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Hokitika Guardian, 4 November 1922, Page 3

TDK UIIKHAI. I-AltOt'li POLICY. It is a relief to turn from Mr Massey’s manifesto of profuse promises to •.Hr Wilford’s concise statemeiil of tin* policy of the Liberal-Labour Party. The Prime Minisler appears to have started < at on tire pieparatioii of Ids appeal to the electors with the assumption tlmt the constituencies had to he. hom'lit ; tlie leader of the Opposition at least has had the prate to realise t'u y have to he convinced. There are some paints in the Liheral-Lahour pol-

: -v as propounded by Mr Wilford at Pc tone the other night on which w<shall r 'quire further information Inlore we can subscribe to them un-

reservedly. We are not quite satisfi d, for instance, that a State Bank, free train political control. as tlie author of the policy very properly stipulated it should 1.0. is a practicable proposition. Theoretically a State Bank, conducted solely in the best interests of the community, is an ideal oxpre.-Mi-n of financial efficiency; hut the Slide trading enterprises of which

we have had experienc" in lliis country have not rehieved such results' as wool ! enable us to look upon any wide exicSkion of their underlying principle wiilamt some trepidation.

But lie hr ai principles laid (low w i’l t!'o p I icy are worthy of the best traditions of the party. The declaration that the party stands for a united Empire and for constitutional methods has a truer ring about it than lias Mr Massey's impassioned tirade against

“the l.iilshevists, the l.W.W.'s, and (lie Revolution Socialists.’’ AYc re-

member the days when the party to \.T ich Mr Massey had attached himself described the Lite Mr John Bni-l-ir.:-e and his six ' colleagues in the Liberal-! nhonr Ministry ol ISO I ns t! . "Sov u Devils of Socialism,” and I aving regard to what has happened shire we are a lil.ll dubious of the sinc city of the Prime Minister’s violent ('(■ nuimialion of rveryon > who do lines

I > a: .ept his somewhat narrow interpretation of "loyalty.” The LilieralLnbnur party lias made its attitude towards this question perlectly plain. It insists tin n a united Empire and con-

stitutional methods and so excludes once and for all the bogeys Mr Massey has raised for party purposes. Again dealing with finance the poli.\ of tlm party is equally concise: ami cmplialie. ".Stop waste," it d.inuiuls. ■•Practice economy with the people’s money. Reduce taxes and ilistrihilt" tlm burden of* taxation "quitabiv.” AA'a.st ■ rightly is a matter of its first inmorn. Since the dissolution ol Me National Cabinet: the Reformers have allowed the administrative expenditure

to increase at an enormously greater rate than it did even ill war Lime.

! year, under pressure from oti 1 - sb'e, Mr Massey effected certain economics and now claims to have reduced Me annual expenditure hv four and a half millions. This saving is not yet in sight, hut even if it should he realised after the elections it will remain a confession that the Government was flagrantl.v over-spending when it should have been practising the utmost economy. Mr Massey himself does not claim • that all waste has stopped; his economies, in fact, consist largely of the cessation of expenditure that would not have been needed In any disc, the discontinuance of the wheat

ml blitter subsidies, for example ; but

at tho moment he cannot see his way to enforce this economy or tligt belli use if would disturb some arrangement: jltnt oujil:' t(> be enntlnii.Mj n

little longer or because, for some more j obvious reason, the time is not oppor- | tune. Now is the appointed time for the electors, among other services to themselves and the country, to place their financial house in order.