The Press. WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1014, The Political Situation.

Press, Volume L, Issue 14978, 27 May 1914, Page 8

The Press. WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1014, The Political Situation.

There ja in <35sop an agreeable little story -of a gnat which settled, after much- buzzing, on one of the horns of a bull- -'Don't yoa see," it said at last,, "that I am sitting en one of your horns?" The bail replied, "I did not know you had conio, and I shall not

know- when you go away." Tho gnat

was very reasonably incensed- and we • are afraid that our "Liberal-' friends will he similarly incensed when they read to-day the Prime Minister's statement that he has taken little interest in the quaint "flying aquadrons" of the Opposition. It is deplorably tactless of

him to refuse to be Impressed; his flesh,

they had hoped, was creeping. Really, he is not playing the game fairly at all;

he is most unfairly more satisfied than «rer with tho political, outlook. The

worsfc of it is thai the great majority of people will think his attitude a very natural one, Tor the "flying squadrona'have ceased to be more than rather tedious comedians, still occasionally capable of pleasantly extravagant bursts of fury, but as political critics quite impossible. They have been travelling now for many weeks, and have proved to the complete satisfaction of the Reds and the irreconcilable-? of the Opposition that the Ministry are rogues to a man, that the Reform record is a record of unmitigated villainy, and that the country is ruined. Yet nobody, of whatever party, who knows anything about the realities of politics, doubts that the Government will return to i power with a majority of something" like I twenty.

The public has seen for itself. and the anti-Reformers cannot prevent the public from seeing, that the country is prosperous, that conditions all round are better, trade brisker, and money easier than when, after twenty years of office, the "Liberals'" left office in a. passion of fury and despair. The Statute Books of 1915 and 1913 bear a handled testimonies to the democratic character of the Government, and a hundred refutations of the silly and dishonest pretence of the "Liberals'* that the Reform Party would be "Tory'- and "reactionary." • The public has*seen the GOTaratnent suppress tho most formidable syndicalist conspiracy in the his-

Opposition working hard on behalf of tho forces arrayed against the community. One thing it has nob seen, and that is, the policy for which "Liberalism" stands. It is asked to do the impossible: it is asked to- restore, to office the party leader whose opportunism, insincerity, and unwisdom brought his

strong party to ruin in six years —and to rest-ore him to office, moreover, although he has • not done a single thing to show that he has earned forgiveness, and although he neither has the faintest advantage to offer nor has any means of convincing a single soul that those qualities of statesmanship, the lack of which caused his downfall, have somehow come to him in his eclipse. It is really a waste of time to discuss what the "Liberal" policy might he: and -Mr Massey knows, as indeed does everyone else, that

tho electors aro not going to take anybody, not even Sir Joseph Ward, on trust. The Lyttelton by-elec-tion made it plain that there are amongst those who formerly supported tho "Liberal" Party a very large section who will support the Government. These people have seen that tho party which is Jed by -Sir Joseph Ward is allied to the .Socialists and syndicalists, and would be dependent upon the Reds if it were to be placed in power once more. Their determination to avoid the risk of government by a party of that kind is made easy by the manifest improvement of the national finances and by the progress and prosperity of the country under a Government not the least of whose crimes in the eyes of the "Liberals" is the sound and democratic legislation it has nlaced on the Statute Book. Nobody can feel, surprised that the Prime Minister relies upon such facts as we have been outlining to outweigh all the vituperation and invective of which even the '''Liberals'' are.canable.