A BAD BREAK.

Franklin Times, Volume 9, Issue 781, 3 November 1922, Page 4

A BAD BREAK.

TIIE Opposition journal in Christchurch made''a bad break last week. In the face of what bad taken place, in House of Representatives only a few days earlier, and the frank and voluntary declaration to the contrary of prominent members of the parties opposed to the Government, the Lyttelton Times, in its anxiety to malign Mr Massey and his colleagues, went out of its way to publish an allegation which. The Press rightly denounces as being “directly contrary to fact.” Il said: “We know that, under our ex-, istlng political system ‘spoils to the victors' Is the- keynote of public works expenditure. The history of railway administration provides a comment-' ary on the system." This statement, says The Press is itself an interesting commentary upon the mentality ol some Oppositionists. It is only a. week since llie paper which made this statement printed—-certainly in so obscure a corner of its sheets that it may have forgotten it —a brief report, of a discussion in Parliament in which, this very point was raised. One must' assume; that the Opposition public isi regarded by' those who know it best as quite incapable of consecutive' thinking, and as quite certain to forget what it read last week. The dis-? cussion in Parliament arose out of a question by Mr Masters, M.P. for Stratford, one of llie most energetic and vehement opponents of the Government. His question concerned a Stratford railway, and in decvloping his point he said that he knew it was not the policy of the Government to penalise districts returning Opposition members. As. for lie had, he said, always been most fairly treated. Mr Holland, who loves the Government even less, if that is possible, than Mr Masters does, was just as emphatic. He said he knew it was untrue that the Government would penalise districts returning Opposition members, and added: “The polities of the Minister of Works are not mine, but I believe he lias acted as fairly as be could between constituencies.” These statements, as we have said, were made voluntarily and were accepted by the House without a thought or word of dissent. In short, as The Press put it, “llie House of Representatives knows, and docs not dream of denying, that tin ‘spoils to the victors’ policy was abandoned when the Liberal Party went out of office. Yet here we have an Opposition paper boldly declaring, as something it knows to be a fact, what everyone elese knows and admits to be the opposite of the truth. Of course in the absence of any Liberal policy to proclaim and recommend, the Liberal newspapers must say something, but it is difficult to know why they should show so little wisdom in what they do say. For il is particularly tinwise on their part to make the ridiculous imputation against the Government that its policy is the policy of spoils to llie victors. Their doing so merely serves to recall the fact that that very policy was openly avowed by the Liberal Administrations, and was so thoroughly practiced that the country is still suffering as a consequence. Il is not the least of the Reform Party’s merits that it put an end to that bad policy, and if the Opposition’s hopes rest, upon the people who ido not know that, Mr Wilford’s parly will be even smaller after the election than the Liberal’s fear."