THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES. TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1915. APPEALS TO PREJUDICE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16285, 19 January 1915, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES. TUESDAY, JANUARY 19, 1915. APPEALS TO PREJUDICE.

The Labour. Representation Committee, from which wc publish this morning a thiW letter respecting the Dunedin Central by-election, is providing us with an interesting study. The composition of long letters to the press represents, we presume, one of the outward and visible manifestations of the ivigilance which, as it has assured us, it feels it incumbent upon itself to exercise on behalf of its candidate. But the further it proceeds with its correspondence the more confused and the more illogical it becomes. Were it not that we have reason, as the public also has, to know that thoJLi&bour Representation Committee does not permit itself to be hampered by facts in what it writes, we should seriously doubt whether portions of the letter in this morning's issue were really intended to be addressed to us at all In the very first paragraph of the letter we read : Yon will remember we pointed out that your glorification ot Mr Statham as a " true sport," was based on unsound reasoning, inasmuch as he was resigning the seat which the majority of the electors declared by their votes his opponent should hold, and that he was resigning tho seat whioh he as % lawyer, knew he could not hold in the face of certain election petition proceedings. You are wisely silent on that important point. This is very interesting, chiefly because it attributes to us ail expression which will be found, on investigation, not to have been used in our columns at all. jiut, since the Labour Representation Com-, njittee is disposed to make so much

of this "important point," it seems to us that it is well that the committee should recognise—and, if it does not do •:,«, the electors certainly will recognise- -that, on the supposition that the result of an election )>ctition would have been to declare the election void, Mr Statham still acted the part of a sportsman in resigning the seat. Why, however; ■was an election petition not lodged 1 Why is the Labour Representation Committee not frank on that point? But the next few sentences in its letter of this morning misrepresent the Otago Daily Times even more glaringly. They say : You have, repeatedly bewailed Mr Statham'ts bad luck, but you have no word to say about the luisiort.uiie ol Mr Munro, wlio won the seat by virtue of receiving a majority of the votes cast, but who loses it through the stupidity of a deputy returning officer. And yet you pretend to deal fairly with such questions. It will be observed that in this passage the Labour Representation Committee submits a test of fairness. Wo accept the test. We invito the committee to submit to us a proof of its assertion that we have "repeatedly bewailed Mr Statham's bad luck." We cannot invite it to submit a similar proof of its assertion that we " have no word to say about the misfor time of Mr Munro." It cannot be expected to prove the negative proposition. We are prepared, however, to prove that the Labour Representation Committee's assertion that we have ignored Mt Munro's misfortune is false. We undertake to prove it. All that we ask the Libour Re presentation Committee to prove is that we have " repeatedly bewailed Mr Statham's bad luck." Our files are open to its inspection to facilitate it in furnishing this proof. And if it fails to do so and if we ; on the other hand, disprove, as we undertake to do, the allegation that we "have no word to say about the misfortune of Mr Munro,'' the public will then see who it is that does not "deal fairly with such questions." The test of honesty is one that has been suggested by the Labour Representati r.i Committee. It cannot, therefore, reasonably decline to submit itself to the- test. If it does, however, we venture to think that any shred of a reputation, for fair dealing which may be left to it after the exposure of its distortion of facts in connection with the, hotel employees' six-day week will be stripped from. it. And if it evades the test, as we expect it will, the electors will draw their own conclusions.

The generalisations which the Labour Representation Committee employs in its attack upon the general policy of the Otago Daily Times are so unimpressive that we may disregard them. If the committee will endeavour to quote specific instances of the enactments included in " the most complete code of industrial and humanitarian legislation " that were opposed by the Otago Daily Times, and to quote specific instances of the warnings issued in this journal as to the " red ruin and irretrievable disaster" that would follow the adoption of this code, it would be more to the purpose, although we cannot imagine what bearing they would have upon the Dunedin Central election. The importation of such irrelevancies into the discussion represents, of course, only one of those appeals to prejudice upon which the Labour Representation Committee is relying at the present time. But a " reductio ad absurdum" is involved in the committee's effort to convict the Otago Daily Times of conservatism. We cannot deny, it is said, that the Government which we support is a minority Government. The statement is both true and false. It is true that the number of votes recorded for Government supporters at the general election was less than onehalf of the total number of votes that wen* polled. But ; t is false to say or to suggest that the Ministerial party is supported by fewer electors than support any other party. The Reform party is actually the party which is most largely supported throughout the dominion. And then we are accused of being true to our conservative instincts and traditions by opposing the party which would give the people proportional representation. Which is that party? Is it the Opposition party? If so, it seems desirable to remind the electors that that party existed in power for seventeen years under the electoral system which is now-in force; that it then suddenly, with the object of crippling the Labour party, secured the substitution of the second ballot system; that a year ago it was in favour of a system of preferential voting which included most of the defects of the second ballot system; and that it was only a few months ago that it declared in favour of the system of proportional representation. What its policy on the subject may be twelve months hence can only be a matter of speculation. It is obvious enough that it has no settled convictions on the question of electoral reform. But the most amusing feature of the Labour Representation Committee's diatribe on this question is that it is directed against the Government which has actually placed on the Statute Book measures providing for the introduction of the system of proportional representation in the dominion. The test on tho point whether a party is progressive or conservative is virtually reduced by the committee to the question of its views on this particular subject, and it denicta as " the party of political stagnation" the very party that has made provision for the adoption of the system of proportional representation!

The Labour Representation Committee does not meet the questions we have asked respecting the relation of Mr MunTo to "Red Feddism." We did not anticipate that it would meet them. It dishonestly suggests that the fact that Mr Munro has committed himself to a platform that ia less extreme than that of the Social Democratic Party absolves him from any imputation of sympathy or association with "Red Feddism." The disingenuousness of this should be obvious. The committee's platform is one that Mr P. C. Webb, or Mr Robert Semple, or Mr H. E. Holland might accept as an instalment of the revolutionary programme that is supported by each of them. But the circumstance that any of them accepted it would not negative the idea that he is in fact a " Red Fed." Mr Munro will doubtless consider it expedient during the election to state with some degree of explicitness what his personal programme is. It has been publicly stated that he has proudly avowed himself to be a "Red Fed.'' It will be interesting to learn whether he will now disclaim any such avowal. Really, we attach no importance to what the labour Representation Committee may have to sa\ respecting the views of its candidate. It may water them down as much as it pleases. It may do its best to side-track the discussion respecting the opinions that arc entertained and have been oppressed by Mr Munro. It is not from the com mittee that the exposition of Mr Mnnro's views is to be looked for. Mr Munro !s himself the best interpreter of -hen?, and the electors will look to him for a statement of them.

THE ITALIAN EARTHQUAKE. Tjik latest cablegrams suggest, unfortunately, that the earlier reports of the severity of the earthquake that has devastated a largo a;--n in Italy have not—as frequently is tin; case when events of the kind are recorded—boon by any means exaggerated. Any estimate- of the casualties can as yet necessarily only bo tentative, but it is only too apparent from- the evidence which is furnished from reliable .sources that the loss of life has been terrible—ono statement places it as high as 30,000 in the Abruzzi region—and that the disaster is one calculated to bring a great portion of Italy into mourning. At a time when all the world is hardening its heart in a sonEO against the recital of unparalleled slaughter in the greatest war on record the cruelty of the blow that has fallen upom tho peaceful Italian countryside may make a less powerful impression at a distance than it would otherwise have done. But the details of the Italian disaster are in truth inexpressibly shocking. Tho fate of the town of Avezzano makes harrowing reading. "Avezzano," runs the narrative, "was ground to powder as by a gigantic machine." But the area over which tho earthquake has wrought havoc and devastation appears to have been unusually yide, and the sad experience of Avezaano has to be multiplied enormously in order that an idea may be gathered of the full measure of tho loss and destruction which has fallen upon the district affected. Unless the details that we have received have been highly coloured—and there is no reason to suppose they have—the horrors of bombardment pale almost to insignificance before tho spectacle of the sudden piteous and irrevocable ruin effected in scarcely more than a few seconds by this seismic upheaval. Possibly the day will come when seismological science will be able to claim the accurate prediction of earthquakes as its crowning accomplishment, but in the meantime the most dreadful feature of those disturbances of the earth's crust is the spectacle of a population taken wholly unawares. Italy has suffered cruelly in the past through earthquakes, and in the toll once again exacted of her merits the sympathy of the nations. The Italian Government will do its part to retrieve as far as possible the effects of the disaster, and has fortunately no serious present embarrassments, so far as we know, to interfere with its discharge of its duty in this matter. But the loss and suffering among the population in the devastated district may be such aa to call for even a greater measure of assistance than it is in the power of the Italian Government and people speedily to render available. Should this be so, and should an appeal be made to external sources of assistance— indeed even in the absence of any appeal —other countries will assuredly not be all so preoccupied as to fail to lend a helping hand where it is needed. !