THE GOVERNMENT AND SOCIALISM.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2227, 2 November 1907, Page 2

THE GOVERNMENT AND SOCIALISM.

Special to Times. WELLINGTON, Nov. 1. “The Dominion,” in a leading article, knocks the bottom out of the “coalescence” idea. “Nothing that the avowed Socialists outside Parliament have done,” says tile Dominion, “explains the anxiety of the'advocates of coalition. The explanation is to be found in the surrender of the Government to tlie little knot of clever and enthusiastic Socialists, whose cleverness, and not whose Socialism, got them into Parliament. People .are beginning to understand the drift of the Government’s policy, and the talk of coalition merely reflects a general public fear that the Government has not ojilv gone too fast, hut lms encouraged Radicals to call for still more speed. So far as the Opposition is concerned, its conscience is clear. It has sounded its conscience; it is clear it has sounded its warning, and got in return nothing but abuse. Coalition should •have in the present- circumstances no attraction for Mr. Massey and his party. There is in point of principle" a great deal in common between the Opposition policy and tihe real feeling of moderate men on the Government side, but thos e moderate men have been sacrificed to appease the wild minority that looks to Mr. Fan-Ids a,ml Mr. Laurenson for guidance and aid. As the Government lias made a menace of fanatical Socialism are a.ll one. It is the Government’s business and not the Opposition’s to take the necessary steps to avert the danger. A coalition .might be for the Government an easy way out of the difficulties which it lias made for itself, and which, if the Attorney-General is to be taken .is an authority, .it intends to accentuate by heaping more fuel on that lire of radical ambition which is blazing so high as to alarm and surprise even the stokers. But unless we mistake t'he temper of the Opposition, the prospect is not an alluring one, and is not even worthy of consideration until the Government throws off the yoke of the Socialist wing.”