THE Kaipara Advertiser, AND WAITEMATA CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1912. DEBATES, PLEDGES, AND HONOUR.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 6 March 1912, Page 2

THE Kaipara Advertiser, AND WAITEMATA CHRONICLE. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5, 1912. DEBATES, PLEDGES, AND HONOUR.

The old warhorses have been pranc^ ing for a week while the men in au. thority have been engineering and debating. It is a combination not as honourable as it looks, because as a plain matter of fact there ought to nave been no engineering. It is another way of saying that it ought to bo impossible to think about men breaking their pledges. It is a bad note of our politics that the unthinkable has been not only thought, but acted. The Opposition leader, his party and his party organs have been very properly angry throughout, on the basis of the honour of the position, Mr Payne has publicly replied m his place in the House during the debate, giving his view of the position. It is thai, he promised to vote with the Opposition under the impression that they had a good case, but finding on reaching Wellington, that they had nothing but diivol and hogwash to depend on, he thought himself justified in transferring his vote to the Liberals. Now this is manifestly untrue because the whole.case for the Opposition was threshed out under Mr Payne's nose | during the election, and as the Opposj ition in Wellington added nothing to that case, Mr Payne got nothing different in Wellington to what ho got in Auckland. Now the only difference between the two presentments of the same case is one of climate, and from

the intellectual standpoint ,that is no difference at all. Mr Payne's plea in

defence of his honour must therefore be rejected. As is Mr Payne's case, so are the cases of the others. What are the facts ? Mr Payne stood for Grey Lynn against a member of the Liberal party, Mr Fowlds. Finding that he could not beat his opponent without the help of the Opposition, he obtained that help by the promise of his vote to turn out the Ward Government. That promise his explanation does not release him from. As is Mr Payne so are Messrs Veitch and Robertson. It may be urged that the

Government changed the situation bj bringing down a now programme. But there was no reserve covering a ' new programme in the promise, which was to turn out the Government, and therefore the promise ought to stand. There is a thing above party politics. It touches personal honour, and when personal honour is not sacred it will Ibo a bad day for New Zealand. The

matter withal was so simple $ for the promise kept in the first crucial division involved freedom ever after. The only possible reply is that it is a question of tactics. But that only seems that it appeared to be more easy to Tbeat the Conservatives by breaking the promise which got their help than Try keeping it. Such plea would be further degradation.