(Established 1898). The Waimate Advertiser. (Published every evening since 1914). WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1922 GENERAL AND POLITICAL

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 11 January 1922, Page 4

(Established 1898). The Waimate Advertiser. (Published every evening since 1914). WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 11, 1922 GENERAL AND POLITICAL

The year 1922 is now more than a week old: the holidays are over (except for the fortunate school children and teachers), and the normal routine of everyday work has resumed it s sway. The atmosphere is sultrily suggestive of the tropics (or a worse place), and the farmers are looking forward hopefully to a bountiful harvest to enable them to race the oppressive terrors of taxation. Harvest results are specially important this year, as tjie slump' in the pastoral industries has saused an increase of agricultural enterprise. The proposed meat pool appears to be the salient topic of the hour, and expert opinion on this rather complicated question is remarkably divided. Mr Massey issued a characteristically optimistic saddress at the New Year; edifying, encouraging, homiletic, and, it must be confessed, distinctly commonplace. Our parliamentarians, seasonably refreshed by Christmas good cheer and domestic repose, will be resuming their patriotic labours; and political activity and interest may soon be expected to revive in an appreciably degree, for the year upon which w ehave just entered is election year—“political courting time, as a Dunedin politician of former days used to term it. Members of Parliament (apprehensive of becoming ex-M.P.s) will be re-wooing the constituents whom few of them have troubled to address since December. 1919; while a variety of fresh suitors are perhaps already privately rehearsing the arts <if, “courting.’’ eloquence and cajolery. There is certainly much need of a revival of general and genuine interest in public affairs. Political questions are regarded much too apathetically by the majority of people. Things used to be different in this respect, and we do not quite know why it, is that widespread indifference has succeeded to the lively and intelligent interest of an earlier period in the history of the Dominion. Possibly the partial collapse of the old Liberal party is responsible for the sleepy condition of the political world. At present Mr Massey is the almost undisputed king of that world—monarch of all he surveys. No doubt Mr Seddon once held similarly autocratic sway, but he always had to face a vigorous and resolute Opposition, and the constant clash of contention served to maintain the warmth of public interest.