NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1094, 5 April 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

Mr. Masrey appears to have emerged from his travels in the coip.ihry districts of North Canterbury well pleased with his electioneering experience:!. There is not the least doubt that the Reform party is a good deal handicapped by the fact that most of its loading members are very little known personally outside their own electorates, Wherever they, come in contact with

the electors they invariably make many friends, and gain supporters for the cause of clean .government. Their opponents usually depict them as crusted Tories utterly out of sympathy with the mass of the people, and while this is completely disproved by their actions, a large section of the public which obtains its knowledge of political matters from the meagre reports of Parliament published in country papers is not in a position to form a confident opinion on the subject. It is very necessary, therefore, that prominent members of the party should as often as possible meet tho people on tho public platform and fake every op- • portunity that offers of putting tho policy of the Opposition before the country. No doubt they are at a very great disadvantage as compared with their opponents. They have to pay the cost of their travelling out of their own pockets, whereas Ministers not only travel about at the country's expense, but receive a very handsome allowance as well. There is just one point that the Reform party should keep in mind. Up to the present their campaign work has, been of a very spasmodic kind, and it has been confined almost entirely to their leader. Mr. Massey is a great fighter, and at different times has covered a great amount of ground. But he should not have to carry the whole burden. Apart from the fact that it is a physical impossibility for him to do so, it is liable to give the impression that the Opposition, like the Government, is a one-man party. This, of course, is not the ease, and it is an advantage which the Opposition has not up to the present made use of. Mr. Massey has started the. campaign very successfully, Mr. Herdman has spoken at Wanganui, and several other members of the party have boon active in delivering addresses in their own electorates. This is a good beginning, but to secure the full measure of success desired we should., like to see other members of the Reform party moving about the country and carrying the war into the enemy's camp. The country is ripe for a change, and if the Opposition makes itself and its policy better known by coming into personal conl- - with the people, that change will not bo long delayed.

"The tendency nowadays," says the Westminster Gazette, "is to take politics cither too seriously or not seriously enough." The cause of this reflection was an item of news from across the Channel: '• Tho recent elections in France have secured the return io tho Municipal Council of Lo Puy of a Monsieur Rome, with a handsome majority. In his appeal to the electors he pledged himself to secure the reduction of tho price of tho poor man's wine to twopence a litre, to add a ration of meat to tho beans served out at th(> municipal soup-kitchens, to create n night-refugo for husbands unable to find their way home after a night at the club, to provide tho workhouse with a mechanical piano-player, and to procure the suppression ot work between meals "as far as is practicable." An admirable programme; and yet some of his constituents arc dissatisfied. They think, apparently, that he has promised either too much or too little—that ho is ton sublime a reformer for a mere municipal office, or that he is not serious. And they are actually appealing against his return. If the burgesses of Le Puy really do not want M. Rome, perhaps room might be found for him among the "advanced" politicians of New; Zealand. Surely they would take him seriously enough and try to make him feel at home.

Considerable activity has. been shown for some time past in an endeavour to secure a Government candidate to assail the stronghold of the member for Wellington North. So far the efforts made have not been crowned with success, but, as Mr. Herdjian is a thorn in the side of Ministers, we have no doubt that a very determined attempt will be made to oust him from the seat. The latest device to secure a candidate has been a house-to-house canvass _to obtain signatures to a requisition to Dr. Izard to contest the seat in the Government interest. Dr. Izard, who is a brother to Mr. C. H. Izard, at one time the representative of Wellington North, but who was defeated at the last election, is said to be very popular amongst certain sports bodies, and apparently it is hoped that this connection will enable him to rally to his banner a section of Mr. Herdman's supporters'. Whether Dn. Izard will consent to stand or not remains to be seen, but the activity being shown should not be lost on Mb. Herdman and his friends. It is a compliment, no doubt, to the effectiveness of the work done by the member for Wellington North during the past three years that his opponents should be so anxious to have him removed from their path, and it should serve to stimulate his supporters in their determination to frustrate the designs of the Government. Incidentally, also, it should add interest to the public meeting which Mr. Hekdmas is 'to address in the Concert Chamber of the Town Hall on Monday evening next.