The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1912. PARTIES AND NAMES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1488, 10 July 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, JULY 10, 1912. PARTIES AND NAMES.

When- he rose up, as a person almost completely unacquainted with finance, to testify that Ma. Myers's rather confused little summary of tho financial statement conclusively proved that the Ward regime had left a good financial position, the member for Ohristchurch North referred to the new Government party as"the Opposition." His slip is an instructive one. No doubt for some time Mr. Massey and his colleagues will be thought of by some people as "the Opposition," and even so referred to. Probably, if a general election were to take place to-mor-row tho supporters of the Government wonlcl be spoken of as "Oppositionists," and we, are not sure tfiat they would be wrong if tney considered that the mistake was rather a kind of compliment. About 75 per cent, of the population are under 40 years of age. More than half the Parliamentary voters of Now Zealand arc those who have never known any Government save the' Seddon, Ward, and Mackenzie Governments. The majority of the electorate, therefore, have always thought of the two main parties as simply "tho Government'r and "the Opposition." The Ward and Maokenzie Governments have been in most essentials ontirely opposed to the Liberal principles of Ballakce, but they insisted on calling themselves the guardians of Liberalism. The lieform party to-day is quite different from the party in Opposition in the 'eighties and the early 'nineties: it has preserved little more of that party's character than its devotion to principle and honesty. To-day it is, as its name declares, primarily a party bent upon purging the nation of the evils engendered ijy a long and unbroken period of bossisni, but its general political principles arc proLiberal, E&tjUiCE, ife

deed, might h?,vo shrunk from, as being too advanced, many of the democratic beliefs of the Reform party.

•there has thus been a confusion of names. Some of the Wardist newspapers called Mr. Massey and his tnends Tories, and it is a testimony to the great power of plain fact that nobody was deceived by this absurd attempt to misrepresent the Reformers. Wo doubt whether there is a -Lory in the Empiro outside Britain, and there they are almost extinct. Indoad, it is the boast of the Cavendish family that no Duke of Devonivnire was ever a Tory—they gloried in being Whigs. Of course it' was ignorance that inspired this curious fashion of referring to the supporters of the Reform movement. The better-informed of tho Wardist papers shrank from venturing any greater misrepresentation than the use of the _ term "Conservatives" when speakjng of the_ Reformers. J-ho sxctiifl.l lino of division, however as everyone knows who has troubled to think about it, is between Liberalism in the true senso and Radicalism shading into Socialism. This line chances, too, to divide honesty and sound principles and fidelity to principle from shadiness, bossism, misgovernment, and opportunism. For some time, however, soma people will go on thinking of tho Massey Government as "the Opposition Government," and this quaint paradox of fancy will rather help tho Government, for "the Opposition" has, in late years especially, connoteo hostility to spoils politics. On tho other hand, we can understand Reformers shrinking a little from giving to the new Opposition (assuming that the strange mixturo of Socialists, Liberals, capitalists, and nondescripts who will sit on the speaker s left can incorporate themselves into something like a party) the na.mo that has been for so long Oorne so honourably by Me. Massey and his supporters. The necessity for readjusting its mental attitude will force upon the public a revaluation of party labels. When he brings down tho Liberal and democratic policy- that his speeches and the speeches of His supportors have led tho country to expect the new Prime Minister can afford to let the heterogeneous and incoherent Opposition call him by any name it chooses. The nation will be less concerned with the label than with the goods. In one respsct, namely, in respect of finance, the nation do-is want the Reform Government to show itself a party of reaction—of reaction towards the honesty and prudence of Ballance. For our own part, knowing that in politics there is a good deal in a name, and that names and phrases can bo very potent things, we are glad that the change in our politics will force people to think—and in the case of a great, many people, to think, for tho first time—of the fundamental principles, underlying party names. For the present, the main duty - of the Government must bo the establishment of the reforms to which it ispledged. It was the nation's fervent and uncompromising demand for reform that put Me. Massey in power, and he will not overlook the strength and vitality of the reform movement when he considers that it was that strength and vitality that made reform a battle-cry that could not be siloncod and tho word "Reform ' a title so fit, so perfectly apt ( that the upholders of the old rigime long ago found that all their weapons of ridicule, violence, and misrepresentation- splintered helplessly against it.