The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1906. A COWARDLY GOVERNMENT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 3720, 16 October 1906, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 1906. A COWARDLY GOVERNMENT.

Supposing an employee told his employer that he couldn’t come to work next Monday because he wanted to catch minnows in the river with a bent pin. The employer would probably call in the police or the doctors or somebody who would save him from a lunatic. Supposing a gathering of the alleged best intellect of the country solemnly said that it couldn’t do the business ot the country for which it is overpaid because it had, willy-nilly to go to the Christchurch Exhibition, what would you infer? That the Exhibition was cf more importance than the Land Bill or the people or any other thing. Yet this is the position. Parliament will be paid, a whole year’s salary for neglecting its duties, the army of people who gather in a tired way, to help Parliament make itself comfortable will draw its year’s salary for a little over two months’ work and the army as in the past will feel virtuous and as if it had earned it. * * It has been freely said in the press and by the Ministry that the Ministry is a good solid Ministry with the courage of its convictions. A Land Bill that is in itself more courageous than any measure brought before British people in

any age, generally impresses people with its strength although the people naturally see much in it that might' easily wreck a Ministry, send it to oblivion or “to the country.’’ The Ministry impotently and ridiculously explains that this measure which it was going to fignt through at all costs should receive pri or consideration, will now play second fiddle to the Exhibition.

Sir Johkpii Wakd in receiving one of those perennial Bible in Schools deputations said that even a matter of such importance—to the clerical agitators must be shelved so that'the decks might he cleared and the strong Ministry bring every big gun they had to bear on the Land Bill fighL It all ended in smoke —and the miserable paltry excuse of the Exhibition. Yet, stay . It was also put forward as an excuse that the Government should break its promise and crawl away into a hole, that the people should have an opportunity of seeing and discussing the Land Bill, before it was put through or an attempt made to put it through. * •!' *

Among people interested in the land, the Land Bill has been the only subject of discussion for some time. The people have been expressing their opinion pri land matters for years. There is a tremendous volume of their opinion in the hand of every member of the Parliament. If the opinion of the people of New Zealand is not known now, it will not be known next session. The Government which manfully declared that loss of office itself would not have induced them to withhold that bill certainly show that a prospect of such a loss has affected them very much indeed. The new Ministry is composed of careful canny Scotsmen who have been too short a time in the heavily gilt positions they occupy to give up the chance of making money so soon. We do not believe this of Sir Joseph Ward who has never shown personal meanness, and bis offer to give up his Ministerial residence for public purposes is an evidence that fee is not mean. Also he showed in the miserable excuses that he was obliged as head of the Government to make, that he was thoroughly ashamed to have to make them.

Up to the time of the' hiding in a hole of the Government, the people of New Zealand had some reason for believing that the Government was a sincere one. They can’t have any such feeling now. The Government has weakened its position by this paltry action in the surest possible way. Had they been forced ‘ ‘ to the cnuntry ” as a result of a brave desire to pass that Land Bill, the country would probably have shown its admiration of the bravery by returning the Ministry to power. As it is, New Zealanders detest cowardice and the Ministry is indelibly branded “COWARD.”