THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5691, 9 October 1896, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

Sydney Bulletin on "Maoriland and itß Prospects."

The Maoriland general election is due in a few weeks, and already there has set in the infuriated rush of candidates re.solved to save the country at any cost. The Seddon Government goes into the contest heavily handicapped by its own old age, and if it wins, which the Bulletin regards as a practical certainty, it will be the best testimonial •which any Government has yet received in any of the Seven Provinces. The present Maoriland Ministry has already served through two Parliaments. It was created —as the Ballance-Seddon Cabinet-^in January, 1891, and started business with a large majority. It was returned again with a still larger majority at the beginning of 1894 — a wholly unprecedented circumstance, seeing that the average Ministry has worn out its welcome after an existence of three years, and it is unusual even to get a second lease of life by a small majority, while the ordinary course of events is for the ordinary Government to be thrown out with contumely at the very first opportunity. * * * In party politics the party out of office has no chance to make any serious mistakes of commission, because it has no opportunity to do anything. Its business is mostly to howl at the Government for no.t doing things without showing how they should be done. If the Government does things which turn out badly, the Opposition has to be wise after the event, and show that it wouldn't have done them or would have done them quite differently. If the Government does them well, it shows, without taking any responsibility, how it would have done them a lot better. If the Government shows a surplus, it can prove that the surplus ought to have been larger ; also that more money should have been spent in certain directions, and that taxation should have been reduced, and that there is really no surplus at all. The Maoriland Opposition has had six years of this sort of thing. It is six years since it had a chance to make any bad blunders of its own ; and the Government, having been six years in office, or more than twice as long as the average period, has had every chance to make twice as many blunders as usual. Also, it has had time to lose twice as many opportunities, and leave twice as many things undone.. The common or garden Cabinet starts with OHe or two ideas only, and when it uses them vp — provided it survives all other mishaps — it dies because it has nothing left to promise the people which looks like an adequate reason for its continuance in office. The present Democratic Ministry has filled in six years of hard work, and has used up as many inspirations as would have served to keep the old variety of politician in office for a quarter of a century; and still it has a large, vigorous programme left. This says a great deal for its vitality, at all events. * * *

There have, of course, been mistakes and failures in the Seddon Government's career. There are failures in the' record of every Government which does anything, and every other Government as well, . and the Maoriland Ministry has done so much more than the average, and most of it in ways .where there were few precedents to go upon and very little past experience to serve as a guide, that the only wonder is that the failures have not been ten times as numerous as they are. Against these, things, however, it has to be remembered that the alternative is a Bussell-Tory-National Ass Ministry, which would be equally autocratic if it had a similar majority behind it, because Party Government is constructed that way. Also the Russell party is the one which borrowed ten millions where Seddon borrows one, and whose finance was much more shady and foolish than Seddon's at its worst, and which can show old financial scandals compared to which the Ward episode sinks into comparative insignificance. The alternative lies between the Ministry whose enthusiasm for social reform may possibly carry it too far forward and one which has no policy except undoing what has already been done and going back to the old stagnation. Considering all the circumstances and possibilities of the case, the best course Maoriland can adopt is to return the Seddon Government to office by the biggest majority it can raise, and risk the consequences. A Ministry which can stand six years of power without falling into utter discredit is an institution which only comes along once in a century or move, and the country which throws it lightly away will probably have cause to regret its action later on and keep on regretting it for long afterwards. Any Ministry, under the party system, is only the less of two evils, but in this case there seems such a vast disproportion between the evils that there is no room for hesitation.