THE DIFFICULTIES OF MODERATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18730, 7 December 1922, Page 6

THE DIFFICULTIES OF MODERATION.

With the departure of the captains and the kings who have for many days been endeavouring to persuade electors that only by their guidance can the State be presented, tho tumult and the shouting will die away and everybody will once more proceed along his accustomed way in enjoyment of freedom from tho distractions of a general election. The political campaign which closed last evening was not unlike other campaigns in most respects, though it was quieter than many of them were in tho past. One of its most interesting and entertaining features was the supremo effort of the Official Labour Party to follow a line of studied moderation. This was so obviously a pose and so clearly in conflict with its platform that Labour candidates must have felt the assumed bonds most irksome. Montesquieu in the dim past laid down tho axiom that “moderation should be tho guiding spirit of tho legislator,” but Bacon recognised that “nothing moderate is pleasing to the crowd.” The Labour candidates have pleaded that in aim and ideal they are at one with their British confreres. It is certain, however, that on some fundamentals the. gulf between tho Labour Party at Home and tho party in Now Zealand is wide and deep. Some of the reforms for which British Labour stood at the rc-

cent elections are already old-estab-lished institutions in the dominion. For instance, the British Labour Party supports’ nationalisation of the railways, but tho Labour Party in the dominion repudiates railway nationalisation as State capitalism and demands a system of socialisation under ■which “all labour” shall be appointed by the trade unions interested and that the Board of Control shall consist of members of whom at least half shall also be ap-

pointed by the same unions. • It is true that the election manifesto of tho British Labour Party endorsed the idea of a capital levy, but the leaders made it clear before the recent election that the party was not wedded to this and that it was “only a suggestion, not a definite proposal.” Again, Labour at Home was content to propose an exemption of £250 for income tax, while hero the exemption is £3OO a year, with further exemptions of £SO for each child, making the New Zealand income tax exemption the most liberal in the Empire. Labour candidates at Home and in. the dominion support taxation of land values, but the programme of the Labour Party in tho dominion is, to put it plainly, confiscatory in its terms. Unwilling to acknowledge how extreme it is, local candidates have severely

strained their imaginative powers and made heavy demands on the credulity of electors' in suggesting that the land planks in their platform meant something quite different from what they plainly say. It will be interesting to notice after the election whether the party will stand squarely for tho constitutional settlement of

Labour disputes, or whether it will, in the event of the occurrence of the prophesied post-election strike, help the community or sympathise with men who aim blows at the arbitration system. A policy of moderation may not be spectacular but only by sincere and earnest moderation can Labour or any other political party win an appreciable measure of general confidence.