CURRENT TOPICS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1198, 15 February 1895, Page 17

CURRENT TOPICS.

MR REEYES AT CHRISTCHURCH. The Minister has no reason to be dissatisfied with the result o£' his meeting. He did not win without opposition, but he won handsomely. Moreover, the opposition was not formidable, except in name. In this respect the Christchurch constituency is peculiar. It is always filled with rumours of impending desperate attacks on the sitting members. We know of no other city in which a protracted struggle is so regularly predicted, and we know of no predictions so regularly falsified. In the present case the prediction was as usual in the streets, and the prediction was falsified. The Minister won his vote without any real difficulty. The line of his speech was, curiously enough, new. Hitherto we have had replies from Ministers to attacks on their finance, upon their. alleged " sly borrowing,” and upon their use of power. At Christchurch the Minister was challenged to tell the public at his meeting what the Government .has done to justify its title to ( the name of Liberal. It was an uncommonly bold request to make. We can only conclude that the patriotism of those who made it got the better of their Opposition judgment. They must have known that the bare enumeration of the measures would take a considerable time, and they ought to have expected a few words of pithy comment from Mr Reeves. We suppose that they will say something in reply, for form’s sake. But, whatever they may say, the fact will remain. very clear that this Government has used its power for passing a larger number of measures embodying new departures than any of its predecessors. As given by Mr Reeves, the list read uncommonly well. Familiar as aU. the old figures of legislation are, battered in Parliamentary fight, worried with a criticism which, never ended, they make a deeply interesting show, when paraded together in this way. The Opposition will here and there cavil at the Minister’s way of putting things, and they will make the usual reply. In all these struggles both sides rise the vein of exaggeration a little; wherefore it comes to pass often that the main points, being unassailable, are ignored by the critics, who make a prodigious noise by assailing the exaggerations. We shall hear for example that the Conservative Party, now defunct, while it lived and governed and while the country did not move, was not so utterly hopeless as the Minister pointed out. That his indictment is sweeping enough in all conscience no one will deny. That it is a reply to the incessant outpouring over his devoted head of the criticism of the Opposition writers and speakers will be regarded generally as natural. There is a t clique of remarkably fierce opponents in Christchurch, whose political difference from the Minister of Education has been sharpened by the very sharp episodes of one of the most remarkable newspaper wars in the history of the Colony. Hence outsiders. need have no difficulty in accounting for the number and force of the return blows dealt by the Minister. And nobody will be surprised if the other side talks about exaggeration. But it will be surprising if the brief remarks devoted by the Minister to most of the laws on his list , are seriously attacked. The position of women, the change in the incidence of taxation, the benefits of the Factory Act (the most advanced in the world), the Land for Settlement Act, and the great advantages likely to flow in the neighbourhood of towns from'its provisions, the various Labour measures, the saving of the Bank, the abolition of the truck system, and other points—on these the Minister’s position is impregnable. As to the Labour measures, his speech is interesting for the light it throws on the reasons for the successful career of the Labour Party in New Zealand, and for the comparative failure of the Labour Party in Australia. In this Colony the Party joined the Liberal Party, and aimed at getting what was within practical reach. In Australia the Party kept aloft and are crying for the moon. The contrast is a strong reason for going on with labour legislation here, and for keeping that legislation within its fair limit of proportion. We see little difference between"Mr Reeves on this subject and the Premier, who, the other day, told the deputation of boilermakers to refrain from demanding too much lest they might do themselves an injury. The Premier, in fact, warned the deputation that the Labour Party must work with the Liberal Party, remember that it is not paramount by any means, and keep within reasonable practical limits of demand. In , that he voiced the opinion of the majority, as did his colleague .when he pointed out the contrast between the labour policies of Australia and New Zealand., But this concerns the future, for which we have no fear. The men who have done so much to improve the condition of the masses in the past may be trusted to continue their work,