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Observer, Volume XL, Issue 13, 29 November 1919, Page 3

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"Speak to 'Em Kelpie!"

DID you ever drive sheep? Ever croAvd a mob up against a fence and try to push it through a little gap? EA-er get off the hack and heave one jumbuck through the gap "pour encourager les autres," as Hone Hopai would say ?

Men are very like sheep. They AA-ant a lead. . For instance, Mr. Massey Avalked up and doAvn in front of the gap in the fence for a long time, and then bolted through. Said that Party Politics Avere Dead Sea apples. Then several other gentlemen in politics bolted through the gap, too, and. also-baaed that party politics were Dead Sea apples as if THEY had discovered the glorious truth. The bell wether (if Mr. Massey will excuse this agricultural reference) gets no credit for first bounding through the burst panel.

' The election to be fought in a few weeks will be conducted on party lines. Mr. Massey and Sir Joseph Ward, who Aye re as David to Jonathan during the war, because war prescribed above all else, unity, become by the mischance of peace, opponents Avho Avrangle (thanks to the newspaper reporter) throughout the country. Yo do not know what a wicked" chap Mr. Massey is until the electioneering business begins, and Avhat dreadful person the baronet of the Bluff can be until the political gloA-es are off, and this funny little Avar of bicker is on.

By careful perusal of NeAV Zealand newspapers one concludes that rival politicians and rival parties, who are blasting each other throughout the length and breadth of New Zealand, will get into Parliament by the blasting process, and then hug each other round the neck with as much affection as if there was a war on. It is a rum thing that party politics should be dropped as a necessity of Avar and re-established as a necessity of peace. It is.very like a General blowing up his oavii artillery because he has to meet the enemy to-morrow, and ordering a million cannon to be made the moment Peace is declared.

To demonstrate how deep the party system has bitten into the vitals of the elector it'is only necessary to folloAv the career of electioneering candidates Avho announce themselves as "Independent," the elector of NeAv Zealand knowing perfectly well that there has not been an independent man in the NeAV Zealand Parliament since Sir George Grey died. The elector is suspicious of the man Avho is not a party man, because the party system is the only system he knows. * * * If parties were abolished BEFORE an election the people would probably vote for a person because he Avas a Man and not a parasite, for the party system is parasitism in excelsis, a scramble for loaves and fishes. It is a little curious to hear from the men who are in Parliament, and have been kept in Parliament because of this party parasitism, that it has outlived its usefulness. The best evidence that it never at any time had any usefulness (except to parasites), is that it was dropped during the gra\'est crisis in the history of the Empire as a necessity. On AA'ith the dog-fight!