The Dominion. SATURDAY. MARCH 23, 1912. THE CHOICE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1396, 23 March 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY. MARCH 23, 1912. THE CHOICE.

Tuk Spoils Party has at last chosen its new leader, and we suppose, (here can be no indelicacy in discussing the choice as one which his Excellency the Governor will accept, or in treating Mi;. T. Mackenzie as the Prime Minister-elect. We may also safely suppose that Mil. Mackenzie will be able to form a Ministry, sine;; he will not be troubled by the large difficulty that often besets Cabinetmakers in Britain and in some British countries. He will be free, that is to say, from any fear that any eligible member of the Party will refuse office if office is offered to him or will insist upon any ■ conditions whatever, for, however disunited they may be in any other respect, the members of the Spoils Party are at one in their hunger for preferment. So far as the nation is concerned, the decision of the caucus could not be of much moment, since the jettisoning' of Sir. Joseph Vohb cannot in the smallest degree affect the fact that the nation is hostile to the Spoils Party and determined upon its extinction. In the final event the caucus was to choose between Mr. Mackenzie and Mil. Laurenson, and it decided against the member for Lyttelton by 22 votes to 0. Mr. Mackenzie, accordingly, becomes Prime Minister by a vote of 22 members in a House "of 80—a fact that the public will not be likely to overlook" as an interesting commentary of the possibilities of democratic government. Mr. Mackenzie is to be felicitated upon the turn of fortune ia his favour, for it is surely the. achievement of the theoretically impossible to become a revolutionary Radical leader after a career the earlier stages of which were Conservatism, Independence, and "Liberalism," and throughout which there was a constant and passionate profession of immovable devotion to fixed and unalterable principles. So far as such a career is a matter for congratulation, we congratulate Mr. Mackenzie. Yet we cannot help reflecting upon the strangeness of hi» position. Wo give in another column some extracts from his speech in Waikouaiti on February 26, 1908, and we do not doubt that his present position, considered in the light of that speech, will fill the public with amazement. He was seeking then to explain away his decision to end his tiresome position of a rail-sitter by climbing clown into the "Liberal" paddock. His explanation was extremely unconvincing, but he _is bound by it. "Have I," he said, "not given my views on land tenure,, on taxation, on finance, on commerce, on education, and on representation and many other topics? Who in this audience will dare to say that I have departed from these principles ?" He certainly had made himself quite clear on all the points mentioned, and on every point he was diametrically opposed to the policy and practice, of the Party that by a freak of fortuno_ he has been appointed to lead. His actual reason, as he gave it, for joining the Government party was his dread of Socialistic tendencies.

"On the ono lrae.it I saw a hand of snlondid men called the Opposition, and styled by some the Oonsorviitives of tin* country." earnestly devoting themselves to forwarding, according to'their views, the b?st interests of (tic Dominion. I realised that in their ranks there were men. including the leader himself, who would go much further than some of their supporters were inclined in favour of the direction of Liberalism. On the other hand, I saw developing in this country a party of men styling themselves Socialists, who, because of the evils existing in older communities, were endeavouring to frame legislation which, if given effect to, could not liuve any other than a most disastrous effect on every industry in the community."

Ho went on to declare that so far a3 legislative principles were concerned there was little difference between the Opposition and tho Government, and that "if they could only overcome the bonds of party," they could form a/ party that could defy the extremists. Who were these extremists, these "town revolutionaries" ? Not the leadei'3 of the red-flag Socialist Party, but the Radical wing of the Government Party—the very men upon whom tho Government to-day depends for its existence ! Mr. Mackenzie made this quite clear, for he urged a coalition that would mean a Moderate majority of 55 against 25 in tho House.

It is surely the strangest irony that exactly this proportion was reproduced in yesterday's caucus vote that gave him the leadership. He has, however, the sheep and the goats as his joint flock. The-ideas that at that time, according to his own story, alarmed him into joining the Wardists, are a mere' circumstance compared with tho astounding Socialistic recklessness of the Governor's Speech last month. The policy in that Speech was adopted by tho caucus as the programme of tho Spoils Party, and Mil. Mackenzie is to carry it out. "Politics with me," ho said at Waikouaiti, "are a creed, and not a profession. My political convictions are not caught by contagion." How can Mr. Mackenzie carry out the revolutionary policy of the Governor's Speech! How can ho cherish the tiger he condemned when it was a cub 1 Yet carry out that policy and cherish that tiger he must if he is to keep faith with the caucus, and he can keep faith with the caucus only by betraying his conscience.

That, however, is a small affair. As we have said, he ought quite easily to be able to form a sort of Ministry. On the face of it any Ministry he may form cannot last. It will in the first place be a Ministry whose head is notoriously opposed to the policy that he must carry out. In the second place it is impossible to believe that the heterogeneous elements of the party can be held together either by the enforcement or-the abandonment of the extremist programme framed in his desperation by the retiring Prime Minister. And in the third place the nation is waiting in the background—a nation that is weary of Spoils government, and that has seen nothing since it passed sentence of death excepting strong new justifications of the wisdom of its verdict, We are not convinced that it greatly matters whether Parliament is called together early or not, for there can be but one end to the manoeuvring of this discredited and Condemned minority, united by no single principle, torn by internal dissensions, existing only by the grace of pledgebreaki'i's who dare not fan- their constituents, ami delivered now into lllc leadership of a man who imagines .that in statesmanship success can coma of a complete, divorce between

principle and practice. Mi:. MacKK.nv.ik * selection as leader (if the Spoils Party will expedite tin- breakup uf "Liberalism" and (he opening of the dour to reform thai: the nation ordered to be opened and that is closed for the time only by tin: crazy hasp of dishonour and intrigue.