REFORM RESPONSIBILITIES.

Hokitika Guardian, 19 February 1920, Page 4

REFORM RESPONSIBILITIES.

GST.Z. TIMES)

Responsibility lies heavy on the heart of Reform. Therefore, we suppose, the political programme of Reform is of the briefest. If we can believe the organ of Reform, the principal duty of Reform is to speed up the construction of public works, watch the extension of tile Cabinet, and give advice about matters all and sundry to the Cabinet. This work, we learn requires courage, and must be done with fearless vigour. It is oven important enough to require a considerable increase in the number of Ministers. ’ Whether this will necessitate acceptance of the strange proposal to rake the world outside the political pale for “business” men to do the work which the race of politicians grown inside the pale cannot look at, has not been made clear as yet. The signs are that no such necessity is anticipated, and of these the chief is the smallness of the great programme of work. “Get on with the houses and the railways”—that is the whole program, which is to absorb the attention of ten Ministers and Dr Pomare, and the advisory brains of the entire Reform caucus. Apparently these Reformers have never heard that there is in Hew Zealand a land problem, and it is not improbable that if they were told that the world outside their sphere is perplexed about profit-, coring, they might express astonish, ment. Anyhow theise contentious subjects are not disturbing the Reformers, who .are finally admonished not to fall back into the old groove of party politics. What old groove? We remember one in which these Reformers lay athwart the path of progress, and religiously and impartially objected to anything and everything that came from the other side. It is possible that if they get bade to that groove they might hear of the land question as counting for more than anything else. But the motto is “Work and Houses” and while these occupy the time of ten Ministers, plus Dr Pomare, and the advisory telents of the Reform caueus, the slumbers of the monopolist and the profiteer will*remain undisturbed. Of course, there arc people who will insist upon raising the questions of lands and profiteering. But these are party questions, and the Reformers have abandoned all party considerations, and taken to the safety of the Reform party.