A VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1334, 11 January 1912, Page 4

A VISITOR'S IMPRESSIONS.

NEW ZEALAND POLITICS THROUGH GERMAN SPECTACLES. Tlio political situation in New Zealand at tlio present time was the subject of an interesting opinion by Dr. F. Schono during the courso of his locturo on ivow Zealand at Victoria College last evening. It was interesting, ho said, to observe into what an important position the Labour party had been placed iu spite of the minimum number of scats they havo pained in the new Parliament. In fact," he said, "with them seenis to rest at present the decision of what tlio niturb course is goinp to lie. And althoiiKU thore-has been a distinct growth .of Uiuour votes in the past, leading this time, for the first time, to tin? entrance of four members into Parliament, I believe that the present constellation of things i» bound to strengthen considerably tho cause of Labour,'and,,to indue* those followers of tho combinvd Liberal-Labour party, whoso sympathies incline wore towards the Labour t.hnn Iho. moderate Liberal programme, to try and send a decidsd Labour candidate'into tho Jlouso next time. There seems to me In Ik a RTMter difference between the moderate Liberal and the Labour party t.\nn between the former and the present Opposition. So tilings seem to point low.mle the development of a blending tpsellier, of the present Conservatives with. Uio moderate part of the -present Liberals into a new party of moderate Conservatives or moderate Liberals, or whatever iirtino they might choose, opposed by a radical Labour party. In a democratic country like New Zealand this seems to b« n natural development, the more probable for tho precedents observed in Australia. And I lfclii've f. strong Government with principles basrcl upon a wholesome mixture of reasonable Confervatism n.:id sincere LilK-rahsm, controlled as it were by a strotiff and sound Labour p'lr'y as Opposition, could hecomo a crnat blessinc to a country like Kew Zealand. Whilst, on the other hand, I personally cannot persuade myself that a Labour Government with a Conservativo or Liberal Opposition would be equally qualified to successfully develop a country in evolution liko Now Zealand."