SAMSON ACONISTES.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1969, 28 January 1914, Page 4

SAMSON ACONISTES.

"THEY MADE HIM BLIND." '■'?} . . Ho thought lie had said. 1 enough to prove that the Govern- s ment were honest in their cmlcav-'' ours to nromoto the well-being of" the people, and that the llct'orm" party were now' the true Liberal party."—Mr. Newman, M.l s ., at Hunterville. Sir,—Had I not just previously been reading that most commendable volume, by the late Thomas Mackay, entitled "Tho Dangers of Democracy," I could not possibly have entertained tho foregoing statement as being anything beyond the political joko of tho season. In this book is written the pradnal decadence of tho Liberal party in Britain by reason of its ill-starrer! absorption at tho hands of what in New Zealand wo would call the Social Democrats. . . . "Apart, however, from the natural unwillingness of men to abandon niv ancient projitdice, tho rank and file of the older and better : Liberalism, which is now incorporated in the. Constitutional party, will remind us of tho debt which society in the pa3t- owes to popular government. This (says the author) we are eager to acknowledge, Tho priuciplo of democracy has freed U3 from many objectionable forms of arbitrary power, and inequitable privilege. It is precisely because ivo recognise this, that wo offer a opposition to the adoption of tho old policy of privilege by tho democracy itself. Democracy is not in itself an end, it is a form of government, liablo to the imperfections and limitations inseparable from all forms of government; and, wlien it shows itself ineapabta of adhering to tho principles of equity, right-minded men will opposo it as strenuously as in by-gono times the democracy has itself opposed the inroads of arbitrary power." • • • "Meanwhile the rump of the old (lliiiglish) Liberal pattv remains a body of leaders without followers. Jhev are beginning to mo how. fir the Socialist proclivities, introduced into tho party councils by John Stuart Mill, have led them from the old Liberal creed. Their Socialist army is an army of mutineers, a very babel of discordant politics, which can never be drilled into an effiectivo fighting force ; and, to do tho leaders justice, few of them aro at heart renegades to their older faith. Their sympathies'aro really with their opponents. Too opportunist to break away boldly'from thoir'entanglement they have only succeeded in getting their battalions hopelessly clubbed. They can never bft enthusiastic buglemen to _ tho regiments of halfcrazy collcctirists whom it is their misfortuno to command. . . ."

Well might tho author have been writing these sentences for tho delectation of Now Zealand Liberals who havo been literally forced to tho conclusion that Liberalism died with Seddon, and that, after all, Msssey is bat a tmo disciple of John Balance, insomuch as it is writ-ton in imperish* ablo stono at tho base of that- statesman's monument: "He loved the people." Sir, I thank tho honourable member for Rangitikei for giving my waning faith the requisite twist "to save it from being the prey of the ravening wolves of Socialism. I verily beliove ''the Reform party is, after all." as Mr. Newman says, "the true Liberal party."—l am, etc, JONAH,