The Party Truce.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16141, 20 February 1918, Page 6

The Party Truce.

On Monday we printed a commuiiication regarding the situation in "Wellington North from our "Wellington correspondent, who remarked that the Liberals in that constituency, with tho exception of the best of them, are supporting Sir Poison. To this statement, which wo no not think anybody in "Wellington would really disbolieve, our | morning contemporary objects in terms which we feel bound to notice. "A "gratuitous affront," and "absolutely " untrue," . tho statement is called. Our contemporary says that Mr Poison will "no doubt get votes from dis- " gruntlod voters of both parties," and it adds: "Probably, however, the " assured loyalty of the Liberal Party "to tho compact will save the Reformers from the defeat which, their " own disloyalty and btrngling are " courting." We are most anxious that the party truce should be observed, and it is in the interests of that truce that we record a protest against our contemporary's comments. Everyone who knows anything at all of the Reformers and of Mr Poison knows perfectly well that Mr Poison will not get a single Reformer's vote. Tho votes ho roceives will all oome • from Liberals. "We aro sorry to have to 6ay it, but in spite of Sir Joseph Ward's much more than formal fidelity to the party truce —Sir Joseph has in this matter been most admirable—many of his supporters have been as bitterly partisan as ever. It is nothing less than amazing to talk of the "assured " loyalty" of the Liberal Party to the truce, and to add that it contrasts with tho Reformer's "disloyalty.!' "Wo have only to mention the facts of the by-elections. In Pahiatua, a Reform district, a well-known Liberal cx-M.P. came out against Mr Ma-ssey's nominee, and he secured a substantial backing from the "loyal" Liberals of tho district. In Hawke's Bay, a Liberal constituency, no Reformer came out. In Wellington North, a Reform constituency, a Liberal has entered the contest. The fact that there are two Reformers in the field has nothing to do, obviously, with the party truce, which would not be broken if fifty Reform candidates appeared in Wellington North. "Thus we have three by-elec-tions. In the one in which the claim for succession is the Liberal Party's, tho Liberals rights aro scrupulously observed by the Reformers- In the two in which the right of succession is with the Reform Party, the right is challenged by Liberal candidates. This pottles any question as to where yo(u will find loyalty to tho party compact. If. our contemporary had contented itself with protests concerning the "as- " sured loyalty" of the Liberal rank and file we should not have felt called upon to say what we thought about it, but when it adds such a grotesque and harmful travesty of fact as its reference to the contrasting "disloyalty" of the Reform rank and file, we feel that we aro excused from silence.