THE COUNTRY CROWN WEARY.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13492, 11 June 1914, Page 7

THE COUNTRY CROWN WEARY.

The frenzy of travelling and speechmaking witnessed by the last few months must go near to exceeding all past records. Mr Massey has been up and down the whole length of both Islands, making speeches, and he has not been to many places where the leader of the Opposition has not followed him. Mr Allen, Mr Fisher, and Mr Hei-ries have been zealous in the same activities, and a "flying squadron" of the Opposition light-weights, who make up their numbers for their quality, has been affording entertainment mainly to the backblocks. The circumstances that have provoked this abnormal amount of electioneering six whole months before the elections are themselves abnormal says the "Timaru Herald." The Opposition finds it such a strange- and bitter experience to be out of office after twenty. years of power that it is ready to do anything which may assist it to get back to the Treasury Benches, while the Government, having had' only two years of office after a long experience of the unpleasant "shades," is naturally anxious to be given the opportunity of showing, during a longer period of administration, that the reforms it has already troduced are only, a first earnest of its usefulness. Hence the appeals and the counter-appeals, the allegations and disclaimers, the adoption by each side of ciies and arguments that were restricted to the other side when their positions were reversed, repetition and loud emphasis of which the country has grown weary. It is easy to blame the party system for the unprofitable din and jangle, but the waste of energy would not be so great if it were not for special circumstances. "When the Opposition has been out of office for a few years longer it will learn that there is useful work' for it to do even as an Opposition.