The OPPOSITION.

Hokitika Guardian, 28 February 1922, Page 4

The OPPOSITION.

(“ Lyttelton Times. ’) The header of the Opposition said the right thing in the right way at Petoiic when lie defined the constitutional position of Liberalism. Nothing would please the Conservatives, masquerading as Reformers, better than that the Liberals should join their party,, which they have been coaxed and advised to do, on the plea that the only natural division is between extreme Socialist Labour and the rest.

But Lilxnalism is too fine a tiling to be merged in the old Conservative and now discredited party of Reform. Iho Massey people stand lor privilege and against popular interests. They Ibelieve in laws for the rich, in government by force, by regulations and restrictions, Qrdeis-ui-CAiuncils, censorships and the like. They ignore tho public interests except to trample upon them. Their “principles” are expressed in meat pools and War Regulations, and their administration is characterised by staggering taxation, unparalleled expenditure, overstaffed Departments, broken-down railways, and general incompetence. There is a great gulf between a party of this kind and the Liberals, who in twenty years brought New Zealand from stagnation to prosperity and in the same period, opposed by Air Massey and bis friends at every stage, democratised the Statute Book and largely transformed tHe lives of the people. The Liberals gave New Zealand adult suffrage. They gave it industrial peace, for by comparison with other countries that has been the effect of the Arbitration Act. They broke down at the least the grosser form of land monopoly, they widened the: scheme of local government and they broadened the system of education so that secondary instruction ceased to he the monopoly of the rich. They provided pensions lor the aged. They supiplied too farmers with cheap money. They did these things because, being Liberals, they were progressive, for Liberalism means progress because it enlarges opportunities.

The Conservatives, now trailing themselves Reformers, resisted the Liberals and opposed their legislation—naturally, because they stand for the protection of privilege and against the extension of opportunities for the many. If ; however, there is a great gulf between t..e Liberals and the Masseyites, there is an equal difference between them and the destructive eleniHt repreeiitcd in Parliament by Mr Holland and a few others. Liberalism has no more sympathy with “ the socialisation of the means of production,” etc., than it has with plural voting and minority representation. Whether the people choose to place the Liberals in power or not, this is the party that is their natural bulwark—the party that stands between the extremists on either side. The interests of sane Labour or moderate Labour, or whatever term may he selected for the great body of working people, are all on the side of Liberalism, which means not privilege for one class and not on the other haoid the smashing of the social and industrial fabric, through Socialism of the Holland type, but justice for all. The meaning and the ideals of Liberalism are foreign to the Masseyites and to the Tloll,indites.