CAMPAIGN NOTES.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXIV, Issue 17734, 6 December 1919, Page 5

CAMPAIGN NOTES.

[By "Kaione."]

The. week has been fairly quiet politically. The Herald has not indulged in any more than the usual amount of vituperation and misrepresentation so no further comments need be made on that score. The evening paper was badly squached over the butter-fat bonus and should take the hint to read Hansard carefully to see what attitude the. chief Wardite takes up before it begins to attack the Government. The only meetings in the Opera House was Mr Veitch's, when there was a fair attendance. Mr Mcllvride has the platform there to-night.

The man who can secure the votes of all classes —R.C. and P.P.A., Capitalist and Labour, License and Prohibitionist, Liberal and Reform —is pretty astute.. I have admitted that Mr Veitch has that Qualification. In previous elections he. has been very successful in roping in many of all sections of the public. But this year there is a big disintegration, to what extent will only be known oh December 17. The public is rapidly becoming wise to Mr Veitch's eel-like propensities. Oh Thursday evening he gave himself away completely on the prohibition question. As usual, he endeavoured to serve two masters, and as the result, staunch

trary he sought to justify them. Mr Veitch could not blame the men because, so he said, they could not get their grievances remedied any other way. When our member talks like this he is getting down to the level of Semple, Holland and Co. Mr Veitch will be wrathful at that statement and will say that the extremists would do things he saw no justification for. That is just it. Every man has a different viewpoint. That is the reason for all grievances and troubles. Semple, Holland and Co. would favour big strikes when Mr Veitch would disapprove. He would very likely, say then that . constitutional authority, should be respected because he disapproved of the strike. But if he sympathised with the men and they could not get a remedy by constitutional means, well, of course, as a natural result he would think constitutional authority was .of no: use. Therefore he would favour direct action. You are still a political eel, Mr Veitch, and always will be.' Heaven knows how you stand politically.

Mr Veitch's political ideas ' seem at present to be in a state of chaos. He has been forced into the position of at last declaring himself an absolute opponent of Mr Massey. That is the only ground on which he stands firm but he has never yet given any solid reasons for making up his mind on this point. He mutters some crack brained notion of his intention to lead a forlorn hope of