Not Our Kind of Liberalism

Southland Times, Issue 13643, 4 January 1897, Page 3

Not Our Kind of Liberalism

(Wellington ‘Post.’) The Hon. G. F. Richardson is back in Wellington and has some amusing stories to tell of how he won the battle for Mataura. His trump card, however, was an article that appeared in the “Premier’s paper” upon a day in May last, which he quoted time and again, finding therein abundant text of the remarkable achievements of Seddonism. The Ministerial journal, in the article referred to, had premised by saying:—“No better exposition of Liberalism has ever been given than that delivered at Oxford 20 years ago by Sir William Harcourt.” The pleasant satire with which Mr Richardson captured his hearers consisted in showing conclusively that the Liberalism of the Old Country, as enunciated by a Harcourt, is as wide as the poles asunder from the Seddonism that afflicts New Zealand. Indeed, Sir William could hardly have voiced a more scathing satire upon the shoddy Ciesarism that rules in this country to-day than in what was so felicitously described as “no better exposition of Liberalism,” etc., by the Premier’s paper. Let our readers judge : here it is :—“I have no sympathy with the principles of men who believe that government cannot govern unless it is always interfering with everybody and everything, and that'the best way to do people good is to make them as uncomfortable as possible. But these are not, and never have been, the tenets of the Liberal party. If there be any party which is more pledged than another to resist a policy of restrictive legislation, having for its object social coercion, that party is the Liberal party. . . - It is the practice of allowing one set of people to dictate to another set of people what they shall do, what they shall think, what they shall drink, when they shall go to bed, what they shall buy, and whether they shall buy it, what wages they shall get, and how they shall spend them, against which the Liberal party has always protested. ... I am against the whole system of petty molestation and irritating dictation, whether by a class or by the majority. I do nob admire the grand maternal government which ties nightcaps on a grown-up nation by Act of Parliament. lam against putting people to bed who want to sit up. I am against forbidding a man to have a glass of beer if he wants to have a glass of beer. lam against publichouse restriction. These are not actions of a Liberal policy, for they are the negation of the principle of liberty. . . . Unless we resolutely make a stand against this sorb of thing, depend upon it liberty itself will seriously suffer.” The electors of Mataura were induced to adopt similar views, and returned the opponent of Seddonism.