The Sun TUESDAY, MAY 5, 1914. POLITICIANS ON THE WARPATH.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 75, 5 May 1914, Page 6

The Sun TUESDAY, MAY 5, 1914. POLITICIANS ON THE WARPATH.

"While Sir Joseph "Ward was handing out masses of figures to a wet audience on a cold night in Christchurch, Mr F. M. B. Fisher was down at Winton criticising the Liberal Leader in his own constituency. The reports of the two speeches are worth comparing. Mr Fisher has great platform gifts. His language is clear and telling. He has a sense of humour, and is ever ready with a retort. Sir Joseph Ward, on the other hand, labours heavily in a sea of words, and adds to his rhetorical shortcomings by bewildering his audience with statistics that are beyond the comprehension of the average elector. Sir Joseph's greatest political asset is his personality. It will get him ten times as many votes as his oratory, no matter what the party newspapers say about it. At present they are busy magnifying or minimising last night's speecli according to their political colour. The Liberal newspaper mouthpiece conceives it to be its duty to make out that "the speech was a splendid effort which tremendously impressed an audience alleged to number between 6000 and 7000. The official exponent of Beform says that Sir Joseph addressed about 2000, and describes it as the "wail of a politician out in the cold." There is no reason why- the. public should believe either. The special edition of The Sun, published at 10 o'clock last night with a lengthy and an impartial report of the evening's proceedings, anticipated the biased by-products of the party mill, and the public, for the first time in the history of Christchurch, had the opportunity of reading a report of an important political speech by a party leader on the same night that it was delivered. From our point of view the chief defeet of the speech was that the matter not only lacked freshness, but Sir Joseph made no attempt to tell the people what he could do for them that is not being done quite as well by Mr M'assey. Physically it was no mean performance to address an open-air meeting for nearly two hours on a winter night, particularly as Sir Joseph suffering from a cold, and was not as lit as he might have been. But what did it all amount to? The Eeform Government is no ideal combination of Heaven-born statesman who do not make mistakes, whose motives are always beyond reproach, and who cannot be improved on, but what Sir Joseph Ward has to do is to convince,the public that he and Messrs Eusscll and Witty and Isitt and, the rest will be more competent administrators, that they will initiate more useful measures and generally run the country better than the present Ministry. Liberalism cannot expect to live for ever on past achievements, and Liberal politicians must be very sanguine men indeed if they expect to sail into power on a Avave of indignation caused by the vigour of their language about the Kefor in Party. The essential point ,is: What do tliey intend to do for the people? Why conceal their intentions till a date so close to the elections that the public will have no time to assimilate the policy before it is called upon to vote? A speech disclosing the Liberal policy would be a speech worth hearing, wet or fine, indoors or outside, and if Sir Joseph can see his way to make it in Christchurch we, for our part, will get out another special edition so that the public may be sure of getting a reliable report.