The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31 1913. RED FEDS AND LIBERALS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1945, 31 December 1913, Page 6

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31 1913. RED FEDS AND LIBERALS.

ff be ra 1 s ca nn ot en - jojvmwmuelr the' way in which. the iiitnicuf ; ti)oi if p a ffj;>.j Sbe inglco uple d I^,X)eni6crat ic. .t% i. Re c %Federafto^^ pos iti6n >. i state d tfiw it n'g ajgi ng' candour,., in -a-:. Press; message from Christchurdi,. which v='«iS .. published in the local 'evening paper .yesterday 4 That . the aim 'of -the'.Jßcct "Federation —tho. Social Democratic. Party—at the nest general election'will.be to "get MAssEY outjat any' cost" .is'not news. The demagogues of the - Bed Federation, will,.naturally, do all that; they can to' injure the . Government,' which recently put down rioting and \>ifch a strong hand, :-It'. is. moro : interesting, however, to hear; that .-the Social Democrats will contest, those seats now occupied by Liberals which they consider they hare a chanco of capturing, but will abstain from putting forward a candidate in some instances if the-, Liberal nominees seem likely to capture the working-class vote. The message states that the Social Democratic Party will enter into no alliance with the Liberal Party, express or understood, and cooaludcs with the following remarkable paragraph:

The (Social Democratic) leaders suggest that tlie task of securing the votes of the party's members for Liberal candidates would be made easier if the Liberal Party wouM recipro-cate by not contesting those electorates in which tlia Mat is already bold by the Labour Party's nominee,"

.This is interesting, coming as it docs on top of repeated statements by the gentleman from Milwaukee, Ms. W. T. Mills and other Federation spokesmen, that they condemn equally the Massey Party and tho Liberal Party.' This sweeping statement will not serve its intended purpose'of hiding the real fact that ? there is''.a'.vital "difference between the attitude of tho Social Democrats towards the Massey Government and its attitude towards the Liberal Party. From' the' Government; the Social Democrats can expect nothing except hard knocks, but of the Liberal Party they hope to malfe a tool which they can throw away when it has served its purpose. That this is the case was demonstrated in the events of the Lyttelton by-election and in the utterances of the jubilant Social Democrats after that event. The Liberal voters would 1m dull indeed if they needed another lesson of the kind. They have two alternatives before them so far as the electorates in which they cannot hope to secure the return of their own candidates are concerned—either to east their votes in favour of the present Government or to vote for a party which aims_ at neither more nor less than a -direct attack upon the existing constitution of society. If any _ inducement is required to make Liberals adopt the first-named alternative it should be found in the insolent strutting of the Rett Federation leaders and their calm assumption'that .the Liberal • Party, js an instrument- lying' ready to their hands.