The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1925. “TIRED AND BORED”

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12197, 23 July 1925, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1925. “TIRED AND BORED”

It is revealed to. us in a letter from Pahiatua that we have a "tired and bored” reader there. We are sincerely sorry. That is the sort of crime we hate to have on our editorial conscience. Boredom is very definitely not in the best interest of the country, as the Nationalist leader would say. f The cause of our Pahiatua correspondent s utter weariness of the flesh and spirit is that we are “continually accusing Labour for changing its political views from red to pale pink. We cannot pass thl “continually accusing” without being allowed to remark that it is Mr Wilford. not Mr Holland, who has monopolised our attention of late. Still, it is a fact that the “Times has on several occasions jollied the Socialists on having powdered out much of their redness. They had need to do so. No sensible person sues for favours with a spike-studded club. „ . Our correspondent next charges the Times with inconsistency in that' it has (according to him) changed from red— good old Liberalism's colour”— rto a ‘very deep Conservative blue. Before we formally enter a plea of not guilty, we are constrained to enter a protest against the colour scheme which the bored Pahiatuan has attached to “good old Liberalism. That gum will not stick. Richard Seddon was no more red in the modern acceptation of the term than Mr Holland is a jingo Imperialist. There was a purpose behind our correspondent s curious proposition. He had set out to prove that the present-day Socialists are the logical successors of Seddonism. Tp do that he was compelled to show| if he could* a well-defined community of political interest between the two parties when Mr Seddon reigned. He has met that responsibility by labelling red the Liberals of the time and by asserting that Seddon’s party was “largely composed of the present Labour Party.” Only a really “tired and bored man could imagine such vain things. , On another point—the “Times” has not taken on a very deep Conservative blue,” or blue of any shade. When Liberalism was Liberalism we were for it heart and soul. But when the Liberalism of recent years was tested and found to be a rather cheap imitation, the “Times,” having no fondness for rolled gold,-decided to look around for a braver metal—and has found it. So much for that matter. . We cannot conclude our explanation without ,a nnal reminder fo the critic from Pahiatua. What he, tells us, in effect, is that the mantle of 6'eddon (and Ballance) has descended on the shoulders of the Socialists. Impulsively, in the course of the Franklin byelection, Mr Holland made a similar assertion. When the absurdity of the-claim was demonstrated, the. Socialist leader denied the soft impeachment. The position, then, so far as the inheritors of the Seddon policy are concerned, is that Mr. Holland is no longer a claimant. He is again what he was: a professing socialiser on a big scale. . ■ , We hope our “tired and bored” reader in the country will rouse himself. What we can do to -that end will be done.