THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1925. ELECTION ISSUES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19143, 8 October 1925, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1925. ELECTION ISSUES.

The general election is definitely in the forefront of coming events. The date has been announced. Candidates are in the field with their appeals to electors. The atmosphere which characterises these triennial contests is appearing. Voters will have the opportunity, in the next few weeks, of assessing the claims of those who ask their support. Even at this early stage there are general issues which call for careful thought. Personal merit in an aspiiant should weigh heavily, but it is necessary also to consider in what direction his abilities will be exercised, and how far his pledges and professions will aid him or hampei him in working for the best interests of the whole community. The need for care and thought before exercising the highest privilege of citizenship requires emphasis each time tht election period returns. There are many admirable features in the public affairs of New Zealand, but there has arisen of late years a tendency which should be fought against at every turn, an apathetic attitude in many people which makes them indifferent to the turn of events. This produces far too low a percentage of votes recorded to the number of electors on the roll. It may Vie argued that there is little in present-day politics to stimulate interest. Even if that were wholly true —and surely it cannot be when there are great tasks of pioneering and development still waiting achievement —it would be no excuse. The less satisfied a citizen is with public life, the more need for him to do his part, however small, toward energising and elevating it. The very least he can do is to vote, not blindly, but intelligently and purposefully. When 100 per cent, of enrolled electors do this, the first and greatest step toward a general improvement will have been taken. A determination in everyone to inform himself of the issues at stake, to reach a reasoned conclusion about them, and to vote accordingly, is a great essential of election time. For good or for ill the old position of a clean-cut issue between two contesting parties has gone. Some day it may return. Prophecy on that head cannot safely be made. Meanwhile those who seek to charm the voter tend to carry a multiplicity of labels. Government and Opposition is far too wide a generalisation. How the effort was made last session to compose the differences between the Government party and its historic opponents should be fresh enough in the general recollection to need no description. Various stories are told of the manner in which negotiation proved in vain. There is not much to be gained by dwelling on them or endeavouring to measure exactly the responsibility for an outcome which left Mr. Coates and his followers still alone on the Treasury benches, Mr. Forbes and his band still in opposition trying to wear without self-consciousness a name which implies something wider and greater than the party claiming it can substantiate by its own elements. It is enough to remember that fusion did fail. Therefore in the contest to be concluded next month there are three main parties and one satellite, while a few independents scattered about the country make a virtue of their independence. Government, National, and Labour, these are the three contestants in a majority of the electorates. The Country Party is a phenomenon confined to the Auckland Province. Its importance would be negligible were it not that by aggravating votesplitting in one or two electorates it threatens to send the representation in a direction quite different from that which most farmers in the country apparently desire. However, those who have engineered the movement must learn by experience. It is to be hoped they will not do too much damage in the process of learning. Independents are not numerous. In most, instances their lack of party label means little, because their natural affinities are fairly obvious. In the main, taking the Dominion as a whole, the elector finds himself called upon to choose, apart from the personal appeal of the candidates, between the adherents of three parties, the Government and the two groups which constituted the opposition in the Parliament just ended. The Labour Party makes, at this election, its most ambitious bid for power. Already it holds a considerable number of urban seats. Now it is going further afield with a systematic effort to capture rural constituencies. The time has come, therefore, to consider squarely and definitely in what direction the destinies of the Dominion would turn if the Labour Party saw its ambition fulfilled and gained a position enabling it to begin on the all embracing process of nationalisation and socialisation contained in its written programme. Especially should all citizens with a realisation of what the land and its products mean to New Zealand consider the i land policy of the Labour Party—i not the watered version which some candidates arc expounding from the platform, but the mowing, if crudely-expressed, policy contained in the written platform. The subject must necessarily figure very I largely in the campaign now under j way. Facing both ways, against | the Labour Party on the one hand j and the Government on the other, I stands the Liberal, Liberal-Labour j or National Party, endowed plentifully with names, but poorly with

— —-s inspiration. Stamped with mediocrity in opposition, it advances a programme so elaborate and all-inelu-sive in character that it might appeal to every taste, were it not that its exponents have not shown the qualities or the force to give it effect. Most of the clauses possessing any value can bo found in the Government programme, expressed more simply and practically. In fact, contemplation of the position brings to the thoughtful, inevitably, the conclusion that for practical objectives combined with the will and the ability to give them effect Mr. Coates and his party overshadow the rest. They are not without fault or above criticism. They would not claim to be, but they do offer the country a programme which bears definite relation to its immediate needs and a prospect of sound administration on business lines. It is because their offering is neither grandiose nor pretentious that it should appeal most to the voter of sound judgment. This is, on broad lines, the situation facing the elector as polling day approaches.