NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1158, 20 June 1911, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

Although we cannot subscribe to everything that Mr. Fisher, M.P., saicl in his suggestive and provocative speech at ketone last night, \vc welcome the freshness of his statement of the evils from which the country can escape by breaking the continuity of the "Liberal" party's term of office. One of his points deserves emphasis. "It was odd," he said, "that the margin upon an average labourer's earnings was no greater at the end of twenty years of aristocratic motor-car 'Liberalism' than it was at the beginning of that period." The average man— and not merely the average manual worker—is beginning to think of this twi-fold oddity. He finds himself no better off, but really worse off in his _ liabilities and his share of responsibility for the obligations incurred by the country; and he cannot help contrasting his position with the opulence of the leaders of "Liberalism" and of the chief men in the Liberal party, and the unearned comfort of the great army of the humbler servants and assistants of these gentlemen. We were to have seen a new heaven and earth when Ballance came into office with a programme of self-reliance, economy, and small borrowings; perhaps, had Ballance lived, honesty of purpose in government would have set the country on the right road. But what has happened I In twenty years the "Liberals," professing Liberal principles, posing as the custodians of Ballance's policy, have failed really to improve the general condition of the people even after borrowing forty millions sterling to help their principles. Let the public grasp this fact, and think upon it, and there can bo no doubt as to their conclusion from it.