SCARING THE PEOPLE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7023, 11 January 1910, Page 4

SCARING THE PEOPLE

Among many observers, particularly in America, tliere is a suspicion that if the British democracy lias not entirely lost its nerve in face of the scaremonger it is so susceptible to the wiles of that practitioner as to be perilously close to a condition of perpetual fright. Though the evidence on which this theory is based hardly warrants the conclusion it would seem to be true that the Tories at Homo have come to a decision on the point. The psychology of the crowd has, of course, to bo studied by the statesman as well as the rural politician, and if the national poise is found to be most easily disturbed by one particular form of controversy it is inevitable that this should commend itself to party politicians struggling to convert minority into majority. Hence the sudden prominence given to the navy and Germany by Mr Balfour and the peripatetic Peers. In their judgment, apparently, votes are to be more quickly deflected from Liberalism by creating scares about the Kaiser and his Dreadnoughts than by the philosophic discussion of food taxes or hair splitting about the Lords and the Constitution. Thus it comes about that tariff reform and tlio privileges of the peerage, "Socialism" and taxes on land—the fundamental questions now before the country—have received very much less attention lately from Mr Balfour and his friends than have " Germanj designs " and "colonial opinion." The appeal is to the nerves, the emotions, not to reason—and is bo frankly demagogic, so blatant, that even those who make use of it must liavo painful qualms of conscience. There are some very definite issues confronting the British elector, some of them the gravest of a century. Instead of meeting these, defining their position, in terms which will admit of no misunderstanding and justifying their stand by argument and illustration, the Tories —led by a flock of Gar.darene . Peers and a metaphysical shuffler—have failed to be definite about anything except that taxation of land is robbery and taxation of food is wise economics. Even this appears to Jiavo been jettisoned, and the Constitution wreckers to have at last found a common rallying point with the halfpenny press. The ' Teutonic bogey is their last and final refuge, and Mr Balfour's mythical " twentyfour Gorman Dreadnoughts" liave again been given form and substance by their creator. Quito obviously Mr Balfour considers his countrymen no longer to be possessed of nerve or com-mon-sense.