SHALL REFORM RETURN?

Observer, Volume XXXV, Issue 13, 5 December 1914, Page 2

SHALL REFORM RETURN?

RESULT HANGS IN BALANCE.

THE ELECTIONS

And the Men

IN a week New Zealand will be in the throes of the general elections. The people will vote for the men they like, and the merest chance will decide by a balance to the good which of two sides, each guided by the same set of ideas, shall hold the purse Strings. We etdl refuse to believe that the electors of any country are partisan. They select men, and do not generally pin their faith and their vote to a person because he happens to be a party phonograph declaring his adherence to a machine manufactured policy. There are, of course, people in all countries with an incurable bias against a particular party, a bias that is generally traceable to some minor personal grievance against the administration. A dull man of pronounced views becomes a more faithful representative of the people than a brilliant shuffler, and without the quality of unimpeachable integrity, a man, no matter what his talents, cannot long continue to hold public office. • • * It is not a question of "What about the strike?" or whether a man seeks your vote by promising you a new road, or a better 30b, or a branch railway. It is. a question of the personal qualification of every candidate to do the business of the country honestly, impartially and modestly. Be you the bluest Tory who ever fought for class privilege (and the Red Fed. is the model Tory), the wildest Radical who has to be "up agin" the Government or anything else, you must not deny that if the names of all the Parties in New Zealand were shaken in a hat and a Ministry picked by a blind-folded child, the government of New Zealand would proceed (with the help of the permanent staff) fairly much as usual. Every political sin ever committed is committed by the party you do not vote for. You know that this is unreasonable, unfair and silly, but it is the fashion to believe that a political enemy can do nothing right, precisely as it is ino-rained in you that all Germans are hogs. The party that will win in the coming election is not the party that can trot out the longest list ot alleged great deeds, but the party that has been able to obtain the services of men whom the people^know and like best. In the far future candidates will go to the poll not labelled, will not be mere voting machines, will not be carriers ot samples or mere voices repeating the set formula of the boss and his aiders and abettors, but merely candidates applying to be allowed to join the directorate of New Zealand Limited. The public is entirely familiar with the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. W. F Massey. They know that he is unassailably honest, but unoriginal enough, to be frequently misled, in fact, his "coaches" do not always cram him carefully enough, and unquestionably he has the undemocratic habit of being guided by a small class of owners of broad acres, lnis is possibly the gravest accusation ever levelled at the Premier, for otherwise he has largely travelled along the well worn track on winch the wheels of the Liberal chariot left their marks during- a score of prosperous, well-governed' years, me people are often influenced by minor mattere. Satisfied so long with th* Seddon-Ward regime, many wondei

if Mr Massey has deviated too much from the lesson taught him by Li-beralism-r-rior Mr Seddon was the schoolmaster of Mr Massey, just in the same cense that he was mentor for Sir Joseph "Ward. ■ • •

The political habit of carefully refraining from giving an enemy credit for anything and discrediting all his works is uncomfortable and unsportsmanlike, but it is all in the game, and always will be in the game until absolute merit and not a label is a man's sole passport to the seats of the mighty. It is impossible to believe that an electorate which has been "Liberal" will vote "Reform" simply because of the name. The people as a body vote for a man, not for a name or a machine, for the people in the bulk have no more to gain from one machine than another. In fine, a government, whether led by Mr Massey or Sir Joseph Ward, must dip in the same pocket —the exhaustless purse of John Bull, and no government is wrecked by a people peculiarly spendthrift because it gives them too much borrowed gold to play with. The interest is to be paid by posterity, and New Zealand is taking no interest in the Posterity Company.

The party press largely confines its attention to tiying to squash a man for the way he has voted on an old age pension scheme, it endeavours to niartvrise him for being a freeholder or a leaseholder, it hates him for having accumulated lard, although everyone who knows how to do it is a rabid accumulator in greater or lesser degree. And perhaps the party press exaggerates its own influence in elections. The public doesn't really care a button whether Jones made the 87th vote against old age pensions. The public nierelv says, "Jones is a rotter— I won't vote for him," or "Jones is a good, honest chap—he will get my vote." * * * The politician whose sole claim to a place in the House of Representatives is that he is a bond slave of the Massev Party or the Ward Party or the Anarchist Party announces himself as a fool. He is uncomplimentary to himself. He owns he hasn't brains enough to think for himself. He is just a cog in a wheel that has so many cogs that he wouldn't be missed if he were broken oil. The only method of political prophecy that is worth twopence is to anticipate the result by picking the men who, by their popularity, their past services, or their usefulness and honesty, will appeal to the people whether they are Tory Liberals or Liberal Tories, for the terms are interchangeable. It is sought to prove that the Red. Fed Tail will wag the Liberal Dog, and this is a peculiar and unexplainable condition of "Reform fright, Reform half-admitting that a fighting federation between the two will give Sir Joseph the victory. Reform, therefore, pretends to believe that Red Fed. candidates are so beloved by the people of New Zealand that New Zealand is willing to send them to Parliament in dominating force. No one has ever paid so great a compliment to the perfectly suppositious power of the Anarchists as "Reform." "Reform" does not really attach, the least importance to Anarchist activity. It merely pretends for party purposes to do so. There are ten Social Democrats i standing for New Zealand seats. At r the outside two may win their seats,

and most possibly but one. Say two. This is the tail that is going to wag the Liberal dog should the animal regain possession of the kennel!

At present the Government holds 38 seats and the Opposition 31. The remaining electorates are either new or the members sitting in the last Parliament have retired. There is a strong probability that the Government may not be able to hold two or three of the Auckland seats, due not so much to partisan electors as to the known value of the men in opposition. Popular and tried men of any party have a better chance of reaching the dizzy eminence of a free railway pass and a private box in Parliament with the "sudden death" style of fighting. People who go to the poll want to vote for one man. TJnder the second ballot thousands exercised a second vote becaxise it was theirs to exercise, and they didn't like to waste it. The heartburnings of the man who would have got in on the "sudden death" system will not recur next week. He will know five minutes after the numbers are up whether he's to be an M.P. or continue to work for a living. It is creditable to both sides of politics that many of the selected candidates are of a superior class to the men who failed in 1911. Indeed, as graver matters crop up the quality of representatives will improve, for crises in the government of a country, like crises in the fate of a nation, invariably produce the men most competent to meet them. A • •

The most important fighting event of the little war, as far as the Auckland Liberal campaign is concerned, has been the tremendousmeeting addressed by Sir Joseph Ward in the Town Hall. It is a fair presumption that a political leader who holds a great meeting is on the whole addressing people who "are whole and need not a physician, so that the real utility of mass meetings can never be gauged. What is. perfectly certain is that the man who thinks hard about politics is never a disturber of public meetings. The people iwth a real stake in the country don't go around asking fool questions or telling the earth whom they will vote for. They don't really bother about political meetings except as a distraction to toil or business. All politicians, of whatever brand, rehash facts that have already been printed. The thoughtful elector isn't in the least influenced by the hurling of bushels of figures about. He has decided before he listens to the candidate as to the person who Avill get his vote. The utility ot copious speeches is in the printed publicity they receive. To reach the ears of 3000 "cured" people is useful, but to scatter one's pearls broadcast per printer's ink is the real business of leaders, especially as this is the easiest way to give their political phonographs material lor speech. m

Sir Joseph Ward's stand on Imperial matters is of much greater interest than his repetition of Reform statements, his list of past performances, and his promises for the future, and if New Zealand has been induced by the great war to "think Imperially," New Zealand must regard the Leader of the Opposition not as a party politician with a desire for office, but as an Imperial statesman who is really among the few elite who are listened to with respect in a greater place. Concerned as we very naturally are rather with our small domestic affairs than with the gigantic possibilities for changein the Empire, it is not to be forgotten that men whose view is not bounded by the parish pump, but who take the far flung Empire ot King George in their field of vision are the men who should guide New Zealand in a time that must be tragically momentous. The public of New Zealand is not yet stirred to the possibilities of the near future, and it is not to be forgotten that in a greater crisis than this little outpost has ever known men fit to be theconfreres of the great men who aredirecting the Empire from Westminster are a real requisite. There comes a time when the matters used as ammunition on our platforms areso trifling as to be beneath the necessity of discussion.