AN INTERESTING DISCLOSURE.

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

AN INTERESTING DISCLOSURE.

■fi HOW CONSERVATISM RUNS "REFORM."

SIR WALTER BUCHANAN

EMERGES!

-UPublished by arrangement.)

The following interesting article I appeared in a recent issue of, the I Auckland "Star." We hope that our i readers will give it careful attention ' as it throws an instructive light upon the very intimate relations always suspected) but persistently repudiated or denied, that exists between the "Reform" party and our Conservative landed aristocracy, of whom Sir Walter Buchanan is a leading memTHE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE.

It is to be hoped that the electors everywhere, not only in this constitu-1 ency, but throughout the Dominion, •will pay careful attention to the facts which Mr. Matheson (Independent Reform Candidate for the Masterton seat) made public last Friday night. Addressing a political meeting at Masterton, Mr. Matheson explained at length how his attempt to stand for Parliament there had brought him into conflict with the Masseyite "Power behind the Throne,',' and he proceeded to disclose the exact position in which the . "Reform" party stands in regard to Sir Walter Buchanan. This gentleman evidently exercises practically ■sovereign authority over the party, go far as the selection of its candidates js concerned, and when for any given reason a politician wishing to • ttand for Parliament in the "Reform" interest fails to come up to Sir Walter Buchanan's test of fitness or cannot "pass muster" under his eagle eye, that candidate must either withdraw or go to the poll with the full knowledge that the party vote ■and the party organisation will be used to support some more acceptable mouthpiece of Conservatism. In this case, Mr. .Matheson had announced his candidature some considerable time before the sitting member, Mr. Sykes, came into the field; and he refused to accept Sir Walter Buchanans' request—perhaps we should say "command" —to stand aside because, as he told his ludience, he objects to dictation of lhat sort and also because he considers that there is far too much of the Caucus and the "machine" about ''Reform" politics, and on his own confession he wants something "cleaner ,and more democratic." , If Mr. Matheson is out for clean and . democratic methods of government, we fail to see why he does not support Liberalism which can supply him with both these requisites. Hut that, after all, is between Mr. Matheson and his own conscience, and mrhat we are chiefly interested in I lust now is the part that Sir Waiter Buchanan is evidently filling, not on the political stage, but behind the icenes, for the benefit of the Masseydtes. Perhaps we had better remark here and now, that nothing we have to say is intended to reflect invidiously on the character or conduct of Sir Walter Buchanan. He is, no doubt, quite an estimable person, but his public record hardly suggests that he would be adopted by the people of New Zealand, with their full knowledge and consent, as the controller of their destinies. Sir Walter Buchanan is known by repute to most people in this country, aa a man of wealth, a big land-holder, and one of the strongest financial supporters of that Wellington "Reform" organ which has rendered itself notorious for years past by its frantic abuse of the Liberal party . and its leader, and to those who take •any interest in our political history he is familiar as one of the most : resolute and obstinate opponents of Liberalism and all its works, one of : the few survivors of that clique of I bigoted and reactionary Conserva- ; tives who so strenuously resisted the democratic policy of Ballance and j Seddon and Ward a quarter of a cen--1 tury ago. To Sir Walter Buchanan > and the men who shared his political : creed in those days, Old Age Pen- : sions, Land for Settlement, Derao- ! cratic Suflrage, Democratic Adminiss tration, anything and everything that Liberalism imported into our national and political life were alike revolutionary, outrageous and detestable. What Sir Walter himself thought and said about these matters is recorded at length in "HanBard"; and all that we need say about this side of the question now is that a man of Sir Walter's age and temperament and political antece- , dents is tolerably certain to be not (less but more Conservative andreactionary to-day than he showed him- , Self to be a generation ago. Now, this is the man to whom Mr. Jlassey and his friends have delegat"ed the task of selecting their candidates; and what we wish particularly to stress for the benefit of our readers is this, that if Mr. Massey and his party win the victory in this present contest, it is to Sir Walter Buchanan and the small but Influential group of Conservative landowners who look up to him as their guide and leader that the fate and future of New Zealand are to be entrusted. For it is manifest that if Sjr Walter Buchanan is allowed to decide what candidate shall or shall no£ stand for "Reform" in a given constituency, he is literally dictating and prescribing the policy which the Masseyites are prepared to support. For we should not imagine that Sir Walter would select a "Reform" candidate who did not profess the "Reform" creed, and we would not ac-

cuse Mr. Massey of keeping one type of "Reform" for the Wairarapa and another for the rest of the Dominion. Thus the triumph of Masseyism will mean the subordination of all our political and economic and industrial and social and national requirements and aspirations to the prejudices of a highly Conservative old gentleman, whom the electors have refused to send to Parliament, and whose only claim to be accepted as the supreme arbiter of our destinies is that he is regarded' by his own friends as "the political Godfather of Reform in the Wairarapa." We do not think that these facts require much elaboration; in fact, they seem to us almost to defy comment. But we must draw one obvious moral, by pointing to the marvellous dis-

crepancy between the picture of "Reform" policy thus revealed to our gaze and the claims and assertions of the Nothing seems to exasperate Mr. Massey or the average. Masseyite more effectually than the suggestion that he and his party are dominated and controlled by the "Squatocracy," the great land-holding interests that Mr. Massey tias so long and loyally protected. Yet here is proof positive on the authority of a well-known member of the "Reform" party that "Reform" policy is, as we have said, dictated by the "Uncrowned King" of our Conservative lauded aristocracy.