NOTES OF THE DAY

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2311, 19 November 1914, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY

The speech delivered by the Hon. F. M. B. Fisher in the Town Hall last evening should do a great deal to lend animation to the olection campaign and bring public attention to bear upon its essential issues. In its essence,the speech was a denunciation of the sordid alliance which •has been concluded between the Wardists and tho , Labour-Socialists who. have already inflicted so much loss and damage upon the Dominion. The meeting which Me. Fisher addressed was by far the greatest that has been held in Wellington— probably in tho Dominion —sinco political hostilities were resumed: The Town Hall was crowded to the doors and as many people were excluded for want of room as gained admittance. The Minister concentrated' throughout upon tho actual point of impact jn the present contest and allowed other matters to stand over for future treatment. Most of the'time at his disposal was devoted to an exposure "of the political conspiracy in which, the feeble remnants of the Opposition Party and the Labour-Socialists of the Red Federation are involved, and the exposure gains additional importance and significance from the circumstances in which it was made. It was scarcely necessary for Mr. Fisher to appeal to the public statements of his opponents to sheet home his charge against them for they were present in sufficient numbers to convict themselves out of their own mouths. Next to the fact that a great majority of those present obviously sympathised with the Minister's view of the political situation and his attitude towards the conspiracy which he so forcibly denounced tho outstanding feature of the meeting was the presence of a numerous contingent of "Bed Feds." who distinguished themselves not so many months ago by striving to prevent Mr. Fisher and others from getting a , hearing at public meetings and by a display of organised rowdyism unparalleled in the history of the Dominion. . -

Last nighfc these. advocates of terrorism resorted to very different tactics. Their response, to Mr. Fisher's plain-spoken defiance and criticism of their lawless methods, was weak and spiritless, but they made up for their slackness in this respect by a remarkable enthusiasm for the cause of the Opposition Party. In the interruptions to which the Minister \was subjected clumsy attempts to defend the Red Federation and its methods were mingled in a queer jumble ■with. applause for the Opposition Party and its claims, finding his adversaries in this mood Me. Fisher played upon them in a way that was both instructive and somewhat amusing to the great majority of his audience. In effect he exhibited the Wardist-Labour-Socialist Alliance in working operation—the advocates of strikes and terrorism straining their lungs in defending the party whose leader has declared that the extremists in their most notable achievement should have been mot by the reading of the liiot Axt. As if this were-hot enough Mr. Fisheb even led .the Federationists to 1 the crowning absurdity of protesting in mild uproar, against the recapitulation of their own expressions of contempt for the party with which they are now allied in tho task of seeking to oust the Massey Government.. With such a task in hand the Minister could not have expected a peaceful meeting, and as a matter 01 fact the meeting, owing to the bewildered efforts and uproar of the disconcerted Federationists, was noisy and turbulent almost from first to last. At the same time Mr. Fisher had a reasonably good hearing and had no difficulty in every point and sheeting homo his indictment. No one could hear his speech and question the justice of his assertion that the choice before tho electors is .that of retaining the Government in power or installing the Wardist party to have- its policy dictated by the La-' hour-Socialists. The Federationists are certainly not tho sort of people to put fortn such efforts on behalf of. Wardism as they did at Mr. Fisher's meeting last evening without exacting a heavy price for their favours. ' It is the final condemnation of the conspiracy which Mr. Fisher so thoroughly exposed last evening that tho price would be paid, not.by the Wardists only, but by the whole population of the Dominion. ',

The bogus Proportional Representation proposal of Sir Joseph Ward was dealt with, rather effectively by the Hon. R. H. Rhodes at his meeting 'the other evening. When an interjector raentionecT Proportional Representation, Mr. ' Rhodes retorted with the question: "Do you want to, lose the country quota j" and stated that his objection to proportional representation was'that under it the country quota could not be retained. This of course is the true position, and Sir Joseph Ward's proposal on the subject represents merely an attempt, to dodgo the facts. His suggestion regarding email groups of electorates is' incompatible with proportional representation, and proportional representation is incompatible with the country quota. The .proposal, as we have shown on previous occasions, is the shallowest of political tricks. While tho Leader of the Opposition stands convicted of attempting , to gloss over facts which he cannot adapt to hia electioneering purposes it is interesting to note the spirit in which hia disingenuous proposals have been received by a section of his following. The Opposition organ in Christchuroh, for instance, remarks:

"Tho country quota, which really means giving half tho electors in the Dominion a vote and a quarter and the other half only one vote, 13 utterly illogical and undemocratic, but this privilege was won for the Tural districte ttiirtv. odd years ago and no party leador will havo tho courage to take it away from them till public opinion is awakened to its fullest effect."

That is to say, the leading Opposition organ openly denounces the country quota, and more than broadly suggests , that only lack of courage prevents the Leader op' the Opposition from takjng up the same attitude. Attaching no more significance to these facts than obviously belongs to them it seems clear that the country quota would be seriously threatened if tho Wardists had their way, though any opori_ attack upon it, such as the Opposition paper referred to has ventured, is certainly in flat defiance of an overwhelming weight of public and political opinion.

One point which tho Hon. F. M. B. Fisher mado last evening deserves to beemphasised for the light it throws upon the utter lack of sincerity with which the Opposition Sursues its campaign against tho ovornnienfc. Apart from tho trumpcry shouts about canteen arrange-

ments, to which eo much space hae been devoted in the Wardiet newspapere, some of tho party's candidates have gone the length of suggesting that the Government will'be. ungenerous in its treatment of the soldiere of the Dominion when they return from the war. This, as Ma. Fishee remarked in passing, involves a confession that the authors of the imputation have no hope of turning the Government out of office, but the point which invalidates the suggestion mentioned and displays its authors in their true light is that their own party treated tho veterans of a former war with gross ingratitude and neglect which , the present Government has dono all that it can to repair. -When the Wardists were in office they absolutely refused to grant the claims of the surviving voterans of the Maori War' to military pensions, although these were repeatedly urged and pressed upon their notice. It wa's left to the JMorm Government, when it came into office, to perform a long-delayed measure of justice by providing a military pension for the old soldiers who rendered such signal service to their country in the critical days pi the Native war. This is still another instance in wliich the Government is able to set a record of duty done against the past neglect and present slanders of its opponents.