The Dominion. MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1908. THE ISSUE AND THE MEN.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 337, 26 October 1908, Page 6

The Dominion. MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1908. THE ISSUE AND THE MEN.

Our evening contemporary, which is urging, the. public to vote for "the best men" in point of integrity and ability, is endeavouring to persuade the electors that there is no real party issue before the country. Between the Government and the Opposition, its argument runs, there is only that delicate difference which distinguishes tweodle-dum from tweedle-dee; but as the Government is corrupt and incapable in its administration, it is the duty of the elector to vote for "the best man." This is simply playing with words. There is an issue of the clearest kind before the country. In its briofest terms, the issue is Corruption and Socialism versus Clean Politics and Liberty. All the questions that find public opinion divided—from land tenure to financeare embraced in issue. And that, issue has been raised clearly and unmistakably in the speech of every candidate who is openly opposed to the Government, and of several candidates who oxpressly dissociate themselves from the official Opposition. The Government has formally announced, through the Prime Minister, that it has no policy ■ it seeks the support of the public, not as the custodian of a programme, but as the holder of certain records. The public is asked to support tho party which has stuffed tho Civil Service with the friends and relations of friends and relations of the handful of gentlemen composing the Ministry; which has so corrupted the public conscience that the strongest argument a candidate can advance in support of his claims i 3 that he has secured for his district a larger 1 portion of the Public Works expenditure than its fair share; which has made it impossible for the Auditor-General to act with adequate power as the strict guardian of the public accounts; which has truckled to tho Labour party to the extent of BURponding lawi and treating with contempt tho actual machinery of jusi *

ticc; which has attempted to crush the people's press into submission, and which is fresh from the most vigorous assault upon newspaper freedom and popular rights that has ever bedn attempted in the history of a British colony; which has raised the annual burden of taxation to a point never before attained; which has increased the public debt to such a figure that it is now annually necessary to raise an enormous loan to pay the interest upon tho existing loans and at the same time carry on its extravagant methods; which has subordinated every national interest to the retention of seven or eight gentlemen, the Ministry, in their profitable offices; which has with increasing zeal shorn away the rights of the individual; which has already gone far in the direction of nationalising the industries of the country; which has terrorised _ the electorates by its policy of pandering to those districts that are prepared to send to Parliament a member who will at all times use his vote for the preservation of the Ministry; which has made Parliament an object of contempt to every thoughtful citizen; which holds in reserve, in the Legislative Council, a section of supporters whose presence in Parliament and only qualification is their willingness to do the Government's bidding; and which, under the name of "Liberalism," has abandoned every principle for which the founders of Liberalism fought, substituting therefor the principles of the Socialist and the morals of the Tammany "boss." It is this party that is being described as "practically identical" in policy with the Opposition, and so described by a critic who is well aware that on every point which we have mentioned Mr. Massey is directly and openly in opposition. We are told that "there can be no essential difference in the policy pursued by any Government that can theoretically be placed in office as a result of the elections." The suggestion iB here that Me. Massey has no policy which is not the Government's policy; that nobody can have any policy but Such an one as can be held by a Government under which, to use the words of our contemporary, "tho party machine'is manipulated by two or three men controlling for the benefit of the machine all the forces of Government influence and patronage." We would not be so pessimistic as to suppose any such thing even if a definite policy had not beon enunciated. But Mr. Massey has a policy, the leading lines of which we reprint elsewhere in this issue. And his programme is not merely a prospectus of clcan administration: it is that, and a statement of distinct policy too. It is a good or bad policy as you choose to look at it, but it is. a policy which does not meet with the approval of the Government.

In appealing to the public to vote for the "best man"—the man of ability and integrity—our contemporary—whoso motives are doubtless thoroughly good—cannot see the logical corollary of its advice. The logical corollary of the advice to vote for the best man is to vote for the man who will oppose a Government which the Post has shown to be so manifestly deserving of destruction. How can that candidate be,"the best man," or even a tolerable man, in the political sense, who can support a Government that is all that our contemporary says it is? Nobody knows better than the Post what becomes of the man—even the man of ability and integrity—who gots into Parliament as an "independent Government supporter." Mr. Gray, of Christchurch, is an example oLthc sorb of thing that happens to this kind of man. Nobody knows better than our contemporary that a gonoral election will not change the, character of the "Liberal" Government's administration or destroy its ability to convert its "independent" supporter .into a servile adherent. "Every vote, therefore, that is given for a supporter of the Government is a vote for the continuance of political corruption of ruinous financial methods, and of the war on individual freedom. That is the fact that the electors must bear in mind. That is the real issue.