THE MYSTERY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1409, 9 April 1912, Page 4

THE MYSTERY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

At last there is a glimmer of light upon the tenebrous intentions of the Mackenzie Ministry. It comes in the interview with the Hon. G. W. Russell - in Christchurch, a short and unilluminating summary of which was sent to us in a Press Association message on Saturday. According to Mn. Russell the new Ministry, "individually and collectively," intend "to devote their best energies to administration," and they "intend to show that, with power in their hands, the country could look for sound and capable government on economical lines." It is most satisfactory to know that the new Ministry has good intentions, but tho country is rather more concerned to know something of the policy of the minority in power. The result of the last election was a verdict' against the administrative methods of the "Liberal" party, and the only way in which the new Wardist Ministry can with any credit to itself expend its "best energies" on administration -is to surrender to the reform sentiment of the nation. Most members of tho . "Liberal" party fought violently and blindly against every item in the Reform party's programme, and not a single Minister has given the public any good reason to suppose that there is to be any breaking with the bad tradition's of the Spoils party. Still it is satisfactory to find Me. Russell admitting indirectly the necessity for change. Mn. Russell also took exception to Mn. Massey's cheerful declaration that from the viewpoint of the Reform party in Parliament the position was satisfactory. "But, surely," the new Minister somewhat unwisely went on to say, "there was another side _ to consider when the political position was dealt with'! That side was the public good and the public interest." That any member of tho new Ministry should speak of the public good and the public interest as things dependent upon the extension of immunity in power to tho executive) committee of a demoralised and discredited minority is rather astonishing. But, not being altogether a foolish man, Mr. Russell made an attempt to justify his contention that upon the scratch team of which he is a member depends tho safeguarding of the public interest.' Everybody, he said, except "some who honed to attain office," were opposed to another election: "The country's cry was for good government and political rest. It would not be a good thing if, after the election of last year, and the term of doubt and anxiety that had extended to the present time, the Government continued to administer affairs for a further term of three months in uncertainty, and then to have another election." Most people will think that it will be a very good thing to have a stable Government in office, and in any event Ihe situation that Mu. Russell trios In picture ns one to be avoided is exactly the situation that exists. The only thing that anyone knows for certain at present is that the Mackenzie Ministry represents nothing and nobody, and is a minority shaking precariously on a dishonourable foundation. Good government and the public interest most decidedly cannot be pervet) by r general ttcree* jnaat to treat aucJb, a Ministry, as a

Ministry elected by the nation and possessing the nation's confidence.

The most interesting feature of Mr. Russell's statement was the confession that the Governor's Speech policy is to he jettisoned. We have noted already that the Minister laid stress upon the fact that the Ministry intends to "devote its best energies to administration," and declared that the country wants "political rest." He also said that by June next the Ministry will have induced the country to give "a fair trial to its policy." "That policy," he added, "would be disclosed by the Prime Minister. He thought that it would be found t-o be sound and moderate but progressive." Since nobody has been able to describe the Governor's Speech policy, which was entrusted by the Caucus to the Mackenzie Ministry, as anything less than violently immoderate and unsound, it is clear that the new Government, unless Mr. Russell is traducing its intentions, means to shirk its obligations, and to repudiate, quite in the Rorehtson and Payne manner, its pledges to the Isitts and Paynes of its following. The Government is pledged to carry out a raw Radical programme; but if Mr. Rl*ssell is to be taken seriously, it dare not redeem its pledge. Oneof Tennyson's characters reached that strange position _in which "faith unfaithful kept him falsely true," but the Mackenzie Ministry would seem to have come to a more terrible moral pass than that. Morally, it dare not do what is expected of it; politically, it dare not do what it is morally bound to do.