PREMIER'S CRITICS.

Waikato Times, Volume 104, Issue 17589, 19 December 1928, Page 5

PREMIER'S CRITICS.

REVIVING ANTIPATHIES.

GOVERNMENT AND ITS POLICY. BORROWING AND EXPENDITURE. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Tuesday. On the 'whole the members of the Reform Party, both those in Parliament and those out of it, have accepted their rebuff at the recent general election quite philosophically. Mr Coates and his colleagues have displayed the right sporting spirit, and their followers, for the most part, are adapting themselves to the altered circumstances. There are some members of the ■ scattered Reform host, however, who still bear a personal grudge against Sir Joseph Ward, and are ready enough to revive the party antipathies of the bad old days of 15 or 16 years ago. At the moment they are trying to persuade the public that Sir Joseph really knows nothing of public finance, and that the salvation of the country depends mainly upon the speedy return of Mr Downie Stewart to the Treasury. Mr Stewart, himself, it is scarcely neceSsary to say, is not countenancing tactics of * this kind, but a section of the Press is encouraging them without much regard to the actual bearing of the great issues at stake. " Brains." A correspondent writing to the Dominion on this subject takes the local morning journal to account for having quoted from one of its contemporaries a disparaging summary of the career of the new Prime Minister. The offended writer protests against the statement that Sir Joseph Ward made what financial reputation he possesses under the guidance and control of the late Mr Seddon "in the palmy ( days •when everything was going up," and against the «assertion that Sir Joseph did nothing to steady the land boom when a member of the National Cabinet. To the first of these assertions he replies that Sir Joseph supplied the brains with which Mr Seddon guided the country through one of the most perilous of its financial crises, and that when a member Of the National Cabinet he warned Mr Massey and his colleagues against creating a land boom by buying land extensive y for cash. The critic perhaps is a little too effusive, but neither Mr Seddon nor Mr Massev would have spoken lightly of Sir Joseph's knowledge of public finance. Hard-worked Premier. ,

Whatever may have been his political and administrative sins of omission and commission in the remote past, the. Prime Minister is having penance thrust upon him just now to the full measure of his short-com-ings. From morning to night—from early morning to late night—he Is in attendance at one or another of his offices; besieged by varying crowds of people with multitudes of suggestions and requests, interlarded between personal congratulations an>i hearty good .wishes. Happily Sir Joseph appears to be thriving' under this passing experience? even the absence of half his Ministers from Wellington to-dav appearing neither to disturb his equanimity nor to lessen his habitual cordiality. Just when he manages to get through his responsible work onlv his secretaries and the nigh watchman can tell, and they are not particularly communicative on the subject. So far, ■ however, he has managed to keep pace with all demands, and trie officials renewing association with him declare he Is as active as he was In their younger days.