Notes

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 50, 14 December 1905, Page 18

Notes

The New Liberals This journal docs not permit itself to be flown in the tail of any political party kite. But the decencies of parliamentary and public life are no mere party affair. They are above and beyond sectional aims and interests, and are matters of national concern. For this reason we join in the general feeling of non-regret or satisfaction with which political organs of nearly every hue have viewed the practical extinction of the knot of vociferous extremists ycleped the New Liberals. The rejection of their ring-leader was one of the few sensational surprises of a general election that was in the main as tame and quiet and unexciting as the shaking of a door-mat. However, the ragged and bedraggled edges of that part of our parliamentary life have been pretty well tiimmed. And the country is all the better for the process. Garrick was busy writing one day when an excessively uproarious procession, led by a band, passed by his window. ' What's all that ? ' said he. ' A temperance procession,' was the reply. ' What nonsense ! ' he exclaimed ; ' I don't make such a row when I get sober.' Well, the New Liberals need hardly have raised such nictions when they discovered— or affected to discoverthat they stood for clean administration. ' Yen you're a married man, Samivel,' said Old W'eller to his son, ' you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now ; but vether its worth while going through so much to learn so little— as the charity boy said yen he got to the end of the alphabet— is a matter o' taste. I layther think it isn't ' Some of the New Liberals arc } cuing and inexperienced and impulsive— skittish young colts that got too' early into political clover. When they're older, they, like Sannvel Wcller, will understand a good many things that they don't understand now— especially in regard to the nsks of ovcr-crcduhty and the laws of decency and decorum which should hedge a legislature round about and prevent its conversion into a bear-pit. A lesson has been taught by the free and independent elector of New Zealand, that docs infinite eiedit, to his sense of the cool-headedness and dignity which .should 'pervade the deliberations of our parliamentary institutions. The lesson ay as a seveie one. And \\ is, so far, a hopeful' sign that some of those for whom it was most directly intended received it with a good grace. ______