The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1914. LEST WE FORGET

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 8702, 8 April 1914, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1914. LEST WE FORGET

There are still some individuals on the extreme side of Labour unreasonable enough to declare relentless antagonism to Liberalism because it did not, iu its twenty-one years of office, achieve every one of the progressive reforms on its legislative programme. This is unjust. For the meet part, (these individuals are newcomers '■in our political life, who are prepared to take all that has been achieved in the last two decades as a matter of course, and who are incapable of realising the difficulties that confronted tho Liberal party of twen-ty-one years ago, and the colossal obstacles they succeeded in removing from the pathway of progress. It is easy now to look hack over the history of democratic administration, from a standpoint where every man professes ;o be a Liberal of some description, and to say that in addition to what has been accomplished this or that, measure should also have been passed into law. But let the dissatisfied critic put himself in the place of the Liberal leaders and party of twentyone years ago. Let him remember that at that time many of tho departmente of State usefulness that are now contributing to the prosperity of th» country and tho welfare of its people were still in tho clouds and were opposed by a solid and influential body of people as the disastrous machinations of tho Seven Devils of Socialism.

It is all very well to accept these institutions now as a matter of course, and to discount the valiant campaign to achieve them because in their success to-day they are counten-, anced by the Tory party that malig-' nantly opposed their creation. But let it, never be forgotten that in the struggle! to achieve those reforms for the people such Liberal leaders as Ballance, Seddon and McKenzie died fighting for the popular cause. Commencing with tho imposition of the land and income tax, instead of the unequal property tax, and ending with the widows’ pensions, what a record of democratic achievement is presented to tho admiration of posterity. If the Liberals in twenty-on© years did not accomplish all they had intended, they certainly travelled much further than tho Democratic party of Great Britain, though it is true enough that colonial sentiment and environment were more favourable to legislative progress than the social and political conditions of tho Old World. Wo have been told within the last year or two that the Liberals had made the legislative pace too slow. Has it not always been slow P Of course it has. But why? Because tho Liberal party, with their Labour allies, were opposed foot by foot and inch by inch, with dogged determination and bitter malignance, by the Tory party who arc now administering these same departments and posing before the country as the only true Liberals. Let those who say that the progress has been slow recall the exhausting nights that tho resolute and invincible Seddon spent before he forced through the old ago pensions measure, in the teeth of bitter antagonism. Let them remember the desperate battles waged by Sir

John McKenzie before he overcame the resistance of the Tory party to the land for settlements legislation. Let them bear in mind the fight that was made against tho Libera! parly and the advances to settlers which has since financed thousands of farmers to prosperity, and the courage and determination with which tins beneficent scheme was carried to an effective issue.

It is inerdihle that those who venture to blame Sir Joseph Ward now because every promised Liberal reform was not placed on tile statute book can have any knowledge of those strenuous sessions, when olio measure after another was forced through iu the teeth of blind and unreasoning and withal uncompromising resistance, and Seddon and his untiring colleagues gave of their beet to tho service of their country and its people. The pace was slow 7 as that of the proverbial snail, but- it was the Masseys and Aliens and Herdtnans and Herries’s of those days who made it slow. And always there was the dismal warning that this was wild and experimental legislation, that would land the country in disaster, and empty it of capital and population. It became necessary that the legislators of those days, prudent and far-seeing, should pause occasionally and give their legislation tho opportunity to prove its usefulness. Twenty years ago, the measures that have conferred enormous benefits on tho trades unionists of New Zealand were opposed with violent Unreason and malevolent obstinacy, and the men who were advocating them were held up to public derision and obloquy. There have been something like eighty of these enactments, every one of which aroused bitter opposition, and to-day the Masseys and Allens and their Tory satellites pose on tile public platform as tho benefactors who conferred these advantages on tho people. Nevertheless, without a. single exception, they exhausted every device and method of obstruction iu their determination to prevent these equitable and progressive measures becoming law. Mr Atmoro put tho matter very pointedly and convincingly when lie said that in blaming Sir Joseph Ward because every Liberal promise was not fulfilled in the twenty-one years of continuous powor wais like blaming George Stephenson because he did not invent the Westinghouso brake. The requirements and demands of ‘the democracy in New Zealand have grown and developed with the onward march of Liberal achievement. There have been mistakes, and these have required pause for amendment and repair, but the movement has always been steadily progressive. If the most advanced Labour advocate of twenty-one years ago had been asked to look forward,’ and contemplate the record of what has since been achieved, he would have been incredulous. Nevertheless, there are men on the Labour side to-day who profess to scorn what has been accomplished, ignoring all consideration of the almost insuperable difficulties that have been overcome, and narrow-mindedly withholding from great, courageous and public-spirited statesmen the credit for the immense services they have rendered the cause of the people, besides ungratefully ignoring the never-to-bc-forgotteh fact that in some instances these distinguished men even sacrificed their lives in the service of their country.