THE WARD MANIFESTO.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1304, 6 December 1911, Page 6

THE WARD MANIFESTO.

We have sufficient faith in the sense of humour of the New Zealand public to believe that a. burst of hearty laughter all over New Zealand will mark this morning the moment at which the public reaches this delicious statement in the first part of the very long and very funny manifesto issued by Sir Joseph Ward:

The name of Ballance will be held in everlasting honour in New Zealand, and so too that of Soddon. These two men were the forerunners of the Liberal policy which bw brought New Zealand to its present high position among the peoples of tho world.

Ballance ! The man who said "borrowing must cease" ! The forerunner of tho Ward policy that has added over £18,000,000 to the National Debt in five years! Not to make any mistake, the- remarkable man of whom Ballance was the forerunner adds:

Notwithstanding the many changes in personnel and circumstances the Liberal Government of Now Zealand has remained in ideals and principles essentially the same.

There are still many people who revere the name of Ballance in a degree high enough to feel disgust at this identification of Bai.lance's policy with tho mass of chicanery, waste and self-seeking that represents the ideals and the performance of the present party in power. Even the most careless observer of politics will be unable to avoid noticing that the only positive achievements of any note at all that are put forward as testimonials to Wardism arc the achievements of the Administrations that preceded the present one; aud it is but a few days since the Prime Minister declared emphatically that he declined responsibility for any Government save bis own, which, he slated, had been only five years in office. We need not now go into the manifesto in any detail, since it consists'of idle and" inaccurate, assertions that have been repeatedly shattered during the last year or two, or that hollow rhetoric that has lon£ ceased even to annoy anybody. We may, however, note one or two of Sir Joseph Ward's attempts to proclaim his own Government's achievements. It has, he says, ''broadened and humanised the law in regard to the treatment of the mentally afflicted." But it has so signally failed to broaden and humanise the treatment of these unhappy people that the principal asylum is notable to-day as the homo of over-crowding, over-work, homicide and suicide. "The health of the community," he says again, "has received our attention." But the "attention" has only shown itself iii the virtual abolition of the Health Department. It is really absurd, however, to take seriously this final appeal of Wardism to the country that has learned to know Wardism quito well. Ak to his future policy the Prime Minister has nothing to say-save that he wiil aim at perfection, at the bringing about of tho most happy and desirable conditions,' at the elevation of the country to first' place in the list of sound find progressive .nations and at other things equally nice and equally vague. But he omits to explain how he intends to do what every Government always intends to do in every country. We have no doubt that, _ like his 100S manifesto, this manifesto will be hailed by the Ministerialist press as a magnificent and impressive and crushing declaration of policy. Nor have we any doubt that after the election, just as after tho 1.908 election, the Ministerialist press will bitterly exclaim that "the final manifesto was a sad disappointment to the progressives" and that the Government owed its reverse to its folly in going to the country without a policy.