The Waipa Post. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1925. LABOUR'S MODIFIED TONE.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1681, 3 November 1925, Page 4

The Waipa Post. Printed on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1925. LABOUR'S MODIFIED TONE.

ONE of the candidates of the Labour Party, who carries the official label in the contest for a North Island constituency, was moved by the spirit of prophecy when he was addressing the electors early last week. " There is little doubt," he said, "that the Labour Party will increase its numerica'i strength in Parliament, and there is eve!ry indication that the Liberal Party will come back with diminished numbers." The implication is, of course, that Labour will increase its representation in Parliament at the expense of the Liberals, or, as they now prefer to ca'J themselves, the Nationalists. It is pertinent to suggest that the candidate, having assumed the prophetic mantle, ran some risk of disappointing a sympathetic audience by his moderation. Has it come to this, that Labour candidates are no longer encouraged to express more than reasonable hopes of some addition to tne parliamentary strength of their party as the result of the polling? Such modesty is unusual. "What has become of the very different and nuch more lusty tune which 'Labour was piping so recently when it was assuring al'l and sundry with supreme confidence that it was going to command a majority in. the new Parliament? It is true that in the New Zealand Worker, in a characteristic, account of Mr Holland's "great tour," we* read that "the signs unmistakably point to a tremendously increased Labour vote and the prospects of Labour victories were never rosier," while in the same publication the National President of the Labour Party condudels an appeal on "the workers' duty" with the boast: "Therefore Labour will soon bel in power here . . . Labour is winning." But even these pronouncements reveal nothing of that superb assumption 'Of confidence that was broadcasted when the elections were not so near at hand. Even the picture drawn 'by the President of the Labour Party —a picture of the terror-stricken condition of "the two old political wings of Toryism"—is distinctly lacking in •conviction. Certainly Labour has made essay to play the lion and roar exceedingly! loudly, but the masquerade has been a trifle obvious. When candidates begin almost to discount the changes of their party at election time, as the candidate to whom we have referred has done, thel public is able to realise that they are not particularly sanguine themselves respecting the issue, however positively and flamboyantly the prospects may be represented in their party publications.