"The Good Old Seddon Days."

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18417, 25 June 1925, Page 8

"The Good Old Seddon Days."

There 'were three hundred Liberals in the Auckland Town Hall on Tuesday night when it ivas decided lo stop tho wave that is carrying the world away .from Seddon. So also there were three hundred Spartans in the Pass of Thermopylae when the Hood from Persia poured through. We do not know, of course, if the three-huudred-and-lirst Liberal was shut, out —if lots were drawn and the unlucky remainder were ordered to go on living; but it certainly should have, beeu so arranged. It would never do for the Liberals of the cave to stage these things less effectively than the Liberals of tho middle of the road, or for any Liberal of any party to forget an example that is only two thousand four hundred years old. We are sure, too, that having appealed lo history the Liberals will do the thing properly. At present they are Greeks and Spartans, but in the next scene they mil surely bo brave Romans —three men facing fearful odds instead of three h.un-

drcd. And after Keratitis, Lartius and Herminius there will remain the part of Marcus Curtius. If Liberals still read Livy—as, belonging to history, they must—they will remember what happened when a ij"M<>m]e?s eavity appeared -•:.].]• u)v v\ the forum: lnnv tlic citizen- wen! pale with fright, and :;:-h..-i; :<< the Augurs, and were u>ld ; ; <u up.ly thai the lu.-public would perish it the eavity were not filled in, but that it never c>>uld be. filled in until Home's mo-! precious jewel had been thrown in first: and how Marcus ('urliu< then, declaring that nothing could be .-i) preciou- as the courage (il Pome's .-on.-, caparisoned his steed in its bc.-l trapping-, mounted, and galloped it into the abyss. For the honour of dying like Curtius there are bound to be many eager applicants, but it is clear, and of course appropriate, that the man who led the Party into the mad is going to leap into the abyss himself. And it is not quite certain alter all these self-immolations that tlitre are going to be enough men left to carry the banner of Seddon. It happens that Parliament opens

again 10-day, and the country will naturally want to know how the Liberals now negotiating an extension of life from Mr Coatcs will be affected by the Liberals who are demanding the privilege of dying for Mr Seddon; but it will be grange if Mr Wilford seeks an immortality that he will have to .share with three hundred when he can gleam for ever in solitary glory as Marcus Curtius Redivivus.