The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1925. POLITICAL TACTICS.

Southland Times, Issue 19492, 5 March 1925, Page 4

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. THURSDAY, MARCH 5, 1925. POLITICAL TACTICS.

There are not wanting signs that some of the politicians are considering the possibility of an election before next December. Members are taking a closer interest in the domestic affairs of the electors, and they are making use of what opportunities that present themselves for helpful publicity, while the seniors of the political organisations are indulging in some preliminary sparring with the hope of securing some tactical advantage, or of preparing the ground for some new move to win the confidence of the electors. At present Mr Wilford, the Leader of the liberal-Labour Party is engaged in a verbal skirmish with the Hon. A. D. McLeod about some point concerning which the public is not very much interested, but it would seem that Mr Wilford attaches great importance to the matter, because he has returned to the question after Mr McLeod’s reply to his original remark. Mr Wilford, with the election coming nearer, has realised that he must clear himself of the effects of his advances in the direction of the Labour Party led by Mr Holland, and so we now have him couching his repudiation of Red Labour in very firm language, although probably we will find later that his election programme will include a number of planks taken from the Labour Party’s platform. Mr Wilford declares that his Party never assisted the Reds, and he quotes the abstention of the Liberals from three seats in Auckland to give the Reftrm candidate a straight-out fight against the Labour Party, but as Mr McLeod has shown, Mr Wilford quite overlooked the three-cornered battles forced on by his Party in other constituencies in the Auckland province. The Auckland position most probably grew out of the belief on the part of the Liberals in Auckland that to fight in the three constituencies was to waste energy and campaign funds. Now, however, Mr Wilford has done a peculiar thing. He has rushed into the three constituencies with candidates, and dares the Reformers to set-up candidates for another battle for fear they will be charged with forcing on a three-cornered contest to the advantage of the Labour Party. Mr Wilford makes his purpose quite clear:

I thank Mr McLeod, on behalf of the Liberal-Labour Party, for helping me to focus public opinion on three Auckland seats where we have three candidates announced against extreme Labour where there are no Reform candidates announced at present. Without his assistance, my point might have been missed. I now ask him whether, instead of using the schoolboy’s method of saying “You’re another,” he will state plainly, without dodging, whether Reform proposes to put up candidates for these three Auckland seats, thus helping, extreme Labour candidates there, or whether Reform intends leaving the Liberal-Labour Party to win these seats in a straight-out fight from the extreme Labour Party. Reform had a straight-out fight at the last election in three seats there, and failed to win.

Mr Wilford is delightfully boyish in his lusty crowing over what he believes to be a signal tactical victory, but his cheerful assumption of righteousness will not get over many political facts connected with his record since the last election, nor will it blind the public that the rush for those three Auckland seats was a tactical move of the most obvious kind, and was dictated by no other consideration worth mentioning. It was unfortunate for Mr Wilford that while he is endeavouring to convince the public that he does not know the Labour Party, and will never again have any truck with them, Mr Holland should be telling a Palmerston North audience something more about the subject to which Mr Wilford attaches such importance. Mr Holland was particularly clear in his statement if the Press Association summary of his remarks is to be accepted. This report quotes the Labour Leader as saying:—

Characteristic of the inconsistency of Mr Wilford himself was the Liberal Leader’s statement. .Not so very long since, the spokesmen of the Liberal Party were engaged recording protests that the intrusion of Labour candidates in certain electorates would mean splitting the progressive vote. Overtures were then being made to Labour to let the Liberals have a clear run against the Conservatives. The Leader of the Liberal Party now appeared greatly agitated lest the presence of Reform candidates should split the anti-Labour vote in Auckland constituencies, and there was something akin to pathos in his pleading with the Reformers to give the Liberals a clear run against sitting Labour members. Not a few of the old-time liberals would read with great interest, and possibly some amazement, the official statement that the 1922 Liberal candidates were kept out of Auckland constituencies in order that the Reform candidates might be helped with the Liberal vote to defeat Labour. Just prior to this arrangement being made, Mr Wilford was expressing himself as in favour of making an arrangement with Labour to defeat the Reform Government, and at the same time secure Proportional Representation. It was this vacillating attitude of Mr Wilford’s that left so many people wondering whether the measure of his sincerity ever rose above zero in the political thermometer.

It must also be remembered, that at the moment when negotiations were proceeding for an arrangement between the Liberals and the Labourites, Mr Wilford was volubly denouncing Labour. The Labour people have said openly that these “double” tactics were the cause of their rejection of the overtures from the Liberal envoys. Mr Holland has not left Mr Wilford a loophole. His intervention is most unfortunate, because it has spoilt his boyish crowing and has pushed him off his sand castle.