THE STATE OF PARTIES.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 639, 1 March 1879, Page 2

THE STATE OF PARTIES.

The Otago Daily Times has an artiole on theoretical and practical politics, in which it expresses the conviction, that Sir George Grey and Mr. Stout are doing harm to the Liberal party by theorising so much. The Times says :— " It becomes therefore a matter of much importance to the Ministry that they should shape their measures in such a way as to command a working majority. It is quite certain that they will not do so, at least with the present constituents, if the more extreme views of Sir George Grey and the Hon. Mr. Stout are to be pressed to an immediate issue in the Cabinet, and as some uneasiness exisls among Ministerial supporters aB to the extent to which the Ministry are prepared to go next session, it would be well if the Cabinet would consider how far they are prepared to endorse the recent utterances of their colleagues. There are two great measures to pass next session before any important liberal progress can go on— the Electoral Bill and the Representation Bill, — and these are of sufficient difficulty to tax the strength of a Government with an uncertain majority." The article closes as follows : — *• We cannot help thinking that the position of the Liberal party is jeopardising by too much theory on the one hand, and too little practical skill in the work of conciliation on the other. For the sake of the liberal measures we have most at heart, the liberal, administration of the waste lands, the gradual shifting of a full share of the taxation to the more wealthy classes ; for, as means to these ends, the passing of a liberal electoral law with a redistribution of seats, on principles that will approximate to equity ; for the sake of the vigorous and promising native policy of the present Government; and for the sake, too, of the numerous social improvements which would naturally follow on these advances, we would earnestly desire that a Government pledged to these measures, and such as these, should remain in power. We should not, however, be true to our party if we did not express the conviction, which has lately gained ground among many of their followers, that they are jeopardising their position by the incessant theorising to which we have referred ; and if only there were an united Opposition, which as yet there is not, the existence of the Ministry would be imperilled in a quite unnecessary way at at a time when they need all united strength to carry the measures to which they are already pledged. The Hon. the AttorneyGeneral, at least, should have practical wisdom enough not to provoke opposition. He is too good a man to be cast away on that shoal, and while he is educating the 'Liberal party' of the future, he should not neglect and leave in the lurch the Liberal party of the present, nor expect them to follow him in all his wild flights in search of the ideal, while the real and the present are so unpleasantly near and threatening.'