The Dominion. MONDAY, JULY 10, 1911. A GOVERNMENT WITHOUT A POLICY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1175, 10 July 1911, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, JULY 10, 1911. A GOVERNMENT WITHOUT A POLICY.

The announcement that a banquet is to be tendered to Sir Jajies Carroll in this city is the best possible compliment to the effectiveness of Mn. Massey's policy speech, for it is obvious that the banquet is intended really as a counter-blast to the speech. Still more complimentary is the curious weakness of the ActingPrime Minister's attempt to reply to Mr. Massey in C'hristchurch on Friday night. Tho note of assurance and buoyancy in some of Sir James Carjioll's recent speeches was suddenly silent. He was laboured and half-hearted where he had been fluent and suave. In the case of so clever and shrewd a political veteran as the Acting-Prime Minister, this is of high significance. The full reports in the Christchurch papers only, confirm this reading of the admirable summary telegraphed to the Wellington papers for their issues of Saturday. There will always be a small section of the public who will believe that the present "Liberal" party is the same party as came into office 20 years ago, and that the Reform party, witn its progressive and constructive and genuinely democratic policy, is a "Tory" party. Nobody realises better than Sir James Carroll, however, that the bulk of the public knows better than this, ■ffhen, therefore, ho is driven to adopt the crude device of his less shrewd colleagues, it is patent that Mr. Massfa-'s speech and the clear and positivo platform of the Reform party have hit him very hard. There is hardly a Liberal principle that the present Government does not deny. Let us take its one remaining piece of policy, namely, the continuance unchecked of the huge borrowing necessary to obscure its misgovernment. On June 30, 1892, Ballance said:

"Borrowing in the London market must cense. Our debt : is great, and the population to bear the burden comparatively small. Wo'havo marched for twenty years at a furious pace, too severe to last; and have piled up obligations ■which should make sano iten pause. But now for tho first time we have determined on a policy of self-reliance—the only policy, I firmly believe, to make this a great country."

Ballance died in tho following year, and three months after his death the Liberal Colonial Treasurer said in his Budget:

"Tho Government belicvo that borrowing is not necessary, and have decided to conduct tho business of tho country without haying recourse to it. The policy of self-reliance has borno fruit, and economy in both public and private life has assisted to bring about a happier condition of things. Never in the previous history of the colony were its prospects brighter.' That Treasurer was" Sir Joseph Ward, Bart, (then- Mr. Ward), who has carried out the no-borrowing policy so well - that he has since caused the borrowing of over forty millions sterling (more than doubling the public debt and increasing the debt'per head by £20), and whose locum tendns now claims to be the trustee of the policy of Ballance! Quite early in his speech the Act-ing-Primo Minister decided that it was'best'to avoid the absurdity.' of denying tho Bcforin party's policy. Ho admitted the policy, and was promptly reminded by our old friend "a voice" that the Government hadn't any policy at all. Mr. Carroll replied that "he would tell them presently what they had got," but in the rest of his speech there is not one word about the Government's policy, for tho sufficient reason that it has none, and is therefore forced to do what it can by misrepresenting Mr. Massey and opposing, without in the least rebutting, the Reform party's proposals for the purification of politics by cutting out of the administration the cancers of waste and corruption. Even Sir James Carroll's attempt to criticise tho administrative planks of the Reform platform was so feeble that it is not necessary to do more here than point out how hopeless that case must bo which needs such desperate and foolish mis-statements as that a Civil Service Board "would not be responsible to Parliament." Responsibility to Parliament is the very essence of the proposal, and nothing but the desperatiou of despair would have led Sir James to deny a fact that is known, we should say, to 99 persons out of every hundred. To the Reform party s proposal to change the present system "of public works expenditure so_ as to end the squandering of .public money and degradation of politics involved in tho dependency of every district upon the goodwill of an Executive oligarchy, he could only reply that "the Government at tho present time had a Local Government Bill on the stocks." There are grown men today who remember to have heard, as children, this ancient promise of a Local Government Bill. It has been promised year after year for many years past, and ifc was long ago obvious that it did not exist, even in tho minds of Ministers. The latest allusion to it is only matter for laughter. Even if some sort of measure were hastily devised, nothing is more certain than that it will not touch the real evil that the Reform party aims to cut away. So long as the present Administration remains in office the evil will never be dealt with, because it is too important a part of their methods of retaining pffice. The Government knows that if it were dealt with thoroughly, the "Liberals" would soon wither up and die in the sunlight of a clean system; and the Government is not going to commit suicide and place at the disposal of its successors the hidden records of twenty years of graft and waste, it is amusing, but it is useless, for Sir James Carroll to try to claim for the Government the Reform party's proposals respecting industrial insurance and old age pensions; but perhaps Mr. Massey would not greatly mind this further appropriation of his policy. Of course the great feature of the Ghristchurch speech is the , neglect of the Government's acting-head to say a word that can be construed into a policy. Had they not been so bent all these years on keeping in office, they would have perhaps kept some principles upon which to build some definite programme. It is quite too late for them to begin now, and wo expect we may look forward to hoaring the Ministerialist organs saying next* Christmas, as they said after the 190S election, that it, is to the lack of a policy thai the Governnient must attribute its loss of seats. Perhaps no Government on earth could hold office for twenty years without getting into this sorry plight.