. To find the session just concluded carried on as it was, without any adventurous excursions over new roa.ds, is quite in keeping with Mr. Coates' character and past performances. Presently he will have to proclaim his own policy; from the very facts of his brief career as Prime Minister' he may be expected to deal with the practical side of the business of government, efficiency in administration and care and prudence in handling the business of the country. It may not sound so well as elaborate schemes of legislation which may or may not reach the Statute Book at some future date; but the public is generally acute enough to judge the pronouncements of party leaders by other standards than their attractive sound. This is a point Mr. Forbes may not fully appreciate yet. The one manifesto to which the country has been treated is a curious document. It cannot be condemned for narrowness of scope, since there is hardly a feature of the country's life it allows to escape attention. It even reaches the curriculum of the primary schools, a subject which the departmental experts may naturally expect to handle themselves. But there is no harm in bringing it in. Anything on earth may be included in the schedule of things to be done ; there is no statement of how or when any of them is to be done. Probably the authors have not yet brought their minds down to such matters of prosaic detail. A few items taken at random are enough to show how diffuse and vague the whole manifesto is. Take the subject of banks. There are proposals for a State bank, agricultural banks, and the transformation of the Post Office Savings Bank into something very much nearer the orthodox chartered bank than it is at present. Banks for everybody, especially for the farmer—who is being wooed by others with just this promise—seems to be the id®a of the National Party. Next consider electoral reform. An amendment of the present system to assure effective majority rule is

promised, without the form of the amendment being specified. Proportional representation used to be one of the strong cards of the party under Mr. Wilford, It seems to have been lost in the reshuffle of the proposals which appeared in his manifesto of 1922. It may be noticed also that legislation to provide for the revaluation of deteriorated farm lands, with relief for the tenants, is proposed. Why it should be necessary, since a measure to effect this has just been placed on the Statute Book, is not explained. These are just a point or two taken out of the mass, but they exemplify the character of the document. It is only too apparent that a desire to be in first weighed more heavily than the need for attention to details with those who signalised the close of the session by producing this ill-digested manifesto.