Evening Post TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1911. MR. HERMAN'S ADDRESS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 85, 11 April 1911, Page 6

Evening Post TUESDAY, APRIL 11, 1911. MR. HERMAN'S ADDRESS.

Though Mr. Herdman, M.P., belongs to a party often described as Conservative and makes no parade himself of democratic profession's, he certainly sets other representatives of Wellington constituencies an excellent example in his readiness to proclaim his faith from the public platform. Not many years ago it was customary for a member of Parliament to address his constituents soon after the close of a session in order to render some account of his stewardship, and then again on the eve of the following session in order. to give them some forecast of the work to be done. In and around Wellington this custom has lately, we regret to say, gon-e out of fashion, but it is noteworthy that Mr. Herdman is willing to take his constituents into his confidence to 'an 'even greater extent than was required by a custom which, in this part of the country, both members and constituencies seom as a rule to have found too exacting. Like Mr. Fisher, Mr. Herdman actually ventured to address his constituents in the course of laet session, and, undeterred by the Slackness of political -interest during an exceptionally uneventful recess, he took the platform again last night. On the whole, Mr. Herdman may be congratulated upon the success of his experiment. The size, of his audience was large enough to ha.ye gladdened the heart of many another representative or candidate at a time much nearer to the excitement of an election. The speech, both in ita. strength and in its weakness, was thoroughly characteristic of the speaker. We are accustomed to expect from Mr. Herdman straight, and unvarnished talk, •in which he tells us exacfly what he ■thinks without trimming or truckling of any kind. We are accustomed to expect the most candad criticism of the extravagance and the timidity of the. Government. On the other hand, we; are usually disappointed by a rather pessimistic outlook and the absence of any hopeful and constructive programme. In all these respects Mr. Herdman's speech last night was true to his previous record. At a time when the art of politics has largely degenerated into th© art of trimming, it is. a salutary aud refreshing

change to find, one exponent 'of the art who is prepared to face and instruct t,he public without resorting to any of the tricks of the demagogue. But his dislike for these tricks seems to us to ha-ve led> Mi*. Herdman too far in the opposite direction. The agitator has become to his mind the embodiment of unalloyed' evil. Yet there are agitators and agitators, just as there a?e Conservatives and Conservatives. The Labour agitator, who is the particular object of Mr. Herdman's aversion, has his limitations and his faults, like other men ; but to speak tof him as though he were nothing better than a knave ■wilfully misleading fools, or at the best a blind leader of the blind, is entirely to misjudge the true proportions of things. We entirely agree with Mr. Herdman in condemning these appeals to the cupidity of the ignorant, the unfortunate, and the undeserving to which he referred. The gospel of discontent, which is based upon the assumption that everybody who has money is to that extent a worse man than the one tvho has not, and should be held up tothe odium of his fellows as an exploiter of the poor, is a very odious and a very dangerous gospel. But though evangelists of this school make a considerable noise, it is 1 in our opinion a gross injustice to suppose that theirs is the spirit which dominates Labour politics. 'We are glad to see that Mr. Herdman dissented from an interjector who declared that unionism is the curse of this country 3 yet but for this interjection most people would' have inferred from the general trend of Mr. Herdman's speech that he was of the same opinion. Labour has its wrongs and its hardships, and the leaders under whose guidance it is endeavouring to cure them may; safely be credited with motives as good as those who are organised on the other side. Their outlook may not be as broad as Mr. Herdman's, but they see some things that he fails to' see, and if they feel about them too deeply to be able to preserve an even balance and a true perspective, that infirmity is one which they share with -the reformers of all countries and of all ages. That the most advanced of Labour agitators ceases to be dangerous when he is saddled with the responsibilities of office i 3 conclusively proved by the experience of the Commonwealth under Mr. Fisher's Government. Not merely the Labour agitators, but the Labour laws as a whole, were denounced by Mr. Herdman with sweeping severity. "A senseless flow of oppressive and tyrannical legislation" is his description of the measures which have followed one another in quick succession from 1894 onwards. Yet ife has usually been the claim of Opposition speakers that their party is as true a friend of the main features of our Labour legislation as the Government. Mr. Herdman himself, while declaring the Arbitration Court to he "absolutely useless," expressed himself in fa-vour of a tribunal which, would enable parties in dispute to come to an agreement, and also of legislation to prevent sweating. • But how either of these goals is to be reached except along lines similar to those of which he disapproves, Mr. Herdman did not give the faintest idea. Destructive criticism ia of little value when it has to admit the existence of a great evil, but has no substitute to offer for the remedy which it attacks. The principal item in Mr. Herdman's reform programme is the turning-out of the Government. The fact that the party now in power, has been there for twenty ' years is a quite sufficient reason for desiring a change, even if the efficiency and the purity of its administration had attained a far higher standard than has actually been the case. But just as nature abhors a vacuum, so does a democracy abhor s negative, and the people hesitate to give expression at the polls to its vague desire for a change from a doubt as to what else there may be worth having in the Reform programme of which it approves the principal item. On. this 6Ssential point Mr. Herdman's speech throws disappointingly Jittle light.