THE QUESTION OF COALITION.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2219, 24 October 1907, Page 1

THE QUESTION OF COALITION.

LIBERALISM VERSUS SOCIALISM.

(Special to Times)

WELLINGTON, Oct. 23. Tho N. 54. Times yesterday morning has a lengthy leading article on the question of the coahton or the coalescence of the Government and ■the Opposition parties in New Zealand politics at the present time. While tlio rumour is discredited as to tlio possibility of a coalition, the article recognises that the two parties arc not now separated by any serious differences of opinion. The concluding portion of the ministerial journal’s article may supply food for reflection' on tlio part of those Socialistic (members of Piarliaimonlt and newspapers supporting the Government who have been endeavoring to trace the origin of the coalition germ. It reads 'as follows:' — “Should tho present Opposition see fit to renounce a distinction that was once valid but is now obsolete, 'and find that its only chance of being effectively useful in polities is to range itself on tlio Liberal side, it is not to be supposed that there would therefore be no longer an Opposition. Such a thing is not likely nor yet possible nor if it were both possible and likely would- it be desirable. 'Whence the new Opposition will spring is tolerably clear to those who do not shut their eyes. A clamorous band of tho extreme Socialist Labor (Party has of late been shouting itself into notice in the market place. The object of this party is frankly stated as class war, not the administration of ail for the whole but tho forcible appropriation of privilege and property by a class. Such an extreme Socialist party-has mot yet definitely crystalisod,' hut if the opinions of the demagogues who apparently aspire to form and lead the latter to any way, indicate the platform of the Party when it is formed, it is pretty certain to make demands which no Government can concede unless it is prepared to see tho whole machinery of state brought to ruin. Tho struggle when it does come is not likely to be a conflict of Conservatism with Liberalism, but of progressive Liberalism with tlie extreme of fanatical labor Socialism which will aim at carrying out the full programme of the most rabid continental Socialists —not merely tho nationalists of all land, hut the appropriation of capital and the establishment of a trades’ union despotism, similar to that which lias made a pandemonium of San Francisco. With the possibility before it of a rampant revolutionary Socialism such as this, it may be the best wisdom on tho part of tlio Opposition to sink differences which arc of no vital importance and make common front with the progressive Liberal party against the enemies of •law and order.”