INCONSISTENCY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15973, 15 November 1919, Page 4

INCONSISTENCY.

c *The best brains are necessary for the satisfactory solution of tho great jxisLwar problems.” —Mr Cuttle at Aramoho. No one, surely, Trill find fault with tbe opinion thus expressed, but it will-take a good deal to justify Mr Cuttle’s glaring inconsistency in supporting men like Messrs Merries, Fraser, and Guthrie after tbe bitter experiences so recently connected with the departments they control. The shocking railway muddle is too fresh in the minds of the electors to require any further comment. The hopeless inefficiency displayed in the Public Works Department by Mr Fraser has been condemned just as strongly by Reform journals and their supporters as by any other sections of the community. And what of the scandalous aggregation evils -which Mr Guthrie tried to camouflage and other sins of departmental commission and omission for which thp Minister of Lands is responsible? These are the men Mr Cuttle is supporting against Sir Joseph Ward and other Liberal statesmen. Yet when a man capable of financing tbe country through the war was required the Reformers suggested a coalition, and Sir Joseph Ward was persuaded to swallow his prejudices and to carry on tho Department which required more ingenuity than tmyono else in Parliament possessed. Tho success of his operations has never been questioned, and tbe fact that he was called on in the greatest emergency yet experienced is an admission that everything that had previously been said to his discredit, and so glibly repeated by Mr Cuttle, had been said in the party spirit. Mr Cuttle will find it very difficult to explain away his glaring inconsistency.