PRESS OPINIONS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 12 August 1913, Page 4

PRESS OPINIONS.

Divided counsels and the lack of capable leadership have paralysed Liberalism in Parliament and country alike, and the party will have very little hope of recovering its lost ground fit the next' General Election unless it can reorganise its scattered forces, and submit itself to the guidance of an energetic and experienced commander-in-chief. There is an unexampled opportunity' waiting for such a leader, and it is for Sir Joseph Ward himself to show if he is able to rally tho bewildered and disheartened representatives around the Liberal banner. —Auckland Star.

If Mr Allen has, as it is hinted, not sufficient time to attend to matters educational, the • Government, should introduce and pasd a Bill providing for another *svlio would take over the portfolio of Education, and who would be able to devot© his whole official time to education matters, at' r present, so we fear, very .inuch rie-< glected.-—Marlborough Express. .

. No man Wants to drive a machine with defective apparatus, and Sir Joseph Ward's reticence is suggestive. He has not refused to take the Leadership of the party, but it is fairly evident that if he can be assured of a solid front and a consistent loyalty he will bo again found at the head-of a strong Opposition. If tliis should eventcnte it is net at all unlikely that in the "General Post of politics' he may be at no distant date once more in, possession of Ins, old seat on the Treasury benches.— Taranaki News.

British immigration would flourish if we offered reasonable opportunity for acquiring the freehold farm which is dear to every North European. Mr Ma&sey's policy is freehold, and the country is with him ; but Mr Herries must do his duty as Minister foi Native Affairs before Mr Massey, as Minister for Lands, can do very much for the settler.—Auckland Herald.

' The Government, however, are bound to remember that a real reform of the Council must somehow be affected; the purely nominative system imust go. It was. not alone tba the public saw the Continuous Administration stuffing the Council wi h incompetent men, whose services to the Liberal pjrty were as notable as their non-performance of any service to tho public; the public saw the Council degenerate into a mere recorder of the Executive s will Cliristchurch Press.