PARTURIUNT MONTES.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1419, 29 November 1886, Page 3

PARTURIUNT MONTES.

The mountains—that is to say, in this case the leaders of Her Majesty’s Opposition —are in labor, and it will be interesting to see whether the result accords with the birth-throes of such Titans (let the reader not mistake the orthography of the last word), or whether it corresponds with the latter half of the Horatian quotation the initial part of which forms the heading of this article. For, in view of the annual struggle between the “ outs” and the “ ins,” which is the outcome of party government, and which if successful secures to a few privileged patriots the receipt of handsome salaries, it has been discovered to be necessary that the “ outs” should have both a party and a policy. As regards the first, the Opposition at present resembles tbe gathering o f the discontented in the erstwhile famous Cave of Adullam, and may be described as a congeries of heterogeneous atoms, without any chemical affinity, and it is to weld these discordant elements inm ft homogeneous whole which is one of the problems the leading members have set themselves to solve. And the flux which is to enable the fusing together into strong, ductile, and malleable metal of various stubborn and crude ores is the policy of which the leaders are in search, and which it is to be hoped the leaders will succeed in finding, albeit the task is a more difficult one than that of turning Taranaki iron-sand into good marketable steel. It is not so many years ago that “ Wanted a Policy !” was chalked up on every hoarding in the Empire City, and as history is always repeating itself, it is not surprising that “ wanted a policy” is again the cry of the Opposi tion to-day. Of course there will be no dearth of suggestions; theie are plenty of doctrinaires on both sides of the House who are capable of turning out a brand new policy at a moment’s notice, and we suspect that if Major Atkinson and Mr Tryce were to inviu suggestions from the rank and file, they would be sufferers not from the fewness, but the multiplicity of suggestions that would be forthcoming—indeed, that it would be a veritable case of Fembarras de richesses. No, there are heaps of policy-makers in the House and out of it ; but there are such wide divergencies of opinion that it is almost impossible to strike out a line which will command the hearty sympathy and support of a strong and united party. For among the Opposition are to be found Freetraders and Protectionists, Centralists and Provincialists, Secularists and Denominationalists, Borrowers and non-Borrowers, advocates of rigid retrenchment and advocates of a progressive— Anglid, a spending policy. Obviously, the views of all these cannot be given effect to, and the via media— despite the proverb—is not commonly a safe one in politics, inasmuch as nobody is satisfied with what are contemptuously termed “ halfmeasures.” Hence therefore the task of reconstructing the Opposition pro gramme is a work the difficulty of which will become the more apparent the more fully it is entered upon, and if “ the negotiations which are now in progress," as we are told, lead to a wholly satisfactory result, then assuredly the negotiators will have cause to be proud of their success. What all this fanfarronade—this flourish of trumpets prior to entering the lists —amounts to, is indicated by the statement that Sir John Hall is one of the consultant leaders, and probably means that Major Atkinson, Mr Bryce, and Mr tolleslon despairing of re-taking, by assault, those Government benches, to which they regard themselves as having a sort of inscriptive right, have formed an alliance with Sir John in the hope that the House and the country may be disposed to give a Hall-Atkinson Government a trial. True, Sir John has not, as yet, a seat in the House, but he is certain to secure one at the next general election, and in view of that contingency the choice can practically be presented to the House of a Hall-Atkinson Government vice a Stout-Vogel Administration. The policy then that it is sought to arrive at is doubtless one on the lines of which the gentlemen named can agree, and this having been done, both men and measures will be ready when the opportunity offers.