The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, JULY 11, 1911. MAKING UP LEEWAY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7849, 11 July 1911, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. TUESDAY, JULY 11, 1911. MAKING UP LEEWAY

The community was informed the other day by Mr Massey in tones of outraged | astonishment that opponents of tho Opposition “spent their time over-j hauling his record in the hope of find-! ing something discreditable, but were! unable to make any such discovery.” | AYo hardly think it is any more lcgiti-| mate for Mr Massey to reproach his. critics on this score than it would bo I for thorn to suggest impropriety in his| own explorations amongst the political, records of Ministerialists. Certainly, i when ho and his friends dig into the. half-forgotten past and produce mate rial with which to bombard the Government it has never occurred to us to meet his assault with tho reply that ho had been looking for what was “ discreditable.” The relevant application of tho discoveries to issues of the moment is tho test by which quotations from Ministerial records must be; judged, and if they are discomfiting j to Ministers and assist Mr Massey, soi much tho worse for them and tile bettor for him. Neither a Minister nor an Oppositionist is convicted of anything “ discreditable ” when the quotation of past speeches shows a change of attitude upon any particular public question. They arc merely shown, to bo so far unreliable and tho amount of capital to be made out of such a discovery depends upon tho circumstances of tho moment. Both sides are entitled to indulge in this form of controversy if it pleases them and hoisting tho engineer with his own petard happens to bo part of their immediate strategy. If Mr Massey happens to bo hoisted more frequently than is good for his own comfort he has only himself to blame, and when we perform that office for him again this j morning wo do so with a preliminary reservation that we have not been | looking for “discreditable” incidents j but merely for uncomfortable ones. !

Our friend has come forward with' the announcement that ono of the | things he is fighting for is “to obtain the old age pension for women at sixty instead of sixty-five.” Not being in the confidence of the Conservative party throughout the country wo are not able to say how they look upon this announcement and what it signifies, but it is clear that if parties in | the Legislature are going to seek to' dish one another by advocating pensions at lower ages the appeal is not to Conservatism but to tho most advanced Radicalism. Wo take no ex-! oeption to this, and must congratulate upon their changed attitude such of. the Conservative rank and file as are just now in transports of simulated j delight at Mr Massey’s “ policy.” Obviously the “policy” on this pint will lead us far, and at a quicker pace than most people had anticipated. Particularly do wo congratulate Mr Massey upon his belated clutch at the skirts of Liberal policy. He was not always of this way of thinking. On the contrary, he was one of those members of the Opposition who showed a vicious and prolonged hostility to old age pensions in any form. Speaking on the second reading of the authorising Bill, he said:

The pensioners will bo living, or partly living, upon tho earnings of others, and not upon what they lihve panned themselves. . X do not believe any Administration could retrench sufficiently to provide for an old-age pension fund such as is proposed in the Bill now before the House. . . . No pension scheme can he satisfactory in which the recipients do not contribute. ... I think the property of n pensioner should bo liable to the State at his or her death for the amount of pension which has been received. ... If we inter-G-<ro with tho wages fund, if wo take money away from the ordinary purposes of the colony far, the endowment of old age or for any similar purpose, it probably will do more barm than good to the very class it is intended to benefit. There is nothing discreditable to Mr Massey in this; far from it. The quotation is merely revived to show that in picking at the holes in Ministerial' coats he should not forget tho neoos-j sity of darning his own raiment. If he is asking us to believe that payment of pensions to women at sixty is a point of cleavage between Liberal and Conservative policy the reply is that- to a Liberal Administration the question is merely ono of funds; to Conservatives it moans swallowing, at ono gulp all their professions of faith and principle. However, since Mr, Massey has eaten the Radical leek soj completely we can only compliment, him upon his newly acquired taste.; But he really must mot pose as a vete-j ran in the “fight” for pensions. The actual fight was to prevent him and: his colleagues taking away from the old people tho small ransom wealth was forced by Liberal opinion to pay. Another point upon which Mr Massey shows us something not “ discreditable ” but instructive has reference to the paramount question of land. In season and out he has insisted upon th© utterly irrelevant issue of tenure

taking first place in controversy upon this subject. To him, it would seem, tenure is the one single point with which public policy should bo concerned. As with old age pensions th© Opposition has moved slowly in this matter, though, as opposed to that subject, tbo movement lias been backward. Mr Massey’s present objective is the sale of all land in which the Crown has an interest ordinary Crown lands, the education and old age pension endowments, and land resumed for settlement under the Land for Settlements Act. Of all of these he would hold a clearing sale, and with tho proceeds—purchasers being allowed to “ pay as they liked”—would “buy more land for the people.” Just now wo will say nothing of the danger and futility of such a policy as this being entrusted to tho party behind Mr Massey. Wo are concerned hero to emphasise the fact that even on this point tho leader of the Opposition has shifted his ground. He complains of the Government “changing its mind.” yet prior to the general election before last ho himself condemned as preposterous any proposal to sell the land for settlement lands or to treat the tenants in the same way as holders of ordinary Crown lands. “There is,” he then said, “no parallel in the cases at all. In cue case tho settler spends the best yearn of his life in bringing waste land into cultivation. and ho is entitled to any increase in value that takes place. In tho other case the .settler is placed upon improved land, giving an almost immediate return for his labour, and usually close to milwar or road, and any increase in value might fairly he divided between the settlor and tho State.”

What is Mr Massey's attitude now ? The very opposite to this. It seems, therefore, that while he may bo right in claiming that his somersaults required a certain amount of courage it is not quite fair for him to claim that similar antics performed by other people are indicative of something else. Indeed, tho man who strongly opposed old ago pensions, rejected as absurd a suggestion to sell the Crown’s interest in settlement leases and scoffed at the Advances to Settlers Act as “pawnbroking ’ ’ to come forward as the friend and advocate of all these things, with jibes at the Government about “altering its opinions,” has himself something to answer for.