THE MEANING OF REFORM.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1313, 16 December 1911, Page 4

THE MEANING OF REFORM.

Exactly what result tho election will have upon the course of politics in the immediate future cannot easily be calculated. But one great and good result must flow from the breaking of the long term of power of tho sham "Liberals." Even yet the public cannot as a whole realise completely what is meant by the victory of the Reform movement. It means nothing less than the emancipation of tho nation from its servitude to false and anti-national conceptions of government. The majority of the electors have never, as doctors, had any knowledge of any other Administration than that which Sir Joskph Ward has guided to ruin, and tho evil conscquenccs of this fact have been deep and farreaching. Visitors from other lands have alwayß been struck by the curious way in which many people have been accustomed to use the term "the Government." By many New Zealanders "the Government'' has been synonymous with "the State": and the Ward party has ceaselessly encouraged the strange and unhappy notion that the Government is the State, whereas, of course, it ia merely a sort of committco of management of the people's

affairs, flu; Stalo being tin; people, themselves. liven those who have kept their ryes fixed on (lie, farts iii.'iy mil, until lime has accustomed llirtn lo tlm new condition of affairs, bo able to see clearly .all Mm multitudinous means liy which the Wmiii party, and, before it, the Suddon party, fostered tho virion.*! fallacy that, the Government in (.lie master and the public, the. servant. Tin; endlessly repeated trick of representing the hostile critic.'! of the Government as being ipso facto enemies of the country; the slwidy and continuous inculcation of the idea that "the Minister" is some! hi rig like a god whom little towns and districts must propitiate if they are to receive any of the benefits which, when he is pleased, "the Minister" can dislriImte by waving his wand; the silent terrorising of private traders and public bodies-all of these, things liavo been phases of the dominant parly's fixed principle (almost the only fixed principle, that it held) that the country should ho made subordinate to the Ministry. All this is ended. The country is onco more in charge of its own affairs, and it will no longer he possible—we think we may say it will never again be possible—for a Government to behave otherwise than as the servant of the people, administering the national estate in the interests of the whole people. The Ward party may in its defeat continue to deny, as it denied in the fullness of its power, that it held office b.v dint of punishing whatever opposition it was unable to stifle; but what hope of credence can tlier; be for such a denial when the bulk of lhe_ people know, as individuals, what it has meant, and what it has cost, to he "against the Government" 1 The people arc now set free. The private trader, the neglected district, the public body, the Civil Servant, the newspaper—they can now feel that they no longer live by tho grace of the Ministry. It will no longer be necessary to beg as favours what can be demand id as rights. a That is a large measure of emancipation, and it will exist whatever happens in tho readjustment of parties in Parliament. 'And how was it gained? It was gained by the secret decision of a disgusted public to strike against Wardisin and abide the consequences. The same blow could have been struck in 1008, but the friends of Reform had not then learned that they could trusty their strength. The excesses of Wardism, however, .were bound, sooner or later, to cause a revolt. The votes cast for the Ward party represent merely that section of the I'll hi ie which had not read the signs of the times. They represented 110 political principle whatever, although it is fair to admit that a small proportion of them were the votes of those who still cherished the delusion that the Ward Administration somehow represented true Liberalism. I'"or such a party there •is no hope, for there is nothing, in the new era of political freedom, to hold it together. The graver scandals of Parliament under Wardism are ended, too. The rejection, at a Minister's nod, of motions affirming the most elementary principles of honesty; the distribution of the public works votes according to the unchallengeable will of the Minister ; the whipping up of the majority to reverse a decision by the House; ths disregard' for the rules of procedure that has resulted from the deterioration of the Chair in sympathy with the deterioration of the House; the travesties of Parliamentary deliberation, including the idling and manoeuvring at the beginning, and the mad rush at the end, of tho session; the contemptuous indifference of the Government to the right of Parliament to know the Ministerial policy; the year-after-year _ shuffling and wobbling and juggling with respect to large issues; the Government's insolent refusal of information upon the finances of the country—these things, which we have denounced day by day for four years, are now made thine' of the past.. The nation and its Parliament have come into their own again; and the feeling of comfort and confidence that will warm the nation's heart as it realises tho freedom it has won for itself by demanding Reform will harden the people into a firm resolve never more to permit any Government to forget its station as the servant of a Tree people. The gigantic game of bluff so lons' and so successfully played by Wardism is over. The nation is emancipated.