THE SORRY NATIONALISTS.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19438, 26 October 1925, Page 6

THE SORRY NATIONALISTS.

The troubles of the local Nationalists are increasing. They have quoted newspaper comments on the political situation in the hope of persuading the electors to vote against the Reform Party; they have cited portions of the statistical records of the Dominion with the intention of misleading the electors; from the platform they have begged the electors to throw aside all idea of politics as a national affair and vote for a candidate who will spend all his time in the sendee of individual constituents, and now they have fallen to the level of reprinting anonymous correspondence from far-away newspapers and asking the people to accept the opinions of unnamed writers as authoritative views on various aspects of the general election. The Nationalists are as inconsistent in their propaganda as the., are in their political beliefs. Alarmed and impotent, they rush from one fount of jaundiced criticism to another. The political weapons that they can find are worn and inefficient, but their ereed is that even if nothing but mud remains to be thrown they must keep up the attack. They present an unedifying spectacle, as every elector who takes a fair and dispassionate view can see for himself. Why is it that the Nationalists put forward such a pitiable case? The plain reason is that they have nothing else to offer. They are a political hotch-potch. A number of the Nationalist candidates are announcing from the platform that they will vote for Labour or anything else if only they can put Reform out of office. Others say that they are willing to join Reform in establishing a stable Government. These Nationalists are so obsessed with the idea of their own importance that they cannot realise that the Reform Party is strong enough to provide the most stable Government, the Dominion could have. The Nationalists have become an excrescence on the body politic, and one that should be removed. They are only a hindrance to progress. In order to serve their own personal ends Nationalist candidates in some electorates are endangering constitutional government. They are fighting Reform, and while they are fighting Labour may slip in between them. The bulk of the people of this country do not want to sec Labour in power, but if they listen too readily to the Nationalists they may help Labour to realise its aspirations. The only safeguard against Labour domination is a strong Reform Party. Every vote for the Nationalists, who can never be a strong party, is a vote against Reform, and a vote that will perhaps make it possible for Labour to defeat the real will of the people.