The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1919. PAST AND PRESENT

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 43, 14 November 1919, Page 6

The Dominion. FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1919. PAST AND PRESENT

The election campaign is still at an early stage, and many candidates, including a large proportion of thoso who are standing locally, have yet to tako tlio field. Already, however,, several distinct tendencies tiro becoming visible, and some of them are particularly instructive. It is noteworthy, for instance, that Wardist candidates and Wardisfc newspapers are showing themselves in general much more inclined to appeal to the past than to face the facts of the situation in which the Dominion is placed to-day. This is one way of admitting that the party organisation by which they set so much atoro is obsolete and has exhausted its usefulness. It is not, of course, surprising that the unenlightened people who regard the continuity of a political party as more important than the national welfare, should look back instead of forward. If they looked forward their attitude would change, but allowance is no doubt to be made for a conservative tendonc.v which induces a proportion of the members of any community to adhere tenaciously to things that are plainly outworn. Nothing else will account for the common failure of AVardisfc supporters to deal constructively with the practical problems of the day and their apparently incurable habit of alluding in season and out of season to the "glorious record of thiv Liberal Party," aj they delight in calling it. It is, of course, as familiar a fact that the Liberal Party in its heyday did good work for New Zealand as that in its later years it has fallen away sadly from its former standards of quality and achievement. These things, however, are largely beside the point so far as the practical issues of the present election are concerned. It ought not to be necessary to point out that a political party js not primarily a custodian of antiquities and that its claims to consideration rest solely upon its ability to render useful service. The members of a party which is keyed up to u high pitch of working efficiency at the present day have no need to appeal plaintively to. the record of what was done in bygone clays. A competent grasp of contemporary problems and nn eagerness to solve them in the public intcmst are the only valid titles to political support. In attempting to found upon parly history a sort o£ hereditary title to support the Wardists arc proving^

if they prove anything at all, that their party is far advanced in a hopeless decline. This pitiable declension of a party that was once vigorous and capable of achievement is offset, happily, by much more hopeful political devei- | opraents in other directions. A • marked feature of the Wardist dej cline is the slavish dependence of I the members of that party on their ! leader. It seems to be the opinion of not a few of them that tlm only member of the party who really matters is Sm Joseph Wakd, and that the duty of the rank and file is to ob?y his directions, lu the ranks of the other main party there are healthy stirrings of a very different kind. There is a definite assertion of the responsibility of individual members and of their right to make their weight tell, irrespective of what Cabinet may propose, in the treatment of policy issues. Some of the Wardists have based hopeful anticipations of gain to their own party on these circumstances, but the truth of the matter is that while they are running ever deeper in a party groove, more capable and enlightened political forces are organising to supplant thorn. Tho wholesome stir which has been evident of late within the ranks of the Reform Party in the House of Representatives is in essence a movement for the restoration of genuine Parliamentary Government, for an active policy of progress and the treatment of measures on their merits. Tho Reform Party derives strength and not weakness from the fact that its members are moving with tho times and are much more intent upon constructive policy than upon maintaining a hard and fast party organisation or bolstering up the self-importance of its leaders. Already there are substantial grounds for believing that development on these lines will be strengthened by the introduction of new blood at the election. Concentration on constructive policy is ns marked a feature of the election addresses of Reform candidates as is the barren exploitation of past hisfqry by their Wardist opponents. It is noteworthy also that some of the Reform candidates who are seeking election for the first time are showing a particularly clear-cut .determination to forward progressive measures and exercise independent judgment. A worthy example of thopo candidates is Me. A. D. M'Leod, who is contesting the Wairarapa scat. Although he is standing, as a straight-out supporter of Mr. Massey, Mr. M'Leod is wasting no time in retrospective eulogies of tho Reform Party and its Leader, and evidently docs not intend to move helplessly in party hobbles. His speeches are marked by a determination to go to the root of the urgent jiroblems of thn day, and are refreshingly free from party catch-cries. His views on tho land question are genuinely progressive. Pointing out that many of the pioneers who settled iji thi3 country were driven to do so by the stifling conditions of land tenure in older countries, ho declares for a comprehensive subdivision of land which will effectually prevent gucJi conditions arising here. In this matter and others, and in hisadvocacy generally of a bold policy of enterprise as an antidote to thtf evils and dangers of social unrest, he shows himself well fitted to co-oper-,'ito actively in the task of political reorganisation for which the time is so obviously ripe. Something at least is to be hoped from a party which attracts fjucn candidates and whose members are concerned first and foremost about national needs and the welfare of the community and in an entirely secondary degree about their party organisation. At Hio stage reached it is clear that the Reform Party is setting a standard of national service which the Wardists have failed signally to approach.