A FORCE IN POLITICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20554, 3 May 1930, Page 10

A FORCE IN POLITICS.

There were many features about the meeting addressed last evening by Mr. Downie Stewart, former Minister of Finance, which are interesting in retrospect. It is seldom Auckland has had the opportunity of hearing him at first hand, and those privileged to do so can be grateful that the Parnell by-election brought him here to speak. For without indulging in rhetorical flights, or attempting to dazzle by oratory, Mr. Stewart contrives ■ always to be eminently well worth hearing. Above all, as Minister of Finance, and now as a critic of that department whose words command attention, Mr. Stewart has consistently paid the individual voter the compliment of assuming him to be concerned in the financial welfare of the country, and has consistently striven to make his discussion of it as simple as its intricacies permit, and as little wearisome as possible. He has never represented it as something too mysterious for the common mind, as something concerning which the word of the initiate must be accepted without question. Mr. Downie Stewart in office was not above criticism, but while at the Treasury he did at least work in orderly fashion according to a comprehensible plan, the lines of which he did not disdain to'tell the public. These qualities make him still a force in politics though not in office, a critic, of finance whose utterances demand respect. His speech last night drives home this point. Tt suggests a good exercise for those on the. other side who rely principally for the advancement of their own cause on making assertions, in wide and general terms, against the party to which Mr. Downie Stewart belongs. Let them answer him point bv point, marshalling their facts as be did his. making their deductions with similar logic. Let them meet him and match him his own ground, and having done this let. thom continue to assert that the "Reform Party is bankrupt of capacity, that, it is all concentrated in their own camn. Finally, to give the event a practical bearing, let the Parnell electorate have the benefit of it before polling day comes.