LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2471, 26 May 1915, Page 5

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

WAR AND POLITICS,

Sir, —I was astounded to learn from a report appearing in . your issue of Saturday of a speech delivered by the Hon. A. L. Herdman at Rawene, that the Minister cast the blame for the General Election being held during the crisis occasioned by the war upon Sir Joseph Ward. What happened at a private conference between the leaders of tho parties in connction with the matter I do not pretend to know, arid I _ should have thought it was not a subject for public discussion; but I was in the House when Mr. Massey made his Ministerial statement and when Sir Joseph Ward replied,' aT'd I don't think any unbiased reader of the reports of their speeches can have any doubt as to who forced tho election on. Let me make an extract from each speech and ask you and your readers to glance over the full 'reports appearing in Hansard, Vol. 170, Pages 100105 (September 22). Mr. Massey: "There is not to-day the . BtTess and excitement that there was three' or four weeks; ago. People have made up their minds that the war is not coming to an end quickly—and I don't think it will—but that there is only one possible result of the war. In consequence the people all over tho Dominion are settling down to their ordinary and normal business in the ordinary and normal way. Under these circumstances I have come to the conclusion—and my colleagues agree with the proper tiling to do is to go on with the elections at the ordinary date." Sir Joseph Ward: "I regret the decision arrived at. I will approach the General Election with very great regret. lam exceedingly sorry the General Election has not been postponed until next year, or, if necessary, until t'he war is'over, the Government giving three months' notice of when i£ was to be held, so that we might be free of all internal dissensions and stand unitedly for the'good of the Empire as a whole." ' There was not a word during the whole of the discussion to bear out Mr. Herdman's suggestion; not a hint that Sir Joseph Ward had put forward any other opinion than the one he expressed in the House. —I nm. etc., GEORGE WITTY. Wellington, May 23. 1915. [Mr. Witty's quotations from Hansard might be supplemented by two others which occurred later in the same delate : Mr. Massey (to Sir Joseph Ward): : "I ask the honourable gentleman, sup-, posing the war lasts three years, would lie be willing to postpone the elections —the Parliamentary elections, the municipal elections, and all other elections— until after the war had been settled? I do not think he would. I do not suggest it, but he must see that to be logical he must go the whole length." Sir Joseph Ward: ."May I, with the indulgence of t'he House, reply to a auestion put to me by the Right Hon. the Prime Minister? He asked whether I thought the elections should he deferred for three years. I have never made any such suggestion as that. I think it would he a vory foolish tiling to do. But at a time like this post-" ponement for three months is quite a different proposition. It would mean that we should be six months away from the present (September 22) great crisis. ._ . . By agreeing to defer tho elections until' March (1915) there would be a strong probability cf things, having settled down." We know now how. very far astraj Sir Joseph Ward was in his rnticipation that the public would be less concerned about the war in March of this year than they were in December last. Most people will now recognise that it is a good thing the General Elections are over and for the time beine done with. Should the result of the Bay of Islands and Taumarunui contests strengthen the hands of the Government as emect-ed and establish a more stable condition in our politics then the country will escane any risk 'of further political turmoil for ' some ~ time to come, and all parties will be able to concentrate their energies on the heavy tasks arising out of the war. The electors of Taumarunui and the Bav of Islands will no doubt bear this in mind , wh«n casting their votes at the coming polls.]