The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, JULY 8, 1927. BRANDING POLITICAL PARTIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 91, 8 July 1927, Page 8

The Sun 42 Wyndham Street, Auckland, N.Z. FRIDAY, JULY 8, 1927. BRANDING POLITICAL PARTIES

LABOUR has proved in the House of Representatives that within the Legislature there is no lack of confidence in the Government. Its adverse amendment to a formal motion was thrown out last evening by fifty-six votes to thirteen. This result was to be expected. As a missile of political party warfare, the Opposition’s amendment was about equal to a wet sponge; disagreeable, perhaps, but quite harmless. When Samson smote the Philistines his weapon Vvas the jawbone of an ass. Aggressive politicians are content to use their own jaws in endless talk about nothing in particular. As a test of party strength (to vary the metaphor) Labour’s noisy attempt to separate the sheep from the goats in the Parliamentary fold was almost a ludicrous failure. It had not secured a full muster. Eleven woolly lambs or frisky kids had strayed, thus escaping the daub of a party brand. When the farcical debate on the test question began a fortnight ago, there were nominally five different political parties at least in the House, these being Reform, Labour, Nationalist, Old Liberal, New Liberal, each having a leader, also a policy and, presumably, some pride in its status. Last evening their number had dwindled io two—the Government party in one lobby and the Labour Opposition in the other. It may be left confidently to the public unerringly to decide which pen contained the sheep and which the goats. • * Observers of the division have not considered it worth while to disclose the count in full detail. It has been broadcast, however, that Mr. W. A. Veitcli, the new Liberal evangel who recently went up and down the country preaching a glorious revival of Liberalism, voted with the Government. He was fortified in bondage by a former Nationalist, Mr. 11. Atmore. now an Independent and almost a political Ishmael. What about Mr. G. W. Forbes, the'Leader of the Nationalists, and Mr. T. M. Wilford, the Nationalists’ father, and Sir Joseph Ward, the last of the true Liberals and the greatest Liberal of them all? Did they, too, go browsing on the Reform pasturage, or were they discreetly by the fireside at home, brooding over the glorious past, emotional with memories, “biting their nails at destiny”? It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss the division on Labour’s no-confidence amendment as a valueless test. Labour at least proved beyond doubt that it is a compact band- of loyal brothers. Be they the sheep or the goats, there is not a black one in the little flock. Then the Government came extraordinarily well out of the party test. It had the delight of demonstrating that either the Nationalists and Liberals are Tories, or that the Reformers, as improved Tories, are also Nationalists and Liberals.

As a matter of political fact (as the late Sir William liarcourt observed long ago) : “We are all Socialists now!” What the country wants, and what it is paying far too much for, is constructive legislation, and only just enough party warfare to keep each of the responsible parties—the Government and the Opposition—from blundering into stupidity. It is now time for Parliament to abandon its .palavering and get to honest work.

THE SLAUGHTER

THE Hon. G. M. Thompson must be congratulated on having brought before the Legislative Council the question of whaling in the Ross Sea. Protests both here and in Australia against the wholesale slaughter in Southern waters have been ineffectual, but a voice raised in Parliament may stir the Government to take action which will prevent the whales being exterminated. Alone, New Zealand could not do much, but the Government of Australia is also showing considerable concern over the position, and strong' representations by both countries, and by Great Britain, would assuredly have a restraining effect. Two seasons ago, a Norwegian expedition, licensed to work in the Ross Sea, took no fewer than 700 whales. Naturally, the whalers were delighted with their witch; but they were not pleased at having to pay royalties to the New Zealand Government. Last year, therefore, they made their base at Hobart and, although they worked the Ross Sea, they “avoided territorial waters’’ and paid no royalty to the Dominion. Of course, New Zealand has no patrol ships to watch the whalers’ operations and so we had only the whalers’ word for it that they strictly avoided the area under the suzerainty of the Dominion. It can easily be imagined with what particular scrupulousness the skippers of most whale-chasers would refrain from crossing the line into “territorial waters” after a £I,OOO prize. At the present rate of slaughter, the extermination of the whale species in the Antarctic is within measurable distance. There is no sentiment regarding preservation in the souls of the shareholders of whaling companies. Their sole concern is dividends, and the greater the slaughter the greater is their comfort. Sperm whales and right whales are now practically extinct, and the only “payable” representatives of the whale family left are the rorquals. These were too fast and powerful for the oldtime whale-boat and the hand harpoon; but they stand no chance against the speedy chasers of to-day, with their long-range harpoon-guns. The rapacity of those who hunt the sea-mammal knows no limit, as has been shown by the almost entire extermination of the seals that once visited the shores of New Zealand in their millions; and unless something is done to protect the whales from the depredations of their human enemies they too will vanish utterly from these seas.

T.B. SHELTERS IN THE DOMAIN

THE patients in the Annexe for returned soldier T.B. patients at the Domain may shortly be transferred elsewhere—presumably to the shelters at the Auckland Infirmary. Generous citizens have donated £I.OOO for the construction of a fernery near the site, and the City Council is asking that the Hospital Board remove the shelters that remain.

It has long been the desire of the Hospital Board to remove the patients .to a more suitable situation, but the men raised 1 very strong objection to being transferred, and from purely humanitarian motives they were allowed to remain. There are few of them left now, and it should not be a difficult matter for the board, with the consent of the patients, to make provision for their comfort elsewhere.