THE PREMIER’S DILEMMA.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XII, Issue 703, 27 August 1903, Page 20

THE PREMIER’S DILEMMA.

-The position of the Premier, between the “ Demon ” of the Liquor Traffic and the Deep Sea of Prohibition, or, if the metaphor pleases better, on the twin horns of the Democracy, has been more than once referred to befoxe. It is evidently becoming intolerable, if not ■untenable. Nobody but Mr Seddon—perhaps no man who valued his reputation—would have hesitated so long to do i'ustice as between the parties. The ’remier says he is only the people’s mouthpiece, that he is where he is for the •purpose of registering the people’s ■decrees. Surely that is not statesmanship! It may be the sort of statesmanahip that would have satisfied Danton, or Marat, Robespierre, or any other -leader of bandits, but it is not the position that a Gladstone ox a Salisbury would have held for a single moment, unless they felt that the will of the people , was based on the principles of justice. Great men formulate a policy and lend, a party; Mr Seddon, apparently, is willing to let anybody manufacture policies, but he will not support any of them until he is assured that it will be carried by an overwhelming majority, in which case he will adopt it, though it violate every principle of justice and commonsense upon which he has been nurtured. No country wants “statesmen” of this kind. We are not doing any violence to the Premier’s portrait; he has drawn it with his own hand exactly as we have presented it. Mr Seddon has gone so far as to say that he recognises that the Trade has interests; we give him credit for holding the view that the property of a brewer or ■< .publican is just as sacred as the property of any other man in any society that claims to be guided by the principle of order in mutual support —as all civilised societies are. He knows that this view is not shared, that it is repudiated with contumely by the Prohibition party. Yet he is prepared, if “the people” (meaning the majority) •ay the- word, to trample the rights of -one section of the community under his feet! A patriot, and especially a Liberal patriot, would lay down his life rather than participate in the* infliction of injustice upon any man. Mr Seddon has raised his voice often against injustice; he has spoken on halting tones, and with tears in hie. eyes about the “ right ” of ‘he old people to • pension, but when other “ rights,” which are much clearer, are threatened, all he has to say is “ the people must decide’’—which is what Pontius Pilate said, what the leaders of tile, Jacobin Club said, and what the murderersand fire-raisers in every century since the world began have said.