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Hokitika Guardian, 16 May 1924, Page 2

While Afr Wilford was holding forth at Napier. Air Afasters. one of the most capable of the rank and file of the Liberals, was addressing hi.s <otistituonts nt Stratford. Air Masters bad a good deal to say which was safe and sure al-out strikes and strike methods. He made it admirably plain that the Liberal party was opposed to strike methods and would not tolerate direct action. His view that the public service officials should not be allied wtb the Alliance of Labor is altogether sound. The public service must be free from any such entanglements, otherwise the community will never lie safe from periods of serious unrest and dislocation. Afr -Masters was splendidly outspoken on the subject of the railway strike and reviewed tho whole position in quite the common sense way as the matter affected the public. The railwnymen became but pawns in the game which tho Labor leaders elected to play. This is a view precisely, which was expressed in these columns, and it is gratifying to find that a prominent, nionilter of the T.ihernl party would not tolerate the situation which was being put over on tho people. Generally. therefore, the address which Afessrs Wilford and Masters have mode will servo to arouse public interest in important aspects of present day polices, It- quite tho Tight time to start

such useful propaganda, for the public mind is not excited b.v n general election looming directly ahead. The average public man and woman is prepared to sit down calmly just now and hear what has to be said, and weigh the facts as disclosed. The Liberals have nothing to hide as affecting the jast. The pigeon-holes were ransacked no doubt, and no scandals were revealed.. On the contrary there are the tin ditions behind the party, traditions of worthy performances which added to Ihe name and lustre of Xew Zealand, which time is not going to efface read iiy. .fast as we see a Sydney paper suggesting the recall of Sir Josepi Ward to office to extricate the Dominion from its financial muddle? so we may lie sure ill various parts of the Dominion there is the same feeling growing and that generally there is a rising political barometer in favour of the Liberal Party.

A warm: of so mo random essays has just published a booklet, and in olio of the ion tribit lions there are some interesting comments upon the in;onsisteney of Labor which are all too free, whether considered in regard to this country, Australia, or any other part of the Umpire. Mr Alec Waugh, the writer in his essay, proceeds in nay:

"Labour is determined to avoid war. it declares, hut actually it has substituted one form of war for another. Nations are not to light each other, hut classes r.;e. The proletariat of the world is to ride triumphantly over tl e mangled lemains of the idle and bloodsucking rich.” Mr Waugh doubts whether international peace is worth the pm chase at such a price. ‘‘lf it came to a light, would we rather light beside Knglish navvies and Knglish ploughmen against the navvies and ploughmen of Germany and Russia; or would he rather fight beside. Knglish, Russian, French, (lonium, or Swedish ploughmen against Russian, Knglish, French, Gorman, ami Swedish aristocrats, and vice versa. Of two wars, which is the less pernicious.” Mr Waugh reflects that class is a habit which can he changed in hall a generation. A man who is a newsboy at sixteen can he a baronet at fifty; but race is n tree planted deeply in firm soil. “We can change our class as easily as we can change our clothes. But' Knglish blood is English blood in the jut. in Mayfair, in the shires; and wo should have, no sympathy with that party that strove to divide a people against itself.”