THE GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW PARTY.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 688, 13 December 1909, Page 3

THE GOVERNMENT AND THE NEW PARTY.

Sir,—Mr. A. It. Barclay, ex-M.P. for Duuedin, writes in tho Dunedin "Evening Star":—"The Liberal party in New Zealand is dying at tho head. It is there that tho slackness and the dullness takes its rise. Truth to tell, tho Government are played out. Long, term of office seems to have made them slack, careless, confident, ■ plump, and lazy. Ministers • have waxed fat, and-they kick. Wish, or desire or enthusiasm for reform has long left them. At such 1 things they scoff. The volcano is extinct." It was never a "volcano"; it was always a wretched sham. Tho true test of a Government's Liberalism is tho condition of the landless wage-earners.and the small capitalists in town and country. After seventeen years of so-called' Liberal Government, wages are really lower than in England; employment is hard tQ get, and, generally, only temporary j thousands! of families are eifher starving or- subsisting on the barest pittance; many more thousands of families arc dependent on the Government for employment and sustenance. The state of trade and industry in this country is the inevitable result of Government extravagance, idiotic taxes on trade and industry, no administration of urban lands, and a system which places by far the larger share of the wealth produced in the hands of landholders and targe. capitalists. Tho Government has never had the .courage to attempt any adequate re--form. ' I'or seventeen years a "Liberal-Labour" Government has been giving us doses of "Labour" legislation, and very costly and useless a great deal of it has been. Instead of a policy of freedom -we have had a policy of silly • restrictions, with an army of officials to maintain all these absurdities, I believe that the Eadicals and Socialists would unito under the leadership of Messrs. Taylor and Hogg. Thov have fifteeii or sixteen supporters in the House. Let the lot "stump" the country with a drastic Itadicalprogramnic, and see the effect of it. The Ward party would disappear—toko refuge in the Opposition fold—and wo should then havo straight, manly fighting on great principles. There is nothing more disgusting, and nothing worse for the country, than to ■' have' men in office- who sacrifice principles to office and its emoluments. I am, etc., . TRADE. UNIONIST.