WHERE IS THAT POLICY?

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 15992, 8 December 1919, Page 5

WHERE IS THAT POLICY?

The Prime Minister seems to be having an enjoyable tour in the South Island, and he has worked so hard and passed through so much anxiety in the last five years, that no one will grudge him his pleasure. But the speeches he delivers to admiring audiences, effective though they are up to a certain point, and perhaps tactically sound, are significantly lacking in vital respects.' Pie has a great deal to say about New Zealand’s record in the war, to which, of course, he is fully entitled to refer at length; about what he and his colleagues did for the cause, for which his opponents as well as his supporters are grateful; and about the deplorable attitude of the Labour party towards the crisis.’ He talks about these things, and touches on the fringes of other subjects, but he has little or nothing to say about his policy. This is a pity, for hie newspapers almost daily stress the wonderful progressiveness and scope of that policy. But so far as Mr Massey is concerned, the pojicy remains about what it was at birth, a sheet of vagffe generalities. He promises to do a number of things, but he will not tell us how he promises to do them._ We axe still waiting for a statesmanlike exposition of what Reform means to do in the future—if it should have a future. There has been no statesmanship in the speeches Mr Massey has delivered since Parliament rose; all he has done has been to live in the past, and make vague and disjointed references to the future. What of the land question? What ideas has he on land settlement and the breaking . up of monopoly P What- about pubHc works reform? What about taxation? What about the details of the. immigration which he rightly says is so necessary? When is the Government going to begin to attract population to the Dominion? Mr Massey should find time during the next fortnight to go into these and other questions, and show the people how much of a grasp of them he has. His newspaper supporters might pause in their attempt to make capital out of Sir Joseph Ward’s policies, and study their leader’s want of a programme worthy of the name.