The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1919. MOVING BACKWARD

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 280, 22 August 1919, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1919. MOVING BACKWARD

With such prospects as now confront it this country needs unity above all things. It has emerged from the war to enter upon a critical period of development, but also with magnificent opportunities of advancement opening before its people. In common with other members of their race New Zealanders learned during the long struggle which is now over that it is possible by iunited national endeavour to accomplish what could not be accomplished in any other way. The supreme need of the hour is to apply this lesso.n to the tasks of reconstruction and pcace. Success or failur;' in this matter means all the difference between bright prospccts and dark for the Dominion and all sections of its population. No sane man can doubt that with the bulk of its people co-operating, as they easily might, for their common good, it would be vastly easier for this country to carry its war'burdens aad establish conditions of general prosperity than if time and energy are wasted and frittered away in needless contention and strife. It is in light of these clearly established facts that the action now taken by Sir Joseph Ward and his party colleagues in withdrawing from tho National Government must be_ judged. The vital questions raised have to do not with party, but with national welfare. In seeking t;o justify tho course lie has taken Sir Joseph Waiih harks backto pre-war days. At that time, he says, "the Liberal Party had everything to gain from the party point of view." All that can be said of such a contention is that even if it were _ true it is utterly irrelevant and implies an astonishing failure to envisage the real issues at stake. The thing to be determined is not what is good for this or that narty. but what will best advance the interests of the Dominion. This is the only standard of conduct consistent with' self-respect and the only alternative on rejecting it is to adopt some baser standard. Pditical strife as it was carried on in this country before the war was in great measure an affair of Tweedledum and Twcodledce. It amounted largely to a contest between two main' factions each of which desired to do much the same An attempt to revive finch conditions at this stage is so obviously opposed to national interest that it can only be attributed ■ to personal and party ambition. The injury which may be done by setting such things above national interest is best realised by considering what is immediately. entailed. The ...great need of the country so far as the immediate future is concerned is an orderly change-over from war to peace conditions, and bold but methodical preparation for enterprising development. Sonic of the knottiest problems of repatriation have still to be solved—at all events, are far from being completely solved. Trading enterprise, more especially the produce export trade upon which the prosperity of the whole Dominion rests, is "in some respects gravely hampered and even threatened. At the same time the machinery of internal production and transport is seriously out of gear. The first thing necessary in approaching a remedy for these conditions and in modifying them where a remedy is for the time impossible is a session of Parliament devoted to unremitting work. According. to Sir Joseph Ward there is "no real cohesion on . any fixed principle except t-hc winning of the war" between the parties to the po-1 litical combination which gave its I support to the National Govern-1 ment. If this is true it is a stag-1 poring indictment of the body of New Zealand politicians. In the outlook of sclf-res'pecting representatives of the people, the interests i of the country and its urgent need of honest and public-spirited service—never more evident than at this critical hour—would constitute a principle justifying and demanding all possible cohesion and work-> ing unity. How far the slur Sir i Joseph Ward has cast upon tho rank and file of the main political parties is warranted we do not know. It may well be doubted whether tha failure to perceive the vital need of united effort in the public interest is in fact as general as lie suggests. In any case all that is clearly established at the moment is that he and those associated with him have at a stroke created conditions as little favourable as possible to working achievement and tending wholly to provoke bickering and contention. With the standard of faction thus blatantlv displayed everything is in order for converting what might have been a useful working session into a naltrv votecatching parade. And this, of course, is only a beginning. l'rom the; national standpoint, which i* the only one that deserves for a moment to bri considered, Sir Joseph Ward's action is wholly and solely destructive—destructive of opportunities and of the conditions in which these opportunities mislit best have, been developed with •benefit to the country and all it contains. In so far as his reactionary appeal to the spirit of faction succeeds it will tend to draft the ' moderate-thinking people, who enormously preponderate in this coun- ' try, into opposing camps. Condi- 1 tions for which they will be duly ; grateful are thus offered to such 1 malcontent minorities as aro now -

astir in activities inimical to the general welfare, and undoubtedly these minorities will now be encouraged to redouble their activities. no full bearing of these ominous facts cannot be obscftrcd by the very blatant vote-catching manifesto which Sir Joseph Wakd has chosen to tag on to his announcement of withdrawal from the National Government. It is a i manifesto which leaves the impression that the compiler has_ spent a great deal of time in thinking out possible means of eatchinjr votes and very little time in weighing the effect of his proposals on the means by which they can be brought to the stage of practical accomplishment. We do not propose on the present occasion to discuss the details of the programme outlined at such length. The fact that some features of that programme are in themselves admirable enough—just such measures as all reasonable and patriotic men might well agree to co-operate in advancing under such circumstances as exist—is much less important than that Sir Joseph Ward has taken the step of all others which will most seriously impede carrying such proposals into effect. That is the essential fact upon which public attention .should be riveted. At a time when the need is clearly emphasised all over the Empire* and nowhere more pointedly than in this Dominion, of establishing nobler political standards than sufficed in pre-war days, of sinking party and developing a national outlook, Sir Joseph Ward and these who stand with him have elected to revert ignobly to the petty aims of faction and to _ the paltry and miserable outlook in which personal and party interest and ambition are regarded as of more moment than national welfare. Unfortunately it cannot be denied that his action for the time being immeasurably increases the difficulties of those who aim in this country at making nothing less broad and worthy than national interest and welfare the basis of political organisation and activity. But, while the immediate effect 'is to awaken strife and discord, the course to which Sir Joseph Ward and his supporters are committed is so obviously backward, so manifestly runs directly counter to the interests of the Dominion and its people, that the effect must be more or less rapidly to quicken and increase the growing demand for political leadership and a political outlook worthy of the times.